The Windsor Chronicles Blog

           I got good news this fall.  And I got bad news. Which do you want first?  Let’s start with the good news. My kid got an early acceptance to the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. It’s a real good school. The bad news is it will cost me $55,000 a year.  Susanna and I promised the kid if he got in, we would take care of the tuition.  So, we have begun the scholarship search. If you love filling out forms, you would be in heaven.  I hate filling out forms, so you know where I am living right now.

           Every book we have read; every guidance counselor and every experienced parent we talk to has the same advice. “Network.” They tell us there are all sorts of scholarships out there we will never find on our own. We have to rely on other people to tip us off. So, that is what I am doing.  If you know of a scholarship geared toward a kid who has excelled academically; been involved in lots of extra curricula activities from student government to school musicals;  has been a Congressional Page; loves music, literature and poetry, please drop me an email. It really helps if you can also give me a contact name or a website. Oh, he played a year of football.

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            I heard from His Grace Lyndon Gallagher, First Duke of Canada. He had donated a rocking chair to a charity auction. The chair sold for $925. Lyndon writes, “That will help feed a lot of needy people this holiday season.” H. G. Lyndon will be back for the Recamier class March 28.

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            I received the following story from Sir Joel Jackson.

            “My story starts a few weeks ago when I was working at Woodcraft. I looked up from the register to see Thomas Gibson standing in front of me. Gibson is an actor whose original claim to fame was playing Greg in “Dharma & Greg” several years ago. He is currently the lead character in “Criminal Minds” on CBS. This chance meeting and the ensuing conversation has led me to start taping and watching past episodes of the show (Criminal Minds).

            I just finished watching one in which a dying father uses his son to entrap women for him to hold hostage and subsequently murder. I know, it’s gruesome, but I have a point.  At one stage in the episode they identify the father as a maker of “hand-crafted” furniture, and of course he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He has been holding these women in his basement-shop prior to killing them. When they burst in to catch him, the first identifiable piece of furniture is…a Sack Back.

            The only explanation I can come up with is that the producers or writers must be Shakers.”  It does seem like thinly veiled anti-Windsor propaganda.

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            Many of you saw the picture of Tennessee chairmaker Frank Tabor in the January eLetter. It was a hit. I received a lot of feed back, including the email below from  His Grace Ralph Quick. His Grace was my foil in my imagined dialogue. He was the one “flailed” with the Tabor chair. Until now, I did not know that His Grace had been a bouncer in an earlier life (although he looks the part.)

            He wrote: “Caron and I got a good chuckle out of your story regarding Tabor and using one of his chairs to flail me with. Working in bars as a bouncer and as a body guard for years, I have had bar stools used on me from time to time when trying to “86″ some drunk out of the bar for being stupid. I have to say there were a couple of times they must have used a Tabor chair because they really hurt like Hell. Ha! Ha!”

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