I have finished the editing and fact-checking on my Glander book! Hooray! Next up, I'll be adding photographs and doing the table of contents and index. There is still a lot to do, but I'm getting closer to the end of this project.
A friend of ours, Don DeJong, the sexton for the City of Lowell, is putting together a compilation of old newspaper articles about the early settlers of Lowell. It will be in the form of a guided tour of Oakwood Cemetery in Lowell, and will include stories about many of the old settlers and pioneer days in the area. Jim and I are helping to get the project organized and are looking forward to Don's publication date.
Since construction began on the Allen Edwin home next door, the following events have occurred:
- Pickups, flatbeds, bulldozers and concrete pumpers have blocked our street for long periods of time, three times keeping the school bus from its appointed route, not to mention mail delivery and garbage pickup.
- Two flatbed trucks were parked one morning on the opposite site of the street, blocking any access at all to the fire hydrant there.
- One night a generator/heater was left running all night less than one foot from our property line, and about twenty feet from my bedroom window. It was really loud and kept me awake for several hours during the night.
- Last week a concrete pumper was parked on the corner of our lawn almost all day, leaving great ruts and heaps of mud instead of the grass we have spent such time and money to cultivate.
- This morning a construction worker dragged five or six large, wet and muddy tarps into our yard to dry. Not only were great swathes of our lawn trampled, but the worker was patently trespassing.
When the trucks were blocking the fire hydrant, I called the county sheriff's department, who promptly arrived to demand the removal of the trucks. When the generator ran all night, I spoke to the worker who arrived in the morning to fill it with gas - he said he would remove it, and he did. When the concrete pumper was parked on the lawn, I called the number on the side of the pumper - the man who answered the phone on the other end promised to "fix it". No "fixing" has yet occurred. Jim called and called the Allen Edwin offices, who didn't respond at all until he threatened to complain to the township and have their building permits revoked. Then their "internal customer service" manager finally responded and made all sorts of promises.
Today I took pictures of the tarps on the lawn, and of the damage caused by the worker dragging them through our property. The customer service person, upon receipt of those photographs, proceeded to do nothing but make excuses. The next time there is any sort of trespass we're just going to file a police report. No more Mrs. Nice Guy!