NEMES at the Saugus Iron Works

12 September 2009

NEMES was invited to participate in the fall festival at the Saugus Iron Works NHS in Saugus MA and a number of the "usual suspects" declared their intention to participate.  The weather forecast for the weekend was pretty grim but a tent was to be provided so at least we would be out of any rain.  As I left the house at 7|00AM it was just misting a bit in south east CT.  BUT be the time I got onto the MA pike the rain was thundering down so hard that traffic was actually slowing done!  On the Mass Pike! Imagine that!  when I got up to Saugus at 9:30AM  the rain had more or less slacked off and I found the fellows who had gotten to the Iron Works ahead of me in the care takers house enjoying enormous donuts and coffee.  We sat and gabbed for maybe an hour solving the problems of the world and planning the direction that NEMES wanted to go until we decided that, since we had come out on a miserable day anyway, we might as well set up our displays and see what happened.

What happened was there were about an equal number of NEMES folks and park rangers and darn few public visitors.  But we were out of the rain which came and went and had a generally fine day. 

One of our members passed away this past week and his visiting hours were on the same day so I left the Iron Works at 2:00PM and found my way to the funeral home in Wayland MA to pay my respects on the way back to Connecticut.  Several of the other fellows planned to do the same on their way home also.

Oh yes.  The Iron Guild from MA College of Art was scheduled to set up and demonstrate but apparently the idea of working with molten iron in the rain was not their cup of tea and they stayed home.

  YouTube video of the day

 DSC07164.jpg (101735 bytes)  DSC07178.jpg (87719 bytes)  Dick Boucher's work

DSC07165.jpg (108919 bytes)  DSC07166.jpg (113441 bytes)  Errol Groff's engines (L) #8 HasBrouck and (R) Double Murdock

DSC07167.jpg (166467 bytes)  DSC07168.jpg (94828 bytes)  DSC07169.jpg (115586 bytes)  Ed Rogers's

DSC07170.jpg (115322 bytes)  DSC07171.jpg (102206 bytes) Herb Cotterly

DSC07173.jpg (104530 bytes)  DSC07172.jpg (157245 bytes)  Rollie Gaucher

DSC07176.jpg (139669 bytes) Norm Jones

DSC07175.jpg (159896 bytes)  I had planned to tour the park site and take more photos and video of the Works but with the rain I passed on that idea.  Photos from a previous visit are here

http://neme-s.org/Saugus_Iron_Works_2008/saugus_iron_works_national_histo.htm

DSC07177.jpg (137925 bytes) The usual suspects.  (L to R) Herb Cotterly, Norm Jones, Errol Groff, Ed Rogers, Rollie Gaucher, the "kid" David, Dick Boucher,  Les Russell and Tom Peterson

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