The New Running Joke

When we started our project, the running joke was “when will we ever get our first photograph?” We talked to lots of folks, we saw lots of pictures, but we couldn’t seem to find anyone who had the rights to any of the pictures they showed us. It was frustrating to say the least. Eventually though we got our first picture, and many more.

Now the running joke seems to be “when will we ever meet the mayor?” Mount Vernon has a new mayor. We had met with the former mayor and gotten some great photos from his office. We want to keep the lines of communication open with the leader of our fair city, so we feel it is important to introduce ourselves to the new mayor. But every time we attempt to meet her, something happens. One time we were going to see her at a meeting at the library, but the meeting got canceled due to the big snow storm. Another week we were going to attend a Friday morning coffee but we ended up with a meeting at the historical society instead (just a shade more important). Finally, FINALLY, today we were going to be able to attend a Friday morning coffee and hopefully meet the mayor. This coffee had the advantage of happening at Mark’s on Pine Square. And Mark was another one of our targets. Double bonus!

Unfortunately the “Mayor’s coffee” was also attended by Congressman Rick Larson. Great. Instead of a tiny, intimate gathering, there were dozens of citizens crammed into Mark’s and they all wanted to gripe at Congressman Larson. The mayor hardly got a word in edgewise. We never got within ten feet of her. Struck out again.

But it still turned into a banner morning! We did find several other interesting folks in the crowd who gave us suggestions, names and contacts. And when almost everyone had cleared out we accosted Mark. First off, he is a super nice, friendly, approachable man. Secondly, he has boxes of old negatives from Bill Foreman (hope I’m spelling that right) who was a local photographer for several decades (approximately 30s through the 60s). Holy Cow! Just reaching into the box the first envelope of negatives contained shots of the semiprofessional baseball team, The Milkmaids, from the 40s. LOVE IT! We walked out with the first box and can’t wait to start digging through all those negatives. Happy Friday!