After running the other church bell stories, Shy Reader sent me these two clips from The Missourian. I would provide a link to them, but they don’t show up when I search for them.
Click on the images to make them larger.
Missourian jump page
Here’s the rest of the story.
What was that strike thing all about?
I’m sure some of you were wondering what that strike thing was all about yesterday. Thousands of websites, some as large as Wikipedia, others as small as my two blogs, went dark for 24 hours to protest two bills that are making their way through Congress. They are ostensibly to stop Internet piracy, but have the potential of crippling the Internet as we know it today.
I’ve experienced the chilling effect of what’s already on the books. I posted a video of a night lightning with a public domain audio of Beethoven’s Fifth playing in the background.
YouTube sent me a notice that they had removed the audio because of copyright concerns. It took 24 hours to get it back up after I provided evidence that the performance was in the public domain. Guilty until proven innocent.
Under the new laws, my whole site could have been taken down and I could have been subject to fines and jail had I been found to have been using copyrighted material. I have a video on my bike blog where I’m passing a slower rider. You can hear my MP3 player in the background. Conceivably, that could be a violation of the law.
If you don’t think they’ll fool with “the little guy,” consider this: we didn’t invade Russia nor China; we went after Granada.
Ken, did you notice how many sponsors of those bills are now dropping their endorsements? Looks like the one day protest may work. Good job.
I think we won this skirmish, but there are some powerful “old media” players out there who aren’t going to give up easily.
I’ve been a photographer most of my life. I know what it’s like to have my stuff ripped off and I don’t like it. The bills the movie and recording industries were pushing, though, were overkill.
Like a friend posted on facebook, “You don’t take a flamethrower to all the kittens in the world just because of the possibility of a lion attack. Save the kittens.”
Shy Reader chimes in with fresh info:
I learned Monday that two of the bells at St. Mary’s aren’t working just now. The motors are frozen. We’re making do with one bell at the moment. No idea which of the three that is though.
I also heard a story from a gentleman named John Boos about St. Mary’s bells. It seems some years ago, one of the old bolts sheared off, I’m guessing on the collar that holds up one of the bells. The church called John, who is a parishioner and about the handiest finish carpenter you can know, was called in to help fix it. He met with Kernal Seyer, who was making plans for hoists and chains and I don’t know what all to lift the bell off its beam.
John, however, came up with the idea of building a scaffold under the bell using cribbing. When it got high enough, they used crowbars to lift the bell
and put another piece of wood under the bell.
That solved the problem of lifting the bell, but not finding a replacement for the 1890s era bolt. They could find modern bolts the right size, but the
original bolt had a square head and every modern bolt was hex-shaped. John went through his father’s “junk” and found exactly what he needed.
The 1968 article had one small typo – an extra period where it didn’t belong. The inscription on those bells undoubtedly reads “The Hy. Stuckstede Bell Foundry Co.” (possibly abbreviated B F CO on the smallest bell), and “HY” stands for Henry. That was the largest and longest-lasting of the many bellfoundries which operated in Saint Louis.