Hazelnuts

 Librarian Trevor hadn't been able to find anyone to do this Saturday's shift and he had an outing w/ old friends he wanted to attend.  Brother Phil and I went out for breakfast at the cafe and then I went over to work the library's four hour Saturday shift.  New volunteer Paul was ready to get started when I opened up the library doors.  He had already trained w/ Trevor the day before so knew how to check out/check in books.  When I'd started a lot of years ago, I'd sat in w/ a volunteer for a couple of hours and then started working on my own so there isn't a lot to learn.  We have a bit more automation now and a few more rules but the system is built to be pretty self explanatory.  Our only issue for the morning was soon after we turned on the cash machine it suddenly went dead.  Nothing we tried could revive it.  I texted Trevor what had happened and wrote "Everything will be free at the library today."  Figured if that was a problem he'd call me back.  Actually only had a patron owe 30 cents for some copies.  If Trevor wants it, I'll pay the library next week.  

When I got home Phil was ready to tackle the two-person job of placing the the velvet-like backing on the plywood for the slide-rule display.  I was happy I didn't go w/ real velvet but w/ a streatchier and more forgiving cloth material.  We did a dry run-through.  Then Phil sprayed the base w/ a glue.  He had placed scrap wood pieces underneath to keep it up off the plastic covering the table.  He pulled off the plastic and placed the plywood back on the scrap wood.  He took one end of the cloth and I the other.  I placed my end down first making sure the salvage didn't show and there was sufficient material on the sides.  We continued laying down the material until Phil's end was in place.  Pressed down to make sure the material had a solid contact w/ the glued board. Repositioned some of the cloth on the sides of the board where it had doubled up on itself.    We both stepped back.   It looked perfect.   No rips.   No wrinkles.   No yelling at each other.  A minor miracle.