In my Thursday Doors post last week, I said that my family had travelled to Dumfries to meet blogger and author, Mary Smith. Mary took us on a short tour of this fascinating town.

Dumfries Museum

A few interesting artifacts from the Dumfries Museum:

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The story of the Siller Gun

James VI of Scotland and I of England presented the Seven Trades with a trophy – the Siller Gun – to be awarded in its annual shooting competition.  At a time when tradesmen had to be prepared to defend the town, the King’s intention was to encourage their shooting skill.

It is believed that the gun originally took the form of a miniature cannon mounted on a wheeled carriage.  It was remodelled to resemble a flintlock musket by David Gray after it was broken in 1808.  The individual responsible for the damage was fined £3. 6s. 8d. (£3.34p) for his act, and banished from associating with his trade for twenty-one years.

You can learn more about the Siller Gun and other Dumfries artifacts in Secret Dumfries written by Mary Smith and with pictures by Keith Kirk.

Seven Trades punch bowl

Robert Burns

A selection of pictures from Robert Burns’ house in Dumfries

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St Michael’s Church

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St Michael’s is the oldest church in Dumfries. The churchyard contains the elaborate Burns’ Mausoleum, and many other noteworthy memorials, including a Covenanters memorial and a mass grave to those who died in a cholera epidemic.

You can read more about St Michael’s Church here: https://stmichaels-and-south-parish-church.co.uk/history-of-the-church/

My review of Secret Dumfries by Mary Smith and Keith Kirk

Secret Dumfries is a non-fiction book depicting the fascinating history of Dumfries, a small town situated on the River Nith in Scotland. Dumfries is also known as the “Queen of the South”, a name bestowed on the town by local poet David Dunbar.

The book is divided into ten chapters each dealing with different aspects of the town, its inhabitants and its history.

Chapter 1: History provides a lot of background to the development and establishment of the town. One particularly interesting historical event was the stabbing of “The Red” Comyn by Robert the Bruce which changed the course of Scottish history.

Chapter 2 deals with Crime and Punishment and one of the titbits of information disclosed in this chapter is that in sixteenth-century Dumfries, anyone caught stealing his neighbour’s peat was branded on the cheek with the towns clock key, heated in a fire made of the stolen peats. 

Chapter 3: Health, shares facts and information about the history of disease and illness in the town including outbreaks of the plague, famine and cholera.

Chapter 4 entitled Industrial Dumfries tells the stories about the development of industry in Dumfries. One of the industries discussed is the quarrying for sandstone at Locharbriggs Quarry. This sandstone is a lovely pink to red colour and is clearly detectable as the building material for most of the historical buildings in the town.

Chapter 5 deals with Wartime Dumfries and tells of the backgrounds of famous Doonhammers during times of warfare, including Joseph Brown who fought in the Crimea War and the Indian Mutiny.

Chapter 6: Outdoor Art Gallery describes the lovely outdoor artworks found throughout the town including a collection of unusual finials on the railings along the Whitesands beside the Nith. There are thirty-eight of these finials which were created by Natalie Vardey and designed to link to past and present trades in Dumfries.

Chapter 7: Remarable Doonhammers includes details on a number of interesting residents of the town, the most renown being Robert Burns and his wife, Jean Armour. Interestingly enough, the book discloses that Robert Burns body was dug up twice before it was finally laid to rest in its current mausoleum.

Chapter 8 advises visitors to remember to look up and provides information on all the artworks and historical artifacts above eye level including some facts about the fire marks on selected buildings.

Chapter 9: Recreation provides the history of, inter alia, the Dumfries football team, the name of which is Queen of the South. It also tells of the history of the Dumfries cinemas and even the circus.

Chapter 10: Curiosities, Mysteries and a Sad Story ends with a poignant tale about Tinker, or Derek Styles, a promising young man who was psychologically ruined by the horrors he witnessed during the battle for Goose green in May 1982. 

Secret Dumfries is a well written and interesting non-fiction book and I would recommend it to anyone interested in Scottish history.

Mary Smith’s Amazon author page

What Amazon says

The titular dead of Winter begin this Journey in a collection of vignettes. The Veil separating the world of the living and the Realm of the Dead has indeed become thin. As feared the dead begin to enter the Realm of the Living. Small outbreaks of chaos are scattered across the world as spirits try to resume their old lives.

My review

Journey 5 starts with some insights by Haldis, the Watcher, into the events that are gradually unfolding. Haldis is aware of the breaks in the veil between this world and the afterlife and that spirits are moving between the two dimensions. She is watching the elusive silvery-haired young man who can move between the worlds without using a break in the veil, but she does not reveal how he is doing this.

In the world of humans, spirits are infiltrating life in numerous places. A Deae Martres, Mairead, is rescued from a near-death situation by a dead king. She finally remembers who he is and his name strikes fear into her heart. Her thoughts reveal a little more of Zasha and Tajin’s backstory.

Emlyn’s group of Deae Martres are forced to split up to avoid a confrontation with the Un’Naf under Elder Pwyll. They are still looking for Emlyn and Osabide. Emlyn’s mettle is tested when she has to ride a horse for miles and trust in Boabhan’s ability to lead their group to safety. A lot more of Boabhan’s back story is revealed in this journey.

Emlyn becomes more and more aware of the evil being, Arawn, who seems to be tracking her and her friends.

A well written and exciting episode that shared interesting information about some of the characters while moving the plot along nicely.

If you prefer, you can listen to my review on YouTube here:

Purchase Dead of Winter, Journey 5 – Llyn Pistyll Falls

Amazon US

The Woman at the Till by Tatamkhulu Afrika

She had a plain, hard face,

A head thrusted forward like a hawk’s.

Impossible brass triangles,

Improbable steel manacles

Cluttered her thin arms.

Clearly, she had little love for the world:

She had learned, though,

That she would not win,

So she did not throw your change at you,

Nor did she press it in your palm,

But placed it, sullenly,

On the counter in between.

She would wrap your purchase languidly,

Yet fast enough to cut off an complaint,

And when she had her punch-up with the till,

It was an exercise in ferocity,

Delicately restrained.

She was what we call “Maboer”,

A low white trash,

AWB most probably,

Slouching barefoot in Boksburg or Mayfair West.

I did not feel any particular hate for her,

Perhaps because I was what

She would call a low black trash,

Which made us quits.

And then I noticed that

She did not look at or thank

Anyone, black or white,

And such indiscriminating unsociability

Won her my respect!

But then one day a brazen clash

Of colours drew my eyes

From their customary casting down,

The ritual bartering of cash for cloth,

The careful I-do-not-see-you stale pretence-

She had bought herself a brand-new blouse,

A rioting of palms and psychedelic birds,

A raw extravagant, revolutionary thing,

As African as I.

I exclaimed in wonderment I could not hold in-

“What?’’ she barked,

Looking at my hands.

“I said your blouse is beautiful.”

For the first time ever she looked into

My eyes, and time stood still:

Her universe turned on an axis thin as a pin.

Then a strange and lovely tenderness touched her mouth,

A faint blush tinged her dead-white skin:

“Thank you,” she said, and smiled.

About Tatamkhulu Afrika

Novelist and prize-winning poet, Tatamkhulu Afrika (Xhosa for Grandfather Africa) was born in Egypt in 1920 and came to South Africa as a young child. He was a veteran of World War 2 and, as a member of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), was active in the South African freedom struggle.

His first novel, Broken Earth was published when he was seventeen (under his “Methodist name”), but it was over fifty years until his next publication, a collection of verse entitled Nine Lives.

He won numerous literary awards including the gold Molteno Award for lifetime services to South African literature, and in 1996 his works were translated into French. His autobiography, Mr Chameleon, was published posthumously in 2005.

You can read more about Tatamkhulu Afrika here: https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/ismail-tatamkhulu-afrika-joubert

The Zulu Girl by Roy Campbell

When in the sun the hot red acres smoulder,
Down where the sweating gang its labour plies,
A girl flings down her hoe, and from her shoulder
Unslings her child tormented by the flies.

She takes him to a ring of shadow pooled
By thorn-trees: purpled with the blood of ticks,
While her sharp nails, in slow caresses ruled,
Prowl through his hair with sharp electric clicks.

His sleepy mouth plugged by the heavy nipple,
Tugs like a puppy, grunting as he feeds:
Through his frail nerves her own deep languors ripple
Like a broad river sighing through its reeds.

Yet in that drowsy stream his flesh imbibes
An old unquenched unsmotherable heat –
The curbed ferocity of beaten tribes,
The sullen dignity of their defeat.

Her body looms above him like a hill
Within whose shade a village lies at rest,
Or the first cloud so terrible and still
That bears the coming harvest in its breast.

About Roy Campbell

Durban born, South African poet, Roy Campbell was considered by T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and Edith Sitwell to have been one of the best poets of the period between the First and Second World Wars, and is recognized in South Africa today as one of the best poets the country has ever produced. Fellow South African poet Uys Krige described him as “the most poetic of poets” and believed him to be a perfect example of how the true artist could, ignoring all obstacles, dedicate his life to his art. He was a swashbuckling adventurer and a dreamer of dreams, as well as an individualist who attracted controversy. His vocal attacks on Marxism and Freudianism, popular among the British Intelligentsia, and his stance in the Spanish Civil War, along with his satire of colonial life in Natal, isolated him from many would-be supporters of his work at the time.

You can read more about Roy Campbell here: Roy Campbell (poet) – Wikipedia

What did you think of these two poems? Which one did you prefer? Let me know in the comments.

Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

During our 2019 trip to Scotland, we visited Dumfries to meet fellow author and blogger, Mary Smith. Mary kindly showed us around her lovely town and I took a few pictures of some interesting doors.

This is what Wikipedia says about Dumfries:

“Dumfries is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland, which in turn is part of the United Kingdom. It is located near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth about 25 miles by road from the Anglo-Scottish border and just 15 miles away from Cumbria by air.”

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Dumfries has a number of interesting museums and is famed for its connection with Scotland’s National Bard, Robert Burns. More about all these places next week. There is no Thursday Doors next week so my post will be a tour of Dumfries with no focus on doors.

One famous person I must mention in this post is Robert the Bruce.

“Robert the Bruce was one of the most famous warriors of his generation and eventually led Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence against England. He fought successfully during his reign to regain Scotland’s place as an independent country and is now revered in Scotland as a national hero.”

In 1306, Robert was involved in the murder of John Comyn, his chief rival for the throne. This led to him being excommunicated by Pope Clement V (although he received absolution from Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow).

You can read more about Robert the Bruce here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_the_Bruce

You can join Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2021/07/22/hartford-bpoe-hartford-club/

What Amazon says

Since its original publication in 1936, Gone With the Wind—winner of the Pulitzer Prize and one of the bestselling novels of all time—has been heralded by readers everywhere as The Great American Novel.

Widely considered The Great American Novel, and often remembered for its epic film version, Gone With the Wind explores the depth of human passions with an intensity as bold as its setting in the red hills of Georgia. A superb piece of storytelling, it vividly depicts the drama of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

This is the tale of Scarlett O’Hara, the spoiled, manipulative daughter of a wealthy plantation owner, who arrives at young womanhood just in time to see the Civil War forever change her way of life. A sweeping story of tangled passion and courage, in the pages of Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell brings to life the unforgettable characters that have captured readers for over seventy years.

My review

Gone with the Wind is a historical romance set in Georgia in the USA and covers a 12 year period starting in 1861 when the main character, Scarlett O’Hara, is only 16 years old and ends in Atlanta when she is 28.

The novel opens on the porch of Tara, a cotton plantation owned by Scarlett’s father, Gerald, who owns 100 slaves and is a wealthy man. Scarlett is entertaining the handsome Tarleton twins, Stuart and Brett, who have just been expelled from their latest University and have returned home to face the wrath of their mother. The twins are irresponsible and carefree and don’t care about their recent disgrace at all. They do fear their mother’s anger and are hiding out at Tara hoping to return home after she has retired to bed. The twins are full of mixture of small talk about their expectations of a war with the Yankees, their friends and acquaintances and a barbacue that is being held the following day at the neighbouring Wilkes plantation.

The first chapters of the novel highlight the relaxed and comfortable life led by the plantation owners and their complete lack of understanding as to what a war means. The attitudes of the Southern gentlemen towards the impending war is almost childlike in its simple idealism.

During the barbeque, Scarlett’s favourite boyfriend and the man she is angling to marry, Ashley Wilkes, announces his engagement to his cousin, the meek and delicate, Melanie Hamilton. Scarlett makes a bit of a fool out of herself by declaring her love to Ashley while the other ladies are resting. Ashley confesses that he returns her love but that he is better suited to Melanie as “she is like him.” The conversation is overhead by the disgraced social outcaste, Rhett Butler, who is at the party as the guest of one of the other gentleman. Scarlett is devastated and in a fit of spite she becomes engaged to Melanie’s brother, Charles.

During the afternoon, notice that war has been declared arrives at the Wilkes’ plantation and all the young men rush off in a spirit of enthusiasm to join the war effort. Within a 6 week period Scarlett is married, widowed and discovers she is pregnant.

After Scarlett’s son, Wade Hampton, is born, she moves to Atlanta to live with Charles’ aunt and Melanie. Ashely is away fighting in the war. The novel goes into great detail about life for civilians in Atlanta during the war and how the living circumstances of people quickly degenerated due to the Yankees blockading the port. This part of the story is very sad and dramatic as many of the young men Scarlett grew up with are killed on the battlefields including the fun loving Tarleton twins and their two brothers. Rhett does not volunteer to fight and becomes a blockade runner, bringing much needed food and other goods into Atlanta and profiteering hugely for this trouble. He pops up continuously in Scarlett’s life bringing her small gifts and making life more pleasant and bearable.

After the war ends, the story follows the path of Scarlett’s life as she struggles to survive in a state devastated by war and Sherman’s burned earth policy. Scarlett and her family suffer starvation, cold, illness, and also unfairness at the hands of the Yankee victors who demand unreasonable taxes on the land.

While the blighted romances between Scarlett and Ashely, who both spend years imagining they are in love with each other when they are both really clinging to memories of the past, and Scarlett and Rhett, who are well suited but unable to communicate, are central to the story, it is Scarlett’s strength of character and ability to overcome adversity by willpower alone that make this book such a good read. Scarlett turns her back on all the old fashioned ideas about women of her conservative and cossetted childhood and strikes out on her own to make money and support her family and friends. Her decision to place making money above everything else and her preparedness to tolerate the Yankees in order to gain their business, makes her the town pariah, along with Rhett Butler who has long occupied this unenviable position.

Although Scarlett shows some undesirable characteristics due to her complete lack of understanding of other people, their feelings and emotions, I found her to be an admirable and formidable lady. She has an excellent head for business and maths and is also a leader. Despite her faults, she shows remarkable loyalty and stays with the heavily pregnant Melanie when Atlanta falls to the Yankees despite her own fear. She delivers Melanie’s baby and manages to transport them all home to Tara.

Scarlett is very conflicted because she wants to be a great lady like her mother, but she must do unladylike things to obtain security and wealth. She is a peculiar mixture of the Old pre-war South and the New post-war South. Scarlett holds on to her love for Ashley as he embodies the spirit of the Old South for her and her girlhood memories are pleasant and he features at their centre. At the same time she lets go of virtues like honour and kindness in order to achieve wealth and success. She is unable to see that her love for Ashley is merely a teenage dream and doesn’t have any solid foundation. She is totally unsuited to Ashley and is perfectly suited to Rhett, who is a scoundrel just like her. Her stubborn inability to see the truth about the men in her life ends up ruining her relationship with Rhett.

Gone with the Wind has three main themes as follows:

The transformation of Southern culture

A relevant extract: “Throughout the South for fifty years there would be bitter-eyed women who looked backwards, to dead times, to dead men, evoking memories that hurt and were futile, bearing poverty with bitter pride because they had those memories. But Scarlett was never to look back.”

Overcoming adversity with willpower

“Hunger gnawed at her empty stomach again and she said aloud: “As God is my witness, as God is my witness, the Yankees aren’t going to lick me. I’m going to live through this, and when it’s over, I’m never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill – as God is my witness, I’m never going to be hungry again.”

The importance of land

“The clay was cold in her hand and she looked at it again.

“Yes,” she said, “I’ve still got this.”

At first, the words meant nothing and the clay was only red clay. Bud unbidden came the thought of the sea of read dirt which surrounded Tara and how very dear it was and how hard she had fought to keep it – how hard she was going to have to fight if she wished to keep it hereafter.”

Have you read Gone with the Wind? Did you enjoy it?

Purchase Gone with the Wind

Amazon US

A few months ago I attended the 2021 WordCrafter New Beginnings Virtual Writing Conference. One of the sessions I participated in was a Poetry Panel session with some wonderful poets.

Erin Robertson asked me about South African poets and while I do read some South African poetry, I am not very good at remembering the names of the poets. I felt rather embarrassed that I wasn’t able to remember any names and felt I’d missed an opportunity to showcase some of South Africa’s talent.

I reflected on this conversation and decided that I would share a few South African poets and their poems on my blog.

The first poem I am sharing is The Marble Eye by Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali. A short, but powerful, poem.

The Marble Eye

The marble eye
is an ornament
coldly carved by a craftsman
to fill an empty socket
as a corpse fills a coffin.

It sheds no tear,
it warms to no love,
it glowers with no anger,
it burns with no hate.

Blind it is to all colours.
Around it there is no evil
to be whisked away
with the tail of a horse
like a pestering fly.

Oh! the marble eye –
if only my eyes
were made of marble!

The extended metaphor used by the poet to portray his desire for “a marble eye” to help him escape the harsh reality of his life has stayed with me ever since I first read this poem.

The poet is caught in a world of pain, anger, prejudice, and hatred from which he is unable to escape, even though he wishes to “whisk” away the evil he sees around him.

The final stanza and the exclamation Oh! emphasis the fact that the poet is unable to escape as he does not have a marble eye but rather real eyes that see everything all to clearly.

You can listen to my short recording of this poem here:

About Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali

Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali was born in Kwabhanya (Vryheid), KwaZulu-Natal in 1940. After completing secondary school in he went to Soweto hoping to study social work. Apartheid legislation prevented his enrolment but he studied via correspondence, obtaining a diploma with Premier School of Journalism and Authorship, affiliated to London University. He worked as a messenger in Johannesburg, drawing on his observations of the city to write the poems that became his first collection, Sounds of a Cowhide Drum. Published by Lionel Abrahams of Renoster in 1971, with a foreword written by Nadine Gordimer, this book went on to become the best-selling poetry book in South African history.

Read more about Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali here: Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali | South African History Online (sahistory.org.za)

Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

Terence and I went to Italy for our honeymoon in August 2001. We went on a tour for people over 25 years old and visited some marvelous places. These pictures were taken the old fashioned way with a camera that took film. I took picture of my photographs for this post. I should scan them but it takes ever so long so pictures of pictures had to do.

The Colosseum is an oval amphitheatre in the middle of Rome, Italy just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre every built and was completed in 80 AD during the reign of emperor Titus. According to Wikipedia, it was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles including animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Roman mythology, and briefly mock sea battles.

You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2021/07/15/south-church-hartford/

Are audiobooks the future of book sales? Do you have your stories on audio?

I am an audiobook fan. I buy at least 4 audiobooks a month and always have one on the go. I as buy audiobooks for Michael and encourage him to listen to them every day. He is my slower reader and audiobooks allow him to read more books than he would manage on his own. It takes Michael about one month to read one of his Rick Riordan books.

Greg, on the other hand, is a fast reader and will read several books during his holidays, galloping through them in a few hours or days, depending on their length and complexity.

So far this year, I’ve listened to Collected Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe, The Invisible Man, To the Last Man, A Farewell to Arms, A Gentleman in Moscow, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Sunwielder. I am currently 85% of the way through Gone with the Wind and already have The Divine Comedy lined up as my next read, followed by Why by Daniel Kemp.

I love being read to almost as much as I love reading. I like to listen to classic books, in case you hadn’t noticed, as I listen slower than I read so I enjoy them more. Some more complex modern books are also better appreciated, in my opinion, as audiobooks and if they are available on Audible I buy them.

My own books are not available as audiobooks. This is purely because my publisher does not offer audiobooks and I like her very much so I am prepared to accept her view on this matter. Maybe one day I will have audiobooks as well as ebooks and paperback books.

Now to the question, are audiobooks the future of book sales? I don’t think so. I think audiobooks have their place in the literary world and I know people who also listen to audiobooks while they exercise, do housework, and other mundane tasks including driving. These people are not, however, the majority of the readers I know. Most readers seem to prefer paperbacks and ebooks. This may be a cost thing as audiobooks are a lot more expensive.

Luckily for me, my husband gifts me three Audible credits a month. Sometimes I run out and then I buy three more credits at approximately US$11 each. Most audio books are well over US$20 so it works out quite reasonably.

I gift my mom a lot of audiobooks too. She rests every afternoon and she likes to listen to audiobooks. Sometimes we share books but usually I buy her different books to the ones I like. She likes books like the Wheel of Time series and Game of Thrones, which I will never listen too. They are lovely and long and keep her entertained for a good few weeks.

As for the youth [meaning teenagers], well, they don’t really like any kind of traditional book. They like computer game stories. The games my sons play are very sophisticated and are scripted with complex plots, music, and lots of reading. They are almost like interactive books. I think these sorts of gaming stories will be a large part of the future of books.

There will, however, always be traditional books and readers in my opinion. The readers of the world have always been the minority of the population as reading doesn’t appeal to everyone. Like research, writing, playing a musical instrument, dancing, singing, sports, and acting, reading is not everyone’s cup of tea and that’s okay. It takes all kinds of people to make a world.

Rules:

1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!Click here to enter

Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

Last week I posted about the town of St Andrews in Scotland. You can read that post here: https://robertawrites235681907.wordpress.com/2021/07/03/thursday-doors-on-saturday-st-andrews-town-and-castle/

This week, I am going to share my pictures of the ruined St Andrews Cathedral.

According to Wikipedia, “[St Andrews Cathedral was built in 1158 and became the centre of the Medieval Catholic Church in Scotland as the seat of the Archdiocese of St Andrews and the Bishops and Archbishops of St Andrews. It fell into disuse and ruin after Catholic mass was outlawed during the 16th-century Scottish Reformation. It is currently a monument in the custody of Historic Environment Scotland. The ruins indicate that the building was approximately 119 m (390 ft) long, and is the largest church to have been built in Scotland.”

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You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2021/07/08/charter-oak-bank-building/