Tuesday, November 9, 2021

a pennyfarthing goes a long way

So as if I had nothing more productive to do with my time, while I was sitting here with my cup of tea I began to think maybe the "On Olive Street" project needs a new logo. 

The olive tree graphic was nice enough, and in marketing it's called associative-something probably... but other than the symbolic olive tree my son has growing in a large pot (a housewarming gift when he first moved to Olive Street in 2019) there are no olive trees on Olive Street. 

Olive Street, in case you missed that earlier post, is named after William Hayden's daughter, of course, Olive.  Olive, in case you don't remember, was postmisstress of the Madison Centre Post Office for ten years.  Sadly I have not been able to find photos of her as postmisstress or the Post Office here in Lakewood... so if you find any, please share!  In trying to find something to honor Olive, and a connection to this little community in the late 1800s - early 1900s, a discovery was made that in some places (indeed, my fact checking about Maine fell a little short, but I'm willing to forge on anyway) the mail was delivered by penny-farthing.  

Though it may be very, very unlikely that Olive Hayden did much of  delivering the mail this way, the idea of smartly dressed people riding their penny-farthings to and fro upon these paths through the neighborhood, gives the project an aire of fun and whimsy.

And, if you saw Tucker Atwood whizzing by this past summer, you know that bicycles are still a thing On Olive Street. 

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