February 4

The town I grew up in used to be the "Glass Bottle Manufacturing Capitol of the World".  There were even signs as you came into town that said so.  This was before the aluminum beverage can.  My great-grandfather (my father's mother's father) was a glass blower in one of the factories.  Twice a year, the glass furnaces would be shut down so they could clean out the glass that had accumulated.  When they did this, the glass blowers were allowed to use this glass to make anything they wanted.  They made glass canes, chains, paper weights.  Most of these items were broken, discarded, lost.  (There are some in the town's historical museum.)  Thankfully my father saved one of his grandfather's paper weights which I now have....  Mary