The ceiling of the Oysterville Church is only 17 or 18 feet high.  Nothing like the Sistine Chapel.  And Ray Hansen had plenty of room to stand on the scaffolding.  None of that lying on his back business. But even so, I couldn’t help but make the obvious comparison.  And I wouldn’t have traded places with him for all the pasta in Rome.

Had I been a well person – and how long does this stupid bronchitis last, anyway – I would have been across the street every single day these past few weeks – worrying and fretting in my acrophobic way.  I don’t do well with ladders.  Scaffoldings?  Forget it.  Never mind that he assured me, very seriously, “Before I move, I always look to see exactly where my feet are.”  Yikes!  Instead of seeing to his safety myself. I asked Tucker if he’d take pictures.

As it was, I crossed my mental fingers tight, tight, tight and stayed tucked in safely here at home while progress was being made.  I think my friendship with Ray is still intact.  For sure it would have been a bit fractured, or at least frayed, if I’d been hovering.  Or whatever you call it when you are fretting and carrying on way off in the down-blow.

Meanwhile… the church as never looked better!  The man is pure magic when it comes to peeling and scraping and patching.  Furthermore, he had only scraps and remnants to work with – ends of wallpaper rolls that Nyel, the never-throw-anything-away-guy, has had squirrelled away in our back forty since the wallpaper was restored in the early 1980s.  Through some miracle, there was just enough.  Barely.  And only because Ray is a master of smoke and mirrors and the guild secrets of the wallpaper fraternity.  (Thumb tacks?  You’re using thumbtacks?  Who knew.)

Someday, the Oysterville Restoration Foundation will have to think seriously about re-doing the church wallpaper from start to finish.  Only because of Ray’s TLC over the years have we managed to keep the current paper in place.  I imagine that the day of reckoning will come long after I am gone.  And Ray, too, for that matter.  I hope another Wallpaper Angel surfaces in the meantime.  One with a calm manner and careful feet.  Just like Ray!