Last night, Tucker brought over a couple of photographs taken last month when he and I shared our “churchtop” experience.  One is of Tucker and myself (taken by his daughter-in-law, Amy) of us holding onto the church spires.  Yes, spires.  Two of them!

Tucker is holding the current spire that had been removed from the steeple so that Bradley could gold leaf the ball on top.  I was holding the old one, considerably lighter in weight and very weathered-looking, especially the ball part.

As far as I know, the old spire was the original one and was removed and used as the prototype for the new one when the church was restored in 1980. Like many other Oysterville bits and pieces, it lives in our garage.  Ossie Steiner replicated the old one,exactly, and despite the fact that it looks smaller in the photograph – due no doubt to the angle at which I’m holding it – they were identical in height and in all other aspects except for the heft factor.

I’m not sure why the old one weighed less.  I assume the wood had gotten rotten – sort of punky in the first ninety years of its existence.  Or maybe Ossie used a different kind of wood, though I’m going with my first thought because I can’t think why it would have been replaced otherwise.

During the time that the church was topless, there were several discussions concerning the name of that top piece of the steeple.  We settled on “spire” and I had a vague notion that the name had something to do with “inspiration” – you know, the part of the church closest to heaven and all that sort of thing.

So I looked up the derivation (Old English for spike) and meaning of spire:  1. a tall, acutely pointed pyramidal roof or rooflike construction upon a tower, roof, etc. 2.a similar construction forming the upper part of a steeple.  YES!

And, I looked up the derivation (Old French, to draw in air) and meaning of inspiration:  A supernatural divine influence on the prophets, apostles,  or sacred writers, by which they were qualified to communicate moral or religious truth with authority; a supernatural influence which qualifies men to receive and communicate divine truth; also, the truth communicated. Not even remotely related in derivation or meaning, and yet…

Then I remembered how my palms got sweaty when Tucker and I were topside putting the apochraphyl finishing touches of paint on the ball.  I couldn’t help wondering if perspire is also a related word.  But I didn’t look it up…