Coffee and Doughnuts

At St. Michael's, we have coffee and doughnuts after Sunday Masses.  Last Sunday, I stopped and chatted with several parishioners.  It's a time for fellowship and fun with the community.  The Chamberlin Family serve fresh doughnuts, coffee, tea and cocoa and the parish is welcome to come down to the Hall and have a pleasant get together.

One of our parishioners, Jim Lusardi, comes with his friend Tom Baker.  Tom brings him to the 8:30 Mass and takes him home to Blair Christian Home after the coffee and doughnuts.  Jim welcomes all the friends who stop to talk with him,  both young families with their children and older members.  All enjoy his conversation and company.

Jim makes images with his camera and his lifework  is Photography.  I discovered a booklet, "Some Historic Homes of Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania" in our Hollidaysburg Library.  Jim had photographed a selection of homes for this book in 1955.  Floyd G. Hoenstine asked him to take pictures of the homes that he selected.  I asked Jim how he got such artistic images and he said that he used a 4 x 5 box camera with ground glass to get a sharp picture and he said that he did his shooting from 11AM to 1AM.  He remembers that because he was hungry.  Jim also said that he produced another booklet of the Ice Storm in 1951.

So I thought that everyone would be interested in looking at Jim's images of the architecture and beauty of Community Homes in the 1950's.  Some have been razed; but their memory still remains in the Art of Lusardi's Photography.