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Pope Benedict XVI -- Joseph Alois Ratzinger, the 265th Pope [and the ninth German Pope], was born on 19 April 1927 in Bavaria, Germany -- he was elected by the College of Cardinals on 19 April 2005 to succeed Pope John Paul II as Bishop of Rome He taught at several German universities, was Archbishop of Munich and Freising [1977 1982], and is a prolific writer on Church doctrine in the modern world. Shortly following his installation as Pope, he began the unusually rapid beatification process for his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, with whom he worked very closely on matters of faith and dogma
Pope Benedict XVI visited New York from 18 to 20 April -- his last official public appearance on 20 April was to celebrate mass at Yankee Stadium |
The world [including me, of course -- I did not miss any online news article or video clips that I could find, and there were many of them] looked on as Pope Benedict XVI arrived at Yankee Stadium on 20 April 2008 to celebrate mass before an overflow crowd of laymen, clergy and religious orders from many countries. The path the pope took from the Popemobile to the dias / altar was paved with a lily white carpet, as was the stage / dias on which the altar stood -- although I kinda expected a stuffy old dogmatic German, he proved quite the contrary and was extremely warmly received. I might have liked to go to the Big Apple to see him, but I do not trust the old Honda that far, and I would hate to get locked up in traffic and have to find parking, which I am sure was at a premium during his trip.
Under his raised chair, and other sections of the event were carpeted with a specially prepared rug, Pope Gold -- both the white and Pope Gold rugs matched his Papal vestments during his last stop on his visit to the United States
Those of us who followed the event can well remember that the Sun was brightly shining but the day was somewhat windy as he greeted the cheering crowds while standing with outstretched arms in front of his seating -- two photos above show his vestments being wind tossed
On about 3 May 2008 news stories started appearing about the company that provided the rugs for the Papal mass at Yankee Stadium. The owners of the store was giving away five x five inch squares of the white and the gold rugs to anyone who emailed them or called them on the phone at the Flemington Department Store, north of me in New Jersey [908 782 7662]. I called them on 4 May and ordered my two pieces of different color carpet [they were chosen to compliment the white and gold vestments the Pope wore at the event].
After that I started thinking -- I had not been to Flemington for at least ten years -- it is only less than an hour drive, the day was warm, why should I not go there and try to get another piece or two -- would anybody bid on them on eBay? I wrote down the directions I found online, took a shower, grabbed my camera and was off and riding about noon of Sunday, 5 May.
There was a lot of traffic, and the directions were easy to follow [which is very rare for me] -- I did have to stop once to ask where the place was, and then quickly found it -- it may have taken about 40 minutes to get there -- I was parked way over to the left, out of the picture --
the front entrance to the store
inside the store was another story entirely -- VERY huge, tons of gorgeous furniture and accessories, clothes, rugs, tiles and stuff -- I had to ask at least four times where the Pope rug thing was -- over that away -- further back on the right -- all the way past the showroom -- ok, so after hobbling all over the place I finally found a large rug storage room with some dude cutting up two different color rugs -- I asked is this the Pope rug place, and he said YES, would you like to have some? He asked how large I wanted them -- goshers, I could have said I wanted pieces large enough to carpet my study, but that might have seemed a tad greedy, so I showed him a size that was lying there, cut in a square -- the second piece should be about the same size --
before I left him he gave me another two rectangular pieces, which was totally unexpected --
as I passed another man in the showroom, he saw my sacred rugs and called me over -- he had two white rug fragments loosely cut in the shape of a cross which he gave me -- wonders never cease! On my way out I asked an older gentleman [who turned out to be the brother of the other owner who appeared on the TV news reports about the rugs that I saw online] if they had some kind of letter or whatever that documents the rug pieces as coming from the Pope's mass -- YES, there is, and he gave me one --
I tried to scan it when I got home BUT my scanner has had a problem for several months and everything shows up initially as either red / yellow / blue -- when I REscan several times, the actual colors MAY appear, but lately all I get is totally unusable images -- I guess it is time to get a new scanner -- this one is at least five years old and has produced thousands of scans thus far for my web sites and eBay -- thus, the scan will have to wait -- once outside the mall and on my way back to the car I had to take a pic of the Department Store sign near the road entrance --
so, let us see, what did I come back with?
The two squares and one of the crosses
the two rectangular pieces with the second cross -- the crosses are about 14 inches / 35.5 cm tall,
On 8 May I went to Sam's Club looking for the scanner they had online, the Mustek A3 -- NO, it was not on the shelves, you had to order it online. Then I went to Best Buy -- they had a couple scanner models, but not the one I preferred from Consumer Reports online -- then on to WalMart, not a scanner in sight.
Getting slightly discouraged I went across the road to Target, but they had NO scanners -- I saw a Kohl's at the end of that section of mall, but they did not carry computers or accessories. OK, back to Best Buy -- I picked out one of the two scanners they had in stock -- the one I may have wanted, the Epson Perfection V500 was sitting on the shelf, their last one, but they would not sell it to me. Sooooo, I wound up purchasing a Canon CanoScan LiDE 600F, which I also saw on the Consumer Reports page, although it was not my first choice.
The first thing I did when I returned home was remove the old scanner from the table beside my computer area, replacing it with the new one -- the following is the first scan I made with it -- it is the top paragraph of the letter from the Papal rug source, describing where the carpeting was used -- as seen in the pics, above.
Incidentally, here is a link to the interview of Ted Resnick, the co owner of the Flemington Department Store, about the rugs and his offer to send pieces of them to whomever contacted them -- LINK -- they do not charge for the 5x5" squares of rug itself, but do request about $8 for shipping -- my order of May 4 has not arrived yet.
In summing up, I was glad I went to try to find pieces of the Papal rugs and was much more successful than I ever thought that I might be -- maybe I should get out more
God Bless !
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