Good on Harry Caswell for fixing historic water fountain

I was in Rehoboth Beach the other day, and I came across Harry Caswell and one of his employees, Billy Talbot, finishing up the installation of a new drinking-water fountain at the Woman's Christian Temperance Union monument on the Boardwalk.

Erected in 1929 in celebration of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union’s 50th anniversary in Delaware, the water fountain is one of two city sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its spigot is mounted on a white-marble slab spanned by a granite arch. It stands 6-feet-6-inches tall and is 3 feet wide – it’s stocky in stature. It reminds me of one of those rubber foosball players, but without the metal bar running through it. The water fountain hadn’t worked in years.

One day this past fall, my colleague Berni, a frequent walker of the Boardwalk, asked me about the water fountain and if it was ever going to work again. That made me curious, so I asked the city people, who in turn said they had no intention of fixing it. A story ran soon after, and that story got picked up by other media outlets. Caswell saw the media attention and reached out to the city, offering his services free of charge. A short time later, Caswell gutted the water fountain because the whole works needed to be replaced. Waiting for new parts, it’s been sitting wrapped under a tarp and duct tape for months.

The morning I saw Caswell and Talbot installing the new parts, he said it was the water fountain’s custom-made bowl that took so long. The plaque describing who installed the water fountain also had to be replaced, he said.

He didn’t get into labor costs, but Caswell said between the bowl and the plaque, the cost was roughly $5,000. He didn’t care.

“It’s for a good cause,” he said.

With warm summer weather coming in the not-too-distant future, here’s to another 100 years of quenching the thirst of Boardwalk users.

Downtown ospreys looking for a new home

For the past couple of years, there’s been a pair of ospreys nesting on top of the siren behind the Rehoboth Beach Volunteer Fire Company station on Rehoboth Avenue. The siren isn’t used much these days, and it has a flat top, so the ospreys took advantage of the downtown location.

I can’t say I blame them. With the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Lake Gerar to the north and Silver Lake to the south, that fire siren platform is pretty much in the perfect location to feed baby ospreys a variety of fresh fish.

When I’m in town on assignments during the time of year when the meters aren’t on, I use the city parking lot. There are days when I have multiple assignments, but there’s time in between, so I’ll sit in my car and eat lunch. I’ve watched those ospreys fly around, making their unmistakable, high-pitched call, while I’m sitting there. I know I’ve taken photos of the ospreys, but I just can’t find them. I’m pretty sure I even sent a photo  to my wife of the skeletal remains of a small fish lying on the asphalt underneath the nest, but I can’t find that either.

Anyway, the other day, while eating lunch in my car, I noticed the fire company had removed the nest from atop the siren and replaced it with an orange cone to prevent the ospreys from making a new nest. It was only a matter of time before the fire department removed the nest, and I don’t have a problem with them doing so. There are plenty of other locations for the ospreys to make a home nearby. However, it would also be nice to see them flying around downtown again.

Joke of the Week:

I got an email recently from Accuweather that said, “Weather patterns and trends will contribute to a longer and more intense allergy season in 2024.” Here’s a joke for all those allergy sufferers to remember as they pound that Claritin. As always, send jokes to cflood@capegazette.com.

Q: What do you call a bumblebee from New Zealand?

A: Pollen-esian.