The "Framing A Family Sport Favorite" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Our first child was expected any minute and the excitement was growing every day.  Early March and we knew it would be soon since he was expected on March 2nd.  The days turned into a week, and then another week, and then another week, and...March 28 he arrived.  Named him Derek Charles Woods.  Charles was my wife's father's name and Derek was.....the name of our favorite ice hockey player.  Wasn't long after we were married in 1967 that we both got interested in watching professional ice hockey.  Something to watch on TV on cold winter evenings in the north-east United States.  The more we watched the more we got to know the names of most of the players and one of our favorites was a young man by the name of Derek Sanderson who played for the Boston Bruins.  We thought his name was so neat that we named our first-born after him.  Now, I tell you this since last week someone came into the frame shop, where I work part-time, with a job to be matted and framed.  It was a newspaper from 1974, a few years after our son was born, that featured a front page declaring: "Flyers Take the Stanley Cup And the City Dances With Joy".  Brought back so many great memories that my wife and I shared in our early marriage.  The customer had recently found the old Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper which included a Souvenir Section which was dated Monday, May 20, 1974, and thought he would have the front page and page that carried the second half of the stories from the front page.  He also wanted the lead page in the sports section and another page of the sports section that carried more of the stories of the big win.  He brought along the Souvenir Section and wanted five pages of that section framed.  Big order for the gallery!  He chose the Flyers colors of orange and black for the mats and a black frame that had an orange trim along the black.  The mats and frames for both the large newspaper sections were 32" X 40" in size and had Museum glass on them.  Museum glass is both UV safe and  non-glare.  Very nice choice, but very expensive.  The five other frames for the Souvenir section pages were the same mats as the big jobs with the same glass, but less than half the size of the big mats.  I thoroughly enjoyed working on the job since it was fun to read as well as frame.  The guy who had the job done is a real Flyers fan and I'm sure he is enjoying the final result.  I know I certainly did as I worked on it.  Check out the photos I have included so you can see what I did for the customer.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

The front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1974.  The paper had very strong creases in it and it was my job to get rid of them and make the page flat so I could put it under glass with no wrinkles. The discoloring was something I couldn't correct and was due to age and light.  Click on images to enlarge.

On the right side you can see the pages dry-mounted in place and the double-mat of black and orange cut, ready to put both together.

In the frame with Museum glass which reduces glare. 

The second double page from the sports section.

This is the Souvenir section that I had to cut all the pages apart and flatten and dry mount them and make mats for the five pages the customer wanted done.  One page, which had the team photo on it, was a horizontal page and a different size layout so it had to have a totally different size mat and frame, but still in the same colors and frame.