Garland Miller is making progress with ‘The greatest challenge in the history of puzzles’

Garland Miller sorts the puzzle pieces by colors in about a dozen different trays.

ALBION – Garland Miller leans over the table and stretches out his right arm. He has a puzzle piece gripped with tweezers. He thinks he found the spot for the piece, but the shape is just a little bit off.

Miller shrugs.

“It’s one piece at a time,” he said today in the living room at his home on Route 31, just west of Walmart.

Miller, 93, is called a puzzle master by his family. He has done numerous puzzles with 500, 750, 1,000, 2,500 pieces and more.

In 2017, he finished his most ambitious puzzle with 9,000 pieces. That puzzle about astrology was very challenging with a dark sky constellation. It hangs in the stairwell of the Pratt building in downtown Albion. The finished puzzle is covered in a thin translucent coating of glue.

After Miller was done with that puzzle, he worked on some smaller ones and then declared he was ready for a bigger challenge. His family found the world’s largest puzzle, the Guinness World Record for a largest commercially available puzzle in the world.

The 40,320-piece puzzle includes 10 scenes from famous Disney films. The puzzle weighs 43 pounds. When it’s finished, it stretches 22 ½ feet long and 6 ½ feet tall. It is produced by Ravensburger, which calls 40,320-piece, “The greatest challenge in the history of puzzles.”

“Do you have what it takes to assemble one of the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle?” the company states in advertising the puzzle. “Take the Ravensburger challenge and find out! You’ll be committing roughly 600 hours of puzzle fun to this masterpiece. Imagine the pride you’ll feel when it’s finished.”

The puzzle has 10 bags with about 4,000 pieces for each of the 10 Disney scenes. Miller first went to work on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He started in September and was done before Christmas. It was about a 10-week effort.

Miller found all the right places for the puzzle pieces with the Snow White scene. After 2 1/2 months, he was only 10 percent done with the puzzle.

Miller remembers watching the Snow White movie in 1937 at the former Rialto Theatre on Main Street in Albion. That building, next to the former Swan Library, is now a gym and liquor store owned by Vinny Navarra.

Photo courtesy of Terry Miller: Gina Miller and her father-in-law Garland are shown today with the 9,000-piece astrology puzzle that hangs in the stairwell at the Pratt building in Albion.

“I still think it’s the best movie I’ve ever seen,” Miller said. “It was all hand-drawn, not like they do it today.”

His daughter-in-law Gina Miller often joins him on the puzzle projects. She said it can be mind-numbing and frustrating to get the pieces it the right spots. So many have the same shape and color. But her father-in-law notices the subtleties.

He has a dozen trays with groupings of pieces by color. He then will sort those into smaller groups based on shapes.

“It’s a continual sort, starting with the color families,” Gina Miller said.

Garland has developed his own system for the big puzzles. He hasn’t watched a YouTube video or read books with tips.

Garland said you need a system, and lots of time.

“It’s a challenge,” he said. “It keeps me out of mischief. I’m not hanging out at any bars.”

Miller is a World War II veteran. He was an ambulance driver in the Pacific Theater. After the war, he worked 21 years as a heavy equipment mechanic for the state Department of Transportation in Pittsford and then close to home in Albion. He also drove a tractor-trailer for 28 years and worked part-time for an auctioneer in Middleport.

He has been busy in his retirement, visiting all 50 states. He stays active, and doesn’t take any medication.

He has done puzzles since he was a kid, finding them to be relaxing. He did many with his grandchildren, and other family and friends. He and his late companion Mary Roth also conquered many puzzles together.

After Miller completed the Snow White scene last month, he went to work the next day on a scene from Fantasia with Mickey Mouse. That one has been difficult with so many similar-looking pieces. Miller has Mickey Mouse in that puzzle nearly done – only a few missing pieces. The top is also finished.

Garland Miller eyes a puzzle with Mickey Mouse in the movie, Fantasia. He is making progress, but still has a ways to go.

If each of the 10 scenes in the giant puzzle takes about 2 1/2 months, the entire puzzle will take just over two years.

It will be so big, Miller won’t have room to display it in his house. He and his family would like to see it up in the community when it’s all together.

But he still needs to complete Fantasia, and then there’s 4,000-piece puzzles of Peter Pan, Dumbo, The Jungle Book, The Little Mermaid, Bambi, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and The Lion King.

Gina and Terry Miller hold the box showing how the finished puzzle will look. The 10 Disney scenes are interconnected.

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ALBION – The Albion Teachers Association is asking the Albion Board of Education for a deeper investigation into why there have been so many incidents of cancer and serious illness among elementary teachers and staff.

Angie Wolfe, a kindergarten teacher who was diagnosed with breast cancer in March, said she is one of 22 teachers or staff who have been diagnosed with breast cancer at the elementary school fairly recently. Wolfe has worked in the school for 19 years.

She is one of nine teachers or staff diagnosed in the past five years. In the past 10 years, it’s 16 employees at the school. Going back more than 10 years, it’s 22 people diagnosed with breast cancer at the elementary school. Other employees have had other serious illnesses. The middle and high schools have far fewer cases of serious illness among staff and teachers, she said.

A staff member at the elementary school who recently successfully battled breast cancer attended the Board of Education meeting on Monday.

She told the Board of Education the “alarming number” of people with serious health issues warrants a deeper investigation. She and other members of the Albion Teachers Association made a map showing where in the building the staff and teachers worked who became seriously ill. Wolfe said “the vast majority” tended to be in the original school building from the 1950s – wings A and G, the cafeteria and the district office.

Chris Keller, the Teachers Association president, said teachers are concerned   about the safety of the building.

“The number of serious illnesses makes it imperative that we take a closer look,” he told the Board of Education on Monday.

Last month the district presented a report from WorkFit Medical for its assessment of the incidents of cancer and serious illness among elementary teachers and staff. WorkFit provides medical services to the school district and other districts and businesses in Western New York.

In a Nov. 27 letter to Michael Bonnewell, the Albion school superintendent, WorkFit officials say the rate of breast cancer occurrence at the elementary school is actually lower than the national average.

At Albion Elementary it’s one in 19 women compared to the national average of one out of eight women getting breast cancer during their lifetime, according to the letter from C. Jay Ellie, MD, general director of WorkFit Medical, and Heather Hosking, director of occupational and comprehensive school health for WorkFit Medical.

That report from WorkFit didn’t satisfy the Teachers Association. School officials learned last week the Teachers Association wanted further study of the issue.

The board and school administration in the past week have reached out to outside experts – its insurance company, the Orleans County Health Department, the NYS Department of Health, and Cornell’s University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Workplace Health and Safety Program.

Margy Brown, the BOE president, said the district will await direction from those groups. WorkFit advised the district that “environmental factors” in a building don’t cause breast cancer.

Wolfe urged the district to have an outside independent agency look at air and water quality and as well as environmental factors in the building.

“Please believe we want nothing more than the safety of our buildings for our students and for you,” Brown said at the meeting, which was attended by many elementary teachers and staff, some wearing T-shirts with the names of employees who have fought cancer.

The Teachers Association presented a packet with some new information to the Board and administration on Monday. Brown said they will review that information and respond to the Teachers Association soon, likely within a week.

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ALBION – The Orleans County Health Department has lifted a boil water advisory for part of Albion at about 1 p.m. today after a second day of testing showed no bacteria in water samples.

The advisory was issued on Tuesday for water customers in an area mostly confined to Route 98 between Bank Street and Bacon Road, and the side streets off 98 in that section.

The Village of Albion Department of Public Works was alerted at 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday, New Year’s Day, about a water leak. A 10-inch water main suffered a major break.

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ALBION – The Albion Merchants Association is working on a Feb. 9 “Bonfire at Bullard” event which will include many activities from 3 to 7 p.m.

Energize Albion took the lead on the event in recent years. That group has merged with the Merchants Association and Energize members remain part of the planning effort for the Bonfire at Bullard.

The Merchants are urging people with live Christmas trees to drop them at Bullard near the backstop by the softball field, or leave them at the curb for the DPW to pick up.

A crowd watches the bonfire at Bullard on Feb. 18, 2017.

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Advisory includes business district, and Albion between canal and Bacon Road

ALBION — Village of Albion water customers that should boil their water include the area between the Erie Canal and Bacon Road in the Town of Gaines, as well as the Main Street business district north of Bank Street.

Water users are urged to bring tap water to a rolling boil, boil for a minute and cool before using. Or they can use bottled water certified for sale by the NYS Department of Health, according to a boil water notice from the Village of Albion.

“Boiled or bottled water should be used for drinking, washing dishes, brushing teeth and preparing food until further notice,” the notice says from the village.

The village water system lost pressure at 12:30 a.m. today after a 10-inch water main suffered a substantial break.

The loss of pressure in the water main increases the chances that harmful microbes can get in the water, which could cause diarrhea, cramps, nausea, headaches or other symptoms that may pose a special health risk to infants, some elderly residents or people with severely compromised immune systems, according to the boil water notice.

The village advises that water in the affected area may need to be boiled the next three to four days.

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Crews working to replace section of broken cast-iron main

This photo shows the broken cast-iron main. The crews have to pump water out of the pit so they can work on replacing the watermain.

ALBION – Village of Albion water customers north of the Erie Canal are urged to boil their water for a minute before drinking it.

The boil water advisory also includes the downtown business district. It doesn’t include Town of Gaines water customers.

The village has been working since 1 a.m. last night to repair a major water main break. The village has shut down some lines and a booster pump station so it can replace a broken cast-iron pipe.

That water main is at least 10 feet below ground. The village needed to cut through 14 inches of pavement and then dig down to get to the 10-inch main.

The water main was down so far because the main goes underneath the Erie Canal.

The village will replace the broken section of the waterline with 10-inch PVC pipe.

Once the water main is fixed, the lines will need to flushed and tested for at least a day before the boil water advisory is lifted.

Several municipalities are assisting the Village of Albion Department of Public Works with the repair, including the Village of Medina, and towns of Albion, Barre, Carlton, Gaines and Murray as well as the Orleans County Highway Department.

There is a detour on Main Street from Bank to Caroline streets while the repair is made. Albion and Medina both have their vacuum trucks to pump water from the hole so the pipe can be replaced.

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