Patrick Egan's Blog, page 42

The Lights On The Palm Trees

A few minutes ago, I was driving along Summerlin Road to get to the Java Coffee Cafe before they closed.  I don’t normally drink an iced coffee at 6:10 pm on a Sunday night, or any night for that matter.  I really came here to use the stronger WiFi signal that the Outlet Mall provides for free.  You see, at our RV Resort (Siesta Bay), we have no signal at our site (#143).  The “strong signals” are either in the library or the breezeway, which is located near the showers and the pool, which is next to the Shuffleboard courts which are between the mail boxes and the tennis courts.

The library can get kind of lonely.  Only a few residents here are avid readers.  And, sitting in the breezeway will only get your ankles bit by tiny things that leave marks on human flesh.  And the signal isn’t that strong anyway.  So, here I am at the Outlet Mall.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not a mooch.  I shop here.  Just yesterday, I purchased a light cotton pull-over at Tommy Hilfiger (the first time I’ve ever been in a Tommy store, I think) and the other day I bought a shirt at G.H.Bass & Co.  So, I’ve paid my dues.

But I digress.

I was driving along Summerlin listening to my favorite country radio station.  The song that was just finishing had the line:

“Somewhere tonight, he’s a live wire”

It was followed by:

“I know what I was feeling, but what was I thinking?”

Just as I pulled into my parking spot, my current favorite song came on:

“I’m messed up in Mexico, living on refried dreams.”

Some songs will always be classics in the songbook of my life.

My point here is that between the country songs, and the mall background music, I have never heard more Christmas tunes in my life.  (I had to endure that dreaded Chipmunks song twice today.)

And that is a good thing.  I’m out of my element (the cold North Country) for the first time in recent memory.  For a New York Stater, this is alien territory.  I’ve written before about the juxtaposition of palms trees and sand with lights and Santa lawn ornaments.

But, here’s are my final thoughts on spending Christmas in the Sunshine State:  It’s rather nice.  I’m sitting outside the Java Cafe right now in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt.

In the end, it doesn’t matter where you hang your tinsel, as long as there is love in your heart and you do something, anything, to let your cup of joy spill over, like a leaky dam, into the lives of those around you.

There are lonely, hungry and lost people all around you.  The users, the drifters, the two-time losers…they all need a little snowflake, real or plastic, in their lives.

Our time here in Southern Florida is running out.  We will drive away from Site #143 on the morning of December 30, for parts west.

Into the setting sun.

Away from the waves of the Gulf of Mexico.  Away from the alligators, the insects, the spectacular sunsets, the country songs, the Everglades.

I plan on posting a final farewell to Florida blog after Christmas.

Meantime, you don’t need me to remind you that it’s time to raise your glass to the Spirit of Christmas.  Have a Happy Holiday and…

Believe.

Coal For Christmas

I am a grandfather now, feeling every ache and sadness of my sixty-eighth year.  The stories that my father told me about his father have taken on new meanings.  I’m the old one now.  I am the carrier of the family history.  When a recollection of a family event comes to mind, be it a birthday party, a funeral, a wedding or a birth, I get my journal and I write with haste, in case I might forget something or get a name wrong or a date incorrect. Or, forget the event entirely.

This is especially true when the snow falls and the Christmas tree decorations are brought down from wherever they live during the summer.  It is a time to recall and celebrate the memory of those who have passed on.  It’s time for a Christmas story.  It’s time to think again about my family and how they lived their lives so many decades ago.

I was raised in the post-war years.  My parents were not saying anything original when they would tell me, or my brothers, that we had to be good…very good, or Santa would not leave us any brightly wrapped present, red-ribboned and as big a box as a boy could hold.  No, Santa would not leave such a wondrous thing.  But he wasn’t so vengeful to leave nothing in our stocking.  No, he would leave a lump of coal…if you deserved nothing more.

My father grew up poor.  Not the kind of poor where he would walk barefoot through ten inches of snow to attend school or go from house to house asking for bread.  It was just the kind of poor that would keep his father only one step ahead of the rent collector.  His parents provided the best they could, but, by his own admission, he was raised in the poverty that was common in rural America in the 1920’s.  My grandfather and my grandmother should be telling this story.  Instead, it came to me from my own dad and it was usually told to his four sons around the time it came to bundle up and go out, find and cut a Christmas tree.  I heard this story more than once when it was cold and snowy in the 1950’s.  In the years when my father was a child, the winters were probably much colder and the snow deeper.

It was northeastern Pennsylvania. It was coal country and my grandfather was Irish.  Two generations went down into the mines.  Down they would go, every day before dawn, only to resurface again long after the sun had set.  On his only day off, Sunday, he would sleep the sleep of bones that were weary beyond words.

Because of some misguided decision on his part, my grandfather was demoted from mine foreman to a more obscure job somewhere else at the pit.  Later in life, he fell on even harder times and became depressed about his inability to keep his family, two boys and two girls, comfortable and warm.  It all came crashing down, literally, when their simple farmhouse burned to the foundation.  After seeing his family safely out, the only item my grandfather could salvage was a Hoover.  My father could describe in minute detail how he stood next to his dad and watched him physically shrink, slump and then become quiet.  He never broke the silence after that and died in a hospital while staring mutely at a wall.

But all this happened years after that special Christmas Eve that took place in my father’s boyhood.

It was in the early 1920’s.  The four children were asleep in a remote farmhouse my grandparents rented.  Sometime after mid-night, my father woke up to a silence that was unusual and worrisome.  It was too quiet.  There were no thoughts of Santa Claus in my father’s mind that night—the reality of their lives erased those kinds of dreams from his childhood hopes.  There was no fireplace for Santa to slide down.

He pulled on a heavy shirt and pushed his cold feet into cold shoes that were six sizes too large, and went down stairs to the kitchen where he knew his parents would be sitting up and keeping warm beside the coal stove.  But the room was empty and the coal fire was burning low.  The only light was from a single electric bulb, hanging from the ceiling on a thin chain.  My father noticed the steam of his breath each time he exhaled.  He called out.

“Mom? Dad?”

He heard nothing.  Shuffling over to the door, he cracked it open to a numbing flow of frigid outside air.  In the snow there were two sets of footprints leading down the steps and then behind the house.  He draped a heavier coat over his shoulders and began to follow the prints.  They led across a small pasture and through a gate.  From there the trail went up a low hill and faded from his sight.  He followed the trail.  Looking down at the footprints he noticed that they were slowly being covered by the wind driving the snow into the impressions.  A child’s fear swept over him.  Were the young kids being abandoned?  It was not an uncommon occurrence in the pre-Depression years of rural America.

In his young and innocent mind, he prayed that the hard times hadn’t become that hard.  But deep within, he knew of his parents unconditional love and concern.  He knew he and his brother and sisters were cherished.

He caught his fears before they had a chance to surface.  His parents were on a midnight walk, that’s all.

At the top of the hill, he saw a faint light from a lantern coming from a hole near the side of the next slope.  He slowed his pace and went to the edge of the pit not knowing what he would see.  He looked down.

He knew this pit from summertime games, but it was a place to be avoided in the winter.  The walls were steep and it would be easy to slip in the snow and fall the ten or so feet to an icy bottom.  The children never went into the field with the pit after the autumn leaves fell.

He dropped to his knees and peered over the edge.

At the bottom of the small hole were his parents, picking fist-sized lumps of coal from a seam that was exposed on the hillside.  At their feet was a tin bucket that was half filled with chunks of black rock.  They looked up, quite surprised, and saw my father standing a few feet above them.  They looked back at each other with a sadness that was heart-breaking.  They certainly didn’t want to be caught doing this in front of one of the kids, not on Christmas Eve.  After glancing at each other once, they looked up at my dad.

“Boy,” my grandfather said, “The stove is empty.  Come on down and help us get a few more lumps, will ya?”

My father was helped down and after only a few minutes his hands were black from the coal.  The bucket was filled.  They helped each other out of the pit and walked back to the house together.  My father and his father carried the bucket between them.

In a very short time the coal stove was warming up again.  My father sat up with his parents until they finished their coffee and the house was warmed a few degrees.  Dad kissed his mother and father and went upstairs to bed.  He fell asleep, he always would say, with a smile on his face.

Twenty some years after the midnight trip to the coal pit, my parents and my two older brothers moved to Owego, New York.  I was born two years later, in 1947.

When I was a young boy, my father took me aside one Christmas Eve.  I had not been a very good boy that day, and I was afraid.  Neither of my parents, however, had mentioned the threat that would be used to punish a child if you were naughty and not nice.

My fear left me.  Father’s voice was warm and full of understanding.

“Pat,” he said, “if anyone tells you that you will get a lump of coal in your stocking if you’re not a good boy. Tell them: ‘I hope so,’ then wish them a very Merry Christmas.”

 

A Day For A Splash Of Rum

The Ancient Mariner is home from his lonely voyage.  He’s waiting beside the tavern door to tell his tale.  The Old Man is back from the Sea…did he win the fight with the great fish?

The story of my journey to being a sailor is over…for now.  I have completed the final task which was to set sail into the Gulf of Mexico, without the instructor on board.  It was just Russell, the other student, and me.  It was up to us to go out and return without incident.  Experienced sailors will shrug at this, and I can not speak for Russell, but it was a large step for this novice, this beginner, this “mariner-to-be”.

The forecast called for rain and moderate winds.  As I was preparing the boat, an official looking man on the dock said:

“Keep your eye to the west.  There’s a front approaching and a strong possibility of lightning.”

We had been trained for “man overboard” drills, but nothing was ever said about lightning.  I looked around and saw only the small cabin as any protection from preventing me from acting as a lightening rod.

One strike from the gray clouds overhead would have put an end to my story rather quickly.

We motored out into the channel and followed the markers to the open water.  I kept my eyes on the darkening skies to the west.  Mariam was video-taping the departure.  As she fell from view when we turned, I regretted not telling her to drive out to the tip of the island and walk to the beach…walk to the beach and watch Russell and I raise the main sail, the jib and sail away.  No, she wouldn’t see me kill the motor and raise the sail into the wind for the first time, and let the wind take me.  There will be no photograph of that moment.  No video to show to a bored friend.  No tangible evidence that moment happened.  It will exist only in my own mind.  Russell will have his recollections, but only I will have that chance to see and feel that moment, again and again in my memory.  The instant I cut myself free from the land and became part of another world.

This was the moment I’ve been waiting for…sometimes with some anxiety, sometimes with excitement.

We headed up wind on a close haul.  We tacked.  We jibed.  We came about and relaxed…we talked.  I watched the sky grow darker to the west.  The blue sea turned to lime-green.  The wind eased.

The front moved slowly toward us.  It got darker…more ominous.

“I think we should think about heading back,” I suggested, still thinking about lightning.  “How do you feel about it?”

“I’m not one to enjoy sailing in a downpour,” said Russell.

We brought down the main sail and furled in the jib.

We motored back in a heavy rain.  I was soaked by the time we reached the mooring.  Mariam was there, safe and dry under her umbrella.

It was over.  We had completed our trip…a little shy of two hours.  Another instructor from Off Shore Sailing was on hand to help us put the boat back together with everything tied and secure.  She didn’t want to be out there in the rain.

“This is a day to be home and sipping a mug of tea…with a splash of rum in it,” she said.

Yes, this was a day for a dash of rum.

So Near Yet So Far Away/The Three Hour Tour

You’ve been waiting.  Waiting by your warm hearths sipping an extra strong egg nog.  You’ve posted your last holiday cards and only two remaining items are on your “to do” list.  You have to figure out who is going to get the re-gift this year.  But, what you’re really waiting for is the next chapter in the Tale of the Old Man and the Sea, the Ancient Mariner saga that has your friends and relatives making late-night phone calls and flooding your email accounts.

What happened to him?  Did he finish the sailing course in Fort Myers?  Or, did he give in to his insecurities and bail out in favor of scoring early tickets to Star Wars?

He’s resting now, but I just spoke with him and he gave me permission to announce the news we have all been awaiting.  His stomach was fluttery last night as he went through his stack of 3 x 5 index cards in a desperate attempt to make sense of the alien language of the sea.  Jibe.  Jib.  Cleat.  Luff and Tack (which has three different meanings).

He was sore in places he hasn’t felt soreness since 1964.  Should he take a Valium to help him sleep?  (He did).

The fourth day was to be a brief two-hour sail and then the written test!

He has been a teacher for over thirty years.  Now, he was expected to be the student.  He had to study.  He had to pass a test.  He had to make the monetary investment pay off.  What would his future be like if he walked away…a failure?  He’d spent too many years thinking of himself as a failure.  Was this going to end up with the girl leaving him in the parking lot of life beside a cheap after-hours bar?  Was he going to lose another election and chance to be the King of the Dance Classes (like he did in 1963)?

Was another manuscript going to come back from Random House with a sweet note of rejection?

He desperately needed to remember that port is left when you’re on a boat.

So, here’s your Holiday present, my friends! [I’ve switched to the First Person just now.  It’s me talking.]

I passed the test!  The one question I missed was the one that I debated over and went with my second choice.  Now, I have a nice certificate and a classy logbook.  When I get back home in April, there will be a stamp from the U. S. Sailboating Association (or whatever the name is, I don’t have the paper in front of me).  I will place this stamp in my logbook.

I will be officially certified as a person able to take out a sailboat up to thirty feet in length.

The logbook?  What will the future entries contain?  A trip out of a port in the British Virgin Islands?  A voyage into the Gulf of Mexico out of Key West?

There is a story that is yet to be written in this little book.  This story will be a record of where I go from here.  Will I file the book away and think no more about the salty air and the beam reach and the tacking?

I don’t think so.  I was thinking about the dynamics of sailing on Day 2 of my classes, around the time I wrote The Old Man and the Sea blog.  I can’t tell you the history of how the Phoenicians first used the sea beyond the sight of land, I can’t tell you of the ancient Greek fishermen.  I can’t speak to the spectacular technical achievement of Columbus, Magellan, and Cook.

But, I can tell you that it is truly humbling to hear such stories.  To be in a boat, upon the limitless sea, beyond landmarks, beyond the sight of your home port…out where the curvature of the earth can be seen.  To do this and use the stars to find your way back to the arms of your family, is a very intense and awesome concept to comprehend.

To sail into the wind is a contradiction in terms.  But, you can do it.  It’s always puzzled me how this can happen.  Now I know.

It’s a profound idea and now it is something I can do.

Like my passport, I intend to have entries in my logbook that say something about me.

That I tried to see as much of the world as I could.  It’s really a wonderful and a small world that we have been given.

And, it’s a Wonderful Life.

Sweet holiday wishes to all my friends and family….

 

 

The Old Man And The Sea

My father was the keeper of the Eddystone Light,

He slept with a mermaid one fine night.

Out of the union there came three,

A walrus, and a porpoise and a little old me…”

–An Old Sea Shanty

I’m sure that you think differently of me now.  Now that you’re thinking of me as a real mariner.  A real old salt.  A man

who goes down to the sea in ships…

But, life for me is not all tattoo parlors, ex-flamingo dancers named Contessa, hard living gypsy women named Esmeralda and rum bars.  Not to mention the mermaids so fair and beautiful and alluring that you need to have someone lash you to the mast and pour wax into your ears to prevent you from sailing to your doom on rocky isles off the coast of Zanzibar.

Oh, the call of the sirens are songs you can not resist.  No normal man, like me…has the fiber and purity of heart to not fall into their arms…arms that ensnare you and lips that whispers the secrets of the eternal seas into your ears, and then drag you down to the abyss.  The abyss, where you meet Blackbeard, Davy Jones, the Kraken, Jack Sparrow or even the death-like Keith Richards.

I’m bidding farewell to all those whose feet never leave the safety of the sand and pebbles of the land.  My destiny is on the lee side of tomorrow and the starboard side of yesterday.  I can feel the salt water in my veins.  I can feel the sea spray on my gray beard, spraying me so hard, I can not tell the ocean from my tears.  I can feel the sun on my forearms and the sweat on my shoulders.  Yes, I feel the sun and wish I had used SPF #60.  I can feel the gentle rocking of the boat.  I can see my backpack stored in the cabin.  My eyes are on the little zipper pocket that contains a small box of chewable Dramamine.

It is Day 2 of my sailing classes.  We leave the calm small bay where our boat is moored.  We enter the waters of the Gulf.  Still there is no wind.  We practice a “man overboard” drill.  Not enough wind to tack.

After three hours, we return to our slip.  The class is over for the day.

I won’t be an ‘official’ sailor until Russell (the Canadian) and I take the boat out on our own…on Friday.

What kind of sea will be meeting us that day?  How will Poseidon greet this old man who dares to enter his abode?  Will I be challenged to my limit?  Will the elements be greater than my limits?

Do I even have limits?

Does the god of the sea know that I will win in the end?  We humans have no limits, do we?

Then I think of the tens of thousands of souls who went down to the sea in ships…and never sailed back in their safe harbor.

Those New England whaling village homes had a place on the roof that is called “the widows walk”.  There must be a reason for that.

The Fate Of The Ancient Mariner

A dream that has drifting through my brain for four decades has finally come true.  I’m learning how to sail!

The course I’m taking is for five days.  On Friday, the other student (Russell from Canada) and I will be taking the 26′ boat out on our own.  That ‘alone’ part means the instructor will not be on board.  He could very possibly leave the country, Havana, say, depending on the outcome of our sail.  It’s isn’t helping me to keep checking my weather app on my iPhone and seeing that a storm is expected that day.

If this is the last blog you get from me, you will know of our fate.

You can’t say I didn’t do my homework.  I was given two textbooks to study.  I bought some cord to practice a few knots.  To fully prepare, I rented and watched The Perfect Storm and Titanic.  After all, what could possibly go wrong in the Gulf of Mexico off Fort Myers Beach?  It’s not even like a “real” ocean or anything.

Today I spent about three hours on the water.  I handled the tiller, hoisted the main sail and adjusted the jib.  I also baked in the sun.  On Friday, if there’s a storm, at least I won’t get sunburned.

I won’t lie, I was nervous and I expect to be nervous on Friday.  Not of the sea, but of my ability to remember all the names of those lines, sheets, and points of sailing.  My text says that sailing is like riding a bicycle, but it really isn’t anything like that.  No, not at all.

I even get to yell “Ho” at some point.  And, that won’t be on a street corner in Hackensack.  No, it will be to advise Russell that the boom is about to swing.  This boom thing is heavy enough to render an inattentive sailor unconscious…or worse.

Many of my readers are already experienced sailors and are probably reading this and thinking I am making a big deal over my first day.  Well, I say to those classmates of mine, you had a first day once.  Look deep into your heart.  Were you a little apprehensive?

So, I am four days away from calling myself a “sailor”.

Or, I am four days away from making the headlines in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.

[The sky, the water and me….]

I need to complete this post.  I still have to watch Jaws one more time and maybe catch the 7:30 showing of In The Heart of the Sea (in 3-D) at the mall.

My 301st Blog: The Walls Of Fort Myers, The Benches Of Central Park And Fluffy

Remember me?  I’m Fluffy.  My human is the guy who writes these blogs.  I’m here to cover for him because he made a mistake and is unwilling to go public with it.  I’m also here to help him segue into two other topics about his recent time in Florida that he wants to “bundle” into one post.  First of all, he was mistaken when he posted his last blog and stated that the next one was going to be his 300th.  That blog was his 300th.  This one is his 301st.  Don’t be too hard on the poor guy, he’s been through a lot lately, all the driving, all the torrential rain, the humidity and the fact that his temporary henna tat is now gone from his forearm.  There are a few black spots left that look like insect bites, but it’s just the last bit of henna.

He also had to worry about how I’m being fed and kept warm.  You see, he left me in the North Country.  Don’t be overly concerned, though, I’m in a nice warm barn with plenty of straw and hay.  He thought about taking me along, but he assumed that there may be a federal law against transporting a lamb across state lines for humorous purposes.  And, besides, there’s barely enough room in the R-pod for his wife, Mariam, and the laptops, books, maps, art supplies and clothes.  I told him he could use me as a pillow, but Mariam is allergic to wool so that was out of the question.

Okay, so here are two topics that he wanted to combine into one posting:  Please try to read carefully and don’t forget to hit the “like” button at the bottom of the blog page.  For each “like” he gets on WordPress, I get a little extra chunk of a delicious apple.  You’d like to see me have that, wouldn’t you?  Of course you would…and have a Happy Holiday!  Remember the lambs in the nativity scenes?  Again, my future depends on you, the reader.  If my human gets to be really popular as a blogger, it could lead to book contracts and product endorsements.  Hollywood would be calling.  Then, I, poor little Fluffy (look at my cute little nose and sad eyes!  See my little legs, unsure and wobbly?)  If my human gets famous, I could end up scoring a major role in the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.  It isn’t all about the legs of the Rockettes (like my human thinks), no, they use real live animals in the show.

I could be a Broadway star!  It all depends on you!!!

THE WALLS OF FORT MYERS

Mariam and I are in this part of Florida for the first time.  I just finished reading a book about the over-development of the Miami area on the eastern coast.  We knew Fort Myers was subject to the same stresses of mall building and gated communities.  The gates to these developments are beautiful to look at and are executed with skill by landscape architects.  But, the walls…  The walls are said to keep the noise of the traffic out, but is that the only reason?  Are they a reminder that the million dollar homes behind the walls are to be left alone?  Are they some kind of class barrier?  I wonder.

The walls come in a riot of variations.  Here are two examples:

[A simple and functional wall]

[A “green” wall that is not too imposing]

I’d like to show more examples, but I think you get the point.  Besides, it worth your life to slow down or stop on these busy boulevards to take a photo.

Now, for something completely different.

THE BENCHES OF CENTRAL PARK

Before we set out on this long road trip, we had several days in Manhattan.  I was strolling through Central Park and stopped in the October light of a mid-afternoon.  I noticed plaques on some of the benches.  A little back-story:  Just before we left the North Country, the media was covering a local controversy about a college, a donation and a name change.  A woman was set to give Paul Smiths College $10,000,000.  The catch was that the name was to be changed to add her name to that of the institution.  In the end, a judge ruled against the name change because it violated the original deed of the donation of the land for the college, by Paul Smiths son.  And, the judge said that the college didn’t prove that the money was essential to the survival of the college.

Me? I was against the name change because I felt it violated the true nature of philanthropy.  But, that’s another story.  As I sat in Central Park and looked at the plaques, I sensed a certain humility in the naming and wording for each bench.

I came away with a gentle feeling of generosity with no real strings attached.  A simple plaque.  A simple memory of someone who probably enjoyed many October afternoons on that very bench.

Sometimes, the simple things make the larger impact.

[Coming soon: My yearly Holiday Blog.  Stay tuned.]

The Road Of Tears And Spirits

[Looking north from Route 80 toward Lake “O”]

The theme of this post is darker than I would like, given that it’s less than three weeks until the joyful time of Christmas.  But, I didn’t have a choice.  We just crossed on Route 80 this past weekend when we visited friends in Jupiter, FL.  The memories are still fresh.  And, given the fact that I still have two other non-holiday posts to publish (one is a brief sketch of Edgar “Bloody” Watson–certainly not something to read while trimming the tree), I have to write what I have time to write about.  If that makes any sense.  Besides, we are rapidly approaching the January 1 date when we will pull out of the Siesta Bay Resort, leave Florida behind us and head north and west for new adventures.  I know something interesting and necessary is awaiting me in the Mojave Desert.  You’ll just have to keep up with these posts while the holidays come and go.  Put me on your gift list–the one to yourself.  Okay?  So read on, it really isn’t that sad.  Oh, one more thing: My next post will be my 300th blog!!!  Please share it.  Repost it.  Enjoy it.

There is a road between Fort Myers, on the Gulf of Mexico and Palm Beach, on the Atlantic Ocean.  On a map, it is Route 80.  Around Belle Glade, it splits, Route 80 swings slightly north and Route 27 dips to the south.  For miles, this road skirts an impressive levee.  This is the Hoover Dike.  To the north of this levee lies a very large body of fresh water.  Lake Okeechobee.  Lake “O”, provides the water for the Big Cypress National Refuge and, further to the south, the Everglades.

On more than one occasion, Lake “O” has broken through its containment wall.  Before Herbert Hoover had the present levee built, it was fairly common for the land south of the lake to suffer major destruction from hurricanes–or just heavy rains.  Thousands of farmers were drowned since the area became populated by whites late in the 19th century.  The Seminoles had been driven south into the ‘glades after years of futile wars were fought to force them to move westward.

Today, it is the center of the sugar empire of central Florida.  Today, I drove through Clewiston and Belle Glade.  I felt the darkness of the soil begin to permeate my soul.  I stood in a small cemetery outside of Belle Glade.  There were dozens of graves of those who were drowned in one of the recent storms and floods.

The graves of the children were numerous.

The sky was darkening.  I stood by the roadside and looked north toward the lake.  I turned and looked south toward Big Cypress.  It was a landscape of the most basic of elements–sky and dark earth.  I could not feel the flow of the groundwater as it moved, ever so slowly southward, but I knew it was there.  I thought about the farm workers, whose fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers, were buried in such cemeteries as Foreverglades or Ridgelawn.  I wondered how many graves were destroyed by the floods and lost–forever.  Looking north and then south, there was not the slightest of elevations to break the flat horizon.  I thought again of the farmers and how unbearably hot it must get in midsummer–out there where no tree provided shade, and only the black earth, the black mucky earth clung to your boots and darkened your sweaty forehead.  The ants.  The snakes.  The mosquitoes.  Nature is your enemy out there.  If a cloud passed between your shoulders and the fire of the sun, it would give you cause to kneel and pray your Thank-You God prayer.

The spirits of this forsaken land must walk the canals, the small dikes–and Route 80.

At the funerals in the past years, sweat must surely have mixed with tears.  If the drop ran down your cheek to your lips, both would be salty.

I got back into my air-conditioned car and drove on.  I was depressed, oppressed and distressed by this forbidding soil and linear horizon.  I’ve driven through Iowa, Ohio, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Saskatchewan.  Nothing had prepared me for the featureless terrain of central Florida.

For all the smiles I encountered at the cafes and diners, I knew they had some kind of links with the sorrow of too much water, and too much sun–and too much black soil.

[Looking south from Route 80 toward Big Cypress]

 

The Scent Of Christmas Caught Me By Surprise

There is a chain of markets in Florida called Publix.  It’s employee-owned and from what I read in the local paper, Wal-Mart hates them.

But that’s another story.

I was browsing the aisles in my local Publix for some fruit to put in my cereal.  I found blueberries but they’re from Peru.  Don’t they grow them here?  Everything else grows here.

It was dark when I walked out through the front doors and into the intense and surreal humidity that I’ve come to love and cherish.  Across Summerlin Rd., the Christmas lights twinkled from the Royal Palm trees at the Outlet Mall.  Something struck my olfactory senses.  I skidded to a halt, maybe a little too close to the bell ringing Salvation Army Santa.

It was the scent that stopped me.  I closed my eyes.  Suddenly, I was back in Manhattan, walking down Broadway in the upper 80’s.  The taxis and trucks are driving through the slush of a December snow.  I walk passed a Christmas tree vendor.  There are fifty trees, probably from Maine, bundled and stacked, waiting to be purchased for $75.00 and taken back to a small apartment.  Taken back to give a little room a little holiday cheer, to disperse the loneliness, to make the Toddy or the Merlot go down smoothly.  Turn off the overhead light and plug in the pin lights.  Arrange the bulbs so that they blink randomly.  Put on a Bing Crosby CD.  Look out the window and down at the street.  The shoppers, the packages, the tinsel, the pools of icy water backed up at the street crossings.  The parents and the children.  A window with a Menorah.

“Have yourself a merry little Christmas…” 

I’m back in Owego, New York and I’m a child again.  Snow was never a problem when I was young…the more the better.  But the scent of the balsam, the fir, the pines…these were the smells of the North, of Canada, of the Adirondacks, of downtown Owego, the “cut-your-own” tree farms outside Newark Valley.  It was the smell of my living room at 420 Front Street.  If we had a fire burning in the fireplace, if the thermostat was turned up (which it never was), it didn’t matter.  If you stuck your nose among the branches of the tree, you smelled the cold.  A curious mix of senses…smell and feel.  There was the wood-smoke from the chimneys, from the bonfires at the Brick Pond where we skated on frigid December nights.  We skated, the kids from my neighborhood and beyond.  I skated alone.  I skated with my friends.  I skated with my girlfriend, Mary.  Other nights, our class at St. Patrick’s would go caroling at the “old folks home”.  We’d walk to a classmate’s house where a pleasant mom in a beige apron would serve us hot chocolate and oatmeal cookies.  I wasn’t beyond pocketing a chocolate chip cookie for later when I hid under my covers in the chilly bedroom.

Our cheeks stayed rosey until March.

Suddenly, I felt the humidity again.  I opened my eyes.  I wasn’t facing Broadway.  I was not walking down Main Street behind a nun whose long black habit collected the snow flakes at her forbidden ankles.  I was in my present time and space.  I was in Fort Myers and I was standing next to a Christmas trees that was for sale.  We barely have room in the r-Pod for a beach towel so a tree would be out of the question.

There is my car, the Ford Escape with the Thule bike rack on the roof.  At least it’s red, like Santa’s suit and Rudolph’s nose.

This holiday is going to be pretty much in my mind.  I’ve yet to get used to inflatable Christmas lawn ornaments on an island like Sanibel.  I’ve yet to accept a sunny warm beach on the Gulf of Mexico and knowing it’s approaching the Winter Solstice.  Orion is rising in the night sky.  At least I don’t have to put on a parka to look up at constellations.  Then I remember that the original Christmas Day, (if you accept the December 25th date), occurred in the Middle East.  There were palm trees along the route of the Three Wise Men.

We’ll have Christmas Eve dinner at a nice restaurant called the Lighthouse.  We will each unwrap a present the next day.  I’ll put my Bing Crosby CD into the stereo.

“Where the tree tops glisten and the children listen…to hear sleigh bells in the snow…”

The place pulls at me.  The smell sets off a reverie.  But, in the end, Christmas is in the heart.

Crossing Whiskey Creek To The Banyan Tree

I had my plastic cup of iced coffee from the Java Cafe nestled nicely in the container holder next to the gear shift knob on the red Ford Escape.  This time I was going to try something different.  I was going to locate and take the rear entrance (or is an exit when you’re leaving?) of the Outlet Mall.

Soon I was on McGregor Blvd and listening to the country radio station.  The song was “Shall I Go Home or Shall I Go Crazy?”  Apparently the singer had some serious issues with his girl friend at home.  I wonder how things turned out for him.

I worry about people.

But this was not a day to just drive around Fort Myers looking for a Starbucks (remember I already had a coffee).  No, I had a destination.  I was going to Fort Myers Cemetery to visit the grave of Edgar “Bloody” Watson.  You may wonder what is drawing me to see this alleged murderers burial plot.  Well, I’m reading Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen.  It is over 900 pages of a fictional treatment of the “Legend of Chokoloskee”.  Watson was an interesting character but there is a fog of doubt about who he really was and what he really did.

Details?  You can Google Watson if you’re desperate, but I would suggest waiting for my blog on him and…well, it’ll be far more entertaining and fascinating than the Wikipedia entry.  Or, go buy the book by Matthiessen.  But don’t expect to rejoin the family and the real world until sometime after Easter.  It’s a serious read.  Trust me.

So, I was driving north on McGregor, passing the walled enclaves of the moderately rich people.  The really wealthy folks are about thirty miles south, in Naples.  There is a small bridge ahead.  I’m passing an Irish Pub on the right.  I’m crossing Whiskey Creek.  I had just read an advertisement about the Whiskey Creek Country Club.  Membership?  For a single golfer for one season, the fee is just shy of $1,500.  If I had that kind of money to spare, I’d join just so I could carry a card that had that name on it.

Whiskey Creek.  It begs to be a metaphor.

“I overturned the kayak of my life and I swam in Whiskey River for too many years.”

I think I have the beginning of a country song.  Or, maybe a dark Irish short story of misspent youth.  I don’t know a thing about writing country songs, but I’m Irish and I over spent my allowance of my younger years.

I make a few turns before I find Michigan Ave.  Another two miles and I’m turning into the cemetery.  The old headstones, from the early 1900’s are mostly under oak trees that are draped with Spanish Moss.  Nothing makes a southern cemetery more spooky and sad and lonely than Spanish Moss.  It’s the essence of southern gothic.

There is a fellow riding around on a backhoe.  I stop him and ask where “Bloody” Watson’s grave is located.  He says he’s only been there a week and doesn’t know where anything would be.  I troll the narrow drives.  Acorns pop under my tires.  Just because I felt like it, I make a left turn.  There is a large gray stone: WATSON.  I get out and walk around the car.  There is Edgar’s stone.  Someone had placed an old penny on top.  I thought it was a strange thing to leave at the grave of a guy with the nickname of “Bloody”, but, hey, I was here.

As I was driving back to Michigan Ave. a pickup truck blocked my way.  On the door was City of Fort Myers.  A cemetery worker, a genial black man with salt and pepper hair got out.  He knew where Watson was buried, but I told him I already found it.  It didn’t matter to him–he wanted to talk.  Fifteen minutes later, he points to the beads of sweat on his forehead and says: “It’s too hot out here for me.  I’m going back to the AC in the truck.  Good luck.”

He told me a great deal about his life in those fifteen minutes.  I should have been expecting it.  After all, he spends his working day in a field of dead people.  Who do you talk to?

Just before he slammed his door, he called out: “Did you see the Banyan tree?”  I said that I did, which wasn’t a lie.  I just didn’t know what the tree was when I first saw it.  I drove back to it to get a photo.  I stood looking at a tree that I thought was really five trees.  You wouldn’t believe the size of this enormous plant!  A person could live inside it’s base. I found out later that it was the “sister tree” to the one on the Edison and Ford estates.  It seems that Thomas Edison and Henry Ford were good friends and each had a very large home in Fort Myers.  The two historic houses are side by side.  Edison planted the first Banyan tree in America on his property.  Ford thought it would be a cheaper way to produce rubber for tires.  They planted the tree as an experiment.  It was only four feet tall.  Today, the one tree covers an entire acre.

I need to see this tree.

In Hindu myth, the god Shiva (in the incarnation of Dakshinamurthy) is always depicted sitting quietly beneath a Banyan tree.  The confusing tangle of its extended root system are thought to be symbolic of eternity.  It just keeps growing.

The afternoon sun was getting intense.  I decided to drive back to the Siesta Bay Resort and take a swim.  It was 89 F.

It’s December 2.  What else could you do on this winter day?

It was a good day.  The grave of an alleged killer, a gentleman who dug graves on hot days and a mind numbing tree the size of Rhode Island.  It was only 2:49 pm.  I had plenty of time.  Perhaps I’d find the public library where I could write and post this blog.

But first, I had to cross Whiskey Creek again.

[The Banyan Tree at the Edison House. Source: Google search]