in the Ancient City

Gay and I took off late yesterday morning for St. Augustine, where, as she posted, I’ll be giving a talk today.  (“Setting the Scene,” at the library, for a writing group.)

We stopped at the traditional lunch place, Angel’s Diner in Palatka, just before the big bridge over the St. John’s River.  Good burgers and such – I had their specialty, the Black Bottom, a bunch of loose hamburger bound up in a fried egg.  Maybe better than it sounds.

We dropped our stuff at the Victorian B&B, which unsurprisingly is a big Victorian house, well maintained, with no obvious historical significance.  Then we walked the length of the Old Town’s commercial street, and down a couple of byways.

A nice quiet time.  Had a beer and listened to a bluegrass duet on mandolin and guitar for awhile.  Good name, the Grassy ‘Noles.  ( = Seminoles.)

Nice fish dinner with a glass of Pinot Grigio at the Columbian, which brought back memories.  We went to the original Columbian, in Tampa, back in 1970, with Keith Laumer and Gordon R. Dickson.  Its charming Spanish ambience,  ambiente, was part of a mosaic of factors that caused us to move to Florida later that year.  Can it have been 42 years?  Keith was always reserved and somewhat distant, but I can still feel Gordy’s humane friendliness and limitless optimism.

We wandered awhile.  I picked up a long-sleeved shirt against the chill.  Going down a side street,  we heard a couple of seriously good musicians playing guitar and fiddle in an open-air bar – two middle-aged women, gypsily yclept Maja Gitana, who obviously enjoyed their work.  We bought one of their CD’s and I had  a second and sinful third glass of wine through two sets.

The fiddler did something I’ve never seen before, a long sustained rising harmonic.  I can visualize the physics of it.  The bow has to touch the string at the precise midpoint between the fiddle’s bridge and where the left-hand finger is lightly resting, not pressing down, on the string.  Then the musician has to move both bow and finger very precisely, maintaining the midpoint relationship while shortening the “virtual”  string at a constant rate.  The distance between bow-point and bridge is of course critical.

Maybe this is something all fiddlers know about.  I don’t think I’ve seen it before.

Walked around at dawn this morning, cool and clear, the salt air damp but not uncomfortable.  Took some sunrise pictures, which I’ll download later – forgot to bring the little card reader.  Maybe tomorrow, if the weather holds, I’ll go out prepared and do a watercolor sketch.

See some of you at the library?

Joe