Reaching New Orleans

The tiny town of Foley, Alabama, takes you back to the early 1950s. The houses are brick, with loads of hydrangeas, roses and other flowers. The main street maintains the beveled glass on entrance doors and there, at the crossroads, is a Rexall's drug store. Inside, we found a genuine soda counter with wire-backed chairs and coffee for 10 cents a cup – if you pour it yourself!

A toy train endlessly circumnavigates the drugstore at the 10-foot high level and you can find all manner of early medical supplies. We particularly likes the “Anti-Monkey Butt Powder” that is advertized as a “sweat absorber and friction fighter”. There are airplaned made from Coke cans hanging from the ceiling.

Earlier in the day, we'd made out way to the edge of Mobile Bay where we watched the sailboats and fisherman casting their nets to catch bait fish at the town pier. It all is quite quaint and bucolic. The town of Fairhope has built waterfront birdhouses for purple martins that migrate from South America and who seem to be will to occupy these bird condos for breeding purposes and for raising their young before heading south in the fall. The martins do a prodigious job of vacuuming mosquitoes from the waterfront area so they are welcome guests.

We came to New Orleans, expecting the worst. It has been just shy of four years since Hurricane Katrina visited her wrath on this city and the entire northern Gulf of Mexico coast. We're watched the rebuilding – or lack – on TV and we were anxious to see it for ourselves.

Reports of the death of the city are premature, we're happy to report. Oh, there still remains devastation on portions of the 9^th ward. And down in St. Bernard Parish, where we are camping, there is massive destruction still visible in shopping centers that have been abandoned. But the city of New Orleans was hopping when we drove in on Saturday. There was a Zydeco music festival, along with a Creole Tomato festival in the French Quarter. The hanging ferns from the lacy wrought iron balconies are there, the tourists in the thousands are there. The rhythm of the city is evident. People actually walk with a sway and a swing of their hips, keeping time to the music of the trombone player or the banjo picker.

We had a great time visiting the cathedral in the heart of the city. We wandered in the back streets before driving through the Ninth Ward to view some of the dead houses. We were heartened to see so much renovation evident, though. As we drove back to our campground, we came upon a cemetery across from the Mississippi River (which is higher than the surrounding land). The cemeteries in this low-lying part of the world are above ground. Coffins are placed inside a concrete sarcophagus and those are even stacked up to three high to take care of families. But this cemetery was suffering from the sarcophagus being washed away and toppled. Many of the concrete boxes were empty. Quite biblical, of course (“And they came to the tomb and found it empty.”).

Our campground on the south side of the Big Muddy is quite spectacular. Very few people are here. But we are surrounded by dozens (maybe hundreds, perhaps even thousands) of rabbits who seem to enjoy coming out in the dusk to munch on the green grass. The cat is oblivious to these same-size creatures. We have a symphony each evening of cicadas...millions of them. Their song is astonishingly loud but they settle down with darkness.

The huge swimming pool at the park was occupied by nine people when we went for a swim this afternoon. It was quite moving, actually, to watch two 8-to-10-year-old white girls swim and interact with colorblind eyes with a pair of black twin boys. It gives hope that this generation is growing up oblivious to the color of people's skin.

Moving from North to "South"

Floridians need not read this. All others might find the horror story of the love bug to be bewildering and maybe even funny.

The love bug is a creature we only have found in Florida. It has the delightful habit of finding a mate and having a conjugal visit while flying through the air in thick clouds. Their life cycle climax (forgive me) seems to occur when they splat into the windshield and grilles of all the trucks, cars and RVs that head north and south on Florida's interstate highways.

As we rolled north on our first day of our trip, the bugs were out in force. We could see rainstorms of them splattering on our windshield. We picked up perhaps 2,000 of them. Helluva way to die: conjugalis in extremis is what I call it.

It's imperative that you scrape their bodies off the front of your vehicle as quickly as possible. They seem to leave a nasty acidic residue which burns into paint and leaves permanent scarring if not scrubbed off within a few hours of death.

We are moving desperately slowly as we roll north. And this suits us just fine. We are in no great rush. We drove for 90 miles on the first day. And that was enough. We stayed in the little town of Bushnell, FL, when the rolling green fields just begin to signal the beginning of Florida's horse country.
Then we moved across to the western side of the state and parked on the banks of the Suwanee River in a state park. We are cocooned in a canopy of oak and magnolia trees. We also have moved into a different kind of Florida. You see, half the state – the southern half, strangely – is much more like the northern states. That's probably because it is made up more of northerners.

There's an invisible line, though, just to the north of Tampa, where one moves into what is more generally considered to be The South. This is more Bible Belt. You come across billboard after billboard that preaches anti-abortion messages while, in that slightly mad way there are endless other billboards that let you know of cafes and restaurants where “We Bare All” and where you can find “X Markets of Adult Toys and Videos.”

A mighty strange juxtaposition.

I've just finished a stunning book, The Known World” by Edward P. Jones. It is set in Virginia in the 1850s from the point of view of slaves and slave owners. The principal characters, however, are black people who own slaves, something I had no idea occurred and still, after reading the book, have a hard, hard time understanding: How could a black man who has bought his own freedom and the freedom of his wife and child cope with the child growing up and then purchasing his own slaves. The brutality and inhumanity of the book, written by a black man, by the way, is tough to stomach. But it paints an unusually rich portrait of life in those not so good old days. Jones won the Pulitzer Prize for the novel.

The springs after which the Manatee Springs State Park are named ($8 per night for Florida seniors who camp here!) bubble up from the aquifer. The clear water maintains a steady temperature of 72 degrees F. Manatees make their way here in the cold winter months because they need the warm water for survival. In the heat of summer, though, we could see a school of mullet swimming in endless circles through the knots of cypress standing with wet feet in the spring waters.

William Bartram came upon these water in July 1774 and here is some of what he reported”

“Having borrowed a canoe from some Indians, I visited a very grat and most beautiful fountain which boils up from between the hills about 300 yards from the river.

“The basic of the fountain is about 100 yards in circumference. The fountain is very full of fish and alligators and at a great depth in the water appear as plain as if they were close at hand.”

We crossed into the Central Time Zone after crossing the Apalachicola River, west of the state capital of Tallahassee. We're in the rolling hills now: no more flat plains. Our campsite for a few days was down a potholed road, alongside a lake at Three Rivers State Park. On Saturday, we drove the car west to the next state park where we explored the only caverns in a Florida park.

In a nice piece of Americana, we found upturned white ceramic bowls in the roof of the caves. These has been cemented in place by the young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps who uncovered the caverns and made them usable in the late 1930s. The bowls were used to reflect the limited light produced by carbon lights while the young men carved out walkways. The caverns, filled with stalactites and stalagmites, dripping water and deliciously cool, showed little evidence of having been used by the early Indians. The preferred drier accommodations in other caves which have evidence of fairly ornate pottery shards and tools from 10,000 years ago.

On our way back into our campground, we were delayed a few minutes by the car ahead of us. It stopped and a young woman jumped out and disappeared ahead of the car. She reappeared holding a five-foot-long snake by the tail. She gently deposited it in the undergrowth and it slithered off. I had to admire the young woman's gutsy approach to snake maintenance.

Time to Roll

It's time to roll up our awning, check the tires for air pressure, unscrew the cat's leash and getting this baby on the road again.

We have been here in Palmetto, Florida,  too long. Our original plan was to arrive in October, stay until Jan. 1, then head out west. But the best laid plans, as Robbie Burns said, gang aft agley (don't go right). And so, after a broken back, a totaled car, and a wife who had shards of glass embedded in her right arm, we decided to stay parked while we worked out these annoyances.

But now we're ready to move on June 1. But the dream of Alaska will have to wait another year.

You know you're ready when you begin to hear details of the villagers' lives that are 'way too much information.  Jo learned at cards the other day, for example, that the mobile home in the park that was painted a brown ka-ka color, similar to dog excrement, was thought to be blue by the owner who turns out to be colorblind!

The raccoon that sneaks through our yard and makes Chai sit up with a look of "What the hell is this?" has been trapped by the park management for fear that he is rabid.

But we have met some pretty neat people, too. There's a pleasant woman we met while wallowing in the pool this past weekend. She told us her husband works 12 hours a day, seven days a week, as captain of a dredging barge out of Port Manatee, just up the road. And his 12 hours of work occur through the night. As a result, she has to leave their tiny trailer while he sleeps during the day: hence wallowing in the pool. The captain was just reassigned to another dredging project up the Florida coast. So they hauled out today for their new camp ground.

We walk around Terra Ceia RV Resort each night and we seem to be in a dead zone. There are about 240 mobile homes and slots for motor homes in the park. The mobile homes are mostly closed as their owners have headed back to Michigan and other points north. But we usually meet Bill and Donna, an elderly couple who always walk around the park in a counter-clockwise direction, while Jo and I walk in a clockwise direction. Bill invariably tells us we are headed the wrong way. They, too, head north in another week.

When we leave, our plans now are to drive up the west coast of Florida, staying in state parks along the way. They we head west to Mobile, Alabama, and over to New Orleans before hanging a right and driving up north along the Mississippi River. We'll head for Memphis, Tennesee, St. Louis, Missouri, and then move into Illinois to visit the capital, Springfield. We want to participate in this 200th birthday year of Abe Lincoln and Springfield is the place to do that. Then we plan to head through the depressed part of Indiana (unemployment of 26 per cent) and into Michigan to visit some of the friends we made while living down here in Florida. Then, inshalla, we cross the border into Canada to visit with my sister, Rose. 

We'll let you know how all this unfolds as we find unique people and interesting places. 

Mingling with wildlife

Who knew I'd be doing a little original reporting when we drove our rig to Highlands Hammock State Park in the middle of Florida. But here we are in a beautiful place, amid hundreds of oak trees, many, many alligators, and a crazy red cardinal that seems to spend inordinate amounts of time pecking at his reflection by using the side mirrors of our car.

The news? This place was built in the first stimulus package back in the 1930s. The Civilian Conservation Corps employed 3.4 million young men (no women) to work on projects such as developing recreational facilities. More than 49,000 men were enrolled from the state. The CCC was called “Roosevelt's Tree Army, “Colossal College of Calluses and the “Soil Soldiers”.

More than 228,000 days of labor were completed at this camp from June 1934 to December, 1941. The CCC boys built 30 structures including houses, bridges, workshops, restrooms, pavilions, water towers, water lines, a green house, creation hall and a mess hall. They also fought wildfires and cultivated 2,500 varieties of plants for the botanical garden project.

When the young men arrived at the camps (remember this was when there was 25 percent unemployment), the average enrollee weighed 147 pounds and was five foot eight inches tall. They gained, on average, between 20 and 30 pounds during their first year. They were paid $30 a month, $1 a day. $25 was sent home to the family and they kept $5.

Jo and I met an 88-year-old volunteer at the park and, while he had not been a CCC enrollee, he was of the right age. He told us his father had a job back then and he helped him digging ditches so he didn't need to apply for work.

Joe told us the CCC developed 800 state parks throughout the nation. Jo looked through a book of CCC projects because she said she remembers her dad telling her he worked on building a school in Maine during the time. Our volunteer guide said if the school was not listed as a project, it probably meant Jo's dad worked for the Works Project Administration. That was formed to provide work for married men during the Depression.

It must have been tough back then for 18-20 year old single guys to be housed together with little access to the ladies. Prohibition had just ended so you can pretty well bet the $5 they got to keep each week went to smokes and booze. The CCC was run by the military so the young men initially wore World War I surplus uniforms until they got their own green uniforms. They worked 40 hours a week but had to rise at 5:30 each morning for calisthenics. Then it was off to breakfast and everyone boarded buses to take them to the work projects. They were required to dress with tie and clean uniforms for dinner. Lights off flickered at 8:45 pm. And the lights were shut off at 9 pm.

The CCC was disbanded in 1942 and all these guys were then drafted into the military for World War II. Joe told us he was drafted in 1942 and was sent to the Pacific.

Earlier in the day, we went on a hike with Ranger Steve whose job it was to show us the spoor of the park's wildlife. We passed the footprints of deer, boar, snakes, centipedes and other creatures. The most enjoyable part of the two-miles hike was to listen to a city slicker who came with her husband and whom Ranger Steve took unusual delight in informing her of all the things lurking in the wild, waiting to kill you. He spoke about the possibilities of being bitten by a rattlesnake, a cottonmouth, a water moccasin. He described the hell of chigger bites, poison ivy, and other dangerous plants. The poor woman soon realized it was much safer to live in New York City than to stroll in the sun-drenched Florida outback.

Her husband, by the way, kept questioning the ranger about things to do in the park. “I'm willing to spend half a day in this park,” he said, “if there are things to do.” There is much to do in the 9,000 acre park if you are willing to slow down a little and just look.

The next day, Jo and I went on a tram ride which took us past countless alligators – dozens of moms and dads and so many hatchlings that they were just a slithering, crawly bundle.

We found unusual birds, including two owls, a red-backed hawk, a yellow-crested night heron (in the daytime), deer, gopher turtles, armadillo. We didn't see any wild boar which are not native to Florida but which came south with the white man more than 100 years back. They managed to escape and have gone feral. They leave their mark by destroying the underbrush.

After three nights in the park, we rolled south for 50 miles to Lake Okeechobee where we attended a Samboree. This is a get-together of members of the Good Sams RV club of which we are members. We met with the various clubs that make up the Florida Good Sams – 392 motor homes of various sizes and ages.

This group is a little too keen on wearing the multi-colored vests of their various clubs. The vests carry dozens of patches that designate the owner as having attended the various Samborees through the years. Some people seem to get off on collecting these tags. Not me.

We did meet up with a couple who are still RV-ing after being married for 67 years. He was 91 years old and it did make me wonder which road he was taking out of town at the end of the Samboree since I would want to be on a different road.

Birds and Beaches

If you know of anything that surpasses sitting on a quiet beach while birds wheel about, catching their lunch, please write me. 

We're just back from the causeway to Anna Maria Island, on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico,  where we spent three hours watching laughing gulls, a loon, pelicans, great blue herons, egrets, terns and and a lonely sandpiper do what they must do each day to stay alive.

The laughing gulls were the most active - and the louded, of course. One of their flock caught a spiny fish, maybe four inches long. It seemed too large for him to swallow but he spent a long time washing the debris off the fish and positioning it, head down, so it would slide down his throat. In the meantime, his buddies cackled and laughed and tried to separate him from his catch.

He dragged the fish well up on the land and continually flipped it back and forth, presumably trying to tear it into bitesize chunks. But it was a tough little fish. So the gull said, "Here goes" and swallowed it, spines and all. That seemed to settle the arguments among the other gulls so he was left alone for a bit. 

But that fish stuck in his throat and it didn't take long for him to regurgitate it. He worked again and chopping it up without success. His buddied returned to annoy and harrass him, so he chomped down on it and swallowed his catch one more time.

We watched the pelicans as they swooped and slid across the bay, eye down, on a glide path that they would alter in a millisecond if they caught sight of a fish. They immediately contorted and dived in that prehistoric pterodactyl-like way. Up they'd come with the fish in their bills and then they would flip it around so it would head down to their stomachs head first.

A silent loon lingered off-shore, diving and feeding but nevder making the loon sound that we love to hear when they are in the northern states. These birds fly south to Florida for the winter but they are mute while in the south. Their plaintive cry comes only when they are in the lakes of New Hampshire or Maine or Vermont.

If you click on the main picture at the top of the blog, you'll see a much enlarged version. If you click on the loon picture at the top left, that will take you to our photo album of the birds.

My particular friend

Whoomph! and a half second later, another Whoomph!

Our motor home wobbled as the blast hit us and then hit again. We went outside on Saturday afternoon and saw the contrail in the sky over our heads. Oh, that was the Discovery Shuttle going through the sound barrier - twice - as she returned to Cape Canaveral on the east coast of Florida after doing more than five million miles chasing around the earth at 17,500 miles an hour over the past 10 days.

It was a satisfactory conclusion to a visit we were enjoying with Richard Curtis, above right, the just-retired managing editor for graphics and design with USA Today. Richard and I worked together back in the mid-seventies at the St. Petersburg Times here in Florida. Actually, we both were fired from that newspaper on the same day back in 1975.

And, coincidentally, on Thursday evening of this week the guy who fired me was the honored guest of a Public Television business journal. So here we were, Richard and I, visiting together in the balmy Florida air.

Richard had just completed a week-long workshop to train journalism trainers at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg.

Both of us went on to bigger and better things after St. Pete. So neither of us harbor any resentment or angst about that awful day 34 years ago when he was called into the managing editor's office while I was summoned to the executive editor's office.

Without any warning, each of us was told it was over for us. We had been running the newsfeatures department at the St. Pete Times, doing some pretty amazing journalism for the time, particularly in writing about consumer affairs. The paper's coverage had recently been lauded by Time Magazine, being held up as an example of community journalism that looked out for the reader's interests.

But our reporting was so aggressive that we had exposed some local advertisers for their shady bait and switch selling techniques. As a result, the newspaper could point to lost revenue as a result of the stories.

Neither Richard nor I had received any warning that we were perhaps too aggressive. So each of us was rocked when we were told it was time for us to empty our desks and leave that very afternoon.

I returned to my desk, shaken, and saw Richard coming out of the managing editor's office. I assumed that he had been called in to be promoted to be the newsfeatures editor, as my replacement. I congratulated him on his promotion. He looked as me as if I were insane. "I was just fired as well," he said.

We had a party that night, with all the staff. And then we set about redesigning our lives.

Richard told me he had had dinner last Sunday with the then-managing editor of the newspaper, Robert Haiman. He actually had the good grace to apologize to Richard for the firing. He said it was one the great mistakes of his professional life. I'm still awaiting the apology to me.

As Richard said, though, it was the best thing that happened to him for it eventually took him to USA Today before it was even born. He was in at the founding of the paper and has left a substantial mark on American journalism.

Cat Connections

We have a motor homing friend who alerted us to the story of Sammy the cat that lives in a post office in Alabama.

"This month while watching CNN News on TV, we saw a story about a cat named Sammy who lives in Notasulga, Alabama.  He resides at the U.S. Post Office and takes comfort on a sunlit window shelf inside the post office.  He is greeted each day by many people who have come to love the postal mascot.  

"One day a grumpy customer reported the furry vagrant as not belonging in the post office because he did no business there.  The powers that be acted swiftly and had poor Sammy evicted with no notice. But one of the town’s residents found a loophole and purchased a P.O. Box in Sammy’s name, thus Sammy had a right to be in the post office because he had Box # 173 and can now legally receive mail.  And mail he did receive!!! 

 "One of the residents helped Sammy read the hundreds of letters sent from all over America.  There were kitty gifts, food, toys and yes, even money.  Sammy decided to donate the money to the local animal shelter to help his comrades get their three squares and a bed.  With his new found popularity, Sammy now lives in the lap of luxury, no longer homeless. The locals feel that his next project may be to run for public office.  The lesson here…………….mess with a cat, get the claws!!   Care to send Sammy a note?  His address is:                   

Sammy the Cat

U.S. Post Office

Box 173

Notasulga, Alabama"

So that's what Chai did. Her lack of opposable thumbs is no impediment but I did have to do the typing, mostly because her spelling is just beyond awful. Here's what she sent to Sammy:

"Hey, guy, I'm quite impressed with how you have manipulated the humans in your little town. Seems to me you are an inspiration to all of us smarter cats and I plan to follow in your footprints.

"Allow me to tell you something of my own exploits. I am six years old, according to the human calendar. I'm a trim eight pounds, and I pretty well rule the roost at my home. I also have the unique distinction among all the cats I know of having traveled completely around the world. I left the U.S. in August 2003 from Newark Airport. I flew with the people who like to be known as master and mistress to Seattle, then on to Taiwan. The people in the airport there spoke no English and they were surprised when the mistress refused to allow them to X-ray her red carrying bag because I was inside it. They thought she was saying "Camera" when they asked what was inside. It dawned on them she was carrying a cat when she said "Meow, Meow." So they all crowded around to pet me and then passed me through.

"When I came into Phnom Penh in Cambodia the people at the Immigration counter didn't even know I was there. I just sat in my red bag and didn't make a sound. A year later, after teaching Cambodian people how to play with cats (I had heard the master say the local people eat cats), I left and flew to Thailand where I was very close to the spiritual home of all Siamese Cats. This country felt different to me, mostly because they revere things like cats and kings. Anyway, I flew to Germany, then to Spain before returning to Germany and then back to the U.S. So, you can see, I have seen much more than the inside of a post office. Actually, I have never seen the inside of a post office. So that may be something I'll see if the handlers can show me before we leave Florida.

"Enjoy your life, Sammy. If we drive through Notasulga, Alabama, we'll definitely stop by and maybe buy you a stamp so you can send out a letter.

"Thanks for keeping life interesting. Chai."