Celebrating Mardi Gras in Rubonia

Young woman draws a beer from the tap on the rear of a Volkswagen.

It wasn't exactly Mardi Gras in the New Orleans style. But it was a wondrous affair that crossed all kinds of cultural boundaries.
Rubonia is not really a town so much as it is a way of life. It is just down the road from where we park our RV motor home for the winter. Every time I drive through Rubonia, I liken it to driving through the north of Namibia. First, it is totally black. There are chickens that strut in the road and there invariably is an old oil drum off to the side of the road with three or four black guys crouched around the fire that is inside the drum. There's something pleasant and quaint about Rubonia. It is quite reminiscent of the early years of Florida's development. It's just a crossroads on the old Route 41.
The official "Terra Ceia-Rubonia Mardi Gras Parade" began in 1980, when a small band of friends, the "Crewe of the Mystic Rainbow," assembled a few makeshift floats and marched their parade through the sleepy little town of Rubonia in honor of Luann Topp's birthday. In 1995, after 16 years of ever-larger crowds, loads of mirth, and no major problems, Luann was confronted by County officials demanding permits, liability insurance, security, etc., etc., etc. Because neither she nor any of the "disorganizers" of the parade were wealthy, Luann decided she had to bow aside.
In 1996, urged by the residents, the Rubonia Community Center agreed to host the event, and the tradition then continued under the sponsorship of the United Community Centers organization. But the event grew larger and became more costly, and after the 2006 event, the UCC decided to pull out. Luann Topp ("Ruby Begonia"), Bill Burger of the "Crewe of the Awed Fellows," and Mr. James Gordon, "mayor" of Rubonia, stepped
forward to create the "Rubonia Mardi Gras Trust" to raise the money needed for the festivities. And that brings us to today.
We carried our chairs down the road to the sound of raucous music and sirens. Police cars moved back and forth along the highway and there were sheriff's deputies riding along on their horses.
At 2 p.m., the parade started. It was an eclectic collection of home-made and commercial floats. Mostly we were surprised as the cultural diversity of the participants. There were black bikers, driving by on their tricked out Harley Davidsons. Then there would be a float with folks aboard throwing Mardi Gras beads to the cheering crowds at the side of the road.
The pictures in the photo album tell the story better than most words could.
You'll probably chuckle at the cars that are designed to rise at the front, lifting wheels off the ground. Those were driven by Hispanic folks. The white folks were aboard the floats, tossing the countless bead necklaces and baubles to the crowd.

Hey there! My name is Ting Lee. I've just been adopted by Bob and Jo and I was rummaging through their stuff on the computer (we cats love to do the rummaging). It wasn't that hard. I found if I stood on the keyboard of Bob's computer and pressed the following keys: f3-q-space bar-f10-pg up-0 and j that it opens up a whole world of information.
What I discovered that I wanted to share with you is the following document. It had been typed in by the previous occupant of this motor home. She was named Chai and apparently was much loved by the folks who have adopted me.
I don't know how she managed to put all the information together and then save it. But if you know us Siamese, you'll know we have superior intellects and she probably just watched Bob as he worked on the laptop.
I'll be back to you with more information about me. In the meantime, I'm a female Siamese, born on Dec. 3, 2009. My mom is a Bluepoint and my dad is a Sealpoint. I have another sister and three brothers. I'm including a picture of me that Bob shot this afternoon after making the trip home.
Anyway, here's the file I uncovered.

Secret Diary of a Well-Traveled Cat

I'm writing this while the beloveds are asleep. It's dark outside. But that has never been an issue with me for I have superb sight in low light.

Remember, we cats are predators. And we like to do much of our hunting at night, so we have adapted our eyes to see six times better in low light than a human. By the way, and I don't want to digress too far, but you should know this: We hate, as a breed, being stared at. Often, when a cat enters a room with several people in it the cat will approach the person in the group who likes cats the least. This may be because the people who like cats will show interest in it by looking at it for prolonged amounts of time. Unintentionally, they may be making the cat feel as though it's being stared at, and making the cat feel uncomfortable. In this situation the cat will often approach someone in the room who is not a cat lover, because that's a person who is not staring at them. I remember my parental units used to remember and laugh about a previous Siamese they had who invariably jumped on the head of Bob's brother when he visited. Bill was not a cat lover by any means. But that cat knew by jumping on his head and doing a quick Texas two-step in his hair she could get a wonderful reaction from him.

I was born in Vermont on Jan. 22, 2003. By sweet coincidence (if there is such a thing) Bob and Jo were spending the winter up in that frozen land by living in luxury in their youngest daughter's mother in law's condominium. It stood on a cliff, overlooking the frozen Lake Champlain and you could see the watery sun set to the west amid the mountains of New York State. It snowed much that winter and Bob and Jo stomped through the snow on walks.
Jo and daughter Stephanie often would go cross-country skiing at the lake. Bob and Jo had recently buried another Siamese named Ming while they cruised the Chesapeake Bay and were just getting over their grieving process.
Jo was ready to find me but she didn't know where I was. I was with my mom, still suckling, when Jo and Stephanie visited a pet shop. The pet shop owner said he had a litter of Siamese kittens coming in in another two weeks. That was in late February, 2003.
When Jo and Bob visited the store again, I was there with my brothers and sisters. We all were having a great time playing but I was the runt of the litter. I had a drippy nose but I had a lot of spirit and I liked being stroked by the pair of them.
They took my home when I was 10 weeks old. I was lonely for my brothers and sisters. But they surely loved me and took pains to train me to use a box so I wouldn't mess up Jane's condo.
I liked to sit under Jo's neck in the evening while she was knitting. I'd nuzzle and then grab at the loose wool.
Everything seemed fine to me until the winter came to an end. The parentals were anxious to drive south to Connecticut where their boat had been sitting out the winter in their slip in New Haven. I, of course, had no clue about what a boat was. But I could hear them talk about the preparation for the grand cruise of New England, wherever that was.
We moved aboard while they stocked the boat and did the endless maintenance chores that seem to be related to all things mechanical. I like the smell of the place. I could smell Ming and another cat named Misha who had sailed with the boat three years earlier. I found nifty little cubby holes where I could hide.
Bob and Jo moved my box aboard and that made everything secure for me. I like orderliness.
We set sail at the end of May. My this was different from anything I knew before. I kind of liked the way the boat tipped over (they called it heeling). It taught me how to use my legs to adjust for the heel of the boat so I could always remain level. No sweat.
We sailed together through the Cape Cod Canal and that took us into Cape Cod Bay where the Pilgrims had come almost four hundred years earlier. Now we were moving downeast, according to Bob. The southwest wind drove us easily along. We passed along the coast of New Hampshire and Maine. We lingered at the Isles of Shoals, off the coast. This is where I discovered the joys of sailing in fog so thick it was impossible to see beyond the bow of the little boat. Jo was a bit nervous in the fog. Bob seemed to bubble with enthusiasm because of the challenge. I, on the other hand would stay below because I knew intuitively that if I fell overboard it would be the end for me.
Everyday was foggy. We would wake up and the wisps would curl around the boat. We'd keep our stove on to stay warm. Sometimes, we wouldn't move from our anchorage...but that was fun too. We would entertain ourselves with a feather or a catnip mouse.
I thought life couldn't possibly get any better. But it all changed when we came to Southwest Harbor and we were picked up by friends Dave and Bena. They drove us to a pre-arranged visit with a vet in the little town of Ellsworth, Maine. I was feeling fine, thanks for asking. But the vet put me to sleep for a bit while he neutered me. I thought that was totally uncalled for. When the parentals picked me up later in the day, I was totally drugged up and I felt like the stuffing had been knocked out of me. No one had discussed this with me so I was a little cranky about the turn of events.
We sailed along, getting farther north and east until we came to the border of Canada and the U.S. We were now in a place called the Bay of Fundy. Our little boat was not that fast. But it became a roaring demon when the tidal current ran up the bay. The tide rose 25 feet each day – and also fell that amount. So we had to choose when we wanted to move with the current.
We headed back to the southwest and, of course, now I had to get used to the thrumming noise of their diesel engine because we were usually fighting the wind. Bob received a phone call while we sailed along that was to change my life. He was interviewed by phone for the position of head of a journalism training center in some place at the other side of the world named Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I learned later this is very close to the place where my breed of cat originated. When I was told about this there seemed to be something of the way of destiny involved in the destination.
I had learned during my seven months with the parentals that they seemed like lovely people who deserved my complete and devoted loyalty. So, when they put me in a little red bag and we boarded a jet, I figured I probably would survive the trauma. I wasn't thrilled, you understand, but I figured if they were with me I would probably survive.
When we got to Seattle, we got off the plane and Jo took me to the ladies' room. She had brought along a cardboard cake box that she unfolded and put a Ziploc bag of kitty litter into the box. She put me in the box and then placed me in the box. But the noises of people flushing toilets and pulling carts in and out of the bathroom was too overwhelming for me so I couldn't go.
We boarded the plane again and the next stop was Taipei in Taiwan. We had a big layover there and we changed planes. This resulted in a new security check. The Chinese-speaking man asked Jo to drop her red bag and walk through the machine that checks you. Jo said there was a cat in the bag. But the little man didn't understand. He said, “Camera?” “No, cat,” Jo said. “Meow meow.” He laughed in recognition and then asked her to unzip my bag. I popped my head out. Now there three other Chinese ladies around me. All of them wanted to stroke me. Jo carried me through the machine while the red bag was x-rayed. Then we flew south and west to Cambodia. Oh, dear, this was quite different. I like orderliness, I think I mentioned earlier. But Cambodia is the very opposite of orderly. It is complete and utter chaos. Thankfully, Bob and Jo were met at the airport by a wonderful man name Pouv. He hustled all of us through customs and immigration. No one even asked Jo to open her red bag so I was in the country and driving through the mad streets of Phnom Penh before I knew it.
Pouv took us to a little dirt street and opened an iron gate to reveal our home for the next year. Wow. It was huge. Five bedrooms and five bathrooms for me to explore. A huge balcony with the living room and dining room. And the roof was wide open for us to climb up some stairs and run free. I thought this was something else.
Here's what I learned in Cambodia. First, the people eat cats so that is not good. I learned I needed to be careful. But I come with a curiosity gene and this cannot be subdued without causing a loss in a cat's reason for living.
Bob and Jo assigned Boo, our tiny Cambodian house guard who slept on a mat on the front step of the house, to be in charge of keeping me safe. Boo's job was to keep me inside the compound. There was the wall with barbed wire and the big gate. My job was to explore. Boo would grab me and take me inside the house. He would scold me in Khmer, but I would just meow back at him in Siamese.
I loved living in that big house.
When I'd enter a room, my first job was to check the walls. There were all these geckos running around on the walls. They would eat mosquitoes so they were our friends. Bob and Jo slept under a net for protection. I saw it as my job to chase the geckos. I could catch them but they were crafty. They would let their tails break off and then scoot up the walls and hide behind the pictures. But it was great entertainment.
Boo would come upstairs at night and lock all of the doors so robbers couldn't break in. Bob and Jo hated that but they agreed that it was best to be safe. I taught Eng, our housekeeper, what fun it is to have a pet. She had never seen a pet before so she didn't really know what was expected of her. But she was a sweet person who always checked to see I had fresh water and new food each day. She and Boo would slip me pieces of fish or chicken because they just didn't believe I could live on the dry cat food that Bob and Jo bought at the market.
I taught Eng how to have fun. When she changed the sheets in the bedroom, I would dive under the sheet and pounce as she would try to tuck it in. She would squeal with delight and call me nice things in Khmer... at least, I thought they were nice things.
When Bob and Jo took off to spend two weeks in Vietnam, I would wander the house but Eng and Boo and Sokhorn, the driver, would entertain me. So I never felt lonely.
When we left Cambodia to return to the U.S. After a year, we ran into a big problem for me at the Phnom Penh Airport. I had always traveled with the beloveds under their seats in my little red bag. But the Thai Airways clerk said I could not do that for the trip to Bangkok. He wanted me to be put in a crate and placed in the luggage compartment of the job. Bob was adamant about not doing this because, he said, he couldn't be sure that the compartment would be heated and protected from the loss of air pressure. The agent was quite stern, though and said Bob would have to drive back to Phnom Penh and buy a crate. Bob said this could not work because the plane would take off before he could do that. They argued for half an hour and then Bob thought up a scary strategy. I sat there in my bag, listening to all this and I didn't like what I heard.
“You hold the cat,” Bob told the clerk, “and I will snap its neck so it will die right here. I cannot put the cat through the risk.” The clerk, a Buddhist who believed he should never cause any harm to a living creature, was shocked. “No. No. No,” he said, with fear in his eyes. “I cannot do that.” I sat listening to this crazy talk and knew that it would never happen. It was just Bob trying to negotiate. Then the clerk said to wait a minute. He went into the back and returned with a huge cardboard box. He had cut windows on the box that were so large you could pass my red bag through them.
“Put the cat in her bag inside the box,” the clerk said. “Then I will arrange for the box to be waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs when you arrive in Bangkok.” So I flew off inside my big box and was sitting at the foot of the stairs when Bob and Jo came down on arrival. They cut the box open and carried me into the airport where they booked me into the under-the-seat space for the trip to Frankfurt, Germany, and then on to Spain.
Spain was a bit of an adventure. Bob's brother Bill, a hater of cats, said he would pay to store me in an animal hotel. That wasn't too bad. But there were far too many dogs for my comfort zone. It wasn't that they could get at me in my cage. But their infernal howling, barking and whining is just too much for any civilized cat. I was glad to get out of there and back to Germany before flying home to the U.S.
Our sailing life resumed and we relaunched our boat and sailing south to Florida. I loved that boat because we were all together.
I remember I would get to go crazy every night at sunset. We'd generally be anchored and it would be nice a quiet. Bob and Jo would sit in the cockpit, watching the sun sink below the trees. I would race along the boom and jump to the bimini and then down to the propane gas tank that hung over the stern. I only fell in once on that trip. Boy, I hated that cold salty water but I could swim in what they call a doggy paddle. I also would announce that I was overboard with a special low moan and Bob would grab a fishing net to scoop me up onto the deck. Jo would immediately took me below and gave me a fresh water bath to get rid of the salt.
In the evenings, I liked to collect all of my stuffed mice and balls on the floor and then I would throw them into the air until the parentals got involved and helped by throwing them from one end of the inside of the boat to the other.
I had my special places on the boat where I would curl up for the night. Jo made a basket, lined with wool inside a tight little cubby and I'd love to curl up in there for the night.
When we arrived in Bradenton, Florida, we tied up at a marina that was overrun by pigeons. I thought I could be useful to the boat owners so I set about trying to catch the pigeons. Bob calls them “rats with wings” and I feel pretty much the same way. It took me five days before I could catch one. I proudly brought it back aboard, still alive, and presented it to Bob. He praised me. But he said to let it go. I just didn't get it. He put his hand over my mouth and pried my mouth open. The bird flew off under the dock, not believing its luck. I realized right there and then that I would have to change my strategy. Thereafter, I found it better to catch and kill the birds and then bring them back to the master. The other sailors on the dock thought I was their hero because there was a lot less bird shit on their boats.
We moved our boat to another marina across the river in 2005, where I fell into the water while they were off the boat. When they returned I was clinging to the oyster shells that grew at the foot of a nearby bridge. Boy, did I give them a piece of my mind about falling overboard like that. The thing that really worried me was that three dolphins often came to the bridge in the evening. I would sit on the boat and watch them round up fish for dinner. They would circle the fish then one dolphin would grab a fish and throw it against the bridge uprights to kill the fish. I feared the dolphins would come by and see me clinging to the oysters and then try the throw me around. But I was rescued when Bob got into the dinghy and rowed over the bridge for the rescue.
Bob and Jo flew me up to Connecticut to stay with two other cats and a dog at the home of Lynn and John, the parentals' daughter and son in law. This was a long stay for me – three or four months. It seemed like years. I did enjoy playing with the other cats... that was a new experience for me. The dog, not so good. But I have this philosophy that if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. So I got stronger.
Bob and Jo went off to Africa and it was too difficult to bring me over there. So I thought they had pretty much abandoned me and I didn't like that. But one day they reappeared. Who knew! In they walked and they picked me up and stroked me like they had been out getting groceries or something. What a nerve. I tried to give them the cold shoulder. But I secretly was delighted they were back. We flew back to the boat and life's slow and easy-going pace resumed.
I noticed, though, that Bob was having more and more difficulties getting down into the innards of the boat to maintain it. I heard a fearful amount of complaining on his part. But we cruised closer to our base in Bradenton, Florida, and took things easy.
A year passed, and they dropped me off in Connecticut again while they took off for Africa one more time. It was very easy to integrate back into the adopted family up there and I really enjoyed the game playing between us cats.
Lynn had a new dog named Zoey and she presented awesome challenges. Zoey actually seemed to want to eat cats. She was big and black and had a blue tongue and seemed to delight in chasing the three of us. Totally unacceptable.
I decided we should not allow this total victimization so I held a seminar with the two other fluffballs. I explained to them about feline right and how we must stand up. “We will be treated in the way we allow ourselves to be treated,” I told them. I'd picked up this nugget by watching Dr. Phil on the telly.
Instead of skulking around in the safety of the upstairs bedrooms, we cats decided to push back. We batted at Zoey's nose and hissed our hearts out. Zoey backed off. But you could see she still wanted one thing: to eat us. Jo and Bob came back from Africa and rescued me from this potential bloodbath. Then we flew off to Florida and for life back aboard the boat.
But Bob's back was causing more and more problems and the parentals began to look around for a motor home. This was all done behind my back. But, when I learned what was going on, I figured what does it really matter where I live. So long as I'm close to the beloveds I have all I need. They feed me, clean me and pet me. They see that I get my shots and they add adventure to my life. So I was fine with all the new ideas that floated around.
They found a motor home and we tried it out. Then they parked it and decided to move the boat back north to Connecticut where they would sell it.
We headed the boat south around the tip of Florida and back up the east coast. But Bob's back gave out and the pain made it almost impossible to maneuver. So I remember him getting on the internet in Melbourne, Florida, to find a boat shipper. They worked out a deal and a huge truck came to the marina and hauled the boat out of the water and into the truck. We all drove back across the state to pick up the motor home and we all headed north to meet the boat in Connecticut.
They launched the boat and took it to the slip they owned and we lived between the boat and the motor home for a few months. When winter came around, however, they hauled the boat 'way up the Connecticut River and covered it up. Then we headed south aboard the motor home.
Now we were on a whole new adventure. We wandered north after the winter and drove into Canada where I discovered people who spoke a different language when we visited Montreal and Quebec City. They seemed to love me and called me “le chat” while they played with me.
We drove to Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island which was beautiful and seemed to touch Bob's heart because it reminded him of his native Scotland.
Back south we came, stopping on the way to visit a true cat lover, Bob Norling in New Hampshire. Bob loved to play with me and explained he doesn't have a cat anymore because it is too difficult when we die. Pish-posh, I said in my meow-talk. Live for today and enjoy.
We came on down through the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Very windy. And the wind pushed my fur coat in the wrong directions...totally unacceptable.
We wintered in the warm south and I spent countless hours chasing squirrels to the end of my leash when the parentals put me outside. The squirrels lived in an oak tree on our lot and seemed to take as much delight in teasing me as did Zoey up in Connecticut. I never could catch them because they knew to within an inch how long my leash could reach.
What's nice about being outdoors is that people walking by get a chance to admire you. I got a lot of attention and that was good. I never was thrilled when people walked their dogs by. They are incredibly stupid creatures. But they surely have a good sense of smell. They would sniff me out and then strain at their leashes in an attempt to get over to me. I never did learn how to figure out if a dog was bad tempered or just interested in sniffing my hind quarters.
We did a great trip the next year: Up the center of the U.S., then through Canada's Ontario Province and back to the Vermont where I spent time avoiding another meatball of a dog. This one is called Maia, or something like that. She told me she was a cross between a poodle and a labrador. She actually was a full-blooded idiot. The dog would get so excited when Bob walked in the door that she would spontaneously pee. Now, I ask you: Is that decorous behavior for anyone?
When we came back to Florida last year, I stayed in my motor home when we arrived in a tiny village named Banner Elk in North Carolina. The friends that Bob and Jo stayed with are allergic to cats so I could not stay inside with them. It was a bit lonely, but you get over it. We drove on through the Smoky Mountains and then through Georgia. When we got back to our lot in Florida, it was like coming home. Everyone came by to welcome me back and I felt like a star.
I was approaching seven years of age by then. And a week before my birthday, I felt something odd in my chest. I had a hard time breathing and knew something was not right down there. Bob and Jo took my to the vet and the X ray was not good. I had a lot of fluid in my chest. The next morning, another vet, this time a specialist in cancer, found a huge tumor in my chest. She said it had probably developed very quickly.
Bob and Jo took my home and I lay very still in my basket for 24 hours. I didn't eat and couldn't drink. I couldn't use my box and knew my end was near. I didn't want to go. And when Bob handed me over to the vet the next morning, he broke down and cried. The last thing I remember is looking at him as the vet held me. Bob reached out, tears streaming down his face, and stroked me and said goodbye.
Now, in the tradition of all Buddhist Siamese cats, I am looking for a new vessel I can inhabit. I have given much love and laughter...and have received much in return.
I am quite sanguine about life and death. I shall return.

The Passing of Chai

It's over now. And it came upon us and Chai so fast that we are struggling with our loss. Chai was put to sleep this morning after she showed signs of labored breathing just 36 hours ago.
Jo came home from a luncheon on Wednesday and noticed the cat lying on the floor of our motor home. She was panting and very lethargic. When I returned from exercise, she suggested we call the vet, since Chai has never been sick in all of her seven years. The vet saw us at 5 p.m. on Wednesday. He did two xrays and found a massive amount of fluid in her thoracic cavity. He said he wanted to draw off some of the fluid to check it. This fluid was almost all blood - 300 ml of it. He said a cat the size of Chai (about eight pounds) usually has two liters of blood circulating. He put her on oxygen and suggested that we take her to an emergency animal hospital for overnight monitoring.
Jo and I drove her south about 25 miles and checked her in. The vet there set about analysing her blood to see is she had the ability to coagulate. The lack of coagulation would indicate she had been poisoned. Her tests showed she was coagulating, which indicated there might be tumor which was being masked by the fluid. She suggested keeping her overnight in an oxygen tent and then setting up an appointment on Thursday morning with a vet who could do an ultrasound scan of her chest.
We took her to a third vet on Thursday morning at 8 a.m. and it took seconds for the vet to gasp at the size of the tumor. It was between five and six times the size of her heart and was pressing on the heart.
The vet said thoracic surgery was not a good idea because of the size of the tumor. She said it was time for us to let Chai go. The shock of this news knocked the stuffing out of both of us. We drove home and Jo suggested that we hold onto Chai through Thursday so we could say goodbye - a smart decision.
This morning (Friday), I called our primary vet and arranged to have the cat euthanized.
So it is all over now - exactly seven years to the day after she was born. And we are both heartbroken.
This wonderful, loving creature brought so much joy to us in her seven years. She had touched so many lives and we think lovingly back to people like our housekeeper in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She had never seen a pet cat before since life in that land does not permit most people the luxury of having a pet. Jo and I reveled in the squeals of delight we would hear from Eng, our housekeeper, as she was changing the sheets on our bed and Chai would get under the billowing sheets to make a dive at them when they touched the mattress. We remember the guard, named Boo, at our house there who allowed Chai to escape the compound. He went off down the dirt street, calling for Chai and checking with the guards at each of the neighboring homes. Eventually, he found her and proudly brought her back to us, arms outstretched, carrying Chai, smiling and saying, "Chai, Chai."
She traveled around the entire world with us, visiting Cambodia, Thailand, Taiwan, Germany, Spain, Canada and the U.S. and she sailed 12,000 miles. She fell into the Atlantic in Maine and into the Gulf of Mexico in Florida. But she survived it all and loved her adventures.
When she was with us, she was at her happiest.And so it was with us. Oh, dear Chai, we shall miss you.

This Anhinga dries his feathers on a branch in Emerson Point Park, Palmetto, Fl.

Our cold snap was one for the record books. Lizards fell from trees in a comatose state. Foot-and-a-half-long snook died because the Gulf of Mexico waters turned too cold to support them. Farmers who watered their crops in an attempt to create an insulating coating of ice on their strawberries and oranges sucked so much water from the aquifer that we now are being plagued by dozens of sinkholes so large that entire houses are dropping 40 feet into the earth. I saw a picture on television the other day in which a 50-foot high oak tree had plummeted vertically about 40 feet and only the top branches could be seen.

That being said, it has warmed sufficiently that Jo and I were able to venture out on our canoe again. We took a trail through the red mangrove bushes at the end of a spit of land, and poked our way through the sun-dappled waters where very few fish were jumping. We came up many water birds, though. They must be hungry since their meal of fish has been so depleted. But they seemed pretty happy up in the branches.

The anhinga is a beautiful, pre-historic-type bird with his snake-like neck and mahogany-brown feathers. He has the difficult problem that he needs to dive and swim under water for long periods of time, seeking his prey. His feathers do not have enough oils embedded in them and, as a result, his underwater sojourns result in his getting waterlogged. This makes it very difficult for him to take off from the water. So you always will see anhingas perched on branches with their wings out, airing them in the warming sun. This is the only way they can return to diving and feeding.

We saw 8-10 osprey, fluttering like helicopters at 100-200 feet and looking down with their eagle eyes to survey the fish scene. They drop out of the skies like a bomb when they spot their fish. I remember 60 years ago in Scotland that only five osprey were left in the country. They had been killed off by DDT, which caused the egg shells to crack prematurely. It is to our credit as humans that we've managed to bring this magnificent bird back from extinction.

A Man Named Bill

This wood spirit (right) is my first attempt at wood carving.

I want to tell you about Bill Tripp from Michigan.
He and I have become buddies in the RV resort because he has helped me explore the possibilities of wood carving as a new hobby. Bill, who has a shock of perfectly white hair, is in his late 70s and is generally considered a bit of a character in the resort.
He is an old Marine, having served in Korea in the 50's. He has a busy, busy mind that rarely stays on topic for more than a minute or two and he tends not to hear too well. When you repeat a question he usually shoots his right hand up to his head and slaps his ear, saying, "I don't hear so well, y'know. It's the bombs! It's the bombs!"
What I like about this fellow is that he and his wife, Donna, have little money, like us, but they have a routine in which they help their fellow man.
Bill took me along the other day. He had already picked up free, nearly out-of-date bread and rolls from a bakery. He gave some to a Mexican family up the road who run a fruit and vegetable stand. They, in turn, invited him to take away the tired fruit and veggies from their stand.
We drove another few minutes north to a farm where he fed the fruit and veggies to a cow and her two calves. They moo-ed in delight as we split water melons apart and they dug into the fleshy meat of the melons. They loved the stale bread and the tomatoes, peppers and oranges that we threw into their field.
We then moved over to the fruit trees where we gathered ripe pink and white grapefruit and all manner of oranges - bell-shaped, tangerines. We put those into plastic bags and stacked them in the back of his truck.
We then chain-sawed the tired old boards of a house that he had helped demolish on the farm during the past few months. We heaped some of the boards into the back of his truck and drove up to the farmhouse where we dumped the wood on an outdoor fireplace where it will be burned.
Now we started to feed the pig that was snuffling and snorting and rooting around in her muddy pigpen. She is partial to melon but also loves stale bread and anything else he has available.
We moved over to the rooster and his harem. They get white bread. Next door was a peacock, his hen and their two offspring. They get whole wheat bread. By this time, the cow and her two calves had made it through the field and were lined up at the fence next to the pigpen to try for an additional tidbit. Bill opened a pack of dated Snowball sugar puffs, discarded by the bakery though they probably have enough preservatives in them to last another century. I made a friend for life with the cow when I fed her this sugary treat. She moo-ed for more and kept trying to nudge her calves away so she could enjoy this treat which probably will result in awesomely sugary milk.
We washed out the rear of the truck and headed back to the resort, tired from the exertion but knowing the final task was to provide the bags of succulent fruit, just plucked from the trees, to the folks who might want to increase their Vitamin C intake.

The Continuing Soap Opera

We're back in our slot at Terra Ceia RV Resort in Palmetto, Florida. Hello, Boyce, the dim-witted neighbor who worked hard last winter at two jobs - being a janitor at a local school and doing all kinds of things at the nearby Walmart - is gone. Gone. Gone as in his lot is empty and he has moved away.

It only takes a couple of minutes with the neighbors to find out that Boyce was thrown out because he failed to pay his lot rent. He also made a habit of borrowing money from his neighbors and then failing to pay back his debt. When they came to haul away his mobile home, the wheels apparently fell off and this caused a bit of a stir.

He had taken up with a woman in the resort who lived in another home. She, we are told, is a lesbian who is pregnant and large with the child by her black drug dealer. She and Boyce seemed to have a thing when we were here earlier in the year. So who knew. The woman still lives here. But the fact that she is messing about with a black man has incensed some of our more redneck residents.

Jo was bombarded with the word "nigger" by one of our neighbors within the first 10 minutes of our being in our slot. Apparently there is some fear that our black brothers are trying to move into the neighborhood. What they don't seem to realize is when we lived in St. Petersburg back in the 1970s - it is the city immediately to our north, across Tampa Bay - Palmetto then was known as a poor black enclave. Then the whites discovered the real estate values were much lower across the bay and residential developments sprouted like mushrooms.

Soothing waters

These two turtles take in the warm sun on a sunken log in Little Manatee Rivers Park.

Our laminated wooden paddles dip, dip, dip into the tea-colored waters of the Little Manatee River. It is so quiet that the dripping drops of water when we lift the paddles from the river make the only sound.
We slide along under the Spanish moss that hangs from the oak trees on the river bank. Not a sound. There are three turtles sitting on a half-submerged log. They watch our arrival, craning their necks to keep us in view since we represent the greatest threat to them in this peaceful wilderness.
Snook, 18 inches to two feet long, make their way upriver. They seem to move with purpose but nothing is chasing them. Perhaps they are chasing smaller fish. A pileated woodpecker flap, flap, flaps overhead. He/she lands on a dead palm tree and we hear him drumming his beak into the wood.
There is almost a guilty pleasure as we pass slowly and peacefully along this waterway in our canoe.
Earlier in the day, I had connected to the Internet and read that one of my favorite reporters from 30 years ago, Lisa Schnellinger, had just flown into Erbil, Iraq to train two groups of Iraqi journalism trainers on voter-oriented election coverage. Arghhhh! Why am I enjoying myself on the Little Manatee while she is putting her life on the line? See; there's that old Calvinist thing that creates guilt in those who are not struggling!
Well, I'll be thinking about this courageous young woman who's trying to make the world a slightly better place.