Florida, Part 2: Great Men and Chickens

chickens, Florida, Great Men, , ,

Florida as we know it today, one might conclude from formal public art and street signs, was created by Great Men. Of course, we all know that is not true, but Great Men are on display almost everywhere around the state. Ponce de Leon, though he failed to find the Fountain of Youth, did “discover” Florida (as the History Channel explains, this happened on April 2, 1513). His name is commemorated in parks, streets, and a whole town in the state.

Henry Flagler came much later, but is credited with inventing tourism in Florida. Although one encounters Flagler’s name in many places in Florida, we learned all about Flagler while in Key West, through a very illuminating exhibition at the Custom House museum. One of his chief feats was masterminding the Florida East Coast Railway, an enormous and costly venture (in funds and number of workers killed during the construction) linking the most remote but also the most populated and economically successful of the chain of islands to Miami. Voila, tourism is born, sort of.

We did not drive the length of the highway that now follows Flagler’s accomplishment, but arrived on the water via the Key West Express from Fort Myers. The day before taking the boat down, we explored this fine town and discovered that most things there are named after Three Great Men who wintered there: Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Harvey Firestone. Statues of this threesome lounge in the middle of a fountain in Centennial Park on the edge of downtown.

So much for Great Men. Let us now turn to chickens. Key West is proudly quirky, and one of these quirks comes in the form of “gypsy chickens” which roam the streets, yards and parks freely. Forget the famed six-toed cats of Hemingway’s adobe (speaking of great men); chickens rule in Key West, whole families of them. When we got tired and bored of battling the tourist frenzy of Duval Street, we settled on a park bench (which are few and far between in Key West unfortunately) and watched the chicken show, featuring dueling crowing roosters, and hens clucking in complaining “mom tones” to their tiny fluffy offspring.

Florida. So much more than warm winter weather, palm trees and water, water everywhere. Even more than great men and chickens.

  • African American soldier of the Civil War statue, Ft. Myers
  • Street art in Ft. Myers
  • Edison, Ford and Firestone
  • Key West quirky signs
  • Route 1 ends in Key West
  • Porch art in Key West
  • Small delicious Cuban restaurant, Key West
  • The art of Mario Sanchez from Key West
  • One of the many

Florida, Part I: Pie Tales

Florida, pie, Olivia Cadaval, memories,

I was introduced to the concept of winter vacation in kindergarten. Not first hand, but by a classmate who was mysteriously absent for a week and returned with salt water taffy to share, from a place called Florida. I imagine my young self biting into that sweet and salty treat and thinking it must be the essence of that mythical land.

Florida captured my imagination then, and trips there since then have done nothing to dampen its mystique. My husband and I recently spent a week escaping winter with a trip that zig-zagged us across the state several times, emphasizing its length and causing us to believe that you can’t get through the mid to lower portion of the state without going through – and getting stuck in traffic in – Orlando.

Despite that, we did enjoy the warm breezes, the blue skies and turquoise waters, the historic sites and the culinary delights. I will report on other Florida adventures in future blogs as the spirit moves. First, a tale of two pies.

I had the great idea of taking the Key West Express boat from Fort Myers to Key West. A sampling of the Keys without the drive, how brilliant! One is almost obligated to eat Key Lime Pie while in the Keys, but we didn’t. Instead, we finally had some at an iconic Indian Rocks Beach establishment called Keegan’s (“as seen on the Food Network”), a very fit accompaniment to their excellent octopus appetizer and grouper sandwiches. This is over 400 miles from Key West but the pie is just as good. Maybe better I dare say. Instead of being bright green and sporting a gooey cloud of egg white meringue, this was a dull khaki green creamy confection with a modest lashing of whipped cream. Tangy and with a sinfully buttery crust.

Pie two was enjoyed with my friend and folklore colleague Eleanor who settled several years back in Sarasota. When I arrived at her house, she asked if I wanted to go to an Amish restaurant for lunch. What?! Yes. There is an Amish community in Sarasota. And they have a couple of dueling restaurants. We went to Eleanor’s favorite, Der Dutchman.

Late February is strawberry season in Florida, so despite the fact that we were already filled to the gills with salads, fried chicken, mashed potatoes and etc. we had saved just enough room to share a piece of strawberry pie. This arrived festooned with a vast snowdrift of whipped cream, unnaturally bright red binding, and big juicy fresh strawberries. Needless to say it was delicious.

Forget the salt water taffy. After this trip, Florida has revealed its mysteries in the form of pies.

Color Correction

West Bengal,

This time last year, I was recovering from our amazing trip to India on the Communities Connecting Heritage project. The vibrant colors of West Bengal were still playing in my brain, the warmth fading but still very much lodged in my memory.

This year, despite an impending trip to Florida which will no doubt form the basis for the next blog(s), the winter colors have predominated. White, and then increasingly more gray, snow. Black trees. Dull skies. Dead tan grass and brown mud. An occasional flash of lackluster green as some vegetation dares to pop up its head.

Every once in awhile, though, you see some attempt at coloring the world that takes you by surprise. We were out walking around a portion of Arlington, since we like to explore different neighborhoods and comment on the various types of architecture, from historic homes to compact WWII era brick houses to the Monster Houses built recently, and everything in between.

Yard art and gardens are also of interest. We came across a particularly clever yard display, the colors of which popped and delighted on the overcast and chilly day. The owners had lined their pathway to the house, from sidewalk to front door, with bright bowling balls.

How they collected so many bowling balls, and why they decided to use them in this way, is a mystery. Maybe someday I will knock on their door and get the story. For the moment, though, it just made somehow think of India. Not as vibrant, not as warm, but still a flash of colorful decoration that no doubt makes the home owners, and others who pass, smile.

Revisit my India posts starting here for a virtual trip to Kolkata and beyond.

Winter Works

Winter, ,

No sooner did we get back to our unfurloughed offices when the Great Sickness of Winter 2019 bestruck a large swath of our smallish workforce. For me, this meant having to forego a long weekend trip to New York City which would surely have yielded a much more interesting blog or two. I spent several days languishing in bed coughing and binge watching instead.

Since last writing, however, we did do a couple of interesting things. One was a visit to Frederick, MD and the Civil War Medicine Museum. This may seem a gruesome way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and some of it was pretty horrid (severed limbs, anyone?) but also very illuminating. And well done. We learned, among other things, that anesthesia actually did exist back then, and getting your leg sawed off was highly preferable to dying of gangrene. Frederick has a nice small downtown, and a canal walk which featured decorated boats created by local businesses and not for profits.

We also discovered some interesting Arlington history on another recent occasion. Upon taking a walk in a neighborhood off Wilson Boulevard, not far from our favorite Vietnamese food haunt, the Eden Center, we noticed a large property set off from the road. This consisted of a semi-crumbling mansion and a set of even more dilapidated outbuildings surrounded by a large tract of land.

Upon some internet research, we discovered that this was the former home of real estate magnate/horse racing enthusiast/man about town Randolph Rouse. There was more history to this property, which of course I read and then promptly forgot and did not bookmark, so if I find that again maybe I will write more about it.

Winter is still here, despite the warm respite this week, and hopefully the sickness and furloughs are a thing of the past. Here’s to further adventures and insights soon!

Good Deeds in Weary World: A Visit to the Lincoln Cottage

#lincolncottage

If there is one good thing about the furlough/partial shutdown, which so far drags on for us “non-essentials,” it has been the motivation to visit some sites which are offering free admission. One, to get out of the house. Two, to get some culture, history and inspiration.

So, we visited the Lincoln Cottage last week. The cottage is located on the very pretty grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home (commonly called the Soldiers and Sailors Home) in Northwest Washington, DC, and it was a sort of retreat in the hot and smelly months of historic WDC for presidents including Lincoln. Back then, the three or four miles from the White House to this location was “a trip to the countryside.”

The cottage itself is pretty stark this time of year; they apparently dress it up with more exhibitions and furnishings after February. But the Visitors Center where you purchase tickets for the cottage has several rooms with exhibitions about Lincoln, the Civil War, the Home, and right now, an exhibition on immigration which includes a wall where people can leave their immigration stories. (Ironic as that might be.)

The experience inside the cottage, meanwhile, is a contemplation of things that Lincoln pondered within its walls, and a place to leave your own message about a good deed you intend to do or have done. The staff gives you a small battery operated tea light when you come in, and invites you to participate.

The rooms are subdued and atmospheric, and there are questions throughout which make you think. About Lincoln and his courage and faults. About your own intentions and hopes. About the consequences of the things governments do for and to their citizens.

Afterwards, we wandered the snowy grounds for awhile, and even built a snowman (there was no one around to tell us not to). When we got back to our car, kids from a local school were running around with glee and abandon at the adjacent playground. There is some joy left in the world, thank goodness, along with the difficulties.

Fathoming the Deep

Olivia Cadaval, memories, water, poetry, fathoming, ,

I’m not sure I believe in astrology, but I do love being near, on or in water, and I am an Aquarius (Aquarian?). So maybe there is something to it after all. In any case, I also like to photograph water, at sunrise, at sunset… and now thanks to a nifty feature on my Google Pixel phone camera called Night Sight, even at night.

Which brings me, in a roundabout sort of way, to the word of the day: “fathom.” This is a very useful word. As a measurement of water, the definition extends to a measure of understanding. (As in, “I can’t fathom how long this government furlough has gone on already.” Or, “I’m beginning to fathom just how expendable my job seems to be.”)

It is also a good word for literature. Shakespeare comes to mind. Another example is perhaps not exactly up to The Bard’s level but still interesting: when I did a search for “fathom poem” I came up with this poem on the Hello Poetry site by someone (?) called Third Legacy of Oliver, which I feel addresses the current state of negotiations in Congress, and also contains the word “fathom.” Give it a read and see what you think.

Circling back to the water, I offer my attempts at poetic photography, which hopefully describes in pictures the unfathomable deeps of our understanding – about life, about government, about anything you are currently trying to fathom. Enjoy.

Missing Some Holiday Pieces

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Do the winter holidays ever leave you feeling as though you’re missing a few key pieces? Maybe you didn’t have as much fun as you thought you’d have, didn’t get the gift you asked for, or missed spending time with a good friend or family member. Or, like us this year, you sent out many more cards than you received and wondered if holiday cards are “out” now and you just didn’t pick up on that trend?

Our family metaphor for “the missing pieces of the holidays” is the annual tradition of doing an elderly jigsaw puzzle that has, to date, seventeen missing pieces. This puzzle depicts The Twelve Days of Christmas, with the added twist of gaping holes. We have other holiday themed puzzles (somewhere) but somehow this is the only one that we can find when there is some quiet time in front of the fire and nothing else to do.

Daughter M.E. and visiting friend Dan work on the less than perfect puzzle.

Why don’t we just get rid of this defective time waster? Well, for one thing, the zen activity of jigsaw puzzling is made even more mysterious and wondrous by never remembering which pieces are missing. For another, it is symbolic of the way that, even if the holidays do not live up to the hype (when have they ever?), the best part of the season can be taking time away from hustle and bustle even if the end result is not one hundred per cent rewarding. Third, the hardest part (the numbers) is still enough of a challenge to keep us interested and add that sense of achievement even in the midst of regret over the fate of those seventeen missing pieces.

Like the smile of a child with missing teeth (albeit without the promise of growing new ones), the puzzle is endearing. And, even with some pieces missing, the puzzle and the holidays can be enjoyable and relaxing if we realize limitations. No one, and no holiday, is perfect. Make the most of what you have.

Honoring Holiday Heroes

Olivia Cadaval, memories

A lot of people put an effort into making the winter holidays merry and bright. Those folks who put up all the lights; practice the songs; construct the toy train displays; bake the cookies; plan the parties. So, it is our duty to go out and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Here are some of the ways we did our part this year, in the lead up to Christmas. See ya next year!

  • The U.S. Botanical Garden’s train display
  • Zoolights at the National Zoo has become a tradition with friends.
  • The pink flamingos of Zoolights were very jaunty.
  • Husband Steve created a light show on our front porch
  • My friend Debi and I did a Nutracker themed tea in Winminster, MD.
  • My karaoke debut at our office holiday party was a rendition of “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.”
  • Friend/colleague Khamo hamming it up at the office holiday party. Our parties are always elaborately decorated thanks to the creative genius of our colleague Claudia, and often our designer Josue.

George Alfred Townsend: A Gap(land) in our Knowledge

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Nature and some largely forgotten history converged on a little post-Thanksgiving jaunt we took this weekend.  The Appalachian Trail intersects with a small park called Gathland in rural Washington, County, Maryland.   I wish I could say we went on a hike, but since the light was failing when we finally got there, we just explored the mute, stone testimonies to the man who was George Alfred Townsend, AKA “Gath.”

One of the two interpretive signs that deal directly with this enigma of a war correspondent and author of several novels includes the quote, “Mankind is always interesting, but is also fatiguing.”  As a successful writer, with it would seem substantial financial means, Gath and his beloved wife Bessie built a country estate to escape mankind and Washington, DC.

As most of the other ten or so signs describe various aspects of Civil War campaigns in the area, one does not learn much more about Gath, his life, and work from the site.  Bessie gets even shorter shrift.  The buildings remaining in the park, constructed from an attractive local stone, include Gath’s “empty tomb” – highly creepy, even if his mortal remains did not end up there – and the ruins of what appears to have been a very large barn.  There are also two houses intact, and the park web site promises a museum in one of them, open in the tourist season.

The central attraction of the property is a massive and curious memorial to war correspondents, planned and perhaps financed by Gath.  It towered over the peaceful late fall landscape like the sole remaining wall of a castle, with arches and crenelations, statuary and niches.  And a weather vane.

Perhaps we will return to visit the museum if/when it is open. Perhaps we will acquire a copy of one of Gath’s novels, such as The Entailed Hat, or Patty Cannon’s Times (as you see from this link, it is available on Amazon) and read it to better understand this contemporary of Mark Twain’s.  Perhaps not.  Meanwhile, visiting what remains of Gath’s country estate and trying to decipher his life from the meager outdoor interpretation available in the park made for an interesting afternoon.

Food, Life and Freedom

food, ,

I am procrastinating cleaning out the refrigerator.  It is Veteran’s Day and I should be honoring the fallen, thanking someone for their service, contemplating the horrors of WWI. Instead, I am tackling the recesses of our overstocked fridge and trying to salvage some food that is in peril of inflicting us with food poisoning if we don’t ditch it.

Thinking about the imminent stacking up of our excess of food on the kitchen counter turns my thoughts to food in general, and my visits last weekend to two very different but somewhat related food events.  And, finally, to the people who work to bring us our food.

First, I attended some presentations of the National Museum of American History’s annual Food History Weekend.   The theme was “the changing dynamics of regional food cultures in the United States.”  This fit in perfectly, I now realize, with my second food event of the weekend: my friend Jackie’s annual “Soup and Oyster” party on Cobb Island, Maryland, which features “scalded” oysters at the local firehouse as well as soups made by the hostess.

Regional food is usually seasonal, reflective of natural resources and landscape, and has a warm, homey and almost romantic connotation.  But, when you come to think about it more deeply, this food often represents someone’s backbreaking and highly uncomfortable work in its procurement.  Oyster dredging and tonging, for instance, was traditionally done in the cold months on an unforgiving body of icy water.

Farm labor to bring us our vegetables and fruits (the apples in the pie and the green beans in the casserole?) is no piece of cake either.   Picking your own apples on a crisp fall day for fun is one thing. Harvesting tons of apples for the commercial market is a whole other thing.  The harvest and processing of the food that conveniently shows up on our grocery shelves is its own battle, fought by countless seasonal and regional workers, who deserve our respect.

So, along with honoring veterans today, let us also honor those on the forefront of the fight to keep us fed.   Freedom from hunger is a privilege which the thousands of behind the scenes food workers laboring in the “trenches” of our farms, waterways, and processing plants work to make possible.  Unfortunately this doesn’t mean that hunger (like war, of course) isn’t still very much with us.

On that sobering note, it’s off to the fridge.