myakka flood

We were on a visitation weekend and camping with the kids in Myakka State Park. Lot 36 was our favorite lot. Big and well drained. A good sized culvert to rapidly get rid of the occasional storm runoff.

The tent was a big old Coleman "wall tent". Canvas with a tarp-like floor that ran a foot up the sides. Nice and dry. Usually.

The day was overcast with rain predicted, but visitations are set in advance so there we were. The old Pinto wagon got us there on time and we checked in to the park. We had plenty to do setting everything up and then the rain started. We made spaghetti under an umbrella and ate inside the tent. Nice and dry. As it got dark the rain fell harder and we noticed a bit of water moving under the floor. Still dry inside. Sometime later the floor started to roll like a water bed and water could be seen inching up the sides. Raining like hell now. Then, tiny little jets of water shot up through the floor through pinholes in the tarp. A lot of them. By now the water was 2 or 3 inched deep outside the tent, and rapidly wetting the inside. A quick look with the flashlight showed the marvelous culvert was partially plugged and lot 36 was a pond.

It rained all night and in the morning, still raining, we took down the tent and ate cold leftovers in the wagon. No cooked breakfast that morning. Needless to say the car was like a cloud forest inside. We left in the rain, delivered the wet kids and drove back to Havana. In the rain the whole way.

Sal and I had a good laugh last night remembering that trip, but we never stayed on lot 36 again. And yes, they have skunk apes too.

Photo: www.lorencoleman.com/myakka.html

from the fire of despair

"From the fire of despair we forge ourselves into who we are." I wrote this to a former student yesterday. I was thinking of the terrible obstacles she had to overcome to get where she is today. I think we have all been in the "pit of despair" at one time or another and we emerged changed. Most of us learn from trial and hardship and grow as a result. She certainly has. Many of my former students have braved life experiences that would have crushed me. My admiration for the endurance and success of so many is unbounded.
Remember always that you are who you are because of the total of your life experiences. If you could go back and change anything, you would change too.

At the close of this year and the eve of the next, I wish all of you who read this a happy, safe and prosperous life. And always remember that you are who you are precisely because of who you were.

(There was a real 'pit of despair'. Here is a link that takes you there. Warning: this is heavy awful stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_of_despair )

Photo: blog.tilos.hu/irodalmile2/archives/008287.html

Clarence

Frank had a three man operation. He and Stan were the masons and Clarence was the laborer. Clarence did all the support work and the three of them worked together on the job to get ready to lay blocks and bricks. Clarence mixed the mud (mortar for laying block), carried and stacked the blocks and bricks, dug the footers and cesspools, pulled up the forms, cleaned up the sites. You get the idea. Keep in mind this was a small operation. They had no cement mixer. No backhoe. No bobcat. Only shovels, hoes, digging bars, sand screen, hands and backs. During the peak periods Frank needed an extra laborer, and I was it. So, at 17 I signed on to be another pair of hands and a back. Frank turned me over to Clarence to show me how to work. He taught me the way to dig so I could dig all day in the hot sun, and how to carry two 60 pound blocks and swing them up on a chest-high scaffold, and how to mix mud and set cesspool blocks and rings and how to get a 200 pound bluestone chimney cap up two 16 foot ladders. He and I often worked alone on site preparation. We dug footers and cesspools. Now there is a job. A cesspool was built in the ground in a hole that was 10 or more feet deep and about 10 feet around. We dug them by hand. Clarence taught me to throw dirt a long way. Then we dropped the blocks into the hole and Frank built the round cesspit walls. We had lots of time to talk over the years we worked together, but Clarence was a man of few words and I could keep my own company when needed. Lunch time was different. We had 45 minutes to rest and eat and talk. He talked about the world of black men and segregation. How he grew up into that world and how he navigated through it. He owned several houses that he rented out, and had a comfortable retirement planned. He was about 60 when we met. He talked about the events in the South and I listened, but I didn’t understand. It was the time of Brown v Board of Education and Rosa Parks. I was a middle class white boy living in New York and didn’t have a clue what was going on. One day we were talking about racism and he said “If a man steals corn from your field that doesn’t mean the next man coming down the road will steal your corn.” I never thought it did, but that is part of the core of racism. I went off to college in the South and saw firsthand what he was talking about. Clarence was a teacher, mentor, business man, laborer, husband, father and more. I learned a lot from him. He was strong and lean, and dignified. He retired, died, and I never got to tell him that I finally understood what he was trying to tell me. But I did in the end understand. And Clarence, thank you.
Signs: http://www.wvu.edu/~lawfac/jscully/Race/images/colored%20sign.jpg

Tree Spirits

I was sitting in the kitchen looking out the picture window. I have spent hours there watching birds, squirrels, the occasional deer and the trees. One particular tree always gets my attention. An American beech with a healing wound at the base of the trunk. And suddenly there it is: a perfect woman's face, flowing hair and a beautiful serene look. If there are tree spirits then this is surely a manifestation of one. I have loved this tree from the first day I saw it. I have hugged it. (Yes, I am an unrepentant tree hugger, literally on both counts.) What a treat. When I get the camera fixed I'll add her picture to this, if she can be photographed.

Image: www.door2door-marketing.co.uk/

Waking up dead

This is a wandering that starts with a dream. Sally had a dream that she was dead and standing by her body looking at it and hearing and seeing the actions in the scene. Where the hell do these images come from?

This is sort of what I mean when I say "some day I will wake up dead and........" . Wake up dead? How can you do that? Well, if the dream represents some expression of the existence of a soul or something like that it may actually be true that you can wake up dead. Probably not, though.

Brains produce the most wonderful and weird thoughts and images imaginable. I call one process "cortical skipping". When you see something, say a dog, and that reminds you to buy dog food which reminds you that Publix has wine on sale which reminds you of the wonderful sausage you had in Italy which reminds you to ....... Get the drift? You somehow end up thinking about balancing the tires. These thoughts fly around your brain in the cortex and there is absolutely no way of knowing where they will go. There is probably an algorithm in there somewhere, and some of the connections may be more obvious than others, but in my family we are fond of saying "there is no accounting for a brain".

Or how about all the weird dreams where you fly or pass through walls or are someone you surely will never be, like the pope or god or fill in your own weird dreams.

Driving along, my mind wanders in all sorts of directions, which reminds me of licorice which reminds me that I have to go to the Co-op today which reminds me to stop by Ron's with his flywheel puller which reminds me ........

Photo: www.conozcaseasimismo.com/factoreseng.htm

Tea Olive: Southern Delight.

I walked down the driveway to check the mail when I noticed a familiar perfume in the air. Hmmm. Jasmine? No, wrong season and not cloying enough. What else is there around here? Ah. I remembered that we recently planted a tea olive. Poor thing was way over its “sell by” based on how root bound it was. I turned and there it was, blooming like crazy. New leaves and tons of blooms. And that fragrance. The air was filled with it. Sweet but not cloying and heavy in the near-fog of humidity. I think Osmandus was returning the favor and giving us a great big “thank you” for the rescue and planting. What is a southern yard without a tea olive or two? A disappointment that’s what. Now, a few more quintessential plants and we will have the complete southern garden.

Photo: img.photobucket.com/.../TeaOlive1.jpg