Sweet Surprise

Despite a brown thumb, my garden sometimes forgives and rewards my intention, if not my ability. Thank you.

A Rat (Island) Race Awaits Beyond The Morning Mist

A misty morning on the marsh - a portend of the morning.

It is written, in the book of "Murphy's Law".

The wind shall desist on the date of the annual Decanter Challenge Regatta -- organized by the Palatka, Rat Island Yacht Club -- and, preferably, competitors will face an incoming tide the length of the 24-mile course before dropping the hook for a dutch treat dinner, a crystal decanter and a handshake.

And so it came to pass, Saturday, October 23, 2010 as 18 sailboats maneuvered for position near the starting line between market #48 and the committee-boat.
Yachts tacked and turned, spilling what wind their was from their sails to avoid a false start, before the sequence of colored flags and air-horn warnings marked the moment...they were off!


Slightly faster than the speed of growing grass, with more hot air passing between kamikaze crews (as hulls passed each other with barely a gel-coat thickness between them) than the apparent breeze, they headed for the unseen finish line.

The St. Johns River has the distinction of being the only north-flowing river in Florida. People in this hemisphere seem to think going South is downhill (tourist drivers heading North after their vacation, tend to lean forward). However, the St. John's connection to the Atlantic Ocean near Jacksonville, a major US Navy seaport city, allows for a tidal-flow which influences the waters more than fifty miles up/downstream.

“Stink-Pot” and “Rag-Bag” are some of the kinder words exchanged between power boat operators and sailors, especially when fishermen pick up the scent of a fish kill and pour on the coals to get to where they want to go – while a white-knuckle yacht-helmsman who has strategically placed his crew to achieve a delicate balance to maintain a wind-slot and make his rhumb line, blocks his way – and a rooster-tail followed by a mountainous wake throws everything akimbo.

At those times, the air can match the blue of the sky!

There's nothing quite like messing about in boats.

Especially, on a weekend.

Ends..

Shuttle's Last Launch Sparks Many Memories

Sometime soon the last shuttle launch into space will fire off from Cape Canaveral, a couple of hundred miles south of here.

I'll wave as it goes my backyard just before the separation of booster tanks from rocket in a sequence we all, now, think of as being routine.




An earlier daytime launch seen from my backyard


But back in the days building up to its first launch of Columbia more than a quarter of a century ago, (April 12, 1981) the World was still excited about the race into space. A decade earlier (1969) Neil Armstrong became the first man in (known) history to step onto the moon's surface. I'm willing to bet, very few Floridians will forget where they were when THAT happened. One of the better “I remember when...” memory moments.

Due to its proximity and frequency of flights over the years, we became blase about launches from the Cape, until that dreadful crisp October morning in 1986 when Challenger exploded killing all seven astronauts aboard..

I was at a West Palm Beach marina helping a good friend (now departed) and skipper of a 54-foot corporate yacht top up his tanks when there was a commotion on a nearby boat.

“The goddamn shuttle just blew up!”

A guy hurled himself from the cabin of the sleek Rybovich sports fishing boat on the next dock, scrabbling for his binoculars.

He didn't need them.

Seemingly just north of overhead the bright clear blue sky was marred by a cluster of white vapor trails expanding outward from a dark central cloud. Miniscule black objects rained down, leaving faint trails behind, like the world's largest Fourth of July rocket exploding in daylight.

It was the world's largest rocket – to carry human beings on its back into space.

Disasters before and after that date have marred the unbelievable 20th Century exploration of outer space during my lifetime. No doubt further progress will leave more memorable milestones behind.

Hopefully the final launch of Discovery and recovery will merely be a sigh of relief at safely marking its date in history.

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/schedule.html

Ends...

Creating Character Traits and Banishing Brainstrain Blues

The fellow holding the floor at last night's writer's group is a brain trainer. He makes a comfortable living instructing folks of all ages and abilities how to get rid of brain flab and turn those little grey cells into a lean, mean thinking machine.

As a fiction writer who spends a lot of time getting into the mind of my characters – before they take over and run me – Matthew Barrett showed short-cut brain exercises to tweak the thought process so the cut-to-the-chase “caveman” mentality does not override creativity, with practicality.

Physically Matthew, who directs kids and corporate clients to train thier brains to retain information by skewing basic logic patterns, is not a powerful dominating figure. He later admitted to having an innate fear of meeting people on a face-to-face basis. But, by training his brain to be accept he knows more about his subject than his audience, he is confident enough to control and hold center stage.

It was one of the many exercises he explained and espoused during an hour-plus talk and interactional session conducted during the dinner hour at the noisy McAlsister (Scottish/Jewish?) Deli in Fleming Island, just south of Jacksonville, Florida.

He cajoled, teased and tested his audience with facts, fables and riddles before setting them up for a “writerly” task; create a cast of characters for a story which may never be written.

He distributed sheets of paper containing a dozen pre-printed blank data files with the following sub-heads:

Name:...........................Age.....
Occupation/Role.........................
Traits:(Phy.)............Per(sonal).....
Notes:(i.e.)loud,Walmart Greeter,.......
Kleptomaniac, Hooker...etc..............

Names were selected at random from a telephone book (which pegged an instant image in many minds) and, by working the room, additional data was extracted from writers present – and that's when the fight started (joke).

The cardboard characters created by names began to take on “living” persona as they acquired layers of personality. Mini-groups within the gathering humorously or dolefully created and voiced their own soap-opera versions of actions/reactions likely amongst the make-believe cast presented.

Within the space of twenty minutes or so a gathering of writers were discussing, some quite heatedly, the life stories and styles of figments of their collective imagination.

All the brainchildren of a mild mannered brainiac adept at teaching CEO's how to control short-term memory loss so they can remember – where they put their reading glasses.

For more info check http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2010/09/20/smallb1.html

Ends...

Sack-Races Granny Never DREAMED About...

Just when you think you've seen it all...



I don't think the Florida “Cracker” Cowboy has changed much since being recorded in the Charles Russell and Frederick Remington era. But the games we played as kids, have certainly been tweaked into “Extreme Sport” mode.



Who ever would have though the innocuous-sounding “Sack-Race” could be cranked up a notch or two into the sort of exhibit I saw today at a St. Johns County rural event.




Yeeeehaaaw !

Wish I had This Sign at the Old Book Shop

As a former bookshop owner I firmly believed children of a certain age and disposition should be parked outside the shop, or allowed to play in traffic, before entering my Old Book Shop http://anoldbooklook.com/about.asp (note the little kinder clambering up the shelves in window-painting)

Along with a sign on the door reading: "Open by Appointment - or Chance" I had another which told callers: "Buyers Welcome, Browers Tolerated, Children @#!!$". Most parents got the message and sent the potential book-destroyer and shelf-mountaineer,(think Richmal Crompton's WILLIAM) off with their other half.

Except the fairly distinguished chap who entered one day with a child who had the control of spit on a skillet. I lasted an agonizing 23.01 seconds before cornering and confronting the Young Master and told him unless he treated my precious tomes with respect, he would be ejected. Asking what he was interested in - cowboys, war,seriel-killers, I selected an appropriate book, and seated him on a stool across from my desk.

Papa, poking around somewhere in the stacks in the back, emerged a while later with a puzzled frown, glanced at his wide-eyed son clutching a book, thought better of it, paid for his puchase and left - hurridly.

Years later, said gent and his college-age son returned to my Palm Beach shop. The youth nodded briefly then quietly browsed the stock. Papa smiled and said, before dissapearing to rummage amongst the stacks: "Thank you. He's never forgotten his last visit here."

That was the last time I ever saw the former Canadian Inspector General, and his son.

Dang Paparazzi -- Again!

A quiet, innocent conversation in an out-of-the-way cafe between yours truly and Rick Sapp, prolific author/editor of things that go BANG! were captured on camera by enterprising Gainesville's WUFT student roving reporters looking for copy.

If they'd only known...