Deeper Inside West Orange County, Florida: Oakland, Beulah, and “To Kill A Mockingbird” in Winter Garden

This area is caked with history… you should have a slice!

I know what you’re thinking– but I can’t seem to get enough of this area. Something about it’s even tenor matches mine; I feel the same way out in Oakland as I do in Key West. Maybe I was always meant to be a small town kind of guy– Brooklyn is wonderful and all, and I can’t get enough of it when I’m there (when Mom lets me out of the house), but I feel most at home in small towns and rural landscapes. Maybe it comes with age. Maybe there’s a front porch in my future– can you see me sitting there with a pistol hidden under my lap robe, like Mrs. DuBose in “To Kill A Mockingbird?” Who can say? Damn kids running all over the lawn… !

But I digress. I’ve been going out to West Orange County because I’ve become affiliated with the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation, their History Center, and the Central Florida Anthropological Society. They’re all busy cataloguing some of our area’s history via sophisticated computer programs and doing digs on historic properties. It’s amazing what they unearth, and it goads me into further explorations on my own.

I did a leisurely tour a couple of weeks ago, taking photos in places I hadn’t been to in a few years, and revisiting other old favorite spots. I was pleasantly surprised when I drove south on  Daniels Road down to where it meets the 429 at the intersection with county road 435 (Fowler Groves). On the left, backing up to Lake Tilden (there are your Oakland and Tildenville Tildens again) is a horse farm.

The day I’m writing this, I picked up a copy of the West Orange Times and read that the land will be considered in a sale to a hospital that wants to build here in the Fowler Groves area. Don’t mistake me– hospitals are good, though my Inner Utopian wishes otherwise.

Going north on 435 you’ll pass a beautiful old home set back from the road on the right; this is the Hause-Roper house. The Ropers owned a lot of agricultural land in these regions; they helped establish Winter Garden and many of them are buried in the Oakland cemetery. The house was built in 1932 and has orange groves on three sides. It looks like it has a coffeepot warming on the stove all day, with maybe Mr. Cleaver sitting in the breakfast nook reading the day’s newspaper headline: LIZ LEAVES EDDIE FOR DICK.

Going back north from here, towards Highway 50 and the Turnpike, you’ll find Beulah, a tiny settlement (and the home of giant West Orange High School). Driving through here in the 1980s, the surrounding area was pastureland and orange groves: Lakes Beulah, Tilden and Black supplied water for agriculture. And, since there weren’t enough highways in the neighborhood, they added the 429 Western Beltway recently. There’s a reason why they call the intersection of 50, 429 and the Turnpike the “Fruit Loop.” I distinctly remember driving along lonely sand roads which hugged Lake Beulah, but now it’s hugged by houses on three sides. The west side does feature the beautiful and tranquil Beulah Cemetery however; Beulah in the bible means “heavenly Zion.”

Here’s little Beulah Baptist Church, and a cozy old house surrounded by palmettos.

Heading back to Winter Garden you’ll come to Resurrection Catholic Church, a rarity for these parts.

In the chapel, this rather exuberant Madonna and Child keep watch: you wouldn’t want to get tangled up with HER.

One of the linchpins of the resurrected downtown Winter Garden is the History Center, where you can get lost in all the documents and photos they have. I mean, imagine moving to central Florida and never availing yourself of this information? There are people who come here who aren’t even curious. I just don’t understand that; when you move to a new place, the first thing you should do is not check out the malls– you’ll find the same stores back in Ohio and White Plains– but you should read up on the history of the area you’re helping to populate.

The Winter Garden History Center is housed in one of the former train stations. Staff and volunteers help maintain and preserve the collection, and they’re building a brand-new addition and expansion nearby. And their train ephemera and memorabilia collection is incredible!

A couple of beautiful country miles east is the Petris home in Oakland, built in 1885 by the Orange Belt railroad men. It’s one of three homes standing which were constructed by this railroad company. A sign out front reads “The 1879 House” but that could be wrong.  The stone block in front, which was a carriage block, originally began as a tombstone which the original purchaser was dissatisfied with; it was subsequently sold to the man who first lived in this house.

 This yellow house on Tubb Street, the Hartsfield house, was once the Oakland hospital. The Central Florida Archaeological Society did a dig here recently and uncovered lots of artifacts from the town’s past. Back in those days, refuse and broken objects were often buried on site, effectively serving as time capsules. Excavations help show that Oakland was once an industrious, populous town, busy with railroad and agricultural enterprises as well as being a noted social hub for Orange County.

Speer Park is named for one of the town’s earliest settlers, James Gamble Speer. (You can read about the Speer family’s unfortunate burial circumstances here.) This man was incredible, not only having provided much of Oakland’s history, but Orlando’s as well.

One of THE most peaceful spots in Florida can be found right here at the northernmost end of Tubb Street (which stretches from Lake Apopka south to Johns Lake.) Yes, there are alligators here, so you are encouraged not to swim, but you can rest on the dock’s benches and not hear a sound for hours. Hard to believe there used to be a band pavilion here, back when Oakland was hopping; you can still see the concrete posts in the water.

I thought to myself: what would happen if I tapped my foot lightly on the dock? And this guy showed up a minute later…

This is the Hovsepian home, “The House of Three Mayors.” I need to find out exactly which mayors, who and when. The house faces Tubb Street but has been joined, I believe, to at least one other house around the corner on Speer Avenue– it’s huge.

This day I also planned on exploring the older of the two black cemeteries in town; there’s the historically white one at Walker Street and Sadler Avenue, and the black cemetery that you see on Highway 50 just outside the southwestern corner of Oakland… but I only recently became aware of an even older black cemetery, forgotten until it was rediscovered by highway planners when the Turnpike was being configured. I had no idea where it was, only that it was near the black cemetery that you see from the road, so I parked there and began to walk into the brush. Three people were in the cemetery a few yards east of me, and a woman called out and asked if I needed help. I explained my mission, and it turned out that she was in charge of the Oakland-Tildenville Cemetery, Inc., and would be happy to escort me to the older cemetery. What a stroke of luck! The four of us (the two women in dresses) plowed through the high grass and weeds, traffic on Highway 50 whizzing by closely, and then we disappeared into the woods. I was thinking about ticks, deer flies, rattlesnakes, bobcats, panthers, bears, ants, wasps, hornets and poison ivy, but all the while jabbering a mile a minute with Sharon about the cemetery. On we pressed… stumps, spider webs, fallen trees… on and on we walked, and I’m thinking thank GOD I wore long pants and socks that day. Soon we came into a low area, actually a wide, shallow sinkhole surrounded by a high chain link fence with a locked gate, and we were there. Sharon spun the tumblers on the combination lock and we went inside. I tell you, it’s incredible– here’s an old burial ground that very, very few people even know about, considering its location between two busy roads. We walked and walked, very carefully, because there are many red flag indicators planted in the  ground: a crew from UCF has gone in here and identified many of the plots, though most of the stones and markers are gone. Also, due to varying family circumstances, many graves are marked only with metal signs or even faded paper cards.

Come along with me… 

From the frying pan and into the fire: we still had a ways to walk after entering the woods from the high grass…

Believe it or not, you are looking at a cemetery, complete with many markers…

A very old marker made with seashells, a tradition which reminds many families of their coastal origins.

There’s a Herriot Avenue in the traditionally African-American “Quarters” in Oakland.

The next day we were back in the area with Darlyn and Brad, this time to see To Kill A Mockingbird at the restored movie theatre in Winter Garden.

The stone benches in the center of town are constructed to look like citrus crates, complete with reproductions of original labels. Here’s Grace, the doyenne of Edgegrove, the Mather-Smith estate in Oakland.

We had dinner at a restaurant inside the Edgewater Hotel…

This was taken inside the theatre…

It was wonderful seeing To Kill A Mockingbird on the big screen; Gregory Peck never looks so good as when he’s towering over an audience. And you see details which you miss when watching the film at home. Incredible. And what an audience! It was composed of all ages, and everyone was quiet, polite, respectful, and attentive. Nobody was playing Tetris or Angry Birds!

I hope you’ll get out to West Orange County one of these days… you’ll come away with a broader sense of the history of the region, something that California-based Disney just wouldn’t understand.

More History / PhotoBike Tours and blogs:

PhotoBike Tour 16: Oakland and West Orange County, Florida

Where’s Grandma? (Not in the Osceola Vault.)

PhotoBike Tour 9: Biking the West Orange Trail

PhotoBike Tour 15: Random Shots, and More Key West

Sometimes I’ll bike for hours and not even do a post, or I’ll take a million photos and use… three. It all depends on my mood, as I can morph from crazed enthusiasm to apathetic ennui in seconds. I think it has to do with sugar levels, endorphins, and cream cheese– whatever’s coursing through my system at any given time. Like, it’s not a good idea to load up on carbs before, say, a funeral Mass, because you’ll crash fall asleep just when the eulogy begins; you’ll wake up in the cemetery under a tree, wondering how you got there, and asking yourself who all those people are dressed in black? OH!

Sometimes I’ll take a photograph of something that profoundly affected me, and all sorts of captions, descriptions and references will pop into my head. And often, by the time I get home, I’ve forgotten everything. I’ll stare at the photo and wonder just where in hell THAT was taken. Luckily I have resorted to taking along a notebook and maps , though i am working on remembering to take along something to write with.

Here’s a shot of the altar at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, which is located on the grounds of the retirement village over in Slavia, an old settlement strung out along Aloma Avenue in Seminole County. This little brick church was built in 1939 and cost just under $7500. One of its stained glass windows depicts Jan Hus being burned at the stake for heresy. I avow as to how tragic and unnecessary that was. And the irony is that this Lutheran church belongs to a branch of Lutheranism called the Missouri Synod, which is very conservative and very close to Roman Catholicism’s sacramentals: hence the crucifix. It’s not that I’m particularly religious, but the whole topic of comparative religions fascinates me; I’m currently reading a book called Jews and Mormons– Two Houses of Israel, co-written by a Mormon and a Jew. It’s fascinating how they get after each other over fine points of doctrine and practice. Mormons believe that the indigenous peoples on the American continents are descended from Jews who took a boat over here in about 600 B.C. They also have a publication called The Pearl of Great Price, which includes alleged translations by Joseph Smith of things that were written on a traveling circus mummy’s papyrus wrappings; Smith calls this the Book of Abraham, and you can imagine what the Jewish guy must think about that.

I didn’t take the picture above. A reader of my blog sent it after I posted something about an old house I was trying to locate on State Highway 50 in Ridge Manor, north of Dade City. I remembered passing it a couple of times, but couldn’t remember exactly where it was. I always imagined it to be a decaying Southern colonial mansion, a leftover from the mid-nineteenth century, but it’s actually relatively new– just in not such great shape, but I was informed that the owner is attempting to fix it up. It’s a nice reminder of Gone with the Wind’s Twelve Oaks, which is where Ashley Wilkes lived. Scarlett O’Hara had an unnaturally strong erotic attraction to him– it must have been the sight of his blond frame straddling his horse– and also the scene of her first encounter with Rhett Butler. My favorite scene at Twelve Oaks is when Scarlett alights from her carriage on barbecue day, spies India Wilkes in a tacky brown velvet hoop-skirted gown, and trills “why India Wilkes! I just love that dress! I can’t take my eyes off it!” And India smiles her thanks, even though the two of them can’t stand one another. Then Scarlett sweeps into the house in search of Ashley, sees him with his intended, Melanie, and proceeds to slice and dice his fiancée with a series of backhanded compliments which have no effect on Melanie because she’s so GOOD.

Here’s an old brick building in Winter Garden,  one of my favorite areas to poke around in. That whole region south of Lake Apopka is crammed with history and remnants: Winter Garden, Oakland, Tildenville, Beulah, Killarney… it’s easy to get lost on the back roads and not see anything that reminds you of the 21st. century. There used also to be a migrant labor camp around there called Harlem Heights, but it’s gone.

Here are some power pylons marching through a field in rural Seminole County. If you look at this area on Google Earth, you can see a definite rectangular swath rammed through the area in order to support the power grid. They come very close to Saints Peter and Paul  on Old Howell Branch Road, and I swear you can feel these things humming and buzzing. Maybe that’s just my imagination; maybe I also stand in the yard late at night, waving a flashlight and hoping that the aliens come and take me away for a springtime tour of The Outer Planets. There’s one member of this household who believes strongly in Bigfoot; I’m not gonna say exactly who, but he always tells me that I’m going to look out the bedroom window one night and see one of those creatures staring back in at us.

Here’s a little barbershop in Goldenrod. It reminds me of the place I used to go to in Brooklyn, up the street and across Fort Hamilton Parkway. A guy with hairy arms gave haircuts, and he was eventually replaced by a dark Italian named Tony, complete with oiled hair and a mustache. I always thought he was going to tie me to the railroad tracks. I used to hope that I’d have to wait a little while so that I could sit and read the wrinkled magazines he had stacked on a little table. There were always copies of Playboy, which fascinated me. What I would do was slowly and sneakily try to hide the copy of Playboy inside a copy of Life magazine, which took a while to maneuver, and usually by that time the barber would be shouting “NEXT!!” But sometimes I was able to sit there and read, and I learned a lot from Playboy– most importantly that nobody looks good in a leisure suit, no matter how enticing the ads.

In Key West, this “peace bell” graces the West Martello Museum and Gardens. There’s a little plaque right there, saying something about peace and brotherhood, and so I felt compelled to pull the rope and ring that bell. Little did I know that they also ring that bell in order to let the volunteers know that it’s lunch time, as evidenced a few minutes later when the bell was rung by someone in charge and a calm stampede ensued; I had only succeeded in confusing everyone.

Here’s a place in Key West that apparently is “on hold.” It reminds me, actually, of certain houses in Brooklyn located in certain neighborhoods. Certain families have to live close to their business interests, and so the money is put into the house. After awhile there’s just so much you can do with the house, so they add things like marble balustrades, blue tile roofs, plaster dogs and dragons, and shiny, chrome fences. Soon these houses look like Chinese restaurants.

Soon I will be traveling to Geneva with Becky, and I’ve got to start my Polk County excursions as well though, with gasoline so expensive, I wonder how I’m going to do that. Polk County is HUGE, and there’s so much to unearth…

PhotoBike Tour 14: Key West

Welcome to Key West!

We spent a couple of days here with friends this past week, driving down Sunday with two and driving back up Wednesday with two others. It’s good that everyone drives! Bill was generous in offering to drag my bicycle down so that I could roam at will, and roam I did. We also did a lot of walking.

Kirk took most of the foliage pictures; click on any of these to make them larger.

Here’s my bike– the one with the white basket– fairly jumping off the rack to get started…

This time six of us stayed at the Hyatt Windward Pointe, located at almost the very southeastern tip of the island. It’s far removed from where we usually stay– over in Old Town on the west side– but it was a wonderful change and, if I decided to bike around, I really had to work at it. And it’s breezy along the bikeway that rings the island, making for lots of strenuous exercise and rationalizations:

“Do I really need to have TWO Manhattans? Yes, because I can bike them off.”

“Do I HAVE to have another helping of spaghetti and meatballs? Yes, because I can bike it off.”

“Do I really need to have FIVE gin and tonics? Yes, because you’re on Duval Street and you have to bike all the way EAST, and there will go all those calories.”

Calories, schmalories.

Here’s a vew from our hotel room, looking south toward Cuba. If you squint, you can see Fidel smoking a cigar. Just across the road is the bike path, and less than a mile to the right is Smathers Beach. Just over the seawall you can see the older, collapsed seawall just below the surface of the water, and it’s become a reef: you see all kinds of fish and sea urchins.

Just to the west of the hotel, within walking distance, is the East Martello Museum. This is where you need to go to get a sense of the island’s history and quirkiness; it’s also where Robert the Doll lives forever. We didn’t see Robert this time, but we did pass the store on Duval Street which sells his likeness. I tried to photograph the display of Robert the Doll dolls through the window glass into the closed shop, but the reflection precluded that; it wasn’t until I got home that I saw that the dolls managed to allow themselves to be photographed onto the reflection of the street outside the shop window…

See the Robert the Doll dolls floating in the center of the picture?

Walking through town, Kirk likes to photograph every bougainvillea bract, every palm tree, every blooming tropical. He has an eye for color and composition, so feast your eyes on the following photographs as seen through Kirk’s lens…

 

OK, this one I took. These are Royal Palms.

Me and a GIANT Desert Rose.

I spent a few hours on the bike exploring back streets and neighborhoods that most people don’t explore. Me, I see an alleyway, I go down it. I talk to people, ask questions, and find things out. The Albury House, for example, is a house I’ve been obsessed with for twenty-five years. It sold at the end of 2010 after the last family member who lived in it passed on (Bonnie Albury). The house is now being rehabilitated and it’s been scraped clean of its termites and barnacles both inside and out. I almost got inside, but the construction foreman was just about to start a meeting, and I didn’t want to cause an imbroglio. Not that there was much to see inside: you can literally look through the house from front to back now.

Here’s the entry hall stairway, which generations of Alburys must have climbed since the house was built in the 1800s…

Because it’s 2012 and not 1992, most people are on a budget, and so the six of us decided to each spend a night cooking while we were there. The unit featured a full kitchen, though we had to have a new orange juicer AND kitchen stove swapped out; neither worked, and there were bags of oranges that Jon and John had brought to be squeezed, let alone their chicken and rice, spaghetti and meatballs (Jim and Kirk), and steaks and potatoes and broccoli (Bill and Karl) which were slated for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday suppers respectively. So, we didn’t spend a lot of time in restaurants, though I do recall a lusty and excellent breakfast at Two Friends Patio. We were also planning on meeting locals Susan Kent and DeVonna Howell for breakfast one morning at Flamingo on Duval Street, but the plan fell through and  instead I ended up having many, many rollicking cocktails with them at Aqua later the same day.

Entertainment one evening was provided by yours truly, lip-synching to the warblings of well-known and obscure girl-groups from 1963 and 1964, ably assisted by my background singers and dancers, who gamely invented stunning new choreography for each verse; Kirk slept through it all, which was a surprise considering we had You Tube cranked as high as it would go. It’s a good thing we were worn out before midnight, or we would have had to do a few turns to the Monkey Stroll.

One night we played Trivial Pursuit, which quickly degenerated into a raucous edition of Charades when it was decided that not many of us could answer anything that happened after 1970. I reduced myself to humming the alphabet at my teammates and then slamming the table when I got to the letter that formed the first word of the answer. “H I J K LMNO P!!”

Since we were located on the eastern end of the island this trip, I decided to take a good look around. For instance, while biking east along Staples Avenue, I came to a dead end; cars could not continue further because of a cut running from the salt ponds on the island’s north all the way through to the airport. Bikes could access a little bridge, however, and it’s here that I paused and had a look at the scenery.

And, looking down into that water, this man-made reef… anything to avoid dragging the grocery cart back to the store!

Following are a lot of houses I couldn’t resist falling in love with. Really– these places seem so cozy to me, and with a little TLC might actually be habitable for many more years.

On Solares Hill, the island's highest point.

This visit we toured the Eco Center, a free museum which features Keys wildlife, sea life, and flora. Aquariums and dioramas show you what’s at stake along the fragile island chain, and a movie in a dark little theatre helps put you to sleep after all that studying. Let me explain– it’s nicely air conditioned, the music is very Enya-esque, and the images are of divers, snorkelers, and fish of all kinds swimming slowly through their underwater world. It’s mesmerizing, and I almost couldn’t get up out of my seat when the movie ended. You stumble into a gift shop, though the thing that impressed me most was the tooled metal border running along the room’s circumference. It features turtles, fish, coral, and the like. Very nice.

When I went to take a photo out front, it appeared that an SUV had parked itself right in front of part of the mural; naturally, I bitched, leading Kirk to sputter ” I knew, KNEW you were going to say something!!”

Along with the hidden and the obscure, I like to re-visit some old haunts, just to remind myself that some things never change:

The West Martello Tower is the home of the Key West Garden Club, and is an amazing place staffed and maintained by volunteers. You can wander its nooks and crannies for hours, and the view from the top of the sweeping Atlantic is incredible.

On the grounds of West Martello Tower.

The Garden Club library at West Martello Tower. You can sit here in this cool brick room and look at old books devoted to horticulture. What was that old joke? Someone asked Dorothy Parker to use 'horticulture' in a sentence, and she replied "you can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think."

The Margaret Truman Drop-Off Launderette, catering to first ladies since, oh, 1800 or so.

Inside St. Mary, Star of the Sea. (Sancta Maria, Stella Maris.)

They open the side doors for cross-ventilation at St. Mary, which helps dry off your streaming head after biking frantically to Mass and forgetting that you're going to be dripping when you dismount and go inside.

St. paul on Duval Street, one of the city's Episcopal churches. It's gorgeous, and when you go inside and see the statues and the holy water fonts and the figural stained glass, you say "it's so Catholic!"

Steamship deco in the heart of town...

Colorful transport...

Two full days go by fast, but if you drink a lot of coffee and Diet Coke you’ll manage to stay energetic enough to traipse hither and yon and up and down and along, though my feet were hurting all day Monday; I think that was because of all that choreography on the unit’s tile floors. When you’re performing, you’re only interested in pleasing your audience, not thinking about how your feet are going to hurt.

Jon and John drove us home via Jensen Beach, where we picked up John’s mini pinscher from his dog sitter, and Max was the most well-behaved dog in the universe. Not a bark did I hear, and my Claritin prevented any allergic flare ups because, if I had started to wheeze, one of us would have had to be left by the side of the turnpike…and it wasn’t going to be Max.

Jon picked up more oranges for squeezin' in Jensen Beach.

Can’t wait to go back !

Cousin Nico in Paradise– Key West 2010

Can you hear that sound of stampeding feet? Welcome Lufthansa Flight 464 from Frankfurt am Main to Orlando International Airport!

As scheduled, and after looking forward to it for many months, Nicola– my 19-year-old Italian second cousin once removed– arrived for two weeks of relaxation before starting his sophomore year at the University of Pisa. Though he did bring his geography text to study for a September 20th. exam, I only saw it brought out on a couple of occasions. Good for him! He’s going to ace it anyway– he’s riding a 100% average after his first year. [He did.]

“Where do you want to go in Florida?” I asked him prior to his visit. The theme parks didn’t figure into his equation; he wanted nature, and giant bridges spanning endless expanses of ocean, and alligators; but no sharks and– of course– a visit to Miami. But not necessarily Miami Beach. And he wanted to see some American Protestant churches– not that he’s shopping for a new religion but, after living in Catholic-saturated Italy, he wanted to see how the other half worshiped. And if we could have gotten into the Mormon temple in Orlando, I’m sure it would have been on his list as well.

Once we had a travel agenda in place, I was able to start worrying about what to feed him. I knew what Italians generally ate after spending time there in the past, but I naturally worried about what he might find unappetizing. We did well, however; corn stayed untouched on his plate, either cobbed or loose, but most vegetables and poultry and meat were duly appreciated. Corn, it seems, is fed to livestock. Polenta? Don’t get me started; that’s what peasants ate if there was any corn left over after throwing it to the pigs. And one night I hand-made pappardelle noodles and a wonderful pesto, which was actually a bonus because the women in his family don’t make pasta by hand anymore. (“The ones that do are all dead.”) And he enjoyed the Mexican fare we had in South Florida, as well as a Chinese meal here at Jum Bo in Winter Park. But Italian fare in Key West was not entirely authentic, he decided. Sorry! And they mispronounced bruschetta.  It’s broo-SKET-ta, not broo-SHET-ta. (Note to self: load car with prosciutto e melone prior to any long drives involving Italian relatives. And keep a ready baked ziti warming on the manifold, just in case. A translating dictionary, too.)

Nico got to meet my mother and sisters and brother-in-law for the first time, immersing himself in a saturation dose of my family. When together, we’re loud… and he loved it. Here we are– yours truly, Nico, and Kirk, posing dutifully by Lois and Mike’s pool in Port St. Lucie, a small fishing village wedged between the Atlantic and the Everglades.

Nico was VERY taken by how wide and far everything is here in America. We drove down through the center of the state along US-27 when we headed to Key West; I love that route because it’s wide and empty and scenic. By the time we got to the Everglades entrance in Homestead, which is about 209 miles from my house here in Winter Park, we could have driven from his house in Lucca all the way to Rome– a whole other region and a whole other dialect. And we STILL had hours to go until we reached Key West.

I’d never been to the Everglades, and we were both impressed. An alligator showed up, as anticipated, and we posed my cousin next to a sign fraught with warnings:

 

A primeval killer.

We drove further into the park after spending some time at this hammock, but the road grew grungier and the sky blacker, convincing us to head back to town and some Mexican food. There’s such a sense of vastness in the Everglades. The sky and the flatness stretch out before you, and when you’re the only ones on the road like we were it feels like Earth has been evacuated. Where are the souvenir stands, your mind cries out!  There’s nothing but swamp! “It’s all very green,” Nico said. “From Orlando to here has been nothing but green.” “We are one of the nation’s vegetable baskets,” I replied, sounding like my third grade nun. “See all those plants that look like corn? That’s sugar cane! This is where we get the sugar for all those Snickers bars we ate on the way down here.”

 

The next morning we headed for Key West along U.S. Highway 1, which is the only road into the Keys. There are some stretches where you just don’t drive faster than ten miles above the posted speed limit, yet there is always one bozo behind you who wants to go even faster. “Bozo,” I explained to Nicola, “was a television clown here in America.”  “I hate clowns… I am afraid of them!”  “Me too.”

He was very taken with the palette of blues and greens which color the water on the way down through the island chain. And even though it was six thousand degrees outside the car, he gamely posed in the sun while wearing his mosquito suit. (Jeans and long sleeves.)

“I think I’ll sleep,” he said at one point while I drove us through the endless miles of azure and teal. “Please do,” I replied, which he interpreted ironically, a Tuscan trait which, incidentally, had the both of us raising amused eyebrows for the two weeks he was in Florida. As when I attempted to tell him, in Italian, something about bringing along a duffel bag:  “Don’t even try,” he replied. Had there been a dueling oak in Winter Park, I’m sure we would have met beneath it one fine morning– linguistically, of course.  Neapolitans or Sicilians would simply throw knives at one another and be done with it but, being Tuscans, we duel with eyebrows. (Admittedly, I am half Neapolitan, and Nico and I are both descended from a Sicilian woman. But that’s a state secret) And I had the pleasure of explaining to him the subtle differences among underneath,  under, and below.  Being a scholar of languages, his fluency in Latin and Ancient Greek allows him to grasp the subtleties of our barbaric language in a trice; it was like driving with Homer.

We stopped at this church on Key Largo just to prowl around inside and visit the Sacrament. Nico was impressed by how modern and suburban most Florida churches are.

After a few hours, we arrived in Key West. To me, it always feels like I’ve come home. To Nico, it was his first slice of urban paradise, and he loved it immediately. We drove in via the southern entrance, past the forts along the Atlantic, and he could not get over the fact that here was this vast, spreading ocean nestled against this charming little city. And the air is always so fresh… it was a pleasure to see the look on his face: another convert!

Here’s Nico on Elizabeth Street, which we decided was named for Jack’s male secretary on Will & Grace. Remember?  “Elizabeth!!!”  He loves that show, and we watched a lot of episodes in Italian on my computer. They are just as crazy, Karen even more so.

One of my favorite spots in Key West is atop La Concha Hotel, where you have views of the entire town. Here’s my cousin backed by St. Paul’s Episcopal, which he was very impressed with. I am too– the figural stained glass alone is worth the trip. And it’s one of those Episcopal sanctuaries that is just a hair’s breadth away from being entirely Roman Catholic; sometimes they’ll tell you “we have everything but the Pope,” which doesn’t seem like such a bad idea these days.

And, of course, here’s Bonnie Albury’s house, which I’ve written about recently. I am ready to move in here. Where’s the contract?

We stayed at Oasis, one of those guest houses for men, which was a first for him. I felt like the old geezer trailing his young companion along with him: “This is my Italian cousin,” I felt compelled to tell the desk clerk and any guests we spoke with. And then I would get the gay male version of the raised eyebrows look. So what! Believe what you want.

We swam in the pool and were able to splash around at will, because the joint was deserted. “It’s the slow time of year,” everyone kept telling us, which was fine with me. We did notice a lot of lesbian couples strolling through town, holding hands, and then we realized it was Women’s Week, or close to it. Nico was amazed at the freedom, and stunned at the look of a housewife– there could be no other word– who shot THE filthiest look at a female couple as she passed by them on the sidewalk. Why even bother dragging your husband and kids to Key West if you’re going to come with THAT attitude? Honestly.

We stopped in at the 801 one night so Nico could get his first look at a gay club. Filled with carousing locals, it was a pleasant introduction. I had a beer, he had a soda, and we found ourselves seated next to a couple who happened to be staying at our guest house. When my cousin got up to find the facilities, I got the eyebrows from one of them, but then I entered into a conversation with the bartender and told him about Nico visiting from Italy. “He’s my cousin,” I said in their direction. “My second cousin once removed.” It turns out the bartender’s  people are from Italy as well, and so he and Nico had a chat about the old country when my cousin found his way back to his bar stool.

The gay community center on Truman Avenue was enlightening for him– there’s just nothing like it in rural Italy. Here was an entire structure devoted to tolerance, with a great display about Tennessee Williams. (Hi Susan!)

We stayed two days and then drove back to downtown Miami, where my second cousin Steven on my father’s side owns an Italian restaurant named Perricone’s. What a meal! We arrived halfway between lunch and dinner, and so had everyone’s attention. The place is amazing, and Steven was on the premises and able to hang out for a while. And Nico loved the food.

He had a great time here, and I truly miss his company. Now he’s back in Italy, totally immersed in his sophomore year at the University, and dying to come back to America. I’m dying to go back to Italy, so it’s been decided that Kirk and I will be visiting there next year, because Nico’s entire family wants to meet us as a couple. And that’s a whole other story. There were plenty of issues when my cousin came out to his people, and lots of eMails back and forth between him and Cousin Jimmy, beseeching advice and help during what turned out to be a rather emotional and trying time, but eventually everybody saw reason. I feel like I’ve accomplished something good and lasting in my life regarding HIS life, but I’m mostly thankful for his family’s understanding and support. It was a stretch for a gang of rural Italians to come to grips with such a concept as a gay son / grandson / nephew.

Now summer’s over, and we can all start looking forward to the next.

 

 

 

PhotoBike Tour 8: A Key West Treasure– The Albury House

This is my favorite house in Key West. It had been in the Albury family since being built in the 1800s. The house’s last occupant, Bonnie Albury,  died in 2007. I had the privilege of being glared at by her once while strolling past the house. The place is now up for sale… and needs a lot of work, most notably on the exterior. It needed attention when I first saw it in 1985, and it needs even more now. But it’s beautiful– its ancient Key West soul glows.

I can’t get enough of this house… here are some shots from August 2010…

And here’s a resident’s blog about Bonnie, and her life in Key West.

She was quite a character!

Maybe I’m one of the strange men she called the police about over the years?

http://conchscooter.blogspot.com/2009/02/bonnie-albury.html

Read the blog entry just below this one for our recent shenanigans on the island…

Robert the Doll: A Doll of A Doll

Can they make a doll of a doll? They sure can– and lucky me, I received a replica of Key West’s famous Robert the Doll  last Christmas. In my post from last year, I went on about Robert causing unrest from within the glass confines of his creepy abode: it’s impossible to look at him and not feel something— and just as impossible to look and him and feel nothing. He definitely makes an impression on the visitor.

What intrigues me is how he’s survived all these years. From his original bower in little Robert Eugene Otto’s home beginning in the early 1900s, until today, Robert lives on. Inexorably linked to Key West’s Artist House, where Otto lived, his presence is still felt there though he now resides in the museum at the island’s East Martello Tower.

My doll arrived in February, a full three months after Kirk ordered him from its Key West manufacturer. The first two shipments went missing. Granted, they were sent via the United States Postal Service, but still– twice lost? Kirk insisted on FedEx, and the third time was the charm– my Robert the Doll doll arrived intact, glowering at me from the minute I unwrapped him. He clutches a tiny stuffed lion, and has the same opaque black eyes that Key West’s Robert stares from. In his little sailor suit, he presents a picture of innocence…

I know he’s just a doll, yet there’s something strange about owning a replica of Robert the Doll. Maybe it’s because I was bothered for years by dreams in which mannequins came to life and followed me through the house. (My grandfather and uncle managed a mannequin factory in Brooklyn.) And as a little boy, I was terrified by a life-sized, mechanical fortune teller who I didn’t know was going to spring to life when I pushed a quarter into a slot in her glass booth. Me and dolls? Not a good combination. Though Robert has a place in the bedroom, and I know he’s just a creation of cloth and string, something tells me that he’s keeping those gimlet eyes on me while I sleep…

“… silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House,

and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

— Shirley Jackson, 1959

Key West #3– Eat, Drink and Be Merry… Tomorrow We Diet

I did so want to be a good boy this Lent and watch my caloric intake, but I realized that Ash Wednesday would be occurring right in the middle of our trip. I had planned on a spartan eating program this month, and not just because I wanted to do something nice for Lent– I really need to get rid of the anaconda that’s wrapped itself around my waist before it crawls northward and squeezes the life out of my heart. But how does one deny himself his favorite foods when vacationing on an island that contains over 200 restaurants? Simple: one rationalizes and decides to do extra good for Lent rather than just quitting doing something bad. And I really don’t do that many bad things. (And what’s with the guilt?!?! I ask you.)

Luckily, we roomed with John and Chris, our good friends from Massachusetts. John especially is an accomplished cook and likes nothing better than planning and presenting entire huge themed meals for friends and family; his luaus are North Shore legends. They were predisposed toward roaming the Island and finding good places to eat; the guest house we stayed at has a full bar and restaurant, and that’s tempting: like spending a day at Disney, you never feel like you have to leave the place in order to find sustenance. (Typical day at the guest house: awaken; shower; coffee; lay by pool; swim; doze; read; have one or two drinks before happy hour; have many more drinks during happy hour (they are free); doze again; shower; go out to dinner; come back and swim; sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat.)

There are tons of great restaurants in Key West. Some of our favorites…

Sarabeth’s on Simonton Street: breakfasts and brunches. Highly recommended: the lemon ricotta pancakes with a nice serving of wheat berries are perfect. The owner came over to us and told stories, none of which I remember at this point, but they were very informative.

Harpoon Harry’s on Caroline Street: diner-y fare; all tasty and comforting. Very friendly waitresses. The kind of place where you can wear shorts, a tee, flip flops, and absolutely nothing else.

Opera on Duval Street: upscale Italian. John treated us that night for Chris’s birthday. Very, very nice– everything was elegant and professional and the ambiance was sooo soothing: like floating in a pool while having dinner, it seemed. I had their Panzanella Salad (balsamic- and herb-marinated bread, baby spinach and artichoke hearts); Orrecchiette con Broccoli Rabe (ear-shaped pasta with white beans, sausage, toasted garlic, and white wine); a Cannoli; and espresso. I have no idea what anyone else ate because I didn’t lift my face from my plate long enough to find out.

Pepe’s on Caroline Street: it’s been there forever. FABULOUS seafood! They really feed you. Hanging from the ceiling is a giant paddle fan run by a washing machine motor– you’ve got to see it! It’s got a very nice outdoors area, too. And in the front of the restaurant is a phone booth! If those walls could talk (back)…

Flamingo’s on Duval: extremely friendly cafe’– you feel like you’re at home being attended to by loving relatives! Very casual, small-town feel.

Cafe’ Sole’ on Southard Street: I always wanted to try this, and we finally did, with our friend Jim visiting the guest house from North Carolina. I remember the Conch Carpaccio I had as an appetizer– it was a first for me, and very satisfying. My entree was their Salmon Oscar, which was wild salmon topped with crab meat, asparagus, and shrimp with a homemade hollandaise sauce. I ordered it because I wanted to say “Salmon Oscar” out loud in the same cadence that Norma Shearer said “Pancakes Barbara” in The Women. I was fascinated by the other diners in the room: they were all of a certain group– retired gentlemen with their wives, all vaguely resembling one another. I got to wondering: if you sat me and all my friends at a restaurant table twenty years from now, would we all resemble one another? And will people stare?

And I think that covers our repast, though I should mention that the meals at the Island House cafe’ are always good. I am particularly taken with their waffle fries. Sometimes I like to sit in the shade by myself at a table in the shade and have an entire portion all to myself, accompanied by yellow mustard and iced tea. Perfect. And did I gain any weight that week? Not an ounce– we made sure to do plenty of walking and biking.

Key West #2- Das Kayak

See those orangey things to the right in the picture? Those are upside-down kayaks, which were lashed to the top of the hull (I’m sure there is a better nautical term for that) of the Blu Q, a catamaran that we took to sea on our recent trip to Key West. We always try to take some sort of boat trip when we go to the Keys, considering that there is water everywhere you look. I mean, the water in the pool at the guest house would be actually enough for me because you can see borders, and just beyond those borders are cocktails, and comfortable bathrooms. The ocean has no borders; if anyone tells you “yes it does: the continents,” slap them. Hard.

I agreed to the boat trip because I’m a sport, and I even restrained myself from doing my aqua-themed imitations: Vivien Leigh in Ship of Fools (which I’ve never seen but can just imagine); Barbara Stanwyck in Titanic— “Where’s Norman… Norman? NORMANNNNN!!!!!!!”; Harriette Johns in A Night to Remember, complaining about being inconvenienced in the lifeboat… I could go on and on. Instead, I boarded the Blu Q with aplomb and settled in for what turned out to be a beautiful ride.

We headed in a leisurely course northeast of Key West into the mangrove islands, and soon tied up at a point near Elliott Key. The plan was for the four of us passengers and one of the two crew members to man three lifeboats– I mean kayaks– and then head toward the Key, paddle alongside it a bit, and then return. It turns out that we made such great headway that we ended up circling the entire little island, paddling nonchalantly or frantically, depending on whether the tide was coming in, our out, or whatever the hell the ocean does when you least expect it to.

It was gorgeous– the water really is Blue Green, or Aqua, or Green Blue. (They knew what they were doing, those Crayola people!) We saw needlefish, and small nurse sharks– one moving along slowly, and one snapping through the water below us like a whippet. We kayaked into th emangroves, and negotiated submerged roots and overhanging limbs with ease, only getting stuck once; with a few shoves of the paddles and some really colorful vocal exercises, we were soon on our way.

On the far side of the island (The leeward side? Windward? Who can say?) we paddled past thick mangroves which were alive with birds: roosting pelicans (not penguins, as originally noted; there are NO ice floes in the Keys– at least, not yet!), seagulls, and all sorts of others. (I didn’t notice any pigeons.) In the sky above were creepy, mysterious frigate birds, circling and circling and nevercoming down to our level… I always wonder what those things are waiting for, and am reminded of Suzanne Pleshette’s great line in The Birds: “Don’t they ever stop migrating?”

Paddling the kayak was relatively easy. We’re not always in sync on land, so it just figures that we wouldn’t necessarily be in sync in a kayak floating atop a heaving ocean. Well, not exactly heaving, but there were tiny swells once in a while. Still, the front man (me) had to steer while the back man (Kirk) paddled, unless we were moving along in a straight line, which meant that we both paddled. “Just think of your Viking roots,” I suggested. “Make believe we’re in a longship heading for Greenland.” Left, right, left, right, left, right… Greenland is only six thousand miles ahead, men! Be thankful it’s not Winter! We were mostly in tandem, but it was obvious that the two other Blu Q passengers must have signed up for professional kayak lessons the week before, because they aced us. Not that we were racing, but I tend to get very competitive in these situations. (As Ethel Merman hollers in It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,  “WE’RE the ones in the Imperial and WE’RE running last!”) Years ago in another kayak run, we raced another couple, and won, and I was so proud… “But one of them just had open heart surgery,” Kirk said.

My impatient harangues were dealt with in a gentlemanly manner by He Who Puts Up With Me, and we really weren’t that far behind Couple Number One by the time we returned to the Blu Q. The boats were brought back on board, and we tucked into very nice chicken Caesar salads, beers, and soft drinks. The captain and his crewman treated us very well, and pointed lots of things out to us: interesting birds, fascinating fish, and threatening cloud formations. Our safety was in their hands, and they handled it all professionally.  We’ll do it again next year… there are so many more movie references that I still have to put to use!

Key West #1– Robert the Doll

A perfect week in Key West was marred– MARRED!!– only by the disappearance of a ring containing my house and car keys. Okay, I’m being dramatic– the trip wasn’t ruined or anything, but the last twenty minutes in the room were colored by the fact that we’d spent them searching high and low for the keys rather than spending them in the cafe having a final cup of coffee. We’d packed pretty carefully, too, considering that we were departing with a third more luggage than we’d arrived with, all for naught– everything was torn apart and dissembled and rearranged, with no satisfactory end result. Kirk luckily carries my car key on his ring, so we weren’t exactly going to be marooned when we arrived at the Orlando airport’s parking lot, but still… what a waste of time!

And it was all Robert’s fault.

In Key West’s East Martello Tower– a history museum inside a fort– lives Robert, the Haunted Doll. So they say. He was made by a family servant for little Gene Otto in 1904, when he was five years old. From the very beginning, Robert has been imbued with a disturbing presence, and the usual movements, eye blinks, giggles, etc. have been attributed to it over the years. Gene died in 1974, his wife three years later, and Robert, after a stay in the house where it was reported he liked to move around, ended up in the museum. He rests in a glass case there and it’s said (and testified to by dozens of accompanying letters) that he doesn’t like to have his picture taken: he’ll drain your battery or jam the camera’s mechanism if you try, or he’ll come up with ways to inconvenience your visit.  Well, I had no problem getting pictures of Robert but, when trying to photograph the Elena Hoyos effigy in the next display (that’s another, horrifying tale), my camera gave up the ghost. Granted, the rechargeable battery was weak and I expected trouble– if not with Robert, then eventually. But the camera worked fine after I rubbed the battery contacts, and I had a fresh battery back at the guest house– a fresh battery, but no keys. Thanks, Robert.