Monday, October 26, 2009 by Dick.

It’s the Keys, mon. The sweat rolling off my back doesn’t turn into ice cubes before it hits the floor.

I had a mostly uneventful trip from North Puffin to South Puffin last week. I bought half a sailboat and didn’t buy a motor home.

Half a boat conjures a Wiley Coyote image of a bald guy hanging onto the mast, trying to keep the chewed off after end out of the drink. That would be a small error. Rufus bought the other half, so we’re probably safe as long as I can keep him away from the chainsaw. We spent a couple of days completing the purchase, getting the trailer tags, making sure everything would stay connected. He fed me well.

Speaking of chewed off after ends, my neighbor Joe went fishing yesterday and almost boated a pretty nice mackerel. Except he had reeled the fish in to withing spitting distance of the boat when a much larger mackerel saw dinner on the hook and chomped off the back half. No shaking, no rending, no tearing. Open wide. Bite down. Swim away. ‘Nother reason I pefer fishing for cow.

I tend to listen to podcasts and talk shows while driving so I discovered a surprisingly conservative broadcast about a news media watchdog’s 40th anniversary on C-Span, of all venues. Of course, C-Span is kind of the public access television for inside the Beltway, so perhaps it is not so surprising.

The trailer towed easily at all speeds and neither the tires nor the bearings got hot. The traffic cooperated. I even drove right through D.C. and, other than the G.P.S. scolding me about “better routes,” had no tie-ups. Even the rain wasn’t too bad to drive through. The motel yard cats liked the boat at each stop.

Gas prices climbed through the entre trip. I stopped for gas at a 7-11 in Port Charlotte, Florida. The road signs advertise a $2.58⁹/gallon price for regular. The actual price at the pump was $2.73⁹/gallon. The store clerk told me no manager was at the store but one would “probably” be available on Monday.

Later, I checked in to a Red Roof Inn in Naples. The Florida Roomsaver ad promised “It’s all new under the Roof” with gourmet coffee, a free USA Today, and WiFi Internet access through T-Mobile.

Not every motel in the Florida Roomsaver offers Internet access but all that do offer it just as they do a complimentary hot breakfast or the towels — included the cost of the room. After I checked in, the clerk told that the WiFi Internet access through T-Mobile would cost me $8/day. I could buy the T-Mobile card then, he said, and ask for a refund in the morning. I spent the evening without any ability to check mail, plan my route, or download porn. I never saw a paper, either.

I’ll write the usual nastygrams. I can pretend that 7-11 will sanction the franchisee and Red Roof will give me a free night somewhere. I can even file deceptive advertising complaints with the Florida Attorney General and, as an ExxonMobil shareholder, I will ask that company to pull Exxon and Mobil gasoline from all 7-11s nationwide. It certainly leaves me not liking what’s “all new” under the roof. Or at the 7-11.

I ’spect the most I’ll get is this blog entry.

Running the Tamiami through the Everglades in daylight was the best part of the trip. I stopped at the Collier-Seminole State Park just to see what is there this week and discovered the 1924 Bay City walking dredge. It is on the National Register as the earliest remaining dredge of that type. Designed to work in the swamps that bog down traditional wheeled or tracked construction equipment, it dredged the canals for the roadbed fill that created the Tamiami Trail at a rate of 80 feet per 18 hour day. There are several heron rookeries along the way, so I stopped a couple of times. The herons in the Glades are less trusting of people so they flushed as soon as I walked along the shoulder. On the other hand, the observation deck of the Oasis Visitor Center at Big Cypress National Preserve gives a bird’s eye view of eight alligators, plus active fish, herons and cormorants, and other wildlife such as tourists.

The Styrofoam “Omaha” meat cooler still had northern ice — I did not refresh its ice during the trip. That may not make the record books but it sure worked for me. On the downside, I can’t pick my nose any more. A neighbor is sitting in his living room across the canal, looking in my living room at me looking in his living room at him.

Good thing I didn’t tarry any longer on the road, though. I ran out of clean underwear.

Ah, heck. Who needs underwear? It’s the Keys, mon.

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Monday, September 28, 2009 by Dick.

Ahhhh. The sounds of silence. Not the song that propelled Simon and Garfunkel to worldwide fame but rather the reason so many people prefer living on rural roads: to be away from the revving engines and gunshots that punctuate city streets.

There ought to be a law.

Vermont held its youth waterfowl hunting weekend Saturday and Sunday. Hunters under the age of 16 got to hunt ducks and geese statewide during this “introductory” season as long as an adult accompanied them. The adult may not hunt or carry a firearm. Both must have Vermont hunting licenses but neither the youth nor the adult is required to hold a state or federal duck stamp for the weekend.

I like to sleep in until 8 or 8:30 on weekends but the North Puffin farmhouse sits on the shore of a bay popular with ducks. Our neighbor Madeleine fed the ducks for many years and we on this bay had an informal moratorium on hunting shanties. It is a tranquil body of water.

Shotguns — even those pointed at the sky — pounding the dawn a few hundred feet from my bed do bust tranquility. Pretty hard on the ducks, too.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM.

A South Puffin ordinance prohibits either Leatherface Hewitt or Lynyrd Skynyrd from starting a chainsaw within city limits before 9 a.m. It is an irritant to construction workers but pleasant for residents.

The regular duck season opens Saturday-week, October 10, in the Lake Champlain and Interior Vermont Zones but next Tuesday October 6 in the Connecticut River Zone. The split season Lake Champlain Zone runs just three days then restarts on October 24 and runs through December 18. Legal shooting hours for waterfowl begin one-half hour before sunrise every day of the season and end at sunset.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM.

Duck hunting doesn’t come cheap.

25 rounds of Winchester® XPert® 12 Gauge 3-1/2 inch steel shotshells for waterfowl costs between $10 and $40 bucks, depending on size and where you buy them. A buck a shot.

Gas for the boat and the truck to tow it costs between $6 and $126 bucks, depending on how far you tow and how fast you (don’t) row.

A good night’s sleep: priceless.

Posted in Community, Society, Random Access | 2 Comments »

Monday, January 19, 2009 by Dick.

It is more important to honor Martin Luther King Jr. than to honor blacks.

It is also more important to honor George Washington and Abraham Lincoln than to honor “Presidents.”

And it is more important to honor Mollie Beattie than to honor women.

What? You’ve never heard of Mollie Beattie?

Black History Month is celebrated each February in the United States and Canada and in October in the UK. This month-long homage highlights contributions of black people and events.

Presidents Day (note the lack of an apostrophe) is a federal holiday here in the United States. We celebrate not on February 12 or February 22 but rather on the third Monday of the month so we can have a three day weekend.

Women’s History Month in March is major commemoration of the economic, political and social achievements of women.

Wow.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad that American women can now own entire properties by bequest or outright purchase. The farmhouse we bought in Vermont came with an interesting history: the first Mrs. Stevens to live here outlived the first Mr. Stevens to live here (this was originally the Stevens farm). Mr. Stevens, apparently worried that his children would turn their mother out, bequeathed to her the use of a bedroom, “cooking facilities,” and the cellar for storage.

I’m glad that American politicians can now spend endless time on world-altering events like declaring holidays and then going on them.

And I’m glad that Americans, whether black or white or purple or green can now buy houses, build businesses, go to school, marry, and vote. When I lived in New Jersey, the election judge who signed me in was a black man named Harper. He looked at my ID, looked at his name badge, and looked at my ID again.

“Oh,” he said, “You’re from the other side of the family.”

I was pleased but someday, we won’t notice which side of the family we came from.

We certainly need Presidents. Without them, Congress would have run amok with all this holidaying far sooner and the now-233 year history of this particular democratic experiment would have been written in about 87 years.

Martin Luther King Jr. started out as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Alabama. As arguably the strongest voice for civil rights, he was first a man people might never heard of.

Mollie Beattie was a Vermonter and the first woman to lead the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As arguably the strongest single voice for wildlife conservation, she was a woman most people still have never heard of.

George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are larger than life now but they were just George and Abe to their families and to the people nearest them.

They all gave us something more. George and Abe share two important traits with Martin and Mollie: they did more than they thought they would and they all inspired us to do more than we thought we could. That’s heroic.

We need heroes. When we honor mere Presidents, all we get is another sale.

Posted in Community, Sociology, Society, Random Access | 2 Comments »