It came to pass in those days, the early days in St. Cloud, that the Buinickas family was coming to Orlando on vacation. They were staying at the High Q on International Drive. We knew how to get to I-Drive becauise we'd been to the convention center once. So we packed for a long expedition, and drove down US 192 to the turnpike. We exited the Pike at Orange Blossom Trail, and proceeded north to Sand Lake Road, which we knew connected with I-Drive. First we went south on I-Drive, followed it to the end, turned around and headed north. The other side of Sand Lake Road was unfamiliar territory, but we forged ahead. Before long we were parking at the High Q, a tall cylindrical building very near the north end of International Drive.
We had (mostly) a good time with our friends, visiting Epcot Center and Disney Village etc. Then it was time to make that long, arduous trip all the way back to St. Cloud. But we made it.
A few months later I quit the plant nursery. After a week or so of casting about, I landed my first job as a professional scenic carpenter. It was a company called Image International, about twenty minutes from home. It was a block away from International Drive, within view of the High Q. I drove my motorcycle there six or seven days a week for six and a half years, never forgetting the first epic journey seeking out the far away, elusive High Q.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Dawgs of Narcoossee
Rummel Road connects Greater Narcoossee with St. Cloud, and this was the way we found our home for the next nine years- in three different dwellings in St. Cloud. When we first moved there, at the end of March, 1987, we rented half a house on Tennessee Avenue. Carmen was working at Land Title and Survey in downtown St. Cloud. I found a job at Raintree Forest Nursery at two locations in...Narcoossee. This was where I learned that Narcoosians, when they go into town, go to St. Cloud.
I began life there as a bicyclist, riding an old beater one-speed Schwinn with a kickstand that wouldn't stay up, so it went "clink...clink...clink" all the way there and back. I passed a house on Rummel Road every day, with two big doberman pinschers in the fenced yard. They heard me coming for a mile, "clink...clink...clink" and waited at the west corner. As I approached, they began snarling and barking, following me as I continued along the fence, to the east corner, where they snarled and barked until I was out of range. Then one day I approached, and the dogs weren't out there. I called out, "Hey, Dobies! Dobie Dobie Dobies." They came running from the back of the house, snarling and barking, following me along the fence. Then I looked ahead. The front gate was open. My blood ran cold. Oh, shit, what am I gonna do now? There was nothing I could do but fight them off as best I could. The dogs were running down the fence. They came to the open gate and stopped, obviously puzzled by this new development. Then they started up again, snarling and barking, running along the inside of the fence to the end. Whew!
Going to Nursery Number One, on John Geip's property, was much more of a trip. I was glad to buy a motorcycle in June for that trip down Jones Road to the nursery. At one point, the dirt road was a deep pit of sand as wide as the road and about ten feet across. In the morning it was soft sand. In the afternoon, after the rain, it was mud. Either way it was treacherous. So there was this big German shepherd that lived there. He was the troll of the sand pit. He heard my motorcycle coming and waited for me to hit the sand and get bogged down and struggle through it. He'd snarl and bark and dance around me and nip at me. Until the day he was dancing around and mis-timed it so that the front tire hit him. He yelped and ran home and I never saw him again.
John had a German shepherd, too- a nice one. I'd say that she followed him wherever he went, but that would be grossly inacurate. She ran about twenty feet ahead of him as he walked around the property. This was handy for us. When we saw the dog, we had about ten seconds to stop whatever we were doing and get to work.
The greatest adventure I had at Raintree was the time I was building platforms for plants, with wood framing and wire fencing on top to hold the plants and allow drainage. John told me to get somebody to help me carry the big-ass roll of fencing in to where the frames were set up on concrete blocks inside a greenhouse skeleton (which would be covered with plastic sheeting November through April) but I was even stupider then than I am now. I carried it by myself. Well, I lost control of it and it crashed in the corner where all of the irrigation pipes were clustered. I broke two of the pipes and the shut-off valve. It was approaching time to go pick up Brandon at Day Camp. So I scrambled around for some parts, fixed what I could, and told the boss lady that I would finish it early early in the morning. The next day I showed up two hours early, found the parts I needed among the steaming heap of PVC irrigation parts, dug down to the deepest breaks, and began cutting and cementing. I filled the hole pretty, and tried to remember which way the valve had been set- on or off. I couldn't remember. I figured I'd ask Boss Lady when she came in. Meanwhile, I began rolling out wire onto the frames and cutting the lengths. John came along. He nodded approvingly at what I was doing, and went straight to the main water controls by the office. In a moment he was standing by the house I was working in. "I can't get the water to come on." he said, scratching his head. I went straight to my new valve and turned it on. The waterworks were working again! I got a nice big "Atta boy" for that one, and another big "Whew!"
I began life there as a bicyclist, riding an old beater one-speed Schwinn with a kickstand that wouldn't stay up, so it went "clink...clink...clink" all the way there and back. I passed a house on Rummel Road every day, with two big doberman pinschers in the fenced yard. They heard me coming for a mile, "clink...clink...clink" and waited at the west corner. As I approached, they began snarling and barking, following me as I continued along the fence, to the east corner, where they snarled and barked until I was out of range. Then one day I approached, and the dogs weren't out there. I called out, "Hey, Dobies! Dobie Dobie Dobies." They came running from the back of the house, snarling and barking, following me along the fence. Then I looked ahead. The front gate was open. My blood ran cold. Oh, shit, what am I gonna do now? There was nothing I could do but fight them off as best I could. The dogs were running down the fence. They came to the open gate and stopped, obviously puzzled by this new development. Then they started up again, snarling and barking, running along the inside of the fence to the end. Whew!
Going to Nursery Number One, on John Geip's property, was much more of a trip. I was glad to buy a motorcycle in June for that trip down Jones Road to the nursery. At one point, the dirt road was a deep pit of sand as wide as the road and about ten feet across. In the morning it was soft sand. In the afternoon, after the rain, it was mud. Either way it was treacherous. So there was this big German shepherd that lived there. He was the troll of the sand pit. He heard my motorcycle coming and waited for me to hit the sand and get bogged down and struggle through it. He'd snarl and bark and dance around me and nip at me. Until the day he was dancing around and mis-timed it so that the front tire hit him. He yelped and ran home and I never saw him again.
John had a German shepherd, too- a nice one. I'd say that she followed him wherever he went, but that would be grossly inacurate. She ran about twenty feet ahead of him as he walked around the property. This was handy for us. When we saw the dog, we had about ten seconds to stop whatever we were doing and get to work.
The greatest adventure I had at Raintree was the time I was building platforms for plants, with wood framing and wire fencing on top to hold the plants and allow drainage. John told me to get somebody to help me carry the big-ass roll of fencing in to where the frames were set up on concrete blocks inside a greenhouse skeleton (which would be covered with plastic sheeting November through April) but I was even stupider then than I am now. I carried it by myself. Well, I lost control of it and it crashed in the corner where all of the irrigation pipes were clustered. I broke two of the pipes and the shut-off valve. It was approaching time to go pick up Brandon at Day Camp. So I scrambled around for some parts, fixed what I could, and told the boss lady that I would finish it early early in the morning. The next day I showed up two hours early, found the parts I needed among the steaming heap of PVC irrigation parts, dug down to the deepest breaks, and began cutting and cementing. I filled the hole pretty, and tried to remember which way the valve had been set- on or off. I couldn't remember. I figured I'd ask Boss Lady when she came in. Meanwhile, I began rolling out wire onto the frames and cutting the lengths. John came along. He nodded approvingly at what I was doing, and went straight to the main water controls by the office. In a moment he was standing by the house I was working in. "I can't get the water to come on." he said, scratching his head. I went straight to my new valve and turned it on. The waterworks were working again! I got a nice big "Atta boy" for that one, and another big "Whew!"
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Christmas 1986
Somewhere between the summer and Christmas, 1986 Brandon's mother and her boyfriend, Melvin The Toothless Twit, loaded a homemade trailer- which fell apart on the road before they got out of Florida- and moved to Edison, Ohio, just north of Cincinnati. In fact it was after they had gone that our divorce, written by Carmen and uncontested, went to court. It was a good divorce, as divorces go.
This was my year to have Brandon at Christmas. I thought it would be a treat for him to come to Florida by bus. He loved anything with wheels on it. My mother, of course, still thought bus travel was dangerous, so she offered to pay the difference between the price of bus tickets and air fare. Well, as luck would have it, our local radio station, WTTB (Where The Tropics Begin) in Vero Beach ran a Greyhound promotion called "Home For The Holidays," with a prize of two round trip tickets to anywhere in the US for the listener who wrote the winning sad tale about what schmaltzy thing could be accomplished if she/he had this grand prize. You know me and schmaltzy tales. Actually, I think I might have been the only one who entered. But I won in any case. So Mom and I negotiated a settlement. I took Greyhound to Cincinnati and had two plane tickets back, subsidized in the amount it would have been if the bus tickets had been full price. Melvin was going to haul Brandon back to Ohio.
I don't recall anything particularly interesting on the trip to Cincinnati. When I arrived I did what I usually do- I bought a map. I found the street where they lived in Edison, figured out the bus route that went that direction, and set out. So, the bus only went about half way. So I did what I always do. I set out walking with my suitcase.
I guess I walked about three miles before a kind soul stopped and offered me a lift. He took me right to their front door. I waited around for about an hour before Brandon was ready to go. Melvin called a cab company and asked how much the fare was to the airport. It was forty bucks. He drove us himself. Not only is the airport on the far side of the city, it's not even in Ohio! It's in Covington, Kentucky. I secreted a twenty dollar bill poking out of his ash tray while he was buying gas to get there.
Brandon was entranced at the airport. There were real airplanes everywhere! Then when we got on the plane, there were light switches and air jets to play with. The flight crew were charmed by his winning little six-year-old personality, too, so it was a fun flight. It was dark out, so we could see things that were lit up on the ground, cities and such. The coolest, though, was the approach into Orlando a few days before Christmas. The whole place was a blaze of colored lights.
Carmen picked us up at the airport and took us back to Vero Beach. We didn't explore Narcoossee this time. I guess it was 11:00 by the time we arrived at home and carried the sleeping boy inside.
Christmas was Christmas as usual, but it had a surprise lurking behind it. Carmen got a call from her mother that evening. Mum Mum, Carmen's grandmother who all but raised her, had had a heart attack and was in the hospital in Memphis, sixty miles from West Helena, Arkansas where Mum Mum lived. We made arrangements with Melvin to make the transfer in Memphis to get Brandon back in time for school in January. We quickly packed the car, and bundled ourselves in for the long drive.
Late the next morning we were in eastern Mississippi thinking about lunch. Carmen talked to her mom, who said that Mum Mum was in no immediate danger. We decided we wanted to cook out in a park somewhere. So we stopped at a little grocery store to buy ground beef and buns. Carmen thought we ought to make s'mores for dessert, so we bought graham crackers and Hershey bars. The store did not have any charcoal or marshmallows- in fact the proprietors gave us suspicious looks for even thinking about cooking out. It was below freezing. So we continued on, stopping at every convenience store looking for the missing items. Finally one had an old dusty bag of charcoal, and another had an old dusty bag of marshmallows and a can of lighter fluid.
We were seeing signs for Chewalla Lake Recreation Area in Holly Springs National Forest, so we turned off US 78 and followed a long and winding road to a totally human-free picnic area beside a beautiful lake surrounded by bare trees and evergreens. I got the charcoal going, then Brandon and I walked a portion of the ice-rimmed edge of the lake to see what we could see. Not much. We were there for about two and a half hours, another long siege while Brandon took forever to eat. The s'mores were yummy and worth all the effort it took to find the wherewithall.
Back on the road, we were on the home stretch. Before long Marc Cohn was running through my head as I was Walking in Memphis. We visited Mum Mum in Baptist Hospital, then drove back to West Helena, Carmen's home town, for some much-needed sleep.
We called The Toothless Twit and he declared that he would be in Memphis Sunday morning to pick up Brandon. We told him where the parking garage was where we had his luggage to haul back. We were dismayed when Melvin arrived after his 480 mile journey on his motorcycle, ready to haul Brandon and stuff 480 miles back to Cincinnati in below freezing weather. But...it wasn't our job to interfere, and they both survived it.
We returned to Vero Beach soon after, with a liesurely tour of the Greater Narcoossee area thrown in. We found a road that skirted the south side of East Lake Tohopekaliga and landed us on St. Cloud's lakefront, where sandhill cranes roamed like huge tall chickens and snail kites munched on big snails.
We moved there three months later.
This was my year to have Brandon at Christmas. I thought it would be a treat for him to come to Florida by bus. He loved anything with wheels on it. My mother, of course, still thought bus travel was dangerous, so she offered to pay the difference between the price of bus tickets and air fare. Well, as luck would have it, our local radio station, WTTB (Where The Tropics Begin) in Vero Beach ran a Greyhound promotion called "Home For The Holidays," with a prize of two round trip tickets to anywhere in the US for the listener who wrote the winning sad tale about what schmaltzy thing could be accomplished if she/he had this grand prize. You know me and schmaltzy tales. Actually, I think I might have been the only one who entered. But I won in any case. So Mom and I negotiated a settlement. I took Greyhound to Cincinnati and had two plane tickets back, subsidized in the amount it would have been if the bus tickets had been full price. Melvin was going to haul Brandon back to Ohio.
I don't recall anything particularly interesting on the trip to Cincinnati. When I arrived I did what I usually do- I bought a map. I found the street where they lived in Edison, figured out the bus route that went that direction, and set out. So, the bus only went about half way. So I did what I always do. I set out walking with my suitcase.
I guess I walked about three miles before a kind soul stopped and offered me a lift. He took me right to their front door. I waited around for about an hour before Brandon was ready to go. Melvin called a cab company and asked how much the fare was to the airport. It was forty bucks. He drove us himself. Not only is the airport on the far side of the city, it's not even in Ohio! It's in Covington, Kentucky. I secreted a twenty dollar bill poking out of his ash tray while he was buying gas to get there.
Brandon was entranced at the airport. There were real airplanes everywhere! Then when we got on the plane, there were light switches and air jets to play with. The flight crew were charmed by his winning little six-year-old personality, too, so it was a fun flight. It was dark out, so we could see things that were lit up on the ground, cities and such. The coolest, though, was the approach into Orlando a few days before Christmas. The whole place was a blaze of colored lights.
Carmen picked us up at the airport and took us back to Vero Beach. We didn't explore Narcoossee this time. I guess it was 11:00 by the time we arrived at home and carried the sleeping boy inside.
Christmas was Christmas as usual, but it had a surprise lurking behind it. Carmen got a call from her mother that evening. Mum Mum, Carmen's grandmother who all but raised her, had had a heart attack and was in the hospital in Memphis, sixty miles from West Helena, Arkansas where Mum Mum lived. We made arrangements with Melvin to make the transfer in Memphis to get Brandon back in time for school in January. We quickly packed the car, and bundled ourselves in for the long drive.
Late the next morning we were in eastern Mississippi thinking about lunch. Carmen talked to her mom, who said that Mum Mum was in no immediate danger. We decided we wanted to cook out in a park somewhere. So we stopped at a little grocery store to buy ground beef and buns. Carmen thought we ought to make s'mores for dessert, so we bought graham crackers and Hershey bars. The store did not have any charcoal or marshmallows- in fact the proprietors gave us suspicious looks for even thinking about cooking out. It was below freezing. So we continued on, stopping at every convenience store looking for the missing items. Finally one had an old dusty bag of charcoal, and another had an old dusty bag of marshmallows and a can of lighter fluid.
We were seeing signs for Chewalla Lake Recreation Area in Holly Springs National Forest, so we turned off US 78 and followed a long and winding road to a totally human-free picnic area beside a beautiful lake surrounded by bare trees and evergreens. I got the charcoal going, then Brandon and I walked a portion of the ice-rimmed edge of the lake to see what we could see. Not much. We were there for about two and a half hours, another long siege while Brandon took forever to eat. The s'mores were yummy and worth all the effort it took to find the wherewithall.
Back on the road, we were on the home stretch. Before long Marc Cohn was running through my head as I was Walking in Memphis. We visited Mum Mum in Baptist Hospital, then drove back to West Helena, Carmen's home town, for some much-needed sleep.
We called The Toothless Twit and he declared that he would be in Memphis Sunday morning to pick up Brandon. We told him where the parking garage was where we had his luggage to haul back. We were dismayed when Melvin arrived after his 480 mile journey on his motorcycle, ready to haul Brandon and stuff 480 miles back to Cincinnati in below freezing weather. But...it wasn't our job to interfere, and they both survived it.
We returned to Vero Beach soon after, with a liesurely tour of the Greater Narcoossee area thrown in. We found a road that skirted the south side of East Lake Tohopekaliga and landed us on St. Cloud's lakefront, where sandhill cranes roamed like huge tall chickens and snail kites munched on big snails.
We moved there three months later.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Snappy
It was August, 1986. Carmen's friends from New Orleans were coming to visit us in Vero Beach. This, of course, meant a trip to Disney World, standing in long lines in stiffling heat. Fun. So we went to meet them at Orlando Airport, about a hundred miles away. The way I knew best was US192 from Melbourne to Ashton, and SR15 through Narcoossee to the Beeline (SR528) to the airport. So that's how we went. On our way we were suddenly entranced by Narcoossee, seeing it as a place we wanted to get to know.
Catherine and Felton had their camera out and at the ready coming off the plane. They took pictures of us waiting at the gate (remember when you could do that?) pictures of the airport, pictures of the Snappy Car Rental booth, pictures of the van that took us to the lot, pictures of the car, getting into the car...you get the picture- so did they.
They followed us back to Vero and got situated at the Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge, we had dinner at HoJo's, and then we parted, to get some sleep in preparation for the big day tomorrow.
Tomorrow came. We drove over to HoJo's and knocked on the door to their room. Then we all went out to the Snappy Rent-A-Car and loaded ourselves in. Felton put the key in and turned it. Nothing. He went to the nearest phone and called Snappy. "The car won't start," he told them. The were very sympathetic. "Well, just drive it back over here and we'll give you another one." "But...the car won't start." "What's wrong with it?" "It won't start." "Probably the battery. Get a jumpstart, drive it over here and we'll give you another one." "Thanks for your help."
Luckily, Carmen had jumper cables. It started up, and our first stop on the way to Disney was the Snappy lot on Semoran Ave. near the airport- about twenty miles out of our way. True to their word, they gave Catherine and Felton another car. Nice of them.
The day at Disney was like most days at Disney- crowded and hottern blazes. It was during this fun outing that Carmen felt the first symptom of a disease that is exacerbated by heat: multiple schlerosis. It would be another year before it would be diagnosed as such.
Anyway, at the end of the day, after the Electric Light Parade and fireworks, we were on our way home, toodling down 192. We were hungry, having refused to pay twenty dollars for a hamburger at the park. "Is there a Wendy's anywhere around here?" Catherine asked. We were sure there must be. On we slogged through what we call World World, a long strip of motels, restaurants, tourist attractions and souvenir shops. And on and on, searching for...suddenly all four of us threw up our hands and shouted "WENDY'S"
And so we learned three things that day: where the Wendy's in Kissimmee is, never go to Disney World in August, and never rent a car from Snappy.
Incidentally, six months later, after exploring the area several times, we moved to St. Cloud, just down the road from Narcoossee. We lived there for nine years.
Catherine and Felton had their camera out and at the ready coming off the plane. They took pictures of us waiting at the gate (remember when you could do that?) pictures of the airport, pictures of the Snappy Car Rental booth, pictures of the van that took us to the lot, pictures of the car, getting into the car...you get the picture- so did they.
They followed us back to Vero and got situated at the Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge, we had dinner at HoJo's, and then we parted, to get some sleep in preparation for the big day tomorrow.
Tomorrow came. We drove over to HoJo's and knocked on the door to their room. Then we all went out to the Snappy Rent-A-Car and loaded ourselves in. Felton put the key in and turned it. Nothing. He went to the nearest phone and called Snappy. "The car won't start," he told them. The were very sympathetic. "Well, just drive it back over here and we'll give you another one." "But...the car won't start." "What's wrong with it?" "It won't start." "Probably the battery. Get a jumpstart, drive it over here and we'll give you another one." "Thanks for your help."
Luckily, Carmen had jumper cables. It started up, and our first stop on the way to Disney was the Snappy lot on Semoran Ave. near the airport- about twenty miles out of our way. True to their word, they gave Catherine and Felton another car. Nice of them.
The day at Disney was like most days at Disney- crowded and hottern blazes. It was during this fun outing that Carmen felt the first symptom of a disease that is exacerbated by heat: multiple schlerosis. It would be another year before it would be diagnosed as such.
Anyway, at the end of the day, after the Electric Light Parade and fireworks, we were on our way home, toodling down 192. We were hungry, having refused to pay twenty dollars for a hamburger at the park. "Is there a Wendy's anywhere around here?" Catherine asked. We were sure there must be. On we slogged through what we call World World, a long strip of motels, restaurants, tourist attractions and souvenir shops. And on and on, searching for...suddenly all four of us threw up our hands and shouted "WENDY'S"
And so we learned three things that day: where the Wendy's in Kissimmee is, never go to Disney World in August, and never rent a car from Snappy.
Incidentally, six months later, after exploring the area several times, we moved to St. Cloud, just down the road from Narcoossee. We lived there for nine years.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
You Want Fries With That?
Spring 1986: Damn Yankees was finally over, after many extra performances beyond the originally scheduled closing date. I was in love again, though still not legally divorced from Brandon's mother. And I was ready for another trip. I was taking Brandon to Maryland by Amtrak (no luggage checked, thank you.) Five-year-old Brandon's whole world revolved around trains, so this was going to be an extra special treat for him.
Carmen, my new squeeze, volunteered to drive us to the train station in Orlando. She didn't really know how to get to the station, but she said she would figure it out. (How could I not love a person like that?) We allowed a lot of extra time for getting lost etcetera, but as it turned out, we drove right to the station no problem- except we now had an hour and a half to kill. So we meandered out onto Orange Blossom Trail and looked for a place to get some lunch. Brandon was lobbying for McDonald's, believe it or not, but we chanced upon a funky little sandwich place nearby. The promise of French Fries was enough for the boy.
Brandon was among the world's slowest eaters. No amount of prompting, cajoling or abject abandonment could make him eat a meal in under two hours, so when it was time to go catch the train, he took most of his french fries with him, leaving most of his burger behind. When we got back to the station, the train was already there getting baggage loaded etc. Brandon was beside himself with excitement to actually be that close to an Amtrak train just like his HO scale one at home. He set his fries on the platform and began running from one end of the train to the other, examining the wheels, the brakes, the couplers between cars. Finally the conductor called All Aboard, and we were forced to abandon the inspection. We boarded the train, found seats on the Carmen side, and waved bye byes as the train began to move. It was then that Brandon saw it: his package of french fries was still on the platform! He called to Carmen to get them, but she couldn't hear. He wanted to stop the train, but the conductor wouldn't do it. The fries got left behind.
For years he was incapable of recalling that trip without lamenting the loss of his fries.
Carmen, my new squeeze, volunteered to drive us to the train station in Orlando. She didn't really know how to get to the station, but she said she would figure it out. (How could I not love a person like that?) We allowed a lot of extra time for getting lost etcetera, but as it turned out, we drove right to the station no problem- except we now had an hour and a half to kill. So we meandered out onto Orange Blossom Trail and looked for a place to get some lunch. Brandon was lobbying for McDonald's, believe it or not, but we chanced upon a funky little sandwich place nearby. The promise of French Fries was enough for the boy.
Brandon was among the world's slowest eaters. No amount of prompting, cajoling or abject abandonment could make him eat a meal in under two hours, so when it was time to go catch the train, he took most of his french fries with him, leaving most of his burger behind. When we got back to the station, the train was already there getting baggage loaded etc. Brandon was beside himself with excitement to actually be that close to an Amtrak train just like his HO scale one at home. He set his fries on the platform and began running from one end of the train to the other, examining the wheels, the brakes, the couplers between cars. Finally the conductor called All Aboard, and we were forced to abandon the inspection. We boarded the train, found seats on the Carmen side, and waved bye byes as the train began to move. It was then that Brandon saw it: his package of french fries was still on the platform! He called to Carmen to get them, but she couldn't hear. He wanted to stop the train, but the conductor wouldn't do it. The fries got left behind.
For years he was incapable of recalling that trip without lamenting the loss of his fries.
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