She knows every dirty joke ever written, recorded, told, drawn or mimed and uses them in her job as a massage therapist. She delivers the punchline [...]]]>

Wife Lila’s best friend is a gal I’ve nicknamed Crazy Nancy. They’re a great pair. I love to listen to them laugh and cut up when they’re together.

She knows every dirty joke ever written, recorded, told, drawn or mimed and uses them in her job as a massage therapist. She delivers the punchline at the same time that she dives into a tight muscle with talons of steel, rips it out of your body, raps it against the wall two or three times, then manages to reinsert it into your body.

Crazy Nancy thought I should have a mascot to ride along on my bicycle, so she got me Hula Cat to ride on my handlebars back in ’06. Hula Cat had an upper torso joined to her feet of clay by a set of springs that caused her to bob and gyrate. Too much, in fact, to stay in one piece on my bike.

Medically unsanctioned joint repair

I performed an impromptu and medically unsanctioned joint repair, but it was obvious that she wasn’t going to be able to withstand the rigors of bicycle touring.

Crazy Nancy replaced Hula Cat with Hula Parrot. Rather than subjecting her to the same dismemberment suffered by Hula Cat, I retired her to my book shelf at Palm Beach Newspapers. Feeling guilty that she wouldn’t be able to see the world from my bike, I thought I should at least give her a 51-minute tour of her new home. Being the telecommunications manager, I had access to many areas off-limits to the public and most employees, so you, like her, get to see what’s behind the curtain of my old employer.

Hula Parrot’s tour of Palm Beach Newspapers

Hula Parrot got to visit the roof, systems rooms, the telephone switch room, my office, the food editor’s office (that’s the one with junk stacked to the ceiling), the ice machine, a waste dumpster, the cafeteria, a time clock and some other out-of-the-way places. They were shot with an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera on a lark, so don’t look for great technical quality or artistic import.

My theory is that everybody is too busy celebrating or recovering from the holidays to spend much time reading my blog, so I’m going to post these photos to fill in the time and space until things get back to normal. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

I don’t know that there will be any other days reported on, but Mother and I left West Palm Beach somewhere between half a day behind schedule, two hours behind schedule or – since I never leave on schedule – ON schedule.

We stopped at Nubbin Slough on Lake Okeechobee long [...]]]>

I don’t know that there will be any other days reported on, but Mother and I left West Palm Beach somewhere between half a day behind schedule, two hours behind schedule or – since I never leave on schedule – ON schedule.

We stopped at Nubbin Slough on Lake Okeechobee long enough to spot some gators, then paused at my old lab tech Hilary’s neat place on Taylor Creek.

Okeechobee Golden Corral

We were hungry by that time, so we pulled in to the Golden Corral. Before you sneer, this one is a cut above any I’ve eaten at anywhere else. Mother was so pleased by the all-you-can eat buffet – particularly the dessert bar – that the manager asked her to pose for a photo. I think they put it on the wall so if they see her coming across the parking lot they can quickly hang up a CLOSED sign.

1990 U.S. 27 Trip

In 1990, a reporter and I retraced the U.S. 27 leg of the 1960 Steinhoff Florida Vacation to see how many of the old tourist traps were still around. We started in Little Havana in Miami and went all the way to Havana, Fla., on the Georgia border.

One of the places we stopped on both trips was the Florida Citrus Tower in Clermont. In 1990, there was a sign at the top that said we were overlooking a gazillion billion citrus trees. Maybe that was true in 1960, but by 1990 there had been a series of disastrous freezes that left us looking over a gazillion billion dead stumps. Today, had the tower been open, we’ve have been looking at a gazillion billion houses.

House of the Presidents

In the shadow if the Citrus Tower is the House of the Presidents. At least, that’s what the sign says below a disgracefully tattered U.S. Flag. It has been rebranded to Presidents Hall of Fame these days.

Abe Lincoln wanted to pose with Mother

Here’s a review on RoadsideAmerica that speaks fondly about the House of the Presidents.

Side trip to Mt. Rushmore

I must have never wandered around to the back of the building to see Mt. Rushmore. How could you pass up a tourist shot like this, even if the sun was about to set?

We’re meandering the back roads to get home. We’ll be passing through Tallie, Circle City, Monkey Town, Smoke City, Choo Choo and Guitar along the way. More adventures to come. Maybe.

By the way, an amazingly large number of my readers didn’t look at the calendar when I posted my “Well Has Run Dry” April Fool post. I’m still around.

OK, I played hooky this weekend. The weather was great and I needed to cover the 8th Annual Okeechobee Rotary Club Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail Ride-Run-Walk charity event for my bike blog. Plus Mother is in town, it was my birthday and Bro Mark is shoveling snow in St. Louis.

Before they pulled out of town, I led them on a ride on Palm Beach’s Lake [...]]]>

I’ve been neglecting my bike blog lately, so I spent a day a editing a video and pulling together photos of three women from Atlanta who camped overnight in our back yard on their way to Key West.

Before they pulled out of town, I led them on a ride on Palm Beach’s Lake Trail. Here they are in front of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.

You can see more photos of the riders on PalmBeachBikeTours.

Video of Palm Beach Lake Trail ride

Two days ago, you heard about our Termite Travails.

Years ago, I worked on a special edition of The Palm Beach Post called “Crests of Hope, Troughs of Despair,” which [...]]]>

Regular readers of this blog have been treated to a series of non-Cape stories about the adventures of owning an older home in Florida.

Two days ago, you heard about our Termite Travails.

Years ago, I worked on a special edition of The Palm Beach Post called “Crests of Hope, Troughs of Despair,” which chronicled the Cuban Boatlift and the plight of Haitian refugees. Yesterday’s post was a lot like that, starting with “fits like socks on a flamingo,” and ending up with “SHUT THE WATER OFF!!!!”

This morning, while Wife Lila was getting ready to go to church, her brother, John Perry, was installing the connections for the washer hookup. He wanted to have someone standing by the hookup to look for leaks while he was out at the street turning on the main. Since that’s a pretty good distance, I volunteered to stand in the living room to relay the word from Lila that all was good.

The last thing John said as he headed to the front door was, “I left the faucet on outside, so if you hear water running, don’t worry.”

A relay person wasn’t needed

As soon as John opened the main valve, I’m pretty sure you folks in Cape heard Lila screaming. It seems that John had left the faucets open to let steam escape when he sweated the fittings. He forgot to close them for the test. The water came out full force right at Lila.

I’ll be ready to pull the plug

The next nearest experience like this was when Lila and I shared an old house in Gastonia, N.C., with Chuck Beckley,  a photographer I brought from Athens, OH. We needed to hook up the ice maker on our refrigerator, but I couldn’t find the main shutoff valve.

“Chuck, you drill a quarter-inch hole in the cold water supply pipe, then we’ll stick the ice maker tap into the hole. A little water won’t hurt anything because we’re in an unfinished basement. I’ll keep my hand on the electrical cord back here at the receptacle in case the drill shorts out from the water.” See, a good supervisor always thinks about the safety of his workers.

You’d be surprised at how far water under 40 to 60-psi will shoot through a quarter-inch hole. You’d be even MORE surprised at how much water can come gushing out of two faucets aimed at eye-level.

All is forgiven

Just to show that there were no hard feelings, Lila quickly ran over to John to give him a big hug. The fact that she was soaking wet with cold water very quickly became apparent to John. She was sharing more than the love.

How do you shoot pictures like this?

Some of you may wonder how it’s possible to quickly capture photos like these.

It’s all part of the going to special photojournalism classes at schools like Ohio University where you learn how to quickly make the right choices and decisions. I recall one test question that asked, “You see a man jump off a bridge. You have a camera in one hand and a rope in the other. What do you do?”

The answer: it all depends on whether you have a wide angle or a telephoto lens on the camera. You may have to change lenses before you can shoot.

Actually, I WAS confronted with a jumper on a bridge once. You can read about my experience on the Blue Heron Bridge here.

Some of you guessed correctly that it was Barry Goldwater campaigning for President.

I [...]]]>

I posted a mystery picture yesterday of a crowd of people, including some of my classmates, taken in Cairo, Ill., on Oct. 2, 1964. I asked if anyone could tell me what the event was (for once, I actually knew).

Some of you guessed correctly that it was Barry Goldwater campaigning for President.

I promised more photos today. It ain’t gonna happen. It’s after two in the morning and I’m going to bed. I have some pictures I really like, but the film has lots of scratches and dust spots, so it’s taking longer to edit that I thought. Then, there were other complications.

Here’s how my day went

Lila’s brother, John Perry, usually comes down to Florida about this time of year to thaw out and to help us out with whatever home repairs the various Steinhoff families need doing.

Things never turn out as simple as we plan. Here’s what happened when he came down to replace some floor tiles in our kitchen a couple years ago.

This year we had a couple pieces of rotted siding on the back of the house we wanted him to repair and replace with vinyl siding. Sounded like something he could knock out in half a day. Florida Rule: never look behind the walls or under the floor of an old house; you are sure to see something you’re happier not knowing about.

Termites

When he pulled off the siding, he found evidence of termites. We called the exterminating company that’s supposed to squash those kinds of things. They said, and John concurred, that it was old damage and not to worry about it.

John pulled off some more boards. This time we see little white wiggly things in the wood. We make another call to the bug boys. Sean and John B (B for Bug, to differentiate him from John P for Perry) show up.

John loves tools of destruction

John P. loves to destroy things, so he started cutting a hole in the floor to see if there was any damage under the plywood subflooring. John P, with a crowbar in one hand and a Skil Saw in his other hand, persuaded John B. to crawl under the house.

Now, John B. isn’t a big man; he’s not a small man, either. Those floor joists are on 12-inch centers. Once he got under the floor, we were afraid he was going to take up permanent residence. I could envision throwing him a sandwich every day at quarter past two, like Charlie’s wife had to do for Charlie, who was trapped on the MTA. (Kingston Trio reference.)

John B.’s partner managed to grab hold of his belt and drag the poor man out of the hole before John P. started nailing plywood over the top of him. I captured part of the escapade on video, but missed some of the initial struggles that were hilarious (if you weren’t John B.).

If John P. doesn’t find more stuff to distract me, I’ll finish up Barry and the crowds tomorrow.

For that first few years, we [...]]]>

We moved to Florida in January of 1973. When we first got here, I told Wife Lila that we’d treat this like a three-year Florida vacation since that was as long as I had ever worked anywhere. We’re still here, but that’s another story.

For that first few years, we hit every tourist trap in the state. When I was working a late shift, I’d grab a snorkel and flippers and head up to the beach to look at the exotic fish swimming off a nearby reef.

She got sand in her shoes

It wasn’t long before my beach fixation waned. Before long, I went to the beach about as often as somebody living in Kansas. I used to joke that the only time my feet touched sand was when bales of dope or refugees washed up.

There’s an old Florida legend (probably started by the Tourist Board) that once you get sand in your shoes, you’ll always come back. I guess my penchant for wearing high-topped Red Wing work boots made me somewhat immune.

Lila, on the other hand, loves the beach. She goes to the Full Moon Drum Circles and will walk up and down the beach as often as she can.

That leads us to getting up at 6 in the morning on New Year’s Day. She wanted to start 2011 off by watching the sun come up over Lake Worth Beach.

Moon and Venus greeted us

A beautiful crescent moon and a bright Venus (cropped out of this photo) hung over the Lake Worth fishing pier.

Lila frolicked on the beach

She immediately headed down to the water’s edge, where she photographed waves, birds, flowers, runners and a family. I, sensibly, stayed up on the dune line where I could be sure I wouldn’t get any of that pesky sand in my shoes.

She traded photos with family

She offered to take a group shot of a family she came across, and they returned the favor by shooting her portrait.

The result

The salt spray caused the photo to be a little soft and pastel-colored. I like the effect. She had a great day. She took about half of the photos here and the gallery, including some I wish my name was under. I’ve added her name to the descriptions, so you can see which ones are her’s.

Gallery of New Year’s Day Sunrise on the Beach

If you like scenic photos, I encourage you to click on any of the images to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the photo to move through the gallery.