August 2, 2020

Yesteryear
One year ago today: August 2, 2019,gastrozombies.
Five years ago today: August 2, 2015, yep, pumpkin oil.
Nine years ago today: August 2, 2011, electronics demands commitment.
Random years ago today: August 2, 2004, the county fair.

           Here’s a day that goes down in my history. The Lightner Museum of St. Augustine, although it does not get that great a review. We zonked till morning, parking the car near the museum and grabbing one excellent breakfast at Maple Street. Being old Texas boys we are partial to biscuits & gravy, so when we heard of this place it was a natural. And I recommend it. Fresh everything, and with biscuits you can tell because flour even a few hours old loses that touch of sweetness. This place, reasonably priced, is a winner. I don’t actually know if it is on Maple Street or if that’s just the title.

           The museum might provide pictures for a few days, it was something else. But, the reputation exceeds the actual. Lightner toured the world buying artifacts from rich people’s estates, or to that effect. The literature says there are rooms fitted to Victorian standards. No such thing exists inside. I liken it to Ripley’s up the street. They rotate the exhibits through a chain of locations. To see it all, you have to keep returning. It’s a well-tested American model that nobody other than the owners really like. You would find the displays interested but rather sparse. The museum is mostly empty space.

           The music room with maybe 12 exhibits and the science room with 25 or so were my favorites. I could not get a decent shot of this music box, built around 120 years ago. It was coin operated and you may be able to see the piano strings in the background. Small motors drove circular violin bows for each string, with the cylinder depressing each for the notes. It must have been a nightmare to maintain. The contraption was mounted in a huge cabinet and used what looked like player piano rolls. None of the exhibits, including some Edison was record tubes and a steam organ appeared to be in working order. The woodwork is very impressive, that’s how they did things back then.

           The museum was a Flagller hotel and as Trent points out, there had their craftsmanship and luxury back then. I heard in 1880 some guests paid Flagler $9,000 per month but that sounds excessive. The museum has five or six major display areas, one is a complete sauna type area called the Russian bath. The bathtub looks to be even older than the one in my place.

           The science room reflects and era when many of the people who did research were the idle rich who couple hobby science with the funds to purchase finely made brass instruments. There was a spindly typewriter, I tried to take a closeup of the key arrangement. It was pre-qwerty but the concept of slowing the typist down seems well understood. The Eqyptian mummy is tucked in a corner and awkward to see, there is a shrunken head, and an art display, mostly paintings of Chicago streets and intersections circa 1910. Each section seems designed to be just enough to keep you interested.
           We did find a few rooms with Victorian furniture. They didn’t look right, I’ve toured dozens of houses with antiques and restorals, and these rooms were, I dunno. One example and you decide. When people sit down to talk, there is a narrow range they will naturally be separated. The furniture in the museum room was consistently ten and twelve feet apart.

Picture of the day.
Trouble brewing in India.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Yep, America has changed. That museum could easily have accommodated people in the thousands, yet we had the place to ourselves. The day staff consisted of two people, the ticket taker and one bright-looking gal around 16. Both knew only about the exhibits what they had learned themselves. I declined her offer to tour with us, as I wanted to concentrate on the artifacts, nomsayn? There was a famous brunch but it opened near noon, by which time I had to be back on the road. The dining area was closed off but here is a view from the third floor balcony. Yes, that area used to be the swimming pool. It is a brand of bitter amusement to me how swimming pools were the hot pickup joint for a society with totally repressed sexuality and only two classes of people.

           I was raised in wake of all that. Victorian society was long gone, but the effects lingered far into the 1970s. They were shaken by the free love movement but the mark of sterile public behavior stayed ominous and was super-present in the school system. Imperialistic wars and lack of birth control were still daily fare and whatever you think of thehippies, they far from had things their own way. Unlike to today, cries of abuse and racism and rights were considered mob slogans and fell on institutionally deaf ears.

           Repression is still with us. The form modifies but not the intent. Ten percent of mankind has an obsession to tell the others how to live, and as shown here, most of the dining tables have been removed. The rest are eighteen feet apart, presupposing the six feet sufficient for the unwashed masses isn’t a third safe enough for the Sunday brunch bunch. The second floor balconies, which face this same area are depicted on the literature as the ball room. Has it been removed? If so, notice the tables are just over spitting distance from the upper railings.
           One dominant display was porcelain figurines. They must have approached a rage at the time and the sill of workmanship is astonishing. Considering the pieces are fragile and not much use than to look at, when you had a mansion it must have been the thing to decorate it with. This bust of a young man in a hat typified that to me, as the feather was so finely made. It curves back over the had and is unsupported except at its base above the figurine’s ear.

           Time permitting, I have some other exhibit photos for you, but for now get back home and to work on the house. Things are already moving faster because of the work she and I want to sustain the momentum. Trent ubered it back to Jacksonville and I took the scenic route home, over four hours to cover the 180 miles. It’s a nice part of Florida, inland from the Atlantic coast and north of Deland—but also a rat’s nest of roadways that serve subdivisions, not the overall convenience of those who pay for them.
           Prime example is I had a letter to mail, so I knew it was 75 miles to the post office in Deland. What I did not know was where I was and here’s an instance where Garmin GPS reveals its distorted thinking and useless coding. I had an idea I was near Altoona, but even in that remote location, you could not zoom into the Garmin close enough to see the roads, as the screen became blocked with ATM and food icons. You need to put in a destination, but unless you want to be directed back to the millennial route, you must enter a waypoint, which in turn requires you to have a road map. Way to fucking go, Garmin.

           I selected Mascotte because I’d gone through there by sidecar years ago. The GPS wasted my time going around lakes and lanes I knew were not the path I wanted. I finally found the road I knew went to Deland and the GPS kept telling me to turn around. Here’s the catch, I know how to drive to the post office in Deland, it is on New York Street. There’s a blog picture in front of the building, yet the GPS kept avoiding. Nor can I find the link, as Google has disabled all back searches more than twenty posts.
           Even specifically programming the downtown post office as a waypoint, the GPS would kept avoiding showing the route, trying to direct me around downtown rather than through it. And it kept insisting the nearest post office was seven miles north of town. This, folks, is a mere reflection of how things are going to get for you in a millennial-wired world. They send you where their paid up Google advertiser wants. And you got rocks in your head if you think it will become a simple matter of learning what to follow. They are coding A.I. to trick you based on your electronic profile.

ADDENDUM
           This trip set me back only $253, a fraction of the price I spent on Tennessee. That includes gifts and doodads and stopping for coffee who knows how many times. Finally giving up trying to find Highway 19, I got on the 27 and drove directly to Winter Haven, arriving just in time for a brew at the Broken Rudder. Who do I see there but the mother-daughter girl band, so changed I did not recognize any of them until the mother said hello. And for music purists, it was not a change for the better. As predicted, the goof guitarist got the daughter pregnant and her hair has gone from a bouncy blonde to a blah brown. Ah, Florida, land of the 36 year old grandmother.
           They will woon become history. The band will break up in a year, regardless of the promises made. Here’s my opinion, always predicated that I would drive across town to see an all-girl band and that is no longer them. The focus on stage is still the matching mother-daughter pair and it’s painful to hear him overplay his acoustic picking in a pitiful “somebody look at me” display. My knowledge of the band industry says he can’t support himself. He's gonna bale, I got twenty bucks on it. So much for his dreams of touring Nashville with his mother-daughter tag team.

           The rest I know because of how often I've seen it. The gals are destined to wind up once again fending for themselves. They've destroyed an image they spend years cultivating. They allow men on stage who are not that musically talented or motivated. There is no need to comment they also have the looks and personalities of Wal*Mart shoppers, so I won't say a thing.
           So you know what I did? Being fully aware of how little future planning single mothers are capable of, I put in a reminder that I’m still looking to play out locally. Of course the mother said no, but it’s not a year from now, is it? Who’s going to baby-sit? Mom is not strong enough for solo work but no doubt she will try. The result will be her learning a lot about supply and demand once the teenage daughter is no longer there.

           Ah, but now explain my focus on this girl-band? Simple, go back in this blog and read how they stood me up three years ago. Witness the Hippie, the Campbell Brothers, and Pat-B. I always choose one local band to follow and document.
Last Laugh