January 17, 2024

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 17, 2023, opera & classical.
Five years ago today: January 17, 2019, leaving Miami @ 70mph.
Nine years ago today: January 17, 2015, beware of the projects!
Random years ago today: January 17, 2004, TV is so bad.

           How about this picture of my van from the highest point in Florida? Something like 543 feet above sea level, higher than the highest hills. This is atop the now rejuvenated Citrus Tower in Clermont, FL I get it, you want to see the view to the horizon. I’ll get to that, first let’s put this thing into perspective, since that is about all you can see. Very few places are flatter than Florida and the tower is no longer situated in the middle of orange groves. You can see around 2,000 square miles of suburbia. The lakes are nice and Florida is supposed to have around 30,000 of them. Clermont is just west of Orlando and infamous for bad traffic. Disney took a beating for going woke and the accusations of child molestation, but the message has not reached traffic level.

           I left here around noon, thinking the 53 mile trip, all freeway, would take an hour. Nope, did not get there until after three. Fourteen red lights added more than a half-hour on the road. The Tower is just off Hwy 27, the plaza has a definite “religion” theme. There is an excellent coffee shop at the base, plan on around $4 for a coffee or (excellent) hot chocolate. It’s bit touristy but tolerable., and very rare, a few good-looking young women around the room. Very rare, indeed.
           Originally the tower was open at the top, it is not closed in and the air-conditioning is fiercely cranked. Even exercising extreme imagination, there was nothing to see but the horizon and some lakes, I was up there maybe ten minutes. The should be a picture of the view looking west toward the sun already setting in the upper right corner. Note the orderly orchard scape now replaced by parking lots and pavement.

           On the return leg, I stayed away from Hwy 27, I think the turnoff is called Brogden, takes you around Lakeshore Drive. That’s an America that won’t be here in ten years if things continue sliding. It’s exclusive White upper-middle class older homes for miles past the lake. It’s a side road to Route 33, which I know from motorcycle days ends up in Auburndale. That town is a rat’s nest of roads but I found Recker Hwy and took that even if it was a few miles longer. This trip could probably not have been made without GPS, but not through any virtues of that system. Rather because GPS caused the maps to be outdated.

           It was a great way to spend an afternoon too chilly for much else. There was a museum next door but they wanted a membership of $15 per year. Imagine paying strangers to keep a file on your whereabouts. I would have stopped for a peek around Clermont, but it took over two hours to get there on a nothing Wednesday in January. Even on the side roads of Clermont to Auburndale, I passed 605 cars in just over a half hour.

           The tower itself if massively thick slabs of concrete. Painted so many times it looks like cellulite. It seems comical how the elevator has only two buttons. The 240 or so feet doesn’t even pop your ears. There are no coin-op binoculars up top, just lots of seating. Clean washrooms. The coffee shop is excellent with super comfy furniture. There was some literature available so I was there around a half-hour watching and reading. The place has a distinct atmosphere of one of those places women go to meet men. Each of about a dozen tables had one woman at each, fashionably dressed, sipping foreign coffees and posing. Most were pretending to read but were eyeballing every man who came through the place.
           None were my type, but what did strike me was how they were not in pairs or groups yakking, but they were all solo. They had definitely figured out some dating rules here. Most men are chicken to approach women in a group, especially an inward-facing group. These gals were on the prowl but be warned, there were no easy scores there. I never stuck around to determine the standards, but I would rate them as very high, even impressive. Of course, if I ever find myself wanting such a situation, my luck says they will have moved on.
Later, I find on the receipt the Citrus Tower complex is officially named the Sinchat Torah Beit Midrash Citrus Tower. They’ve taken pains to tone that down, but like I said, there is something un-American about the place as soon as you walk in. Like you just know if you were dying they’d cram a scroll down your throat, it was the only part of the tour I could have done without.

Picture of the day.
White clover, the most
common Florida weed.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Knowing nothing about citrus towers until today, I was impressed by the display of bell-ringing machinery. This contraption is a completely analog controller from when the tower played bell music. No longer operational, it was in great condition. This was the portion that played scrolls, similar to a player piano. Visible at top left is the clock and timer, it has several dials on the same spindle. Just below that is a five-position selector switch and a set of toggles. This had such options as playing the scrolls, one of which can be seen just below, it looks like a small computer printer. Below that are boxes of other music.

           One of the switches was for an organ or keyboard. I found it at the far end of the hallway. It had a roll-top desk lid and some elaborate carved panels. There is a pushbutton panal on the right side which matches some of the setting on the main controller. This could be played, it seems, as a regular church organ, though it is not clear where the sound would come from. On-line says there are 180 carillons in the USA, but that units that play automated bells only are not counted as the real thing.

           Another rule says there must be at least 23 bells. Fewer than that are referred to as a “chime”. Clermont is thus not a true carillon but a type of controller, since carillons are rung by striking banks of levers. The bells have five “notes”, the lowest caused by the ringing of the whole bell. The plaintive sound of the bells comes from a “tierce” tone, a minor third.
           The keyboard bears the brand name Schulmerich, a company that is still around but apparently using MIDI controllers. The bells are custom made by Verdin, who bought out the Schulmerich company in 2014. I think this analog controller should be restored.
           I returned through side roads, avoiding the entire freeway by taking Lakeshore Dr down through the non-existent town of Eva, then to Polk City. That was only partially successful, as most is two lane until you get on 33 and during that stretch I passed 605 vehicles. Shortcuts are scarce in Florida. Even making great time, I did not arrive back here until 6:15PM, it is now 6:50PM and I’m due at the jam session by 7:00PM.

           Later, the jam session played to the usual empty house until some strangers filtered in the last half-hour. It’s become standard to play past 9:00PM because that’s when the crowd appeared. One again it was a crowd of strangers, but that pushy lady with the guitar showed up and brought a friend. They look and act the same, and play songs nobody recognizes. They do it so badly I would have thought they were faking it, but some of the walk-ins knew the tunes. It’s open jam, so wait it out, but the Prez & I gettng back on stage is like swithing stations back to FM. Here’s the synopsis.
           The stage time has produced a much better coordinated duo that can back up most anything the other regulars play. Result? Ha, the regulars think they have gotten better. We now play around nine tunes that would otherwise never make our list. That includes “Tequila Sunrise”, “Turn the Page”, and some obscure Merle Haggard. The guy running the show has adapted (finally) to what is going on and I have his business card. He lives in Eagle Lake, which is twenty miles from here and 26 miles from the Prez. But, he rents a workshop in northeast Lakeland that he’s volunteered to clear a space.
           How is the music? Well, there are no minimum standards, but we are now better than most of the solo acts that have been arriving from Tampa since COVID. It’s a better mix of music for the local scene, the Tampa sound is too heavy on the (rather depressing) Indie lyrics and those ticky-thump tracks. I recognized nobody in the place so I left early and stepped outside into a new cold spell. Wow, I got home, cranked all the heaters, and put on the hot coffee. Of course, there’s more to the day, but this is all you get. Because I crawled under the electric blanket and the was it. Zonk till morning, 9.5 hours later.

Last Laugh

(A.I. Cleopatra & Pizza.)