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Boats ain’t for fools…

Posted on December 8, 2012 By Steve Hart

DOWN YONDER, FL. – A little knowledge is always a dangerous thing but particularly so in the boating world.

We Floridians take our boats seriously. We consider them almost a God-given right, if not a special requirement of the Florida Constitution. But we also learn early to respect the water over which we glide our craft.

The Gulf of Mexico may be the most placid of the Seven Seas but it’s still an ocean, after all, and must be treated with respect if not also just a touch of fear.

Too many people jump into too many boats without enough knowledge or training and pose a threat to themselves and the rest of us.
One of the things newcomers seem to think is great fun n their first few outings on the Gulf is to jump overboard for a cool swim. This is all well and good but only if you take the right precautions.

Power boaters, for example, can simply throttle back the engines and stop the boat to retrieve someone gone crazy and overboard. It’s easy, then, to jump overboard or strap on a couple of two-by-fours and do a little skiing.

For sailors, the story is a little different. Sailboats tend to do best when they remain in motion. It’s just something about the way they’re designed. Jumpin’ overboard tends to be a little more tricky if the boat is in motion – mainly because once you’re in the water you’re no longer on the boat. Separation between person-in-the-Gulf and the boat can be a problem.

There are good ways to enjoy a quick dip from a moving sailboat.

One way is to dangle a line off the stern, jump in, grab the line and let the boat pull you through the water. This can be done only at the slowest speeds, however.

Another way, if you have a big enough boat, a strong enough mast and an extra halyard or two, is to craft what’s called a Bahama sleigh ride. If the wind is strong enough and the sailboat heeled enough you can strap yourself into a boatswain’s chair, attach it to one of the extra halyards and hang precariously to leeward as the motion of the boat cutting through the waves pick you up and crashes you back down into the water. Great fun!
But it’s not a good idea to simply jump overboard from a moving sailboat.

This happened, however, to one captain on a recent outing. One of the boat’s passengers, a newcomer to the area, decided it would be fun for his four-year-old son to enjoy a dip in the Gulf.

Hanging on to a dangling line was out of the question because that little trick is reserved for people older than four.

The passenger finally persuaded the captain to luff the sails for a bit and allow him to dip his son over the side. Reluctantly, the captain agreed.
The sailboat slowed and to everyone’s surprise – including and especially the four-year-old – the father threw his son overboard and jumped in after him. The child was wearing a life jacket but still he and his father found themselves in the Gulf of Mexico as the sailboat drifted away.

Within no more than 15 seconds the two freshman Gulf swimmers were at least 30 feet from the boat’s transom.

The captain knew he could swing around and come back to get them if head to but that would take time to haul the sails back in, restore steerageway and return to their position. Instead he headed the bow straight into the wind and, finally came to a relatively complete stop. That allowed the father to swim his son back to the boat and climb back aboard.

The lesson learned here is two-fold: don’t jump overboard unless you know what you’re doing and don’t freak out the captain. He might just leave you.

Ah yes, hurricane season…once again.

Posted on June 26, 2012 By Steve Hart

DOWN YONDER, FL. – The family hunkered down in the center hallway of their home.
It wasn’t quiet there but they thought it the safest place.
The roar of the wind outside was so deafening it reached into the center of their ears. It was a roar that would not case until daylight.
But daylight would bring its own problems.
The radio cracked faintly.
The family tried desperately to hold on to the signal, their only link to the world outside the maelstrom. Talk on the radio helped keep the family’s terror at a low simmer.
A full-blown hurricane, winds over 100 mph was making landfall.
The family’s home was on a slight hill so they were not worried about flooding. But that was the only part of the storm that was not terrifying.
“I’m scared,” the boy said as his father directed the family flashlight in his direction. “I don’t want our house to blow away.”
“Don’t worry, son,” said the father. “We’ll be fine. The house isn’t going anywhere.”
Deep inside, he was not certain.
The sturdy brick home swayed, creaked and moaned under the intense pressure of the storm.
The outer edges of the hurricane’s fierce winds arrived about mid-afternoon. A stiff breeze from the southwest provide to be only a harbinger of the wall of wind and rain that would arrive by dusk.
The threatening dark clouds raced overhead, surreal, like movie special effects.
It was no movie. It was the terror of raw natural energy, strengthened by its own centrifugal force and unleashed with nothing to choke it.
Electrical power to the family’s home was lost just before the darkness fell. They telephone went out. Except for the nervous radio chatter, the family was isolated from the rest of the world by the wall of roaring wind outside.
The darkness was bad enough but the constant and overwhelming roar of the wind worked the human psyche into a frenzy.
The dropping air pressure squeezed brows, eyes and ears like a vice.
Father opened the hall door and crept on is knees for a peek outside.
The solitary beam of his flashlight revealed a violent and wet cauldron. It was not raining so much as water was flying in every direction.
Father thought he was looking at a terrarium in a blender.
He pointed the beam up the tall pine trees that dotted the yard. But the trees were tall no longer. They were bent and broken at mid-trunk. One was swaying back and forth, its trunk perpendicular to the ground.
Pine needles were driven into the tree trunks like nails hammered into a wall.
A loud crash jolted the entire house as the broken end of a thick pine tree limb shattered the living room ceiling.
Water poured in. there was nothing that could be done. Father sat helpless as rain soaked the living room.
The family managed a couple of hours of sleep in the early morning but it was restless sleep, induced by sheer exhaustion.
By daylight, the storm moved on.
Neighbors stumbled like zombies from their homes in the early morning light. Their eyes fell on massive devastation.
Shock set in. the once green and lush neighborhood was flattened in naked ruin. Felled trees were smashed across cars and houses like spaghetti. Leaves and small branches were plastered against buildings. The quiet was eerie.
It would be two months before the community returned to normal, or what resembled normal. It would never again be the way it was before the storm.
Hurricanes are like that. They change people and communities forever.

What do you mean, “It doesn’t feel like Christmas in Florida?”

Posted on December 9, 2011 By Steve Hart

Well, ho-ho-ho, it’s that time of the year again!

It’s the time of the year when nearly all Floridians are hailed by their temporary Yankee neighbors with the traditional greeting, “Geez, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas inFlorida.”

(You can if you’d like alter that slightly, of course, to say, “Geez, it just doesn’t feel like Hanukkah inFlorida.” But truth be told, most Jewish folks are smart enough and reasoned enough not to associate the great triumph and resilience of the Maccabee children with bone-crunching cold, life-threatening conditions and enough snow piled on the roof to cave it in, crushing the Christmas tree…or Menorah, whichever.)

But if you’re a Floridian, born or adopted, you’ve no doubt run across at least one moron every year who will complain about the warmth of the December sun, the gentle Gulf breeze, the tranquil surrounding nature, the moderate nights filled with jasmine and remark that, somehow, Christmas just shouldn’t be spent in such idyllic and temperate latitudes.

They seem to think Christmas just “isn’t right” unless they are buried under three feet of snow in sub-zero temperatures, battling frozen water pipes and hoping to the Baby Jesus electricity doesn’t go out again because they only have enough fire wood for one more night.

I blame Currier & Ives. I also blame Charles Dickens. Perhaps these folks would be happier at Christmas if we didn’t have child labor laws, environmental regulations or systematic care for the infirm. I don’t know.

Some folks just can’t bear the thought of a Christmas Day sail on warm waters or a Christmas Eve stroll on the beach at sunset. They are, frankly, demented.

This malady can even run in one’s own family. My very own Florida-girl darlin’ daughter used to think she just had to be in the mountains of Western Carolina at Christmas because, who knows, it COULD snow!! (Okay, let’s recall…two Christmases ago stranded without power for three days under nearly four feet of snow, couldn’t even get there last year because of the snow…hmmm…she may have changed her mind.)

When she was a child, I took great delight in pulling out the globe (remember those?) and drawing a line west, right along the latitude of old Bethlehem to…to…to…well, I’ll be darned, NOT to a point that would ever be immortalized in a Currier & Ives print.

Nope. Old Bethlehemis just a skosh north of the 31^st parallel, which places it on exactly the same latitude as one of the many hick towns in South Georgia (USA) between Jacksonville and Savannah.

And given the moderate, Mediterranean-warmed climate of Palestine, I’d be willin’ to guess there were palm trees just outside that stable on that miraculous night.

Maybe the cattle were lowing because they feared getting bopped on the head by a falling coconut. No, probably not.

In any event, the point is Christmas is not about cold and snow and sleigh rides and stealing someone else’s maple syrup. Nope. Christmas is about the greatest gift every given: the reconciliation of humankind with our God. That, my friends, can be celebrated any-dang-where you feel the spirit – especially in Florida.

Bein’ born to a Florida-girl mother but raised as a mountain child, I can testify that it was never, really, truly Christmas until we reached the orange groves and palm-lined yard of my cracker grandparents. Suckin’ down a fresh cut temple orange or playin’ football on that spongy Floratam lawn was always the single best annual gift. It was the Floridian my soul.

So, the next time some crank wanders up to you and says something really stupid like, “It just doesn’t feel like Christmas in Florida,” you just turn to them, smile and hand them a Honeybell orange. They’ll be tradin’ Currier & Ives for Clyde Butcher before you know it.

Cracker Resources…

Posted on February 22, 2011 By Steve Hart

DOWN YONDER, FL. – The old man pulled himself onto the dock, feeling rejuvenated and fresh from his morning swim.

“You know, I was thinkin’ the other day how resourcefulness is a necessary part of being a successful Floridian,” said the old man to his young friend who was perched at the end of the dock, bamboo fishin’ pole in hand.

“There’s lots of people spend lots of money to live comfortably in Florida when all that spendin’ ain’t really necessary at all,” he said.

His young friend looked up at him from under her wide-brimmed straw hat.

“What’re you talkin’ about, uncle?” she asked.

“I mean, look around you. We paid no more than a song for this here cabin and look how rich we are. We got all the food we can catch. We got the biggest swimmin’ pool anywhere and this ol’ cabin has weathered ever’ storm it’s seen.”

“I guess resourcefulness is a sorta way of life when live close to Florida nature,” said the young girl. “But it manifests itself in a lot of ways.

“I was readin’ the other day where a bunch of farm workers in Central Florida were spendin’ the lean workin’ month of August pickin’ palmetty berries from the woods,” she said.

“Oh yeah,” said the old man. “We used to make a pretty good wine from them berries. But you can get in trouble with the G-men for doin’ that today. Them berries still help the bees make a darn fine honey.”

“Well accordin’ to what I read, the farm workers did get in a little trouble with the sheriff who kept makin’ ‘em dump their harvest because he thought the berries were bein’ used to make wine,” said the young woman.

“But that’s not why they was pickin’ ‘em. They was out there bravin’ rattlers to send them berries overseas, to Europe and Asia where they berries are apparently used to make medicine for prostrate and urinary-tract infections.

“That’s not surprisin’,” chuckled the old man. “Considerin’ what I’ve done more than a few times to them palmetty bushes.”

“That’s not the point,” said the young woman. “The point is that them farm workers were bein’ resourceful, usin’ their slack time to pick the berries and make four times as much money as they would workin’ on the farm durin’ pickin’ season.

“That Florida resourcefulness also manifests itself in other , more sophisticated ways,” said the young woman. “I was also readin’ the other day about the professors up in Gainesville who developed a machine that peels the skin off fruit and shellfish so northerners don’t have to get their hands all sticky peelin’ oranges and shrimp.”

“Do tell,” said the old man. “How does that machine work?”

“It apparently works by usin’ steam to expand the layer of water found just beneath the skin of fruit and shellfish,” she said. “As the steam is released a vacuum is applied and the separated skin just drops from the fruit like it was never there to begin with.

“They claim an orange doesn’t lose one drop of juice, although I’ll bet the steam cooks the shrimp quite a bit,” she said.

“Yeah, but most folks like their shrimp cooked a might,” said the old man.

“Anyway, these two professors got a patent for their machine,” said the young woman. “But right now, it’s about the size of a 55-gallon drum. That’s not the sorta thing that’s goin’ to go well as a Christmas present under the tree. And it’s too small for commercial uses.”

“They’ll work on it,” said the old man. “I figure two professors who’re smart enough to figure out that much will be smart enough to whittle down their invention to the size that can fit on a counter-top in one of them fancy houses that you don’t need in the first place,”

“I reckon’,” said the young woman. “Now I wish somebody would be resourceful enough to tell me how to get these trout to bite so we can have some breakfast.”

Gentle Sun…

Posted on January 24, 2011 By Steve Hart

DOWN YONDER, FL. – The crowed heaved a collective sigh as the last tip of the sun sank beneath the water.

“POP!” exploded the briefest flash of green as the rim of the orange ball disappeared.

Sunsets are among the best – and cheapest – assets of our bountiful land. And, yes, the green flash exists but not every day and not everyone can see it.

To see the flash one has to be patient. Even the slightest blink of they eye and you’ll miss it. The sky, too, has to be cooperative. Any wisp of a cloud will block the flash.

But it exists…it just takes time.

The sun is, of course, an essential element of our universe but the ancients tell of a time when the sun almost disappeared for good. The “Sunshine State” might have never been.

The ancients believe the sun lived on the other side of the sky vault but her daughter lived in the middle of the sky, directly above the Earth. Everyday, as the sun was climbing along the sky to the west she would stop briefly at her daughter’s house for dinner.

The sun also hated the people on the Earth because they could not look at her without screwing up their faces.

“My grandchildren are so ugly,” she said to her brother, the moon.

“I like them,” replied the moon. “They are very handsome and smile at me so gently when they look at me.

The sun became jealous and planned to kill all the people. Each day, when she neared her daughter’s house, she sent such sultry rays down to Earth that a great fever arose and many people began to die.

The people held a council and decided to seek the help of the Little Men who lived in the swamps. The Little Men made a medicine and changed two men into snakes, the water moccasin and the rattlesnake, and sent them to wait outside the sun daughter’s house to bite the sun and kill her when she came by.

But the snakes were impatient and when the daughter came to the door they mistakenly bit her and she fell dead in the doorway.

The people held another council with the Little Men who suggested they pick seven of their best men to travel to the Ghost Country and retrieve the daughter. They were told to put her in a box and bring her back without every opening the box on the return trip.

The seven men traveled to the Ghost Country in the west, found the daughter and coaxed her into the box as they were told. But on the way back, the daughter came to life and pleaded with the men to let her out. They paid no attention for a long time but when the daughter pleaded that she was smothers, the men decided to crack open the box to give her air. Just as they lifted the lid, a flapping sound startled them and out flew a redbird.

The men proceeded on but the when they returned to the village and opened the box the daughter was not inside.

Still, the sun was upset and would not come out of her daughter’s house. The council sent 10 of the village’s most handsome and talented men and women to entertain the sun. They sang their best songs and eventually the sun smiled and has been casting gentle, warm rays to the Earth ever since.

Dr. Frazier Azov explains Florida cold…

Posted on December 7, 2010 By Steve Hart

DOWN YONDER, FL. – It’s cold in the Sunshine State!

Really cold.

That may sound dumb or wimpy to Yankees who, for some completely unknown reason spends months each year bundled up in the cold. But who’s dumb, here?

Weird stuff starts happenin’ in Florida when it gets cold.

Floridians themselves get weird.

The sensation of actually seein’ one’s own breath comin’ out of one’s own mouth is a disquieting phenomenon to say the least. It sets off a whole range of emotional reactions. A Floridian with cabin fever is a frightening spectacle, not high on the list of attractions offered by the Chamber of Commerce.

Floridians don’t like to wear jackets. Most don’t ever like to wear socks. But all of a sudden, here we are bundled up like a dog-sled musher and uttering such moronic expressions as, “brr-r-r-r-r.”

It’s a well-known fact Floridians just don’t do well in the cold. That’s why we’re Floridians. If we wanted to be cold, we’d be Wisconsonians or Minnesotans or Some-Other-God-Forsaken-Part-Of-The-Cold-Northonians.

The intimidating scientist, Dr. Frazier Azov, has a theory about what happens to Floridians in the cold.

Y’all know Dr. Azov. He’s the feller who developed that scale, kinda like the wind chill scale, to warn Floridians about the cold. He believes the blood of Floridians actually thins with each passin’ year spent below the 30^th parallel. He developed the Frazier Azov Scale to let Sunshine Staters know how their thinnin’ blood will react to the cold.

According to the Frazier Azov Scale, a temperature of 50 degrees actually feels like 45 degrees to a five-year resident of Florida. To a 10-year resident of Florida, a temperature of 50 degrees will feel like 40 degrees. To a native Florida, a temperature of 50 degrees feels like the freakin’ North Pole. A temperature of 38 degrees, which can happen occasionally, upsets the whole cracker metabolism.

Dr. Azov says in the extreme cold, which is anything below 60 degrees, Floridians heart rate begins to slow, blood vessels constrict, breathin’ slows and Floridians become lethargic.

Come to think of it, we use the extreme heat as an excuse for lethargy, too.

No matter, it’s cold we’re worried about here today.

Floridians started actin’ weird in the cold. You’ll catch ‘em putting on long pants. They’ll insert a fire video in their TeeVee Boxes to get warm. You’ll see ‘em lose their minds a bit – remember the slowed metabolism – and run down to the beach where they try to roll sand into balls and throw ‘em at each other.

Lots of weird stuff happens when it gets cold in Florida. Things like coconuts shrink and fall off. In fact, the whole state contracts a bit, which widens the beaches and puts off for a while any discussion of sea level rise.

It’s a sad sight to see pelicans warmin’ their beaks over electric heaters. Seagulls wearin’ earmuffs and mukluks look silly and are best viewed only when one has the proper state permits. The gators slow down, too. They don’t eat near as many poodles when it’s cold as they when it’s warm.

The only good thing about the cold is, well, IT IS FLORIDA and in a couple of days it’ll be warm again.

Florida Republicans go ga-ga for gazillionaire!

Posted on August 25, 2010 By Steve Hart

John McCain can go back to playing Maverick on the TeeVee Box, with or without Jim Garner’s help.

Lisa Murkowski up in Alaska, however, may have to chew for a while on Mama Grizzly gristle.

But the big story of Tuesday’s primary elections is down in Florida where the entire Republican Party establishment is waking up this morning with a bad case of the WTF?s.

Despite pre-primary polling indications, Gazillionaire Rick “Skeletor” Scott spent $50 million of his own cheese and grilled long-time Republican Party of Florida darling and sitting Attorney General Bill McCollum for the RPOF nomination for guv’nah.

The Republican Party of Florida establishment and all its interwoven business interests and lobbying kingpins long ago anointed McCollum to succeed current Guv’nah Charlie Crist after Crist was kicked out of the party for being, well, too not-right-wing-crazy-enough.

Now, what’s a party to do?

It was just 10 short years ago, the Republican Party of Florida was handing the presidency of the United States to George W. Bush. They were riding high. So confident were they that Republican leaders of the Florida Legislature were prepared to completely ignore the outcome of any silly presidential ballot recounts and send all 27 Electoral College delegates to vote for Bush anyway…even if the recount had shown Al Gore won Florida.

But that’s a distant memory now.

Faced with a serious and substantive Democratic candidate for guv’nah in Florida’s current Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, Florida Republicans must now confront the mega-rich juggernaut that just bought and paid for the party’s nomination.

Sure, the Sunshine State’s newspapers and teevee stations love the guy for boosting their bottom lines by $50 million in the primary but even the staunchest Republicans question the morality of that kind of spending and display of wealth given the hard economic times everyone else is facing.

Republicans tend not to be comfortable with general election campaigns set as morality plays.

Then, there is Teabagger favorite Marco Rubio who, as expected, won the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by former Sen. Mel Martinez. Rubio is also a RPOF insider, former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. RPOF insiders don’t like and don’t trust the Gazillionaire who made his fortune on the backs of Medicare payments to his chain of hospitals – and the violations for which his company was forced to pay $1.7 billion in fines for the fraud on taxpayers.

Teabaggers, gazillionaires, indicted former party officials and the disgruntled Charlie Crist fans will make for an uneasy and fractious fall for Florida Republicans.

The Democrats, on the other hand, have the best statewide ticket in Sink for Governor, Kendrick Meek for the Senate and Dan Gelber for Attorney General since Bob Graham and Lawton Chiles were on the ballot.

The Florida Republican leadership must be sitting around, this morning, replaying the final scene of the 1972 Robert Redford movie, “The Candidate,” and asking, “what do we do now?”

This just in: what they WON’T do is, apparently, hold a Unity Rally as they usually do.

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