Rainy Saturday in De Funiak Springs

"You don't need the weather man to know which way the wind blows!" or so says Bob Dylan. I chatter that line to my wife everytime she insists on switching on the Weather Channel. Looking at the doppler on the TV there was no excaping the rain today. Though the severity was a little overstated. It drizzled mostly. I stayed inside working in the office, paying bills, working on web sites, and generally cooling my heels. I did go out late to take a few letters to the post office. But just get out of the house mostly. I snapped a few pictures. Nothing earth shaking. Just wet.

Finally Friday

These end weeks are coming quite rapidly of late and I'm not sure I like it so. I imagine my life like an old reel to reel tape coming off the spindle and wrapping around the take up in that insane spinning that all of us who lived through it remember. And then that infernal tick tick ticking noise. Digital has robbed us of so much of the petty annoyance.

Travels with Animals

Yesterday, having completed Scott Berg's biography of Kate Hepburn, I started Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck as preparation for this summer's quest. Though, I no longer have a dog, I was thinking that several of the house and gardern cat here abouts might make excellent traveling companions. This latest crop who have shown an unwilling to live "outside" may make excellent "roadies". The problem will be catching them long enough to get them proper traveling attire. So many cats and so little time to shop. If I had Doctor Dolittle's (Lofting's not Murphy's) linquistic abilities all could be worked out by mail order or shopping at Amazon on the internet. I suppose I'll have to rely on those big "maybe" eyes or the emphatic swish of the tail that can only mean "NO"!

Hump Day

The punctuation of life oozes by with speed of a imagined lightspeed creatures sunbathing near Alpha Centauri. Howdy Captain Kirk? If we can only hold out longer than the O2.

Who is Axile Himalo Anyway?

Axile Himalo is the creation of my imagination. My alter idenity, ego. He is the main character of a surrealistic dream novella Delaware of the Mind written in the styles of Nathanial West's Day of the Locusts and Bob Dylan's Tarantula that I began writing in the summer of 1972 following high school graduation while living with friends in the ill fated "white house" on the banks of Turkey Creek in Niceville Florida. The novella describes the exploits of Axile in a world inside his own mind as he simultaneously seeks nirvana and the american dream . . . . . . More Later

Week Six

. . . of the last nine weeks of school. My three sections of freshman are ploughing through the Miracle Worker and will begin Romeo and Juliet by week's end. The voices of summer are speaking, and the voices of my students are speaking louder still, drowning them out for now!. It is the ninth grade of the rest of my life. How delightful to find myself here.

Saturday in Alabama

Spring was dressed in its perfect finery, alive with perfect weather for a day trip.
GOAL: Get out, Relax, Talk, EAT, Look around, EAT, Uncover the vestiges of the past waiting in the present, Snap a few photographs, Shop [SEN at TJMAX], EAT.


Itinerary
• Defuniak Springs to Darlington FL
Breakfast a Two Cousins Cafe near the old Darlington School
• Darlington AL to Elba AL
• Elba AL to Troy AL
• Troy AL to Brundidge AL
• Brundidge AL to Pinckard AL
Shop at MP Surplus in Pinkard the only store that has its own IRON LUNG on display. I bought some completely arcane objects for photo still lifes.
• Pinkard AL to Dothan AL
Bar-B-Q at Dobbs Bar-B-Q
• Dothan AL to De Funiak Spgs
"HOT NOW " at Krispy Kreme before heading home.

Check my Flickr Photostream for some of the pixs.


More Later.

The Rest of My Life

Lately, I've been consumed with my photoblog Shadowmold (Check out both www.shadowmold.org and visiblenarrative) and haven't had the time to make many entries into DOM. Catch up.

School is winding down. Last week we read "The Miracle Worker" which will conclude by Tuesday and then its on to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Today, I'm half way planning a trip to Georgia or Alabama to shoot pictures and roam around without a broadband connection to insist on my working on my online projects. [I hope someone is reading this]

Plans for this summer's journey have begun. No real details yet. CHICAGO - CANADA - NEW YORK. I've not had any luck locating a low priced truck camper to defray trip costs.

Time will tell.

The Tropical Palm

Downtown Crestview Florida, a downtown of older buildings some crumbling, so repaired for a few more years of life, some building simply the space where they use to be, vacant lots huddled between the survivors. One such building house the Tropical Palm Reasturant a local cafe since the 1940s or before. I remember in the late 50s and early 60s, eat5ing there with my mother and my aunt probably on a trip to the dentist or eye doctor. Neither of these services available in Niceville 18 miles south on the waters of Boggy Bayou. I don't remember the food, but I do recall the framed black and white photographs on the wall behind the counter. Mostly pictures of town noatables, one of the bus station with vintage 1940 coaches out front. But the picture I remember most was the one that recorded the last hanging in Okaloosa county. I don't recall the details or the face of the condemned, but I remember my grandmother whispering about it, in the way she always did even in her own house.

Those Magnetic Ribbons

I've noticed that the purveyors of patrotic pap have a new item for sale throughout the country in convenience stores and auto parts stores. At every check-out counter a neat display of ribbon shapped cut-out extolling the "virtue" of the moment. "Support The Troops" etc. These are really very nifty. Fashioned from a flat magnetic material they can be placed seamlessly on you car and removed as easily. Most of the slogans are designed to be "politically correct" that seems to me at least a bit out of place in the pedigree of the broadside. Not only are these slogans "safe" they are equally a paradox. While blogging the other day, I came upon some of these ribbons for sale that seemed a good alternative to their convenience store brothers.
What is more, II liked the slogan, if any of us could start believing that we could take it seriously. We should after all, paraphrasing Lincoln, embrace the the angels of our better nature.

Ultimate Monday Morning

I feel exactly like I did last Friday before I left for the weekend. Pinned and wriggling like a insect mounted in a glass case for my looks. Five weeks left. We will survive and end with a memorable florish. I promise!

At Tina's

I took a day off from my computer and grading papers and headed south to Panama City . I had a few errands to run, but mostly I wanted to get out into the sunshine and beautiful Spring weather. I hoped to see my writer buddy and fellow English teacher Tina. We had not gotten together since the Hurricane Ivan. As I headed south, I tapped in her number on the cellphone but got only her voice-mail.

Drat! She's out of town, probably at a writer's workshop or visiting her "girls" in Pensacola.

I stopped in Bruce and had lunch at the venerable Bruce Cafe located where Highway 81 connects with Highway 20. The food was wonderous as it has been everytime I've eaten there since the age of 12. Some one at the next table was talking abut the "good" fried green beans he had had the night before at... I couldn't make out the place and was to busy attending to the home-cured ham that I was eating to ask.

I make it to Panama City, I complete my errands. No sign of Tina. I'm starting to turn toward home when the cell phone sounds off.

Tina speaking:" I'm on 98 leaving Pensacola; I'll be home soon; Please wait for me."

Did I say long story short?If you know Tina, you know just how much irony there is in that statement. "Go to a movie," she suggested, as if I'd for a second trade this dazzling reality of rebirth for any bodies best world of make-believe. What I did for the two hours while I waited. 1) Drove around looking for interesting pictures to make. 2) Sat in the truck by the water and soaked up the sunshine. I did all this while I listened to the Met's broadcast of Puccini's Tosca on the radio. Click if you want to know more about Tosca.

Tina and I meet at her apartment. She gets there after I do and the girl next door is eyeballing me from behind her curtains.

Tina begins:" Let's go get some Fried Green Beans at this place on Massalina Bayou .They are great! Mystery solved.

They were good which lead us to conclude that anything deep fried was "good"! We sat out on the talk talking about school and teaching English and soaking up what was turning out to be a stunning Spring afternoon.

After that we went to Tina's mom's place to feed the dog. Tina's mother has always been a startling interesting person. Her house was everything I expected given her electic personality -- a cross between's Elvis's Graceland and Ms. Haversham's digs. A truely unique place to visit.

One more stop, Greenwood Cemetary to look at the new drive and statuary. After homemade expresso we bid our farewells and I turned the truck toward home.

I made the mistake of going back the beach route Highway 98) forgetting that "SPRING BREAK" was still in full swing. I got into a line of cars that ran bumper to bumper from the Walmart [built on the site of the old Petticoat Junction Amusement Park] to Miracle Strip Amusement Park that finally shutdown this fall. The vehicles streamed by a virtual parade of young people trying to be seen and heard.

An End to Spring Break: Six More Weeks of School

Time sprang forward last night and my feelings this morning are a testament to my belief that man should not tinker with time or any other task that is in the domain of the gods. I'm but one puny voice; I'll quiet down and do my duty.
School starts back tomorrow and I'm feeling no dread, just the promise of Spring and the summer's projects. The break has been fruitful and wet, but the last few days have been glorious!
My son the skateboarder flies home to California this afternoon. I will miss again until we meet again.