Old Skool Orlando: The Princeton Diner

Far away from the high rises of International Drive and the sprawing apartment complexes there is an older Orlando, a quiet settled Orlando whose shaded streets belie that this area once gardered the imagination of the plenty looking for a new life. Take Edgewater Drive off of Hwy 50 and meander for a way along the lake you come to a nicely settled community known as College Park. Small shops line the streets suggesting the work of the "nu community" planners. No College Park is the model not the result of this long overdue tinkering with the landscape. In a world judged by it monumental scale, this is a smaller more human scale, a sort of house on Walden pond scale. In fact near by is the house Jack Kerouac and his mother occupied in 1958 as his own monument, "On the Road" began appearing in book stores. Continue on down Edgewater until the GPS tells you that you have arrived, but your eyes will have to look for the hidden destination, Princeton Diner, tucked away in a strip mall between the high school football field and a trailer park. It sits perched on the corner like a rare bird back from the bend in the road. The original owners were from Princeton New Jersey and opened it in the 40s the waitress tells me as I order the special; two eggs, link sausage , toast and home fries. The people that own it now have had it for 22 years. The interior is 1950 or 1960, and the patrons are older retirees, talking city politics, though one balding fellow has on a white doctor's smock with "medical" embroideried on the front. An American flag hangs above it all near a high shelf containing "antique" advertising items and "ordinaries" from a time now quaintly vanishing. According to the waitress, the Princeton along with the trailer park next door will soon disappear as the nearby high school expands their parking lot. I must say with regret that the breakfast was perfect like childhood memories of my childhood. I'm so glad I got the chance to experience it before "progress" and "necessity" fold it up and pack it away.

Orlando Recap

I am in the world of the duck! Staying at the Peabody Hotel in Orlando on International Drive is a "difficult" experience as one can only imagine. All kidding aside there are shortcomings, like a fee for every imaginable extra you can think of. My wife who is attending a conference here while I sequester myself in room and write this, said that one of her colleagues had paid $33 for a steak and $6 for a baked potato in the hotel eatery describes as "most economical" on the Peabody's website. He did not spring for the salad. Suffice it to say, I left the hotel yesterday for breakfast and found a Publix (Grocery store) and now have a well stocked pantry in my room. I also found the complimentary coffee, though I had to get up at 5:30 to find it.

Passing Through

It is sunday morning. The third sunday morning since school (I teach high school English) (10th and 11th graders) turned out for the summer. It will be a longer "out" this year as the state shifts from an "early" August start to a "later" August start. It amounts to an extra fourteen days or so. I clicked on this blog link, actually, I had to scrounge around to locate it on my photoblog's (now also inactive) about page, to think about saving the posts I had written before I deleted the the entire blog. Now here I am writing this a committment to continue or like an aeroplane with two of its three engines out gently heading toward the ground.
I have much to do as always and as always I'm not doing very well with it. Amid everything else I lost the external hard drive where I store my photographic output. I have restored some, but not all of three years of work. I'm a little bummed about that and also feeling an odd elation, like one must feel when the barn you were dreading to clean out and repair vanishes in mysterious firey end.
We (SEN and I) are going south for a week to Orlando, one of the most bland landscapes on the planet. She has a conference and I have two online courses (ESOL) I need (must) complete. We will be staying at the Peabody (Ducks) in Orlando. Nice room to while away the hours writing lesson plans. This seems so dreary.
I watched Notes on a Scandal yesterday and found it interesting. Judy Dench is wonderous as is Cate Blanchett.
The week we return from Orlando we head out west for three weeks. I've planned some, but my hearts not in it.
My life has become moving furniture. Oh stop it now!