Winter Park and the Big War

The Winter Park History Museum is currently featuring World War II memories.

Yesterday another Orlando suburb city, Casselberry, was added to the mix when the speaker series presented:

Home Front Stories From World War II - Winter Park and Casseberry.

One of the speakers was my old friend,  Jane Casselberry.  She and her husband of 72 years, Len, grew up in Winter Park but later lived (and still do) in the town that Len's father created north of Winter Park.

Jane and Len

Jane was a young woman during the war years and yesterday she had some stories to tell.  Not many people  remember that the war was in Florida.   Floridans were always edgy.  Jane remembers her family watching our U.S. planes bombing German U-boat saboteurs right off our coast.  Jane, along with most of us, saved aluminum foil and melted grease.  She joined the Red Cross.  Len joined the Navy.

Jane and Len

But the heart of her story, along with Lilian Casselberry, was telling about Hibbard Casselberry (father of Len) and his fern business that rapidly became a factory for the war effort.  Later on Hibbard became "a habitual buyer of real estate."  And that's why we now have the city of Casselberry, which is about three miles from my house.

In 1943 Jane started Rollins College.  She would become a newspaper reporter.  And in 1943 Len joined the Navy.  In 1944 they were married.

I loved hearing Jane tell about her own father who helped build the massive and grand Alabama Hotel in Winter Park in 1923.  Jane grew up nearby.  So did Len.  Now, the Alabama is home to luxury condos.


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Super Geezers

I'm currently reading This Chair Rocks:  A Manifesto Against Ageism by Ashton Applewhite.  She's seen by some as one of the leading voices in addressing age discrimination.   She comes across to me as sort of an angry sociologist - but the book is definitely making me think.

Early on she mentions super geezers.  There are all sorts of definitions of this term - but Ashton is describing folks like George H.W. Bush who jumped out of an airplane on his 90th birthday.  Or Yuichiro Miura who climbed Mount Everest at age 80.

Ashton is not celebrating these feats.  The media loves them but she believes their celebrity makes life harder for the rest of us over 60.

Placing them on pedestals distracts from the social and economic factors that shrink the world of most older and disabled people.  

Ashton's concern is that the natural slow down that all of us face is seen by society as a personal failure.   I understand, and, for the most part agree but, on the other hand, it's kind of inspiring to see the exciting things that can be done at an advanced age, even if it's only a few of us who can do them.   Because, realistically, only a few of us can do these things at any age.

She also says:  Chronological age is an increasingly unreliable benchmark of pretty much anything about a person.

I absolutely agree.  So I've decided that I want to be a Super Geezer.  No, I don't want to jump out of airplanes or conquer Mount Rushmore, or write a sexy erotic novel like 80 year old Gloria Vanderbilt, but there are things that I want to do - things that possibly only I can do.


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True Grit

Original cover showing
Mattie and her horse, Little
Blackie

My book club reads good and, many times challenging, books.  So when one of this winter's assignments was True Grit, I was surprised.

I've seen both of the films.  The first was made in 1969 and starred John Wayne.  He won the Academy Award for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn.  The next, made in 2010, starred Jeff Bridges and was produced by the Coan brothers.

The book, written by Charles Portis in 1968, was an instant hit.  It was a serial in the Saturday Evening Post.  Whole families read it together.  It's seen by many as one of the great American novels.  What I quickly leaned was that it's not about Rooster Cogburn.  It's about - and narrated by - 14 year old Mattie Ross.

I was just fourteen years of ago when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band. 

So Mattie is on a revenge mission of Old Testament proportions.  She will not be deterred.  Throughout the entire novel, she is in charge.  The book is very funny and sweet and cold blooded.  It is about an empowered young woman.

I love the way it's written.  The names of many of the characters, especially the bad guys, are funny.  Lucky Ned Penny and The Original Greaser Bob are usually referred to by their full names.

And, of course, I liked the following.  A young bandit lays dying and says to Rooster:

"My brother is George Garrett.  He is a Methodist circuit rider in south Texas.  I want you to sell my traps, Rooster, and send the money to him in care of the district superintendent in Austin....." 

"Do you want me to tell your brother what happened to you?"

"It don't matter about that.  He knows I am on the scout.  I will meet him later walking the streets of Glory."


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My Walk to Walgreens

This morning I decided to walk the eight or nine blocks to Walgreen's, where I buy most of my lady products,  because it's such a beautiful day here in Central Florida.  The only roadblock to doing this - and it is literally a roadblock - is that I have to pass the women's health center on the way.  The problem is that the sidewalk in front of the health center is almost constantly blocked by folks from the church down the street.

They bring their signs and Bibles and posters of dead babies to share with the patients both coming and going - and with passing motorists and walkers, like me.

As I approached them this morning the first lady, who was older, and I just exchanged greetings.  The second descended upon me.  Finally I told her that she and agreed on wanting to see no more abortions but we disagreed on how to go about this issue.  I didn't explain further because my advocating that all women and girls have access to birth control so that no abortions would ever again be needed would not go over well with her.  These folks do not believe in birth control.

It's interesting to me that they are from the Mary Magdalene church.  Mary Magdalene was a close friend of Jesus.  When they met she was demon possessed.  Back at that time demon possession usually meant that a man had some sort of mental illness like schizophrenia but for women, it's usually been translated as meaning they were prostitutes.  Whatever Mary Magdalene's problems were, Jesus healed them and they became close friends.  By the way, Dave and I attend events at this neighborhood church and we have several friends who attend.

On the street this morning I wasn't so concerned with the woman's behavior and speech as I was with my own.  I did okay until she said, "You know the Bible says all children are a blessing."  This is one of those statements that make my head want to explode.   I answered "All children should be a blessing but many are not to the people who have them."

So, on the way back home from Walgreen's where I bought night cream and hand cream and calcium soft gels, I was praying about how I might handle the inevitable exchange in front of the women's health center.

But they were engaged in heavy conversation with two young women who were just leaving the center and on the way to their cars.


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Operation Peter Pan

I lived in South Florida in the 1960s.  I was married with two toddlers and attending Broward College.  It was a scary time.  Why?  Because Fidel Castro was making life difficult for all of us.

 In 1961 the Bay of Pigs invasion took place. This was an invasion of Cubans from the US,  Prior to this there was  massive anti-Castro civil disobedience throughout Cuba.  Castro locked up 250,000 of the protesters so they could not help with the invasion.  And then President Kennedy reneged on his promises of help with the invasion.  So, it turned out to be a complete dud!

It seemed things couldn't get much worse - but they did, when, in 1962, we had the Cuban Missile Crisis.  This was a dust up between the United States, Cuba and the Soviet Union.  As I said, a very scary time in South Florida.  Every day there were planes flying in formation across the skies.  Every day, more instructors at the college quit and moved north, believing we were about to be invaded or blown off the map.

So I thought, until a few months ago, that I knew quite a bit about Cuba in the early 60s because I was living close by.  But I never heard of "Operation Peter Pan."

Saying Goodbye.

That is, until my friend and neighbor told me, just a few months ago,  that she was a "Peter Pan" kid.  So was her husband.  What was Operation Peter Pan?  It was the biggest exodus of children ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere.

In 1960 Castro launched his slogan "Cuba si, Yankee no!" and ordered communist indoctrination in Cuban schools.  He ordered only Marxist textbooks be used.  Many parents thought that it was time to get their children out of Cuba.  The parents could not leave but they wanted their children to be saved.  So a complicated program, helped by the Catholic Church and the American Embassy, was born and thousands of unaccompanied children were sent to the United States.

Our neighbors, Pilar and Iggy were two of those kids.  They were sent, separately, to Chicago where they each had family members.  (Some children, who did not have family in the states were sent directly to orphanages.)  Pilar and Iggy met each other in Chicago and have spent their entire lives here in the states.  Iggy's father was part of the Bay of Pigs Invasion and was sent to prison in Cuba.

Pilar and Iggy, along with the vast majority of Peter Pan kids, became professional people and raised wonderful families.  So what is the answer to the question "How could parents send their kids away, unescorted, to another country?" Most of the time the answer is "To give them a better life."


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Changing Our Minds

Michael Lewis's latest book "The Undoing Project - A Friendship That Changed Our Minds" is currently on several national best selling lists.  Lewis's wildly popular book (and movie,) "Moneyball" was about making choices in a systematic, mathematical way.  In "Moneyball" it was about using data to choose baseball players rather than the traditional scouting method.

A really hard sell.  I think it's because we are just way more comfortable with our old ways of thinking and feeling.  It's hard work and scary to gather data and be objective.

"The Undoing Project" is, essentially about a friendship and collaboration of two psychologists that produced some new ideas about decision making.  I want to share three of the many concepts in this book because I think they are spot on!

Hindsight - to overestimate the probability that things will turn out the way they have.  "We've always done it this way."

Endowment - We tend to overvalue what we already possess only because we possess it.  For example, when we start to downsize we think we're gonna make a fortune on the coin set, the paintings, the antique desk, etc., before we accept the hard, sad truth.

Availability - to overestimate the frequency of items we happen to be able to summon to mind easily.  

I'm getting ready to lead a series of classes with other oldies (like me) and I know that these three concepts really impact this exciting time of life as we continue to gear up for what lies ahead.  The bottom line is we need to gather some hard data and be willing to change our minds before taking the next step.


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La La Land

I have yet to meet anyone who's watched it to come out in a bad mood. - Jim Slotek, Toronto Sun

As you know, I am not a spontaneous person, so it surprised Dave yesterday to hear me say, "Why don't we stop on the way home and see a movie?"  We haven't seen one in a while.  There are only two out now that interest us, Manchester by the Sea and La La Land.  By the way, two very different movies.

We saw La La Land.  Ten minutes in, after a long opening song and dance number on the LA freeway,  I thought "Oh, Oh, I made a mistake."  But ten minutes after that I was hooked.  So was Dave.

It's an artistic, new take on musical film making.  I like dialogue and character development.  La La Land has them.  It's fanciful but realistic and somewhat gritty.  It stars the amazingly gifted Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.  But are they gifted in voice and dance?  I don't think so.  This makes the film better.

It's almost impossible to pin down the time period.  The cars are old, except when they're new.  There are no computers except when there is one.  There are cell phones but no texting.

It's La La Land.


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More "Why I Love Florida" Stories

From time to time I try to share with you stories of Central Floridians making questionable decisions.  Here a a few from the last weeks of 2016.   Let's see if we can learn any lessons.

- A man named Pork Chop tried to bury his boss by uploading a pile of dirt with his fork lift and dumping it on the boss.

Lesson Learned:  Don't hire a man named Pork Chop.

- A naked man broke into a home and bit a women before being subdued.  He died later in the hospital.

Lesson Learned:  Just say No to drugs.

- A woman, on a motorized scooter, stole $3,500 worth of "Simpsons" memorabilia from Universal Studios, including a Homer Simpson hoodie.

Lesson Learned:  Don't ever steal from Universal or Disney.  You're always on camera.

- A man with no pants hijacked a luggage vehicle at Orlando International Airport.  He told the driver he was late for his flight.

Lesson Learned:  Get up earlier.

- My favorite and most current story comes from Tampa.  An angry pit bull named Scarface sent three people to the hospital after a woman tried to dress him in a sweater.

Lesson Learned:  Don't put lipstick on a pig and don't put a sweater on a pit bull named Scarface.  They don't like it.


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Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen died last month.  He was a Canadian singer, songwriter, poet, musician, novelist and painter.  He's one of those people we could describe as deeply spiritual but maybe not religious.  He eventually became a Buddhist monk, during five years of seclusion.

One of his most famous songs was - and is - Hallelujah.  It's been said that he wrote 80 verses.  I believe it.

So what would we discuss in Forum on this, January 1, 2017,  after the year, 2016, that most are describing in extremely negative verbiage, due to personal, local, national and international tragedies?

Hallelujah, of course.

We talked about four of the 80 verses.  A couple of them are very biblical.  But, if you had a terrible 2016, I'll leave you with the last verse we discussed.

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen 1934-2016



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