WELCOME TO MY WEIRD, WACKY, WILD AND WONDERFUL WEEK: When I tell people that I have a blog many ask on what? And I must admit that it like me isn’t exactly about anything, sometimes I rant, sometimes I impart strange tidbits of perfectly useless—or even occasionally useful knowledge for those like me that think an empty mind rattles to much and so we keep it full. This week is a perfect example of my wandering ways (both physical and mental) in that I am tackling 4 W’s that pretty much describe me and my mind—so hang on and you’ll see what intrigues and amazes me, maybe you’ll enjoy it—if not I can’t apologize–I took too long becoming me to regret or to wish that I was what you wanted me to be….but some of my closest friends thought they had nothing to connect us when we first met—so don’t give up right away, some people actually feel I’m worth knowing.
Pictures today are of a couple of those friends directly above and some items on Sale at The GATE HOUSE http://www.lakeside-inn.com/the-gatehouse on the grounds of the beautiful (1883)http://www.lakeside-inn.com/about-us/history Lakeside Inn Hotel http://www.lakeside-inn.com/accommodations-main-link-to-room-descriptions as the main picture. All in one of my favorite towns anywhere: Mt. Dora http://www.visitmountdora.com/. which I spent a few hours in on Wed.
Friday night just spent gabbing with a friend that spent the evening for a little gossipy girls nite. But Sat it was Longwood http://www.longwoodfl.org/content/1115/151/163/default.aspx and a little walk around the historical area which includes a pioneer church http://christchurchlongwood.com/Welcome/History.html, an old hotel http://www.peaceriverghosttracker.com/subPages2/longwoodVillageInn30610.htm (now a offices but still maintaining the character) , a house with it’s insides out http://www.cottagegiftshopinlongwoodfla.com/ and the house shown above https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bradlee-McIntyre-House/290015941009171 to name a few. http://www.cfshp.org/historicproperties.html YOU MIGHT WANTA TRY A WALK AROUND THE HISTORIC DOWNTOWN…
Getting us through DROUGHTLANDER one interview at a time and waiting the return of OUTLANDER—please. http://www.designntrend.com/articles/58516/20150806/outlander-tv-series-6-incredible-quotes-from-caitriona-balfe-and-sam-heughan.htm
DAY I: WEIRD
London’s Prostitutes
London’s Insane
London’s Criminals (which probably includes some of the people in the first two.) I’ve read the first and Am almost finished with Necropolis and own the other two for intended reading—though her topics are sensationalistic, her dealing with them is professional, entertaining and informative and a must for people like me who love London.
In the book she give some really weird items on London For instance:
In the late 18th and early 19th century there was a widespread fear of being buried alive, so much so that in Frankfort (Germany) a special mortuary chapel was set up where bodies could be taken and “systematically observed until putrefaction had definitely set in. Precautions included placing a bell-rope in the hand of the corpse, so that the person could call for help if they returned to consciousness; and an official was in constant attendance, his duty being to inspect the bodies from time to time.
Londoners feared the Resurrection Men: “Fear of body snatchers led many families to inter their dead at appalling places…The lamentable state of London’s burial grounds, with their cheap, shabby coffins and shallow graves, made corpses easy prey…These ghoulish figures had been operating since the late 18th c. Far from resting in peace, Londoners feared that they would be disinterred and their remains sold to anatomy schools. The prevailing Christian belief that bodies must remain intact for Resurrection made dissection particularly repulsive.”
But the burial system was only a small part of London’s problems. “The city reeked for nearly another decade. It was not until the problem was literally under the Government’s nose that real action was taken. During the “Great Stink” of June 1858, the stench arising from the Thames forced the house to adjourn. The stench was so overpowering that the curtains of the Commons were soaked in chloride of lime in a vain attempt to protect the sensitivities of MPs. Disraeli referred to the river as a “Stygian Pool” and tons of lime were dumped in it every day.
In the Southeast of Naples, in the heart of the
Ten Thousand Islands is a town called
Chokoloskee (old home) which is the sight for another book:
Killing Mr. Watson by Peter Matthiessen (1990)
https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/23/home/matthiessen-watson.html “Wild west outlaw Ed Watson who claimed to have killed…Belle Starr. Watson settled near Chokoloskee and began fueding with his neighbors…after a 1910 hurricane, those neighbors shot him dead outside the Smallwood Store.” The store is still there (or it was, even end of no where part of Florida developers are moving in and the store has been threatened.) re-opened as a museum and there’s actually a third book written about this final frontier: TOTCH: A Life in the Everglades by Totch Brown a loveable local rascal
http://upf.com/book.asp?id=BROWNF93Ted Smallwood’s store was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. It remained open and active until 1982. When the doors were shut, 90% of the original goods remained in the store. In the last few years Ted’s granddaughter has reopened the store as a museum, and today it serves as a time capsule of Florida pioneer history. The center section of the building remains as Ted would have known it.The hide room has been turned into exhibit space, telling the history of the pioneers of southwest Florida.
http://www.florida-everglades.com/chokol/smallw.htmAll in all the fact that this is featured in one book and is the main or topic of two more is strange enough for me to wander if I should go there for just a look.
The Mulberry Museum
“may be the world’s only museum dedicated to ….fertilizer. …galleries, some of which are inside a train caboose, tell the story of phosphate, gray rock mined extensively in an about Mulberry in a section of the state known as Bone Valley (phosphate room in area are intermingled with Cenozoic era fossils—the museum has bones of mastodons, saber-tooth tigers, rhinos and boxcar length pre-historic sharks in another part of the museum)But mostly the museum concentrates on the positive aspects of phosphate.“
SOLOMAN’S CASTLE ONA
In the back woods (or in Hardee Co more like swamps) of Florida sets this castle “one man’s image of Oz. Naturally there’s a yellow brick road leading up to it…belong Howard Solomon….part artist and 100% hoot….12,000 sq foot museum/home/castle…The shingles here are aluminum offset printing plates discarded by the Herald Advocate newspaper (Wauchula)..the turrets sparkle with stained glass windows….at the entrance are two armored statues, one white, the other black, called Day and Knight…..All of the art is made from junk either from Soloman or donated to him:…..cars and chairs..of beer cans, a lion…of oil drums….guns made of ..hacksaw and a jack…barrels bent backwards…..”and lots more —-who says northerners (he’s from Rochester, NY) haven’t contributed to Florida’s cultural base.
