Friday: BIts and Pieces: I tell you, in this world, being a little crazy helps to keep you sane. Zsa Zsa Gabor

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These two pictures along with the main picture at the beginning are ones I took at the

New Smyrna Sugar Mill Ruins

https://www.volusia.org/services/community-services/parks-recreation-and-culture/parks-and-trails/park-facilities-and-locations/historical-parks/sugar-mill-ruins.stml

600 Mission Drive,

New Smyrna Beach

 386-736-5953

               Did you know that New Smyrna Beach is the 2nd oldest (after St. Augustine) City in the state of Florida.  These ruins are of a sugar mill built in 1830 by Henry Cruger and William dePeyster  and were originally on a 600 acre plantation.  At that time there was also a sawmill.  Both were built of coquina  stone which is what the fort at Saint Augustine was also built.  It was set up with the investment of New York backers and had the most advanced steam rollers and other equipment that was available at the time.  But it was doomed—In fact it is sited as the starting place for the Second Seminole Wars.  Seems in 1833 the local Seminole tribe with the reported help of many of the plantation slaves burnt the buildings down.

The area was placed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in August 1970. and is under the care of Florida Park Service as a State Historic Site.  You can just park and wander about the area–no admission.   You can walk about the ruins, or along the nature trails and there’s places for picnics as well.

For more information on the park:  https://www.abandonedfl.com/new-smyrna-old-sugar-mill-ruins/

and the hiking:  https://floridahikes.com/sugar-mill-ruins-park

 

 

I know it sounds crazy, but in order to run, I need something to chase after. Ali Krieger

 

Pocket RBG Wisdom: Supreme Quotes and Inspired Musings from Ruth Bader Ginsburgby Hardie Grant Books 

Pocket Ruth Bader Ginsburg Wisdom is an inspired collection of some of the most empowering and impactful quotes from the powerhouse associate justice of the US Supreme Court. After a quarter century serving on the highest court in America and fighting tirelessly for gender equality and civil rights, RBG has become one of the most influential legal figures in the history of the country. From her landmark cases working with the ACLU to her brilliantly meme-worthy moments of dissent, RBG is a true American trailblazer.

 

  • Notorious RBG Ruth Bader Ginsburg 'Women Belong In All image 0

“Sometimes, the only way to stay sane is to go a little crazy.” – Matt Nguyen

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Florida State Archives

State  Library of Florida

https://dos.myflorida.com/library-archives/about-us/about-the-state-archives-of-florida/

Part of Florida Department of State

R.A. Gray Building

500 S. Bronough Street

Tallahassee, Fl

850-245-6700

The Florida collection contains one of the most comprehensive collections of Floridiana.  Books, manuscripts, maps memorabilia, newspaper article and periodicals are among the 60,000 items in the collection.  The Florida State Archives is the central preserve, and make available for research the historically significant records of the state, as well as private manuscripts, local government records of the state, as well as private manuscripts, local government the official state records.  The Florida State Defense Council records and the papers of the governor, including during the World Wars.  In addition the Florida Photographic Collection provides a wealth of images in conjunction to event and activities relating to Florida History

 

 

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I may be crazy, but it keeps me from going insane.

Waylon Jennings
Please excuse the scruff marks on this old post Card—it is of Pebble Beach, Monterey Peninsula    https://www.pebblebeach.com/activities-and-sightseeing/monterey-county/
I wrote in on August 24, 1966.  I remember the day—we had lunch at Cannery Row—I had taken a bus—a local bus to Chicago and then a long distance to San Francisco and one more to Salinas where I was met by friend—I went alone but in Chicago met a young lady and her father who didn’t want her traveling alone and picked me out of the crowd to accompany her to meet her grandmother in San Francisco.  I naturally said yes—and we were placed on the bus first—-her daddy was a Chicago Police detective and didn’t want her setting in the waiting area—-got our pick of seats and got along nicely on the trip.
Anyway back to Monterey—we took a bus there too and they showed me around—being the bookie I was I knew about Cannery row from an old friend:  Stienbeck:  John Steinbeck: who lived near there and especially his book Cannery Row (which was written before I was born but whom I greatly enjoyed.  “…one of Steinbeck’s best and most widely read fictional works, immortalized Cannery Row as a one-of-a-kind neighborhood of fish packing plants, bordellos and flophouses, and made it the most famous street in America. ”     https://canneryrow.com/our-story/john-steinbeck/
Any way we said at a bar—not a bar bar, but a food one–we were not old enough to drink yet—-and it was the first time I ate a Taco.  In Michigan there were no Mexican food places—at least not in Lansing and the smaller towns I frequented—and it was just an exotic name of something that I had no idea about,   I wrote “an entirely new experience.  I’m still figuring out how to eat them.  Now I’m trying to figure out whose eating whom.  HOT.”
There is no zip code on the card — didn’t have them yet
and only a Route number—numbers for the boxes came later too—and now those old dirt roads have names and the houses are numbered.    Well not that house–the company that’s fraggin’ the valley destroyed it a few months ago.
 
 
“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” — Lucille Ball
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I’m sure that most of you are aware of the Amish—they are known for their plain clothes and not driving cars and other motor vehicles (i.e. tractors)–though they can ride in them and they have well known communities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other midwest locations….but what you might not know is that they also have a community in Florida!
Pinecraft 
is located at Sarasota, Florida and is a community of Amish in Florida.  While it is a full time community for a limited number of Amish inhabitants, it is predominately a site where Amish and Mennonite believers come to vacation in the sunshine of the Florida Gulf Coast.  It was orignally formed in the 1920s when some Amish farmers came here and set up celery farms, but celery didn’t do well in this coastal soil  (though it did in Sanford which use to be named Celery City) and while that didn’t work out the Amish have returned for winter relief ever since.
We visited here when we stayed for a long weekend in Sarasota and went to Yoder’s Amish VIllage (which is reputed to make more than 100 fresh pies daily)  and the rest of the meal here is great too.  The village also includes a fresh produce market (open 6 days a week) and several reatailers who make all manner of thing for sale inclduing sturdy furniture.
And you can visit it too—check out the sites below for any additional information you might like
Interested check it out through SARASOTA  Just click on the underlined web site and you will go directly there.
:
A look at Pinecrest by the Amish:  http://amishamerica.com/florida-amish/
Learn about the Amish Faith and people:  https://www.britannica.com/topic/Amish
“The more time you spend contemplating what you should have done… you lose valuable time planning what you can and will do.” ― Lil Wayne, rapper
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The Nave at Westminster Abbey is 102′ the highest in England.  The ratio of height to width is 3.1.
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Besides, I’m a gypsy at heart and I like to travel around. Reba McEntire

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 My whole life was foretold to me. An old Romany gypsy read my fortune. Maureen O’Hara

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The Mile Marker is a roadside marker that tells visitors driving in the Florida Keys how far they are from Key West.  The first mile marker is at 127 miles and is just south of Florida City and of course you find 0 in Key Weird—I mean West–itself.   Addresses along Route 1 are usually actually listed at being at  specific mile markers:
MM 82-87  for instance—one of my favorite stops along the way to Key West (see picture)  and to see the 10 best (according to Islands go here:  https://www.islands.com/10-best-mile-markers-florida-keys-road-trip/
Best Florida Keys Road Trip | Islamorada | Mile Marker 82-87

I still have a Gypsy sense of adventure. I don’t think I have slept in the same bed for more than three or four months my whole life. I am always planting vegetables that I never get to eat and flowers that I never see flower. I have always moved around the world. Helen Mirren

Easy and beautiful whittling projects that even beginning woodworkers can make for their home!

The satisfying craft of whittling has become more popular than ever—and these Scandinavian-style projects for the home will inspire both novices and experts with their beauty and simplicity. They include children’s toys such as a bird whistle and ring catcher; practical items like door hooks and butter knives; and decorative necklaces, buttons, carved flowers, and a chess set. All the projects are amazingly easy, and with a visual step-by-step technique section at the front of the book, anyone can take them on.

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London:  In the Time of Elizabeth I

It was not democracy, but London’s hugger-mugger jumbling together of rich and poor, merchants and semen, aristocrats and tradesmen, cosmopolitans and vagabonds, foreigners and yokels, ment that all kinds of men crossed paths in London’s streets and alleys and churches.  The parish of Walsingham’s (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francis-Walsingham) church in London lists them all in their succinet catalogure of bapstims, marriages and burials; knights, parson, stranger, baker, cobbler, carpenter, gentleman silkweaver, scrivener; merchant, blackmoor, bintner, broker, sugar maker, porter.  And so they all lived upon and walked ocassionally even the same prisons; and they heard things and knew things, well outside the conventional stations that Elizabethan society assigned men to.

Her Majesty’s SpymasterBy Atephen Budiansky

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I wanted to become an actor because I wanted to become a gypsy. I wanted to live the gypsy life! Jeremy Irons

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