Digesting Thanksgiving

Today will be my last full day in Pensacola and we started it as usual with Rusty leading the way around East Hill. The more I observe his behavior the more I see the predator in him. He already knows Therèse's home from several hurricane evacuations, when Layne brought him here to wait out any serious storm. Most recently that was Hurricane Irma which was a time of stress for families as the Keys were completely cut off for several days. It was none too pleasant for me either living without water, electricity, gas, or civilization in the minimally staffed police station!

Happy days, we are here by choice. And this is a pretty place. Rusty makes larger and larger circles each morning when we leave on patrol. My idea of a morning walk would be to get in the van and chase down some point of interest or to visit the rather pretty downtown and explore a new place. But my Carolina Dog lives by his wits and he likes to get to know who and what has been traveling past his lair while he was asleep. So we walk in apparently random circles around the block while he checks the ground for predators and likely dangers.  That such a wild thing cherishes my company never ceases to surprise me.

I have a few ideas why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year and I know I'm not alone in this. The lack of commercialization makes this holiday special. As much as shopping and Black Friday intrude the holiday itself is somehow still as much about the basics as it ever was. Jews have a similar tradition I discovered after I married one - a choice as mysterious to me as Rusty's pleasure in my company. Passover is the meal that sees a place kept for Elijah the prophet who will one day show up, at every Seder simultaneously presumably to announce the arrival of the Messiah. Jews place Jesus as yet another prophet and they are still waiting for their savior to show up. I guess a few more centuries won't hurt because the Passover meal has for me an air of Thanksgiving about it and thus a welcome additional holiday.

I'm an outsider to both traditions so my family never sends me Thanksgiving greetings and I'm never huddled in a corner exchanging pleasantries with long distance relationships. In Europe among my nominally Christian family members Thanksgiving is just another Thursday. Which to me is tough luck because Thanksgiving is the best. Not only is there lots to be thankful for, it is also a holiday of pure sentiment, friendship, eating together, and open doors with no pressure to buy, exchange or pretend. Pass the sweet potato casserole and dig in. Simple joy. Some people then get ready to shop and others pull out their Christmas decorations.

Jews at Passover have a tradition of open doors to anyone who wants to sit with them. Its like Thanksgiving in that it's a meal shared, and even though there should be readings and questions and all the rest of the formula the nub of a Reform passover gets down to passing the plates with food. Europeans don't do this and they miss out. For centuries they persecuted Jews for hanging around waiting for a Messiah when one perfectly good one had already come and gone, and nowadays the concept of Thanksgiving seems permanently out of their grasp. Hollywood, McDonald's and I am told nowadays American pancakes are all the rage in Italy but Thanksgiving? That's weird. Not that, not in Italy.

We will be driving the next month, ambling our way to warmer climates and we hope we will be seeing "Feliz Navidad" lit up everywhere, as the western tradition of over the top commercialism has taken hold around the world. After my parents separated and my mother went to live full time in Italy after thirty years in post war Britain, I found myself celebrating Christmas in her tradition, where Italians had an old witch bring presents in January to mark the holiday (holy day) of La Befana on January 6th, Twelfth Night when the Three Kings arrived out of breath with gifts for the Messiah from eastern realms. The Epiphany, a forgotten holy day nowadays.

I was confused naturally but these days Italians have got with the program and Christmas trees and squealing infants gather on the morning of the 25th per the modern script and La Befana is an embarrassing relic of another time. But I remember Christmas in Italy as a time of eating and subtly giving thanks with not much emphasis on gifts and lights and stress. I'm doubly thankful I get to celebrate this holiday now in my old age in the New World. La Befana comes to America every Fall.

Thanksgiving reminds me of another brilliant Italian tradition that has been thrown to the ash heap of history which is the ponte or "bridge." For reasons too complicated to go into (look up Lateran Treaty 1929 on Google if you want) Italy was required to celebrate a number of religious holidays every year. August 15th for instance The Assumption of Our Lady was a day off, and still is in a national holiday month. Practically every month had a religious holiday and occasionally even two. Italy's neighbors dedicated to their Protestant work ethics made fun of Italian laziness with their unending series of holidays and days off and all the rest.

There was a brilliant twist to an already enjoyable religious holiday requirement with the possibility of making a bridge between the holiday in question and the weekend. If the holiday fell on a Thursday or a Tuesday, what was the point of going back to work for one day? We'll just make a bridge (a ponte) and stay away from work for four days. This all had to end with European rules imposing stricter work hours and uniformity, so it did end amid much national lamentation.

For me Thanksgiving has the additional pleasure of falling on a Thursday and thus creating one last holiday bridge without fail every year. It connects me to that mythical past of young adulthood in Italy made up mostly of standing around with my friends in uncomfortable holiday clothes leaning against our cars (and my non conformist motorcycle) discussing how we were going to spend the day off. We spent them mostly standing around discussing what we were going to do. My suggestions to go exploring were met with disdain so I took to my motorcycle by myself. I made my own tradition on empty holiday back roads.

I suppose being retired makes a holiday seem a futile exercise but being retired is more than time away from work routines. It's time away from office drama, conflicting personalities and the useless rummaging around in your mind for strategies to survive another pay period. My private Thankfulness this year is that I got out before the new wave of anti-vaxxer trainees took hold at work.  Add being Covid free to the list of things to be thankful for.

I had two brilliant Thanksgivings this year which might have seemed over the top had I been in a mood to judge myself.  As we slide into Christmas I will hold on to the simplicity of the Thanksgiving message. Next year I plan to be back and give Thanks for the end of the plague, give thanks to my wife still alive for being steadfast in the face of personal peril and be glad everyone is still here including us.

I will be thankful Thanksgiving is a North American holiday reserved for Canadians in October and us in November. For me it's not a historical massacre or a reason to get up in arms about history. I know what we do isn't historically accurate, blah blah blah, but I've never sat down at a table and given thanks with anyone who might remotely resemble a genocidal maniac. People I share Thanksgiving with are glad to be at table with people they like. That other cultures and peoples don't do this gives Thanksgiving, the parade, the football and the gastronomic exhaustion a personal flavor I very much enjoy.

Now that we've done that, let's get on with our lives. They tell us the virus is coming back with a new variant but I'm figuring we will find a way forward, messy, costly, argumentative and at times silly. But compared to what the original settlers had to deal with  this should be a piece of cake.  Thanksgiving means trusting we shall find a way as we always have. I plan to stay curious and to poke around as far from home as I am allowed and able, and as close to the road as I like. To everyone facing work Monday morning, thank you, and I'll not take my freedom for granted.

Pensacola Cold And Damp

I have despite my own laziness conducted an experiment on my dog and Rusty has proved beyond a doubt he does not care for cold mornings. When we lived in the Keys, Rusty would wander in and out at all hours and spent as much time outdoors as inside. He had no restraints, no fences, no leashes and was free to walk off down the street and leave us at any time. 

On the road in temperatures hovering around 30 degrees he has shown himself happy to stay in bed with us all morning long. When I was working I set my alarm to 4:25 and Rusty was always keen to walk down the street and do a mail check, as I called it. We wandered onto Spanish Main, checked the hedge where the Venture Out dogs walked drearily and repetitively during the day, and then we went home. A 65 degree morning had me shivering. Later in the morning my wife who worked from home, drove him to some more stimulating location, and in the evening it was my turn to spend time with him in mangroves of course. 

Now we are back in Florida and a brisk morning is 55 degrees, a cold front blowing across a Pensacola dampened by showers in the night. We had planned on sleeping aboard Gannet 2 but our host was appalled by the idea so I had no idea it had been raining. Rusty was already yawning and pacing by 5:30 so clearly warm weather motivates him. I'm not sorry because there was no way I was getting up at dawn on a 32 degree morning. Not yet anyway as I slowly evolve into a three season human.

Thanksgiving is done, feasting is I hope behind us as this is the time of year my liver threatens to explode. Black Friday is not a shopping day when you live in 72 square feet but I did get a package from a mailman this post holiday work day.  It contains a tool for reading engine, transmission, brake and airbag codes emitted by a vehicle. When those little icons light up you plug this contraption in and it tells you what's wrong. I'm skeptical but it seems its the tool one needs for road trips in the 21st century. Yay for Black Friday then.

I have wanted to go downtown with camera and dog of a morning but Rusty shies away from driving and insists we walk the neighborhood. It is his time so I agree and he prances and waves his tail so there is some reward in sticking to what he wants. At least these aren't yet more mangroves we have to walk through. Change is decidedly good. I saw a van parked and I was tempted to go down and knock and cause consternation but the idea is funnier than the act and we wandered off admiring trees and skies and chimney pots and big white clouds flying south.

"Do Not Block Driveway" (unless you yourself own the Miata in question). I am ready to be on the road away from places I know. I got a text with Thanksgiving greetings from a former colleague who asked me the inevitable question. When I replied Pensacola he expressed surprise we weren't further away. Too many friends I wanted to reply but thought better of it. Sunday I shall be driving, but it will be due east, deeper into Florida.

I refrained from explaining to Nick that we will be in Florida a few more days. Since I got new medical coverage I have to meet the doctor according to Florida Blue rules so Monday morning I have planned a truck stop shower outside Green Cove Springs before my morning appointment to prove to them I exist and then I shall turn around and drive the panhandle one more time back to Pensacola. You can imagine this is not my most desired road trip but by Tuesday we should be our own bosses again.

It takes monstrous amounts of disentanglement to escape the clutches of modern society. Luckily we have done this previously in our lives so we left lots of wiggle room at every stage to allow for unexpected delays and issues. Some travelers will understand and Phil I dare say is one such…After Thanksgiving yesterday one of the guests expressed an interest in the van. We had a similar query from a guest at our First Thanksgiving last weekend in Tennessee. Layne did the honors then but Phil was my turn, an English expatriate with an excellent sense of humor and an unusual ambition.

When his wife died Phil decided to walk cross the US to raise money for cancer research. He left New York and walked to New Orleans where he met Pam who answered an advertisement to meet this mad walker. He explained wryly his cross country walk took eleven months to complete because he kept getting interrupted by visits from Pam who flew to meet him along the way. Pam did not have a passport when they met but since then she has joined his effort to see every country in the world and Phil has visited 120 so far. Slightly mind boggling. They were quite surprised when they spoke of driving in Transnistria and I actually knew whereof they spoke. I like atlases I explained lamely. 

Phil actually understood my plan and aspirations and he made an scary suggestion. He spoke of how he had met an interesting couple after noticing the map of their travel painted in the van. Hmm I thought instantly rejecting such self promotion but Layne liked it. We compromised. Maybe when we have actually done something, not talked about it we could draw a map on the side of the van. The space is empty and right there: 

Maybe when Patagonia is in our rear view mirrors we'll find a painter and we shall remember Phil the crackpot traveler and Thanksgiving in Pensacola in the time of plague. It will be good.

Second Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day. Even a retired old fart, a young one like me, is forced to remember what day this is so let's start at the beginning: Happy Thanksgiving!  My favorite holiday is still excellent on the road. 

I gave thanks yesterday when I saw the roundabout sign marking a new intersection under the bridge from Pensacola Beach. Traffic circles beat stop signs and lights and when the protocols are ingrained you'll see far better traffic flow. Yield to traffic already in the circle. Simple. The British have been doing this for decades, so how much smarter are they? Precisely. Let's get with the program.

We went to the beach yesterday and ate fish. I had to walk the beast first of course. Rusty loves to see what's outside when we park the van in a new space, so I dealt with that while the women got in line. When we came back to the van after lunch I found a huge indentation in Layne's pillow so I think he slept soundly while we ate.

Some call the Florida Panhandle the "Redneck Riviera" because it's where southerners come to take a seaside vacation. Some Floridians  describe the panhandle as South Alabama as it's more rural and piney than the traditional Sunshine State scenes of palms and mangroves on postcards. It's only part of Florida because that was the shape of the land when the United States bought La Florida from Spain in 1819. The US got the land in exchange for boundary definitions further west and promised to pay Spanish settlers five million bucks to settle any claims they might have arising from the transfer of nationality (!).

Spain found Florida to be a  financial burden and wanted to get rid of it which was all well and good but then Mexico became independent and repudiated the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819 which required some diplomatic finesse to fix the new borders.  I imagine residents of this area must have been feeling somewhat uneasy about their national status as they never knew if they were going to get cable TV in Spanish or English for all those years of uncertainty. Things were only settled between Mexico and the US by 1832 and only until 1846 when things took a bloody turn but that war did not involve Florida so who cares? Maybe we'll take a look at that history when we're in Big Bend.

When you look at Florida's coasts and see what massive money makers they are full of realty contracts and tourists it's hard to imagine what a pit Florida must have been in 1828 when Key West was founded. The peninsula was a steamy mosquito riddled mess, full of yellow fever which periodically killed anyone it came in contact with in the sparse settlements. There were no vaccinations in those days and no one knew where yellow fever, a deadly plague, came from in the first place. So they put the capital in Tallahassee, located in a milder climate, and held on hard to the panhandle as the only part of the state fit for human habitation. Except for Key West, the port city with a reasonable climate and lots of trade which made lots of money. 

Peg Leg on the beach was recommended by Therèse our local guide and she was spot on. We had the best fried grouper bites ever, delicate batter and moist fish inside. The cooked oysters were excellent too, one a weird cheese and jalapeño concoction and the other a classic Rockefeller. The boiled shrimp were not brilliant but I didn't want to  sound the grump horn so I supped my beer and enjoyed the atmosphere on the deck. 

My friend Webb who follows assorted sports as well being something of a gymnast himself as befits a solo sailor of some repute, told me Manchester City was facing off against St Germain des Pres. Manchester versus Paris and he knew Therèse's ancestry rooted in France...so we had some rivalry ready to go when Therèse spotted the game on a television:

Perfidious Albion smacked France and I allowed myself, a non sports fanatic, a mild gloat so the day was perfect...

I enjoy the possibilities of van life created by the mobility of a 21 foot Promaster which we can drive and park pretty much anywhere a car can go. However there are also some drive up possibilities for people in boats:

When I lived and traveled on a sailboat I did this a couple of times but this kind of drive up is really meant for people in power boats easily maneuvered. Pretty cool though. 

The place was vast, no one wore masks so thanks for the patio dining. 

We were in two cars so Therèse and her sister in law went for a drive through Fort Pickens, a National Park site but we had chores to do, some light shopping. It's getting dark early, so by 5:30 it feels like the middle of the night.

Rusty loves moochdocking, and takes advantage of sunny lawns, watching the world go by, and then he goes inside and collapses on the bed.

Therèse's sister in law has an allergy to dogs she says but she noted yesterday that she hasn't met dogs like Rusty and she said she actually liked him. He is pretty non intrusive as you can see. He doesn't bark (unless there is a reason) to the point I'm not sure what his bark sounds like, and he won't beg unless you induce him to annoy you and he spends his time minding his own business. 

Have a good holiday if you are in the US and I have to go as this second Thanksgiving appears to be on track to be as elaborate as any and I wasn't expecting this. Seven people and a million dishes. Here we go.

Hobo Beach Pensacola

It's been just over one month of travel and the feeling of vacation hasn't yet left. I caught Layne yesterday on her phone measuring distances and checking Harvest Hosts between here and Austin so I think her feet are itching just as much as mine are.

Therèse lives in East Hill, a community set on an actual prominence, as close to a hill as you will find in the Florida sandbox. Take the correct street and you can get actual over the water views from high above the tideline. Not a bad place to be when the inevitable hurricanes push water up the Gulf of Mexico onto the beach.

The other good bit about this neighborhood is the variety of architecture and the abundance of plants including extremely large trees. Rusty quite like the walks as do I.

Therèse is an avid gardener so it came as no surprise to see grapefruit sized lemons hanging in her back yard. She settled in Pensacola a decade ago as her roots in the US were in Alabama (which is her team...) but Pensacola offers beaches, Florida sunshine and no taxes, the sorts of reasons I can agree with, especially after a subfreezing week in Chicago. The weather is actually quite mild by Florida standards with actual frost in winter from time to time and bearable summers for the less heat adapted among us. This is decidedly not the land of mangroves and coconut palms.

Rusty rather likes the stillness of houses. Layne said she was glad we have lots of Hilton points as we may have to give the little runt a break in a normal bed from time to time. I have to say though he is eating well, sleeping long and hard and is always ready to go and see what's what. When we arrive someplace he likes to get out of the van immediately and then he settles outside curled up watching the world go by. 

A case in point: he was stirring around six this morning in an unusual display of early morning activity so I got up, this is Florida after all and not by any means cold on a sixty degree morning (my standards have plummeted since Chicago and the snowfalls) and we too off for the Graffiti Bridge on the shores of Pensacola Bay. It's an informal free speech spot that has grown into. tourist attraction of sorts.

The bridge has been painted a bilious shade of pink in the style of a Pepto Bismol advertisement which is slowly succumbing to the blandishments of the spray can brigades. With a little convincing I got Rusty out of the parking lot which is apparently filled with interesting smells and we got busy Wirth the business of crossing the bridge.

We have been here in years past but this time we took the trail on the inland side of the tracks wandering through a shady wonderland of no people and no noise. Rusty lost his nerve a bit at one point but I walked ahead and he followed along. He is learning to not be scared of strange places which is one more step up the ladder for the dog abandoned in the Everglades. I was always amazed by his comfort levels running through the impenetrable mangroves in the Keys followed by his fear of falling leaves in deciduous forests...

Winnie the Pooh might have described it as a blusterous day, not too windy in point of fact but there was a decidedly cool breeze coming off the bay.

We walked alongside the railroad for a bit until I could hear waves beating on the beach on the other side and we then climbed the embankment to look over the top.

The small brown dog blending in.

This is why they call the place Hobo Beach. Bums don't bother me but there again I am one now.  I met a man out here years ago and I signally failed to make his picture so I cannot be sure anymore who he might have been.

He was well spoken and had travel plans which we discussed for a while as our dogs. played around in the sand. Often homeless people are shy, angry, demented, needy or lonely but he came across as none of those. People with houses come across in similar fashion to me but few housed or houseless people had the presence of mind and serenity of this particular man living in a tent in the dunes.

I looked him up on my next visit but there was no sign of him so I figured he was probably riding the rails somewhere, or living a new life somewhere else. This shack is roughly where he was living. I saw the occupant and waved. He waved back but he was young b blonde and not the old hobo I met before.

I rather think this bench, new to the site, revealed the answer to my little mystery. I took a seat and did some Googling. I am pretty certain this is my mystery man: Kent Stanton. Well worth a read if you click.

Things I saw wandering back to the van:

Hobo Beach seen from across the way at the waterfront park.