The Girl from Marine Park and the Boy from Highbridge on the Riviera

The Village of Eze

The Pondit has been preoccupied these past few weeks.  Getting to the computer to turn his thoughts into computerized words has not been a priority.  This morning I find my self twixt the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas.  Looking up from my laptop I see only sea – waves and a few white caps and eventually the endless line of horizon between the deep blue water and the azure sky.  The waves are rising up the hull of the ship as the Silver Wind spends a day at see traveling between her last port of call in Taormina, Sicily onto the island of Korcula, Croatia.

Barbara and I are on our honeymoon.  It started with two glorious days in Eze, France.  We stayed in the Château de la Chèvré D’Or in old Eze village.  This hotel is in a part of the city where there are no cars or trucks.  The village is situated on a mountaintop high above the French Rivera coast between Nice and Monaco.  We spent every minute of these two days within the village.  We did walk around the town, or better put, up and down the town.  




Our room, like most of the hotel room was remote to the common service areas of the hotel.  Room 34 was up some steps, always steps, and around the corner from the reception and the restaurant area.  Our balcony overlooked the bar and fountain area and had a breathtaking view of the Rivera coast a good 1,200 feet below us.  Breakfast on the balcony was a treat both days we spent in Eze.  The meals at the hotel were some of the best we have ever eaten.  Those French know how to throw some grub together.

Unfortunately we did need to leave this fairytale setting to head to Monaco to meet our cruise ship.  That trip was only six kilometers.  Arriving at the port, we easily got settled in our room on the Silver Wind.  We caught a taxi to head into the city to do some emergency shopping.  Due to a poor choice of electrical converters, Barbara’s usually tame hair curler transformed into an inferno powered hair burner (Her hair was actually fused to the curling iron!).  Although both her head and the device seemed to recover from the incident, the curling iron was no longer to be trusted. It is now locked inside our room safe on the Silver Wind. An attempt to find a curling iron in Eze was like trying to find a glass of water in an Irish pub.  The taxi dropped us off several blocks from the very upscale Metropole Shopping Plaza near the casino in Monaco.  By the way, everything is upscale in Monaco.  We did find a device that was a distant cousin to a curling iron that was very accustomed to using 220 volts of power.  This ten dollar hand held electrical device found in most Duane Reade drug stores in Manhattan cost seventy-eight Euros in Monaco.

Well Monaco is a very crowded city that is build straight up a mountain.  The narrow roads wind back and forth with no apparent plan as to their location, width or direction. We waited at two cabstands where empty cabs just drove on by.  We called the number our portside taxi driver gave us to use to request a return trip.  The number did connect us to a recording announcing there were no cabs available.  The late afternoon sun bounced off the heat saturated pavement and buildings while Barbara and I trekked back the two miles to the dock and our ship.  Apparently the only reliable transport in Monaco is a chauffer driven Bentley or Mercedes coupe.

But one bad incident does not ruin a wonderful start of our cruise around Italy.  I will try to find some time to chronicle each of our stops and include some photographs of the voyage. The Internet connection on the ship is quite slow and adding photos to the posting is beyond tedious.

The Briefcase, Chapter 89

May I be thunderstruck!  Almost two years ago the Pondit added a post to this blog on the subject of his frustration with a fickle aberration of nature, the trumpet vine.  In that post (http://dickersonpondit.blogspot.com/2008/08/strumpet-vines.html ) I lamented that it had been five years since I planted two of the vines near my patio area and was still waiting for the first flower to appear on these rapidly growing plants.  I vowed to burn the vines in the fall of 2008 if they did not yield a flower that summer.  Alas, it was just a paper threat.  I waited all summer of 2009 and now have given up hope for 2010 since I have seen other trumpet vines in the area with flowers from the end of June.  What do I do?  I feel as badly as Patty Finnegan:  see chapter 89 below.

Lo and behold!

Here is a link to the first chapter of The Briefcase posted on my blog:

[ http://dickersonpondit.blogspot.com/2009/08/author-author.html ]

Chapter 89

Patty Finnegan was devastated.  It was now an hour and a half after his call with Janet Grissom and Bob Walsh.  Patty was sitting in a darkened bar about six blocks from the DEA office.  He was staring into a shot of Jameson trying to unravel the events of the past several months.  What was most baffling in this case were the number of leads the DEA had and the fact that almost all of them lead to nowhere.  In fact, following what ended up as blind leads, consumed most to the energy expended on the case.  Patty was not in all his faculties and he realized this.  But in the back of his mind he wished he could take large model of the tracking transmitter and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine in the anatomy of the entire DEA technical team.  How many hours did he and his team spend tracking that transmitter just to have it stop its signal just when it was most needed?  It was like the devil himself was turning it on and off.

Patty ordered another shot of Irish whiskey and then let his mind drift off to Connecticut.  What in the world did Anthony Costanzo and the Mafia have to do with this case?  Sure there were marked bills found in Mystic and at the Foxwoods but did that trail actually lead back to Miguel Rivera?  And he was totally perplexed by Ernesto and Pablo; all that time in the tomato fields of Immokalee and not a “marked” dollar to show for it?  Why were they hiding from Miguel, if they did not have the money? 

These were baffling events but not nearly as eerie as what happened in Santa Anita – one million dollars of DEA money winding up at the race track during the Breeder’s Cup.  How did the money get there?  Who brought the money there?  And what was the purpose of wagering that money at the racetrack?  Although still convinced that there was some inside hanky-panky going on at the track that day, the chances of uncovering that connection was getting slimmer and slimmer.  What seems so obvious and neatly packaged had completely unraveled for Patty and his team.  Life wasn’t fair and the Jameson was helping him confirm that observation.

Patty ordered another Jameson with a Smithwick’s chaser.  He now had to make a career decision.  He knew he could not let this case just drop.  In fact, he could not even imagine how easily Janet Grissom was letting this go.  That woman did not have a heart.  No wonder she had earned the nickname, the Ice Queen.  But Patty was very aware that Janet would be watching him.  She knew as well as anyone that this case was under Patty’s skin.  He had to be careful if he wanted to continue on the case.  He did want to do that.  He had no choice. He had to continue.  He decided to dedicate his Saturday mornings to the case.  He would not involve anyone else at the agency.  He pushed away the last half of his ale.  He realized he had only the rest of the day to work on the case in an official manner and knew he had to make some requests for information that would be consuming his next several Saturday mornings.

Turning to the bartender, Patty asked, “Sean, can you get me a cheese sandwich and a large mug of black coffee?”

Sean turned toward Patty, “It is about time.  I thought you were going to drown in your whiskey.  I guess I do not have to ask how things are going at work.”  Sean chucked and walked off toward the kitchen area.  In the morning, He was both bartender and cook.

Reaching inside his jacket pocket for his notebook and pen, Patty started yet another list:

•       Copy of betting records at Santa Anita
•       Copies of video of counting area in the betting pit
•       Copies of videos of at least two of the betting windows at the track
•       Log of all times the briefcase transmitter was active
•       Copies of the videos with Anthony Costanzo at Foxwoods

If he could get these copies today, he will be able to review this evidence outside the prying eyes of Janet Grissom.  They had to have missed something that was in these pieces of evidence.  Patty was also considering some field trips he might take.  One would be to the Grand Caymans to check out those private banks.  Another trip might be to confront Miguel Rivera in Cali.  Obviously this last idea was either desperation or the Jameson doing the talking.  Visiting Cali would be a suicide mission and not a side trip!  Whatever, but Patty knew that Miguel Rivera would know his name before long.  No one kills one of Patty’s agents, steals his money and gets away with it.

Patty ate his sandwich and had two mugs of coffee.  One long visit to the men’s room and he was headed back to his office with his list in his pocket. 

Where the Hell is Nevis?

I am somewhere east of Puerto Rico and west of Casablanca. The island of Nevis is only a short boat ride from the southern point of St. Kitts and is a fairly round dot in the middle of the Caribbean. The center of the island is dominated by a dormant volcano that is over 3,200 feet high. I am staying at the rather comfortable Montpelier Plantation Inn on the low hills south of the volcano. This has been a dry February for Nevis. The cold air up in the United States is keeping warm tropical air trapped to the south. This posting is emanating from poolside – a rather inactive poolside where my fingers typing away seem to be the only human activity except for some occasional breathing by several other guests. Most of the guests are from the United Kingdom. Nevis/St. Kitts is still a Commonwealth country loyal to Queen Elizabeth (but I am not certain they know that this is Queen Elizabeth the second!).

Getting here from New York City last week was a bit of a challenge. Originally we were scheduled on an early morning flight Friday to San Juan and then an afternoon connecting flight to St. Kitts. It is very hard to find flights to Nevis although they do have a small airport. The weather predictions in New York led us to change our outbound San Juan flight to Thursday afternoon. That we did but our three and one-half hour flight took us over seven hours to complete. We spend at much time on the runway at JFK then we did in the friendly skies. We stayed in San Juan and caught our scheduled Friday flight to St. Kitts. The trip after deplaning is more of a logistical challenge. The airport is about ten minutes from the capital of St. Kitts where there is a twice a day ferry to Nevis but it is about thirty mountainous miles to the beach on the south end of St. Kitts where you can arrange for a water taxi to take you to a beach on Nevis. That was our choice. Michael, out cab driver met us outside customs at the airport. With hardly a word he took us over the winding coast road to a dirt path that led to a short dock in the middle of nowhere. In front of us was a dive boat moored at the pier. There were people on the beach enjoying the sunny weather. Looking out we could see Nevis just a short boat ride away. After dragging our five bags through the sand to the dock, we boarded the rather large dive boat. We were handed two Carib beers and were glad to be sitting down with Nevis in sight. We waited about twenty minutes and were into our second bottles of beer when four young day trippers joined us for the ride across the channel.

We docked in Nevis and paid the boat operator $80 and tipped the crew. Our prearranged cab driver was waiting for us as we disembarked. She was anything but quiet, a feisty Brit fro Yorkshire who has been on the island for eighteen years. The ride to our inn was about twenty minutes with each turn off the highway leading to roads of less and less attention. The final two miles were two parallel strips of concrete with a grassy path in the center. Mind you this was still considered a two way road and we did encounter a truck coming at us from the opposite direction. We made it to the hotel; then we settled into our gorgeous room and were able to make cocktail hour -- a Pernod for me and chardonnay for Barbara -- before moving out to the west terrace overlooking Charlestown for a scrumptious dinner.

I have added some pictures and will continue our vacation saga in another posting.

Here is Nevis from the southmost point of St. Kitts.  Those are clouds and not fumes on the top of the volcano!

Living full time in Nevis is a real temptation.  Life is soft and easy.

Nevis has been waitng for years for a visitor of distinction.  Little do they know he is on his way.

This is a great shot of Barbara!  Our taxi is visible in the distant.  If there was a road to the beach, that would also be in the picture.  We arrived on a goat path.

Off on our voyage to paradise.  The background scenery was included in the fare.

This is our water taxi crew.  One of them is supposed to be steering the boat!

A view from the field just west of our room's porch.

Same area looking north toward the volcano.

The reknowned croquet courts at the Montpelier Plantation Inn.  This is the site of the 1824 Commonwealth Croquet tournament.

The Dickersonpondit hard at work creating a literary feast for his followers.

Florida Trip 2010: Naples

At last, civilization: I am now visiting Naples, Florida. Traffic is adequate but not stifling, weather is peaceful and calm, New York Times is available in the 7-11, the beach is almost empty for a morning walk and parking is illegal or costly everywhere. Naples reminds me of midtown Manhattan (the NYT and parking only). I once again am staying with good friends, this time they are from Croton-on-Hudson, NY. I arrived mid-afternoon yesterday, spent an hour and a half on the beach about a mile from downtown Naples and after a wonderful dinner of fresh fish chowder headed off to the Universal Unitarian Church for the initial session of a weekly evening lecture series. The topic this week was the present state of politics in Iran, or the end of the Islamic Revolution given by an Iranian college professor teaching out of an Illinois university. He was interesting and there were over one hundred people in attendance. Bottom line: the current Iranian government is on the way out and almost powerless, religious influence on the state is in flux and decentralized through many minor ayatollahs, the drive toward modernization out trumps nationalism and Iran is not interested in nuclear weapons. These are the speaker's opinions. For me, "To shah or not to shah, that is the question."

I listened to the State of the Union address after the lecture. I had a very big issue or lack of one: I am retired and do not want a job. What is the federal government going to do for me? Perhaps I ought to think about starting a small business? It will be interesting to see if the trickle up economic model is any more successful than the trickle down economy was. As far as trickle down goes, I know Maxwell House coffee is good to the last drop, but I do not think I got any drop of the trickle down spoils.

This morning I was on the North Gulf Shore beach of Naples by seven o'clock. The sun was not quite up and the air was fresh and cool. I walked the beach for an hour and one-half. I collected about a dozen sand dollars and successfully exfoliated the bottoms of my feet. I am now five ounces lighter. After a shower and breakfast, my host and I headed to downtown Naples to walk out the fishing pier. Along the way we stopped at the old Naples train station and visited with an enthusiastic collection of Lionel model train buffs. They had an impressive display of model trains in the old station (see pictures below). This was truly childhood revisited for me.

After lunch we went to the Naples Nature Conservatory for a meaningful commune. We took an electric boat ride through the mangrove swamp and then watch the three o'clock feeding of a five month old loggerhead turtle. Talk about excitement! My heart rate was up to 58 beats per minute. Now it is time for pure relaxation at the pool at the edge of the local golf course. My Myers Rum and Coke is tasting mighty fine. By the way, how was the snow in New York this morning?

Here are a few pictures of the latest days of my Florida visit:

 

Home of the Lionel Train Club of Naples. 

Part of the layout of the model trains at the Naples Train Depot.

Notice the motor cycles at the model train layout.

The Naples City Fishing Pier.

Mangrove trees in the swamp behind the Naples Nature Conservatory.

Florida Trip 2010: Minigoldendoodles

I have spent my last couple of days in the city of Longwood which is about two thirds of the way between New Smyrna Beach and Orlando. This is an upscale are and located near several of Florida's fresh water springs. I am visiting a long time fraternity brother (Sigma Alpha Epsilon at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) along with another fraternity brother and his wife who live in Orange County, California. You cannot imagine the number of enhanced fraternal memories we have shared. It is amazing all three of us are all still alive and out of prison.

I have played golf two days in this part of central Florida and yesterday visited Blue Spring State Park near Orange City, Florida adjacent to the St. John's River. This fresh water spring pumps about 110,000,000 gallons of 73 degree water into the St. John's River each and every day. With the recent cold weather in Florida lowering the river temperature, manatees have congregated into the stream running from the spring into the river. We saw nearly thirty manatees warming up in the spring yesterday. These immense river slugs do very little. The main activity I saw was warming themselves in the spring waters and sunlight. I stood near the edge of the observation platform for twenty minutes with a wet herring in my mouth waiting for one of the manatees to jump up and grab the stinking fish. One did cruise over and pass gas right beneath me. I do not recommend one of these animals as a pet.

The spring runoff had water as clear as glass. You could see the many fish that took advantage of this stream of fresh water. There were also large turtles and a very large alligator in the waters. Swimming is permitted in the stream running from the spring to the river. There are, of course, signs asking people to leave the manatees alone and that there are alligators in the area that should be avoided. As I observed this signage, I came to realize why the population in Florida is primarily white English speaking Caucasians and Hispanic. The alligator warning signs were prominent and the warnings rather firm. The only two languages on the signs were English and Spanish. Imagine a new immigrant from Greece coming to the park on a warm day and thinking (in Greek), "What a nice day and a nice spot for a swim. Look at those large gray swimming mammals and the large swimming Geico gecko in the water. Let me jump in and frolic with the animals." That guy is alligator lunch in three minutes. I believe Florida alligators are killing off all the non-English or non-Spanish speaking immigrants that come to Florida. This could be an oversight by the Florida government officials or a hideous plot to control voting patterns in upcoming elections. I cannot make that call, but Florida voting results always seem to make national headlines.

Oh yes, minigoldendoodles. My hostess with the help and support of her family raises dogs. These dogs are crosses between golden retrievers and miniature poodles. Artificial insemination comes into play here for genetic reasons. (I believe the physical size limitation of the male minipoodle stud is also a factor – but I am no expert and the stud does have a four foot vertical jumping height.) The outcome of this comingling of breeds is wonderful dogs. Great temperament, reasonable size and above average intelligence combined with fur that actually stays on the dog and not your clothes and furniture is a big plus. Spending two days with five adult dogs in the house with two other mothers and their new liters in a warming bedroom was quite a treat and you could not find more affectionate dogs. Thank goodness all the puppies are spoken for! Check this web site out for more information and pictures:

http://www.springviewminigoldendoodles.com

Here are a few pictures of the latest days of my Florida visit:

Here is my aunt and uncles condo right on the beach at New Smyrna Beach.

 

Florida has this right. They are handling the "clunker" situation with the kind of vision you cannot expect from the federal government. They encourage people to park on the beach at low tide and six hours later at high tide the clunkers are on their way to the coast of Africa. Cost to we taxpayers, nada!

Here we are at Blue Spring State Park waiting to see the manatee tricks.

This is the only manatee that approached the herring I was holding in my mouth. One witness claims he jumped two millimeters toward the fish as he passed me. That would be a new manatee world record.

Here is the largest pod, flock, gaggle, pack, covey, herd assembly of manatees I will ever see. There must be thirty animals in this pod, flock, gaggle, pack, covey, herd assembly of manatees.

This is one of the signs Florida is using to control the number of non-English or non-Spanish speaking immigrants living in the state.

Thank goodness I chose a car and not a motorsycle for this three week trip to Florida.

Florida Trip 2010: Mickey to Smyrna

There is no way to compare Key West to Orlando. Key West seems so rooted to me and Orlando is pure fantasy land. I could never settle down in Orlando, even if for only a month. I am certain there is good value in the time spent in the major theme parks. This trip, I did not visit any, but I have in the past. The real show is in the fast food and chain restaurants. Watching the horde approach, circle and then attack the breakfast, lunch or dinner buffet is seeing humanity at the best of its human instincts. Why eat two eggs and a strip of bacon, when there are pancakes, fried chicken and French toast with fructose syrup just there for the taking? Thank goodness the path to the plain vanilla yogurt is always unobstructed.

Thursday I visited friends with other friends up in Nancy Lopez's favorite town (now a city) the Villagesday. The place is a Mecca of senior activities. They have a full newspaper full of activities and special interest clubs. My new desire in life is to become the sixty-five year and older pickelball champion of the city (and thereby the entire world). A more ambitious goal is to be the captain of the Precision Golf Cart Drill Team and become a legend of polo halftime entertainment fame. Seriously, life at the Villages demands the careful consideration of anyone wanting an active, congenial retirement.

Today I am at New Smyrna Beach on Florida's Atlantic coast. This is a wonderful, quiet beach town. I ended last evening with a four mile round trip walk on the beach and started today taking that same walk. There are plenty of Harley-Davidsons in the town as well as a mixed of retired northerners and comely bikinied teenagers. Being near the ocean listening to the surf is very satisfying to my ears and spirit.

Here are a few pictures of the latest days of my Florida visit:

Me enjoying a chesseburgeer in paradise at Jimmy Buffet's original restaurant on Duval Street in Key West.

My life was in the hands of Captain Tim as we sailed out of Key West harbor into the dangerous Atlantic Ocean.

Another schooner sailing by us on our sunset cruise in Key West.

This is the closest I got to a birdie on any of Florida's numerous golf courses.

Here is the dream of every Villages resident. The ultimate in designer golf carts.

There are plenty of golf carts to choose from, in fact it is the largest retail industry int he Villages!

Florida Trip 2010: Life in Key West

I can see why Ernest Hemmingway, Tennessee Williams, Harry Truman and Jimmy Buffet spent so much of their time in Key West. It is an intriguing and charming little city. The old town has kept its charm. New McMansions are not permitted. Duval Street reminds me of a slimmed down French Quarter in New Orleans. The pace is slow, the tourist trade is doing fine and the cruise ships just keep on sailing in. Yesterday Barbara and I took a trolley tour of the entire island. We learned it is only two miles by four miles and has a population of over 23,000 residents. Most of the island is made from land reclaimed from the mangrove swamps. This practice is no longer allowed and it appears what is now Key West will always be Key West. The seafood is terrific. There are many fine places to eat and it appears even more places to drink.

Friday night we ate at the Café Marquesa. This restaurant is cited in the novel I am writing, The Briefcase. It is an upscale restaurant for Key West. No one was dining in shorts, tee shirt and flip flops. We also saw the Mary Immaculate Star of the Sea school where Anna Harte teaches fourth grade in the novel.

While on the trolley tour we learned that at one time Key West had the largest per capita income of any city in the US. The money came from rolling cigars and salvaging wrecks of the reef on the Atlantic Ocean side of the island. Needless to say, those industries are no longer driving the Key West economy. We also learned that Key West seceded from the United States for a short period of time in protest of border closings at the top of the Florida Keys. The Conch (pronounced CONK) Republic was short lived. Our guide told us more about this but, the line between truth and fantasy was getting very jagged as his stories went on.

Today we head out for some nautical adventures!

This is the Key West Bed and Breakfast, our Key West home.

This sign at the airport proudly exclaims Key West's independent status for a brief period in 1828.

Here I am standing near Spong Bob Square Pants maternal grandfather.

Barbara out in front of the B&B on Williams Street.

The Cafe Marquesa from our tour trolley.