Art, History and Parking Lot Drama

My brother, my niece Jane and I went to Lowe's yesterday, on a minor errand that suddenly became very dramatic. They went into the store while I paused to take this photo. When I finished I began walking toward the door, and I suddenly heard a woman scream in the parking lot. I turned around and there were two older people lying on the ground near the handicapped spaces.

Strangely, my mind immediately told me they were perpetrating some sort of scam. (I suppose this is the city dweller in me.) Still, I ran over to them, as did another woman from another direction. By this time, the man had stood up, but the woman was lying on the ground saying her leg was broken. Apparently the man had tripped on a concrete parking barrier, and fallen into her, knocking her to the ground.

I get first aid training every year at school, so I was trying to think what to do. Ice! But unfortunately, we were in the middle of a sweltering parking lot. There was no ice to be had. I asked her if she could voluntarily move her leg at all, and she could. She eventually felt confident she could stand up with some help, so a few of us (the group had grown by this time) helped her to her feet.

Another young woman came up and said, "I'm an EMT." I thought, THANK GOD! We determined the leg most likely wasn't broken. A Lowe's employee brought a wheelchair from inside the store and we put her in it. We wheeled her over to her car and lifted her in, and the man drove her away, supposedly to the hospital -- the EMT had recommended an x-ray.

I never did see the inside of that Lowe's, which is fine. I've seen 'em before.

Fortunately no one took my name as a witness for the purposes of future legal action.

We went on to lunch at a nearby sub shop, and then drove into downtown Jacksonville. I wanted to see some of the city's numerous murals, but while we were there we checked out some of its history, too.

These are the LaVilla shotgun houses, which are more than 100 years old. The city is storing them for future restoration, but as you can see, they're in pretty rough shape. In fact they're listed among the city's most endangered historic buildings. They were homes for working people in the largely black neighborhood of LaVilla, and called shotgun houses because you could supposedly fire a gun from front to back without hitting any walls.

We also took a closer look at the historic sign on the Maxwell House coffee roasting plant. It lights up at night. If I were more motivated I'd have gone back later for a night shot, but oh well.

And here are some of the murals. This is one of the newer ones, according to my brother. It says, in Latin,  "If the common people want to be deceived, let them be deceived." Or something like that. (I confess -- I used Google Translate, and had to massage the result.)

Jacksonville always has a lively mural scene.

The reclining Buddha!

I got incredibly hot jumping in and out of the car and walking around in parking lots. It was something like 94º F yesterday. Far hotter than I'm used to in England!

I spent the evening with my mom. She asked to go back to the Julington Creek Fish Camp, the restaurant overlooking the marina where we went for lunch on Friday -- so we did. Then, last night, my brother and I went to Bruster's, an ice cream stand where you can get a good-sized cone and hang out on benches beneath trees on a brightly lit patio. It was kind of a retro scene. I expected Suzanne Somers to pull up in a convertible.

Finally, some of you asked to see the frog I bought my nieces. Here it is, in its new home on my brother's patio. They've named it "Fangpuss" after a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character -- I suppose because it appears to have prominent teeth!