Erle Stanley Gardner

My grandparents had a weekend retreat in West Virginia that we always called Sleepy Creek, for the brushy rivulet that ran nearby. My grandfather used to periodically drive up there from Washington, D.C., to go hunting. Or so he said -- the family joke was that he seldom shot anything, and mostly stomped around the mountainside and sat inside the old farmhouse in the evening, reading cheap paperback mysteries.

After he died in 1977, my family went up to Sleepy Creek several times. On one of those trips in the 1980s I retrieved Grandfather's stash of Erle Stanley Gardner paperbacks. Gardner is best known as the creator of Perry Mason, surely the most famous lawyer on TV in the 1950s.

I read a lot of the novels, but I don't remember any of them. Grandfather didn't either -- he used to scrawl "read" on the title page so he'd be sure not to start the same one twice.

I kept the books in my own bookcase until I went to college, when I bequeathed them to my brother. Now they're stacked up at Mom's, on a shelf in the spare bedroom. Most of them are in pretty good condition, and many have "read" written inside them in my Grandfather's hand, and mine as well. (My mother wrote her first name when she read them, so sometimes she's there, too.)


My favorite thing about the books is their mid-century cover art. This morning I scanned them all and put them up on Flickr. You can view a gallery of them here.

As for the West Virginia property, my family still owns it, but none of us have been there for years. We have caretakers keeping an eye on the place, so presumably the house, with its outhouse, wood stove and general lack of modern conveniences, is still standing. What we'll do with it is anyone's guess -- I suppose that depends on how we sort out ownership, which is now shared by my mom and my uncle, and will eventually pass to me, my brother and my three cousins. (We all hope it's not a family feud in the making!)

Vase

Here's the vase I found for my friend Sue's birthday. It's handblown, about six inches high, and signed -- but I can't read the signature.


(Hopefully Sue won't see this post!)

Jacksonville 2

Still here in Jacksonville, hanging out with the family. This photo shows a firebush in my brother's back yard -- it supposedly attracts butterflies and hummingbirds, though so far all I've seen in it is a Carolina Wren. My brother said it's full of green anoles, too.

I wound up not reading my book at all yesterday. Instead, we had lunch together and then, when my brother turned on the University of South Florida football game, I went for a walk. (I make it a policy to avoid football games, even when they involve my alma mater.) USF did win the game, though, against Florida State -- a huge victory. So the mood was buoyant around the house for the rest of the day.

During my walk I visited an antique store up the road from my brother, and found a birthday present for a friend I'm going to see Wednesday -- an amazing hand-blown glass vase. I am SO tempted to keep this vase -- but no, I'm going to give it to her. The fact that I want it just shows that it's a good present!

Last night I took everyone out for a barbecue dinner. Messy, but I love barbecue sauce, so I was into it! (And fortunately, they served chicken!) I also had sweet tea, which reminded me of my childhood baby sitter, who always kept syrupy sweet tea in her refrigerator. I used to drink it while watching Marlo Thomas in "That Girl" and dreaming of New York!

Jacksonville

Yesterday we drove up to Jacksonville to hang out with my brother and his wife and daughter. I am now living in home-improvement-project heaven! My brother loves working on his house and yard, and he has a roster of activities planned for the day. My activities mostly involve lying in a hammock and reading a book, unless it rains -- in which case I will move to the couch.

Last night we went to a restaurant called European Street, a sort of exotic deli, and I finally had a Chimay beer, which Dave told me about months ago but I never had an opportunity to try. I had to text him immediately and tell him I found it in Jacksonville!

We walked back to the car along the St. John's River, where I snapped the photo above.

Elephants

I went to the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa yesterday with my mom. She'd never been, and I hadn't been for more than 10 years, so we thought we'd check it out. I spent some time watching these two elephants -- the baby walked up to the adult and nudged her, and they spent several minutes wrapping their trunks around each other and nuzzling. It was really amazing -- probably the closest thing I've ever seen to a hug in the animal kingdom!



The zoo is nice -- much better than it was when I was a child going there on field trips from elementary school. Back then, the animals were in small cages and displays weren't nearly as "natural" in appearance as they are now.

Most of the animals seemed pretty content -- sound asleep in the afternoon heat. But of course, who knows. Maybe they all have inner dreams of being off in the wild somewhere.

Clouds

The skies in Florida are so dramatic. They're the first thing I notice when I arrive, with clouds piled up like mountains, sidelit and towering. I always forget how amazing they are, and how puny and flat our northern skies can seem by comparison.


Yesterday evening I went for a walk with my mom, and both of us kept marveling at the clouds. It was an especially dramatic evening, as you can see.


I feel like a New Yorker through and through, having lived there now for almost ten years. I have no intention of leaving, and no plans to permanently return to Florida, the land of my birth. Culturally, I don't fit in Florida at all -- at least, not in the area where I grew up, north of Tampa. But these clouds remind me how much I still love the natural environment of the Sunshine State.


Nature in Florida appeals to me. I love the excitement and deco glamor of Miami, and the languorous tropical lushness of Key West. But I grew up in a woodsy area, and more than either of those places, I love the birds and bugs and reptiles, the armadillos and gopher tortoises, the humidity and palmettos and pines. That's where Florida's true beauty lies, and it still speaks to me, even though my life is no longer here.

A Moral Question

“The design of any country’s health care system involves political, medical and economic decisions. But the primary issue for any health-care system is, as President Obama made clear last week, a moral question: should a rich society provide health care to everyone who needs it? If a nation answers yes to that moral question, it will build a health-care system like the ones in Britain, Germany, Canada, France and Japan, where everybody is covered. If a nation doesn’t decide to provide universal coverage, then you’re likely to end up with a system where some people get the finest medical care on earth in the finest hospitals, and tens of thousands of others are left to die for lack of care. Without the moral commitment, in other words, you end up with a system like America’s.”

-- T. R. Reid, Newsweek, Sept. 21, 2009

(Photo: Bushwick, Brooklyn, Sept. 2009)