Report from the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower

Report from the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower:

Our 93-year-old nosy neighbor asked if I was all ready to go to Floridy.
“Hardly know it’s coming,” I said. This seems to be the way everything is since the stroke. Various trips — mighty Curve, Boston, etc. — just occur. I don’t know if this is a stroke-effect or the wild melee we live in, but fall just came and went one year after the stroke. My sense of these things seemed stronger before the stroke.

I called Bill from the Rochester airport: “I got ‘em all-all. Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyahhhhh..... Toy not with the master! —Even the Cayman; I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Jack hasn’t weighed in yet.”
“Get to work, you pup!”
“I’m tryin’.”

Once the plane was aloft, I couldn’t help noticing all the abandoned railroad right-of-ways on the checkered terrain below. They’re everywhere.
We kept climbing, high enough to not be able to discern if they were active railways.
The north-south runway at Rochester International parallels the Rochester-Southern, previously B&O (Chessie), long ago Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh.
We were soon climbing over the long-abandoned alignment of the old Peanut, and then paralleling the RS south.
Our flight was direct, Rochester-to-Orlando, and old railroad alignments were all over, along with old canal beds.
We crossed over Swain ski-center, but I couldn’t see the long-abandoned alignment of the Shawmut up on the hill. But I could see the old horseshoe fill that crossed Swain Valley and the old Erie.
But the cloud-deck thickened as we flew south.

Navigating Orlando was the expected shambles.
A shuttle took us to Hertz, which was off the airport.
They gave us a Sonata (snotta), but it wasn’t there.
The clerk noticed her error and dragged us back inside, but couldn’t supply a Corolla-sized car.
“Whatever happens, my mother-in-law needs a door,” I said.
We were offered a Chevy HHR, the same thing Elz had in Boston, at the Corolla-price.
“Business or pleasure?” the clerk asked.
“We’re here to see my 90-year-old mother,” Linda said. “Different option: neither business nor pleasure. How about ‘duty?’”
“Light-blue; A3; keys are in it.”
The HHR in A3 was light metallic purple. The one next to it was medium-blue.
“Are you sure that’s the right one?” I asked.
“Check the license-plate. I’ll come with you.”
She didn’t, but an aging latino asked to see our contract.
“How do you get in the back?” I asked, after fumbling around.
“Well, there’s always this,” he said. We pushed buttons on the magic key-fob. Who knows if you could unlock it with a key.
“How do you get the windows open?” I asked the girl at the checkout from a cracked-open door.
“Down between the seats,” she said. The electric-window openers were not on the doors.
-We exited following a MapQuest route to De Land I had gotten through Netscape, but it said turn left at a no-left-turn, so we turned right and U-turned on a side-street to get turned around.
-Then we followed another street north to an expressway on-ramp, but the sign for it was at a cross-street.
We turned onto it, but “Wait a minute,” the Keed said. “This don’t look like no on-ramp; it looks like a cross-street.”
We then navigated numerous narrow alleys around the rear of a gas-station, and sure enough, the elusive on-ramp we wanted was beyond the sign.
“If I had been driving,” Linda said, “I would have blissfully continued on that cross-street clear into the Atlantic Ocean.
-Our expressway quickly divided into a fork, with one side north, and one back to the airport. You have about 100 yards to change lanes — fine if you’re from Orlando, but we aren’t.
So we headed back to the airport.
A toll-plaza greeted us: exact change or E-pass. What do you do if you have neither? After sitting a minute at the split with the four-ways on, trying to come up with exact change, we got turned around, and were quickly greeted by a similar plaza on the on-ramp.
-The Greeneway does another split headed north, with one fork headed to Sanford, and another off. Again, a sudden lane-change, so again I was trapped.
Another toll-plaza greeted us: penalty for being a tourist; 75¢, exact-change please. Thank ya, Jeb.
Once back on the Greeneway, nothing else happened. We also tossed the MapQuest directions near De Land; Interstate-4 the whole way.
We found the mighty De Land water-tower with no trouble, and then Linda’s mother.
She looks fine for 90, except she looks pregnant. Thin but a swollen belly. Supposedly had a heart-attack, and part of an intestine was removed, but she seemed pretty spry.
“I don’t like walking with the others here,” she said. “They’re too slow.”
She gave us a 50-dollar bill for breakfast, but we managed to escape without it.
“Where am I gonna find a $50 breakfast?” I asked. “Anyway we got $18,000 in our checking-account, and near $100,000 in our savings. Add our IRAs and we’re approaching $600,000.
“I think we can find breakfast for less than $20.”
Maybe she’s been reading Galatians; or something about buying love from your spawn.
“You kids were so cute when you were small,” she once said. I think I did hear that, not too long ago, but wasn’t privy to their strange attempt to order a pizza and have it delivered. Since when does Papa Johns have to deliver to an elusive retirement apartment not on a street? We ended up getting it ourselves.

Follies in the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower:

The heat and humidity in Floridy was stifling.
Linda’s glasses fogged up, and the infamous Ducati-jacket was unbearable, which meant the loss of a pen I clipped to my T-shirt collar.
The camera-lens also fogged up.
Clouds quickly exploded into small thunderstorms, and strange insects and jungle-birds serenaded us from trees.
Tiny lizards darted across the sidewalks.

Our first trip with Linda’s mother was to De Land Library via her old house in nearby DeBary, 5-6 miles away.
“Now turn here on Howry Ave.”
Turn right, I guess.........
Suddenly, within one block: “There’s the library. Turn here!”
Screech; lurch. BARNEY-FIFE ALERT!
The idea was to use their ‘pyooters to access my e-mail and print our boarding-passes for the return flight home.
We were assigned ‘pyooter-eight, but no rig.
So ‘pyooter-10.
Linda’s mother stayed in the car.
“If I’d known she was going to do that, we’d have skipped the library,” Linda said. “She sure knows how to drive me nuts.”
The temperature in a parked car in Floridy quickly ramps up to over 100°.
“Oh, I’ll be fine. I’ll suffer in silence.”
The AirTran site bombed, so we couldn’t print boarding-passes. It did crunch a seat-change, although it took forever.
And everything took way longer than I’m used to on my MAC. “Please wait; OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHMMMMMMM......” Watch the icon spin.
(It took two attempts to do the seat-change — first attempt bombed [thank ya, Gates].)

After the library (Linda’s mother hadn’t even cracked the door), we went to mighty Wal*Mart to look for a girdle, fiber, anti-hemorrhoid suppositories, and various toxins.
Linda’s mother got a cart as big-as-a-Buick and started roaring around.
The drill is if you don’t keep up, Linda’s mother quickly disappears. 90 years old and zip!
After giving up on the hour-long girdle-search (nothing suited, including those endorsed by NASCAR), we reconnoitered every food-aisle in the huge store, which unlike the ancient Canandaigua Wal*Mart is a Super-Center with a 40-foot ceiling. The building occupies acres.
There was the incident of the attempted orange-juice purchase. Here in the citrus-capitol of the entire universe, we couldn’t get pulp with calcium, until I found it later in a separate display-case. I changed out the non-calcified pulp thereby casing weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. So I got another calcified pulp ending up with two in the cart.
“We were only supposed to have one!” I quickly returned #2.
Linda’s mother also refused anything good for her. “No diet Jello; no diet cottage-cheese either.”
“They got no-salt tomatoes here.”
“Nope; I ain’t eatin’ that. Salted tomatoes please.”
(She also put real butter on her bread. Plus the buffet we ate supper at gave her enough lamb to feed a family of four.
Linda and I split the fried fish she got. Linda’s mother paid the tab, of course: $31.)
We could have used self checkout at Wal*Mart and got out quicker, but “I ain’t usin’ no credit-card. I only pay cash.”

Exiting Wal*Mart I was told to turn left into a “no-left-turn” (in fact, it would have been head-on into a Jersey barrier), so I got turned around in a residential area.
“Why are you turning right? We’re supposed to be turning left;” (a U-turn I guess).
“To get turned around in this residential area.”
Then we approached the intersection with Route 92, International Speedway Blvd. to Daytona (six miles).
“Where ya goin’ now, Bob? We’re supposed to be going straight.”
“East on 92 at Walgreens; just like last night.”
“We ain’t goin’ to Walgreens. We need to go straight.”
“Well, I can’t change now,” I said; “I’m already committed.
“Well, that’s all right. We can turn at Amelia.”
“Which is what I was going to do anyway.”

“Aren’t ya gonna stop for breakfast? Doncha want this? Doncha want that? How ‘bout a flashlight in case the power goes? I got plenty a’ flashlights.”
“Mother,” Linda said, “the flight leaves around 11, and we counted it back. Allow three hours at the airport and to return the rental, plus we gotta buy gas, and allow an hour for the trip.”
“That’s leave at 7. We won’t have time for breakfast.”
“Doncha want this? Doncha want that? Wassa matter? Doncha love me? I’m from the greatest generation that ever was. Survived the DEEpression, and then made the world safe for democracy. Then looked for Russian bombers from atop the Bath fire-tower.”
I forgot my pencil, and was given five — only one of which had a sharp point. “I got plenty a’ pencils.”
We bought two cans of tomatoes at Wal*Mart, which added to four she already had should be enough to survive a monster hurricane, or nuclear Armageddon. Let’s hope that Al Qeada guy doesn’t find her cupboards.

Rental-car return follies

Everything went hunky-dory except for tossing the 50¢ exact-toll on the pavement at the off-ramp toll-gate. Thank ya HHR — windows like gun-slits. Hit the ceiling-header.

Then there was the driver of the Hertz shuttle, an Elvis wannabee.
We learned Orlando International Airport was originally McCoy Air Force Base, named after the WWII fighter-pilot with the most kills, which explains “MCO,” the three-letter acronym assigned to the airport.
“This airport is one of the busiest in the nation. Last year it moved over 45 million people, of which I carried half.”
“My name is Jack, a Jack-of-all-trades. I have to show you this photopass, so you don’t think I’m impersonating your bus-driver.”
“Thank you; thank you very much,” I said, as we got off. He was entertaining us with “Since my baby left me........”

Return from the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower:

The temperature differential between Rochester and De Land is about 40-45 degrees.
In De Land it was oppressively hot and tropically muggy — about 90+ degrees.
Rochester was cold and windy enough to require the mighty Curve jacket, one step above the infamous Ducati-jacket, walking the dogs.
De Land was no jacket of any kind.
Apparently a front passed through in De Land, triggering thunderstorms.
But it was so muggy everything remained wet even when it wasn’t raining.
Our glasses, etc. fogged up because of the difference in air-conditioned (inside) air versus outside air. Our guest apartment was air-conditioned to about 72°, which meant everything was 72° when we stepped outside.
Once we drove down a Spanish moss draped residential street thick with foliage. Roof-shingles were covered with moss, and everything was closed in.
Lawns were overwhelmed with abundant greenery. It sure wasn’t western New York.

Linda’s mother would use other people to voice her disgust. How many times did Sylvia get invoked; her first neighbor in the retirement-center?
“You mean them two are retired and can’t stay more than one day?”
“Sure; another day in the slammer for the dogs, and the grass grows” (I got one section I couldn’t get to before I left, and I have to hope it doesn’t cripple the Husky).
Beyond that, I’m not sure I could stand it. Sit quietly, bored to death, for fear of saying or doing something that prompts weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Sometimes it’s Linda’s mother that vents........
“I couldn’t believe that Debbie (Jerry’s first wife’s daughter). She got a bathing-suit that was no more than a string. I was disgusted. Then she had that thing alone in the dryer — just a string; I called it the ‘G-string.’ A-tumblin’ and a-bangin’. Of course that was what she grew up with — never could conceive of drying it on the clothesline outside (although if she had, I would have been embarrassed”).
“As I recall,” Linda said, “you were upset with all the laundry they did.”
“No-no,” Linda’s mother said. “I never had any problem with that.”
“That’s not what I remember,” Linda said. “You went on-and-on for years about their doing laundry at all hours of the night, and their continually doing laundry.”

Linda and I have fallen into looking out for each other’s detriments — A) the fact that driving is near-impossible for her, and B) the fact I have difficulty communicating.
Linda has also made trips to the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower herself a few times — so that I let her lead through the giant confusing Orlando airport.

So is the HHR worth considering after two days of driving one? It would be if it were available as all-wheel-drive. Otherwise I have to hope the Toyota Matrix (and the Pontiac Vibe [which is a rebodied Matrix]) will fold its seats into a flat floor, as will the HHR.
The other problem is that the HHR has gun-slit windows; okay with me, but not with my wife. It’s her car too.
But it’s nice to see a Chevy with as much content as a Toyota (although the Bucktooth Bathtub would put it on-the-trailer when it comes to cupholders). In fact, it was nice to drive a Chevy as nice as a Toyota.

Welcome to Floridy.