danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

On a recent episode of the radio program City Arts and Lectures, the author Daniel Handler described reading a review of one of his books that declared it, “the penultimate novel from the penultimate novelist”.  He was justifiably taken aback.

What a coincidence, then, that today I read a Huffington Post piece about Steven Spielberg’s upcoming Abraham Lincoln biopic that includes the following sentence:

Mr. Spielberg curiously seemed determined to find an actor from across the pond to play this penultimate American president.

I wonder if anyone has told the twenty-six other gentlemen who have lived in the White House since 1869 that they don’t count.

Filed under: Film, Musings on November 22nd, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Any way you look at it, summer has been over for weeks now:  I am already half-way through the autumn semester; the weather has turned substantially cooler; five jack-o’-lanterns sit glowing in the front yard; and department stores have already set their sights on Christmas.  It is essential, then, that we officially close the book on the Summer Songs series for 2010.  I began in June with a clip of “Racing in the Street”–with its homage to Stevenson and Gaye’s “Dancing in the Street”–and its declaration that “summer’s here and the time is right…”.  Summer isn’t just the right time for dancing or racing; it’s the right time for everything.  And it’s gone.

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Filed under: Musings, Popular Music on October 11th, 2010 | No Comments »

Jeff and Sandi are two close friends who live in southeast Florida, and, though I have visited them there more than once, I hadn’t since 2007.  The horribly long drive has discouraged me, and so has a busy schedule.  But I have no school this summer, and since Sandi offered to come pick me up in Gainesville and drive me back, I couldn’t refuse the invitation.

Day One

I was in the process of painting our house, and I really wished to have a substantial portion of the work completed before I left town for several days.  When Sandi arrived in town I was just finishing the front, and was the sweatiest man in America.  I was sweatier still the next day on our six-hour drive, since the air conditioning in Sandi’s car is intermittent at best.  It will blow frigid air for about four minutes, then quickly turn warm.  Then it’s “windows down”.  In normal city driving it’s tolerable, but at highway speeds the wind noise is deafening.  Still, the conversation was good and made the long drive pass quickly, both coming and going.  Kathleen came along, also, and she rode in the front seat on the way down, and I rode up front on the way back.

We arrived in Homestead late Monday afternoon.  It was my first visit to their house, which they have lived in for over two years.  It gave me a very comfortable feeling, and I especially liked the floorplan, which has the guest rooms and bath on one side of the house, and the master bedroom and bath on the other side.  And, though it is a ranch-style home, it isn’t just one long rectangle.  The swimming pool is a luxury.  Sandi and Jeff were nice enough to lower their thermostat so that when we walked into their house we experienced an arctic blast, which I appreciated a great deal, especially each time we came in from the Sweltermobile, as I call her Explorer.  Plus, in the hot months, I love the feeling of coming in to a cold house while I am wet from the pool.  I cannot explain it, but I assume that I got the taste for it when I lived in a pool house as a kid.

Jeff came home shortly after our arrival, and we all went out to eat right away.  I wasn’t hungry, since we had stopped in Orlando to have lunch with Brenna on our way down, and after I eat a meal I am full for hours and hours.  But it was a pleasant Mexican restaurant in downtown Homestead that we went to, and I enjoyed just being there.  We came home afterward and did some night swimming.  There is a small stereo system out on Jeff and Sandi’s patio, so one might enjoy a tune whilst swimming.  Their very well-behaved dog was not at all interested in getting in the water.  Or barking, or jumping on anyone, or doing anything at all that I generally find annoying with dogs.   She just liked standing around wherever we were, and being embraced bodily by Sandi at frequent intervals.  I have been around this dog on several occasions (she formerly belonged to Sandi’s mother), and she’s really a first-rate animal.

Most nights during my visit we all sat in the den chatting and taking turns playing Grand Theft Auto.  That’s one of few video games that is even fun to watch other people play, since each person’s turn feels like watching a movie.  I don’t have any sort of video game system at home, so it’s a novelty when I get to play.   We didn’t worry too much about playing the regular missions that further the game’s narrative.  Rather, we preferred to amass stockpiles of weapons and then go on crime rampages in an effort to see just how many law enforcement agencies would attempt to apprehend us.  Jeff also likes playing in “Vigilante” mode, which involves hunting down various enemy characters somewhere in the game, and that was particularly exciting to watch.  We all spent a good deal of time in the comfy den, and were up past midnight every night.

Day Two

Sandi must have been up well before me on Tuesday morning, because she was already out shopping for victuals for the boat trip we were going to take that day when I arose.  After she returned and packed the cooler, and after Jeff got the boat trailer affixed to the Sweltermobile, we all hopped in and made our way to the marina.  Only a few minutes’ drive south of their house and you find yourself in the hot, flat, agricultural belly of the Everglades.  Long, straight roads run along canals that pierce deep into palm groves and banana farms.  Being a week day, the marina was mostly deserted, and we didn’t have to wait at all to launch the boat.  Sandi and Jeff have it down, so Kathleen and I didn’t even need to help; we just got on and got going.  While we were idling toward open waters, we all applied sunscreen, and though I was methodical in my application thereof, I still felt nervous all afternoon, since the day was perfectly clear and the sun was exceptionally strong.  Taking Jeff’s advice, I borrowed a long-sleeved shirt to wear.  It seems counter-intuitive to wear long sleeves on a ninety-five-degree day, but it was a wise choice.  I didn’t get sunburned anywhere.  Kathleen, alas, was scorched, though I am sure I saw Sandi helping her apply sunscreen.

Biscayne Bay is long and wide, and the southern portion from whence we set out sits along the western edge of the national park, which is comprised of mangrove islands.   Jeff had evidently had some engine work done on the boat, and was therefore expecting that we’d be able to cruise across the water at high speed.  Something was wrong, however, and the engine didn’t want to run above about 3,500 RPM.  Having never been on their boat I didn’t know any difference, but Jeff did, and he was frustrated.  But he got it working right, and, as it turned out, speeding across the water was my favorite part of our boating experience.  I’ve been on many different watercraft in my life, but aside from ferries and vaporetti and the like, they have been almost exclusively sailing boats.  I hadn’t traveled at such speeds across open water.  It was nice.

We selected a swimming spot in a natural channel between two small islands, dropped anchor and dove in.  The water was extremely warm, and, thus, not particularly refreshing, but swimming was still fun.  The current was strong there, so I tied a line for us to all hold on to so we wouldn’t have to work hard just to keep from floating away.  I snorkeled a little, Jeff a lot.  Climbing back into the boat was something that nobody had ever tried on that boat, but we all proved perfectly capable.  I probably had the hardest time of anyone, since I opted for the pull-up method as opposed to the step-up method the others used.  I just found the step-up method awkward to negotiate.  Once back in the boat I was immediately bitten by a horse fly.

We spent several hours out on the water, and since everyone had had some food while at sea, nobody was dying when Jeff had to go off for a while to do some work once we returned home.  But he was back a couple hours later, and we all headed to a pizza restaurant called the Big Cheese.  They had taken Miriam and me there years ago, but I had forgotten how affordable it was.  Jeff, Sandi, Kathleen and I all ate for thirty dollars and change.  And Jeff got a huge calzone.

Day Three

Wednesday we had a pretty lazy day.  We didn’t leave the house until almost noon, and then it was to go to Cracker Barrel for lunch.  I don’t recall doing anything for the rest of the day except swim in the pool.  At night we went to Sonny’s where we had an unbelievably sassy waitress named Fallon.  She was incredibly sarcastic, but Jeff found it a refreshing change of pace from the otherwise bland and snobby Miami servers.  On our way out I held the door open for a policeman, and for a brief instant I worried that I might assault him.  That’s how much Grand Theft Auto we had played.  When we got back home I spent an hour or so monitoring an eBay auction (I won!) while the others played Tetris.  While Jeff and I chatted about the array of awesome G.I. Joe action figures, vehicles, and playsets we each owned as a child–and how, as adults, we are entirely able to buy as many of these items as we’d like–we theorized that we were doing exactly what little kids assume adults are doing at any given moment: playing video games, shopping for toys, eating junk food, staying up late, etc.

Day Four

Thursday was to be our last day, and we spent the first part of it heading down to Florida City to a place called Robert Is Here.  It’s a roadside produce stand that also serves fruit shakes and smoothies.  Sadly, vanilla didn’t appear to be an option, but they had numerous creative flavors besides.  Next we headed down a long, straight two-lane road until we got nearly to Key Largo and ate lunch at a placed called Alabama Jack’s, which has great significance to Jeff and Sandi.  I didn’t care for my food, but everyone else seemed quite satisfied, and, stuffed, we headed back home.

The last part of the day was spent packing and swapping photos.  Both Kathleen and I experienced battery failure during the trip, so during our maritime adventures neither of us took photos.  On the other hand, Kathleen took many more pictures at Robert Is Here, and I took many more during our sitting-around times at the house.  Together, we all documented the fun pretty well.

We left close to six o’clock on Thursday afternoon.  We made a last pit stop near their house to get some food.  Sandi had a little card that entitled her to a summer’s worth of free Frostys at Wendy’s.  She was generous enough to let me have it.  It was refreshing.  And hilariously small.  While there was moderate traffic heading north, it wasn’t absurd.  The first couple hours of the drive are entirely suburban, where the Turnpike–which we entered at Exit 2–runs along the western edge of Miami, Miramar, Hollywood, Ft. Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, West Palm Beach, and so on, until turning to the west at Fort Pierce for the long, entirely agricultural stretch south Orlando.  We saw a beautiful sunset somewhere near Okeechobee County.  After darkness fell the air conditioning worked much better, and the drive was substantially quieter and more comfortable.  Sandi and I talked at great length about drywall and her kitchen remodel, which, though only halfway done, looks wonderful.  Kathleen enjoyed her iPod in the back seat.  We made two stops: the first for food in St. Lucie County, the second for gas in Micanopy, only fifteen or so miles from home.  We took Highway 441 for the last half-hour of the drive.  It was a relief to be off the Interstate, and it felt wonderful to be home.

The whole trip, while short, was actually exactly what I had wanted it to be.  There was almost no pressure to do more than we felt like doing at any one moment, and we had many opportunities to simply relax, swim, talk, and play video games.  So, thank you to Jeff and Sandi for being such gracious hosts.  Next time: night boat.

Filed under: Friends, Musings, Recreation, Travel on September 21st, 2010 | No Comments »

The only thing better than a summer song is a nostalgic summer song.  Last April I was browsing in a store when I heard a tune playing that combined the best elements of bubblegum pop and lovesick summer reverie.  It told a story of a girl falling in love, and, as is often the case, forming close associations between her love and a catchy song, but finding that, alas, “now we are September”.  (And there is a significant difference between “we are” and “it is”.)

I conceived of this series when I heard this song in that store.  Nothing captures the essence of summer nostalgia better than the lyric, “And every time I hear it play / I think of you and those summer days / I can still remember when I heard it on the radio”:

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This song is fluffy disco, but has within it something powerful.  This contrast will soon lead me to a new series about silly songs with profound truths.  Stay tuned.

Filed under: Musings, Nostalgia, Popular Music on September 19th, 2010 | No Comments »

Day Two

Miriam is obsessively thorough in her research of hotels, so we knew in advance that our room in Richmond contained a small refrigerator.  This was good news, since she always has leftovers from dinner, and getting two meals out of one is a good way to save money on the road.  Alas, we awoke to the disappointment of finding our room’s refrigerator not cold at all.  When we went to the desk to complain the clerk explained that they unplug the appliances when guests check out to save energy.  That’s a fine idea, but I wish they’d told us in advance.  Miriam’s breakfast was lost.  Fortunately, the regretful clerk offered us their buffet for free.  I made my own waffle, and placed it atop a mountain of bacon.  And, in spite of the refrigerator blunder, the hotel was quite nice and a good value.  By the end of the day, however, we’d be sleeping in a hotel so opulent that it would make even the fanciest of hotels seem like a Bangladeshi sewage treatment plant.

We were packed into the car and heading back north on I-95 as soon as we finished breakfast.  Our destination was Washington, D.C., but in the mean time I was excited to be traveling through the real heart of the Civil War.  The names of towns, counties, and rivers that we passed along our route stood out to me as landmarks in some great historical atlas.  I vividly recall the roadsigns for battlefields seeming like a chronicle of the War’s progression: Fredericksburg, Gaines’ Mill, Wilderness, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and so on.   I remember looking out the window as we crossed the Rappahannock River.  The highway went from maybe six lanes to at least a dozen as we approached the Beltway encircling the District of Columbia.  In the middle was a lane that can be used for traffic going in either direction, which can be changed depending on the time of day.  We crossed the Potomac and got our first look at Washington.

I have driven a car in Puerto Rico, so almost no amount of traffic or dangerous road conditions can upset me too much anymore.  That said, Washington is a frustrating place to drive, if only because unpredictable road closures render almost any system of navigation, old-fashioned or electronic, useless.  Miriam is fond of using the GPS device on her phone.  In many places that gadget would suffice.  In Washington, however, it will say, “Turn right at Pennsylvania Avenue”, unaware that attempting to turn right at Pennsylvania Avenue would result in a significant Department of Homeland Security incident.  We had a hotel reservation and a car.  But we didn’t want to valet to park our car at the hotel because that would be absurdly expensive.  Finding a reasonably-priced garage near our hotel was challenging.  Meanwhile, Miriam was nervous that the hotel would demand a substantial deposit above and beyond the price of the room, which was already paid.  In Puerto Rico last year, the resort there demanded many hundreds of dollars as a deposit, which significantly depleted our walkin’ around money.  The price of our room in San Juan, however, was a bargain compared to the price of our room in Washington.  If we had to pay a thousand dollars as a deposit in D.C., our time there would be significantly less lavish.  I could not imagine how they would expect guests to front so much money, so I was not nearly as worried as Miriam.  And, thankfully for both of us, no unreasonable deposit was required.

The Willard Hotel is historic.  There is no disputing that fact.  Every important political figure of the past two centuries has either stayed there or visited.  The original building has been replaced by a far more grandiose one, which would look quite at home in Paris, but the new building has a legacy almost as rich.  The lobby is opulent, with the seals of the fifty states painted on the coffered ceiling.  Behind the reception desk are old fashioned slots for room keys.  The Pennsylvania Avenue side of the hotel is one floor lower than the F Street side: to get up to F Street you pass through a long corridor and up some steps, where there is a second small, but still fancy lobby.  Our room, No. 914, was on a high floor facing east.  You can see our room’s window, surrounded by fluted stonework, directly above the very center of this photograph.  When we first got to our room a tuxedo-clad man was exiting, having just left a basket of fruit on a table by the window.  The radio was on, and I took it as a good sign that Schumann’s Konzertstück for For Horns was playing.  The furnishings were elegant, and the bed was comfortable.  The bathroom appeared to be made entirely of marble.

We didn’t stay in the room long.  In fact, we put our bags down and almost immediately took off for the Mall.  On our previous trip to Washington, the National Museum of American History was closed.  We were so disappointed to miss it then, and our return trip was prompted, in large part, by our desire to see the treasures that great museum holds.  We walked briskly down 14th Street and entered the building along Constitution Avenue.  Inside the lobby, long glass display cases hold assorted neat things: fancy jars for leeches, pretty kitty dresses, C-3POs, shirts for Magnum, P.I.s, and so on.  The Smithsonian exhibits are arranged by subject, with a “featured artifact” displayed prominently.  At the transportation exhibit, for example, a historic locomotive sits on rails.  In that area they had an old car from the Chicago L, a D.C. streetcar, old automobiles, a ship’s engine, and several locomotives, including one spectacular early-twentieth century engine with wheels as tall as me.  The first ladies’ gowns were extremely popular, and people pressed their faces against the glass to get a look.  Everyone who passed it stopped and stared at Mrs. Obama’s dress.  Another star attraction at the Smithsonian is Julia Child’s kitchen.  We spent so much time looking at every little thing that the museum closed and we had to leave.  We weren’t willing to rush it and miss things, so we decided we’d come back the next day.

We still had hours of daylight, and I thought we might check out the view from the tower at the Old Post Office, but, alas, it was closed.  So we took a leisurely walk back to the hotel to get ready for our night out.  We were looking sharp.

I had made us reservations at the Old Ebbitt Grill on 15th Street, just a half block from our hotel.  It’s an old place, and remarkably popular.  The bar is legendary.  It had a great atmosphere, and, to my great relief, Mrs. Hill was very pleased with the menu.  She loved her meal; I loved mine.  The service was impeccable.  The prices were not obscene.  Sure, it was more than we usually spend on a meal, but it was special.  They had a painting hanging on the wall there that I loved, and were it not larger than me, I’d have been tempted to snatch it off the wall and abscond with it.   All together, the dinner was an experience we won’t forget.

Though it was after ten o’clock, we weren’t ready to turn in just yet, so we took the short walk around the White House grounds.  The skies were cloudy, but the temperature was comfortable, and the walk back to our hotel was pleasant.  The lobby was quiet at that hour, and we took the time to explore more of the hotel before heading up to our room.  Once there, we found little chocolates on our bed, and the covers had been turned down.

Filed under: Dana Heritage Project, History, Musings, Special Occasions, Transportation, Travel on August 17th, 2010 | No Comments »