Rabbit Hole Revisited

This trip to Wonderland started with a recent Facebook post by a friend.  It took me back to the start of my three decades plus career with local government.  The Arab oil embargo was but a footnote in the career of Richard Nixon in the early 70s as he was dealing with Watergate.  For me, my job with General Motors in Miami was abolished and I was offered a position in Detroit.  If there was one thing I knew about Detroit, it was that I didn’t want to know anything else about Detroit.

I applied for jobs with local government, aka “the County.”  One of the things the oil embargo didn’t hurt was drug and alcohol addiction.  I landed a job with the newly formed Addiction Treatment Agency, ATA, with offices in an apartment building near the Jackson Hospital complex.  One of my assignments was as a contracts manager overseeing the various agreements with service providers and the rental lease agreements for our offices.

The old Center House with rooftop pool
Original offices of the Addiction Treatment Agency

The rental agreements covered individual leases for apartments on three different floors of a high-rise.  Each apartment was designed for residential use and came with bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchens that were being used as office space.  The nightmare was that each lease had to be approved by resolution before the County Commission and screened for legal sufficiency by an attorney.  With perhaps a dozen individual leases expiring at various times, I spent much of my time with processing these contracts.

I worked with our assigned attorney, Debbie Wasserman who, after her marriage to Shultz, would later go on to become a Florida state representative and leader of the DNC.  My nightmare became hers and we decided to renegotiate and consolidate the leases.  With agreement from the landlord, the leases were allowed to be extended on a month-to-month tenancy until a new and all-inclusive lease could be processed.  When that time came, the landlord thought he could extort an increase in our rent.  The word increase is not exactly accurate, he wanted to double our rent because he thought it would be too inconvenient for us to move.

He was wrong.  I went to our General Services Department, which managed county assets, and found that the County owned a facility that had been sitting abandoned for some time.  It was informally called Reed Hospital and it had been a private psychiatric and alcoholic treatment facility in its glory days, assuming a loony bin had glory days.  It had been the only such holding facility in the south of Florida for those awaiting a trip to the state facility in Chattahoochee. 

The building needed some work.  The original facility was a large rectangular three-story wood frame structure to which had been added a new concrete two-story north wing.  I met with the caretaker who had been hired by the County to maintain the building to await its future use.  I managed to commandeer a work crew from a County nursing home and contracted with the local jail to have inmates work getting our new home ready.

I won’t bore you with the details, assuming you aren’t bored already, but we managed to move in just as our leases and extensions on leases were expiring.  Needless to say, our former landlord was surprised by our departure and wanted another chance to negotiate.  He was to learn a lesson that trying to double someone’s rent during an economic downturn was probably not the best idea he had ever had.

The ATA moved into the first two floors of the former sanitorium as the third floor was not habitable.  It had been used for storage and was never renovated.  We opened the first floor of the new north wing as a “central intake” for both alcoholics and drug addicts.  Since these were all built as hospital patient rooms we utilized them for overnight patient stays where new clients could await assignment to inpatient detox centers elsewhere. 

Most of the old wood frame building was designated as office space and counseling offices.  I converted the old kitchen into a “pharmacy” where we could prepare methadone doses for distribution to the various dispensaries around the County.  I had a large walk-in vault built to federal standards and used a surplus vault door that had been used by the old police property room.

After the dust had settled and we began full operation, I had time to explore the abandoned third floor.  The old section was built back in the 20s and was of wood lathe and stucco construction.  At some point the walls, to meet fire codes, were covered with asbestos sheeting and then finished with woodgrain Formica.  The heavy doors were solid and three inches thick.  The rooms were soundproof which might come in handy with screaming mental patients or loud County office meetings.

Electroshock Therapy aka Electroconvulsive Therapy

On the third floor, there were file cabinets, old furniture, old hospital equipment and implements, and an old electroshock machine (ESD).  That last piece of equipment, the ESD, had been used back in the 30s and beyond before falling out of favor as inhumane.  ESD use was revisited for a while as a proper treatment before being eventually banned in the US in March 2020.  Also of interest were the file cabinets that contained old records.  One file was of particular interest.

I found that this facility had a history.  The most interesting file was a report by a private investigator hired by Mrs. Reed during her divorce negotiations in 1949.  This investigator had posed as an alcoholic seeking treatment.  In his undercover work, he described how alcoholic patient care involved the regular delivery of alcohol shots to the patients.  I’m guessing that this was state-of-the-art treatment at the time, especially considering that all the alcoholic patients seen here were affluent enough to pay their own way.  The investigator described what he could observe as a patient.  I later learned from our medical staff that alcohol withdrawal is considered more life-threatening than drug withdrawal.

I filed that bit of trivia away for half a century.  A recent post by a friend included pictures of a similar asylum facility in West Virginia.  It was the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum which housed "epileptics, alcoholics, drug addicts, and non-educable mental defectives."  That facility was of gothic construction and had been reopened as a museum with revenue destined for its survival.  My Reed facility had all of its old sections torn down when its asbestos walls and asbestos-lined return air plenum made continued operation no longer viable.  The remaining two-story building remains as a women’s victims' shelter.  Considering that it’s located in the heart of Miami’s redlight district on northeast 79^th street, perhaps that is a better use.

Arial view of the old "Reed facility" as it is today.
The current  "L" shaped configuration (upper right) had the old section
that extended to the left of the existing horizontal wing into what is
now a parking lot.

The West Virginia asylum picture posting triggered my dive into the rabbit hole.  Google searches for “Reed Hospital” did not yield positive results.  I later learned in my research that the official name of the facility was the Miami Retreat Foundation.  It seems that Charles A. Reed was ahead of his time and would fit right into the corporate grift that is popular today.  The acrimonious divorce proceeding would prompt several court cases that would eventually be heard in Florida’s Supreme Court.

Much of the following was found in legal documents online.  Those documents dealt with court proceedings that attempted to dissolve the foundation's exempt status.

Charles A. Reed and Ruth H. Reed moved from Indiana in 1926 to Miami where they founded and operated, “a private sanitarium for alcoholics, drug addicts, and mentally disturbed persons.”  The first two such operations failed but the third time was the charm.  Their “for-profit” operation, Miami Retreat, Inc., was reorganized as a non-profit operation in 1939, known as Miami Retreat Foundation.  This information was gained from the Florida Supreme Court filing of December 19, 1952, titled Miami Retreat Foundation v. Ervin.  The plaintiff in this case was Richard W. Ervin, the Attorney General for Florida.

It seems that, in the beginning, the switch to non-profit operation was legitimate but, the charter amendment that made it a “charitable, educational, scientific and non-sectarian operation" was no more than a tax dodge.  Where in the name of Donald J. Trump would he have ever gotten such an idea to use a charity for profit?  This facility was the only place in Southeastern Florida to send a mentally disturbed person.  In fact, there was a waiting list to get into the Florida Hospital for the Insane at Chattahoochee.  The Florida Hospital at Chattahoochee had been built as a military arsenal that served in that capacity during the Seminole Wars (1858) and the American Civil War.  Later in 1876 it was refurbished as the Florida State Hospital for the Insane, referred to by locals by just its location, Chattahoochee.

Charles and Ruth Reed thus provided community service (for profit).  It was only during the divorce proceedings that the true nature of their operation was brought to light.  In Ruth’s counter-complaint she stated that the nonprofit designation was used, “as a cloak to permit her former husband to amass a large fortune without paying taxes on the profits derived from the business.”  In her settlement, Ruth got $5,000 in cash, alimony, and an annuity of $150 per month should her husband predecease her.  She also had an apartment in the facility that she could use until June 1, 1947, without paying rent.  If she elected not to reside at that apartment, she would be paid $40 per month toward rent elsewhere.  Their divorce agreement was executed in September of 1946, I was one year old at the time.

In another court filing in November of 1950, the property was valued at $300,000 and Charles Reed had $200,000 in cash.  That would be around $6M today.  This filing was titled Miami Retreat Foundation v. Holt.  The Holt here was the circuit judge presiding in the Foundation case who Reed sought to disqualify as biased as he had previously presided over other husband and wife issues.  The judge had stated that he considered Charles Reed, the Miami Retreat Foundation, Miami Retreat, Inc., and the Charles Reed Corporation to be one and the same.  He further stated that Charles Reed continued to operate the Foundation, after fleeing the jurisdiction of the court, from his new Nevada home.

It would seem that defrauding charities, using their tax-exempt status as a tax dodge, trying to replace a judge you don’t like, and fleeing the jurisdiction of a court were not new moves invented by Donald Trump.  These moves were grifting tools of the trade long ago.

So, we have arrived at the bottom of this tour of my rabbit hole that began as a posting on an asylum in West Virginia.  Just as I was finalizing this exercise, I spotted a summary of an article from the Wall Street Journal that posited a “case for bringing back asylums.”  It talked of their humane goal of keeping the insane housed, fed, and under treatment which peaked in the 1950s.  It talked of the shuttering of asylums in the 60s which brought the numbers of such patients down from 600,000 then, to around 45,000 today.  Yes, today we “humanely” allow the mentally ill to roam homeless on our streets, and some of the more violent of them commit crimes against us.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The case for reopening asylums will probably get solved sometime after global warming has made “outdoor living” impossible.  To see the need for treatment for the mentally ill we need look no further than our elected leaders.  If DJT, MTG, and their cohorts don’t qualify for the loving care of nurse Mildred Ratched, who would?

The rabbit hole is closed for the day.  It’s time for my version of electroshock, a cocktail, and the evening news.

Postscript:  The beginning of this tale took place in an apartment complex, Center House.  It was built for apartment use but, due to changes in demand, the management couldn't rent enough apartments so decided on a mixed-use plan with both apartments and offices.  The roof of the structure had a pool and deck surrounded by a waist-high wall.  Over time, with its location in the medical center of Miami with Jackson Hospital and the University of Miami, and its easy elevator access to the roof, the building got a reputation for suicides.  In the less than 12 months that I was there, we had 3 suicide jumpers.  Two were from the roof and one was the lady who lived across the hall on the 16th floor from my offices.  She jumped from her own balcony at 8 a.m. on a Monday.  The previous Friday she had asked several workers on the floor when they were scheduled to arrive on the following Monday.  Ironically, we learned that she was an alcoholic.

Join Me in My Time Machine

I, like many of you, have been saddened and troubled by recent events and the condition of our body politic.  It has affected my psyche with negative thoughts and (caution 60’s jargon ahead), bad vibes.  I thought I would take a break from all of this and jump in my mental time machine, while it still works, and revisit happier memories.  Certainly, anyone who has seen over 26,000 sunrises has experienced many things that are worth reliving.

120th street Neighborhood

Growing Up on 120th Street, My front yard

I grew up on a dead end street with at least a half a dozen other kids my age.  We played ball in the street, played board games on living room floors, and aggravated the adults during regular backyard barbecues and parties with the neighbors.  It was the 50’s, everyone knew everyone else, and we all got along. Except Mr. Moore of course.  Every neighborhood has a “Mr. Moore.”  You know the type.  He is the miserable, unhappy, grumpy neighbor who wants everyone else to be just a miserable and unhappy as he is.

My House

Mr. Moore was the guy who would walk around with a tape measure to make sure your hedges hadn’t grown higher than the zoning regulations permitted.  He would yell at kids playing in the street.  If your ball ended up in his yard, you played paper-rock-scissors to see who would have to retrieve it.  Mr. Moore was obviously made very nervous on Halloween, as he was the target of all of our pranks.  This is why he is included in my recollection of happier times.  

Classic Dog Poop in Flaming Bag Prank

We even tried the Halloween Classic, “burning paper bag of dog poop on the front step.”  As I remember, it didn’t go as planned.  The dog poop was too “fresh” and the paper bag burned itself out before “old man Moore” answered the door.  He never saw the bag and we never got to see what happened when he finally found it.  The bag just disappeared sometime the next day.

What We Hoped Would Happen

I had a basketball hoop and backboard attached to the frame of our swing set.  We dribbled on the grass.  As kids, we climbed ficus trees for fun and would swing on the larger hanging root vines pretending to be Tarzan.  Eventually, a group of our fathers joined other fathers in our Village of Biscayne Park, to build a large brick-and-mortar recreation center on land set aside for that purpose.  We had basketball courts, tetherball poles set in concrete inside old tires, and shuffleboard and hopscotch could be played on the open-air pavilion concrete slab.  The recreation center was easy to reach by bicycle from anywhere in the village.

Typical Saturday Afternoon Flick

I'm sure this 1948 movie would have a different title today

On most Saturdays, kids went to the movies.  Here we would watch newsreels, seemingly endless cartoons, and two feature films.  We could do this while drinking Coke, eating popcorn, and gobbling Junior Mints, Necco Wafers, Chuckles, Good & Plenty, Milk Duds, and Tootsie Pops.  I was obviously gone long enough for my parents to find time to make my little brother.

Movie Time Candy from the 50's

Eventually, the movies got some competition from the neighborhood’s first television.  Tommy lived across the street and just down past Mr. Moore.  He had the first TV on the block.  We would watch The Lone Ranger, Sky King, Adventure Time, The Dungeon with M.T. Graves, and old movie serials.  After a year or so, my parents bought our first TV in an attempt to lure me home.  I think they missed me.

"Modern" Western Sky King

The family would drive down to Key West several times a year to visit my aunt and our cousins.  We would leave on a Friday sometime after my dad finished work.  It was a long drive down Miami Avenue and Biscayne Boulevard to US1 heading south.  It would be dark when we arrived.  As kids, we would sleep in the back seat and I would see the shadow of the rear view mirror on the headliner and watch as it raced forward when oncoming headlights passed.  There were two things to do in Key West, drink and fish.  I did both.

All Trips to Key West crossed the 7 Mile Bridge

I would fish in the canals and on boats and would drink when any adult would set their alcoholic beverage down within my grasp.  When they weren't looking, gulp.  Beer or whiskey with ginger ale (aka hi-balls), it didn’t matter to me; I found I liked them both.  I tried cigarettes a couple of times but luckily found them disgusting and never took up the habit.

Type of Push Mower I used on my Grandmother's Lawn

My grandmother was living back then on 31^st street one house east of Biscayne Boulevard, US1.  We would trek to her place and I had to cut the grass with her old push lawn mower.  My dad would then take us downtown for lunch.  There were several places on the Miami River.  We could watch the sea cows (manatee) feeding on grasses at the bottom.  This was long before the water got polluted from commercial industrial dumping and runoff.

I remember my first AM transistor radio with its 9-volt Ever-ready battery and white earpiece.  The radio was small, about the size of a pack of my dad’s Pall Malls.  I could take it to Haulover Beach and listen to static-filled music from either of the two local stations playing that demon-inspired heathen “rock-n-roll.”  We enjoyed swimming in the Atlantic, playing in the surf, and using cheap goggles to watch fish, and eventually girls swimming in bikinis.  We lay on the beach and got too much sun.  The 1950s were a happy time growing up in South Florida.

In 1959, my family built a new home 4,076 feet away from our original home on 120^th Street.  We were still in Biscayne Park.  We were outgrowing the tiny 2 bed 1 bath house of my youth.  Sharing a single bathroom with a family of four was the biggest problem.  We each took bathroom turns on a schedule; I think my time was Wednesday.  My mom always wondered why her roses never grew.

The new home was huge.  I had my own bedroom for the first time.  My brother was OK, but sharing a bedroom when you are 14 is a drag.  The new house had 4 bedrooms, 2 ½ baths, a den, living room, Florida room, dining room, patio, and (drum roll here) a swimming pool where I would spend the rest of my life.

Life on Griffing Blvd. was fun but different.  We couldn’t play in the street.  The street had too much traffic.  We could play in the vacant lot next to my house but the odd triangle shape of the property and the fact that it was covered with sand spurs and small cactus didn’t bode well for inflatable ball sports.  We could still bike over to the rec center.  My friend Tommy had already moved to a house just down the street and he backed up to the canal.  Tommy had a small boat with a tiny outboard.  We would fish in the canal and take his boat out into Biscayne Bay.  We caught mullet and mudfish, but sometimes we actually hooked something edible.  You could actually see the bottom of the bay back then.  We would stop at the spoil islands in the bay and go swimming.

Cooked in a Steel Beer Can and Dipped in Butter, Nothing Better

One of my fond memories is from the times, later in my late teens and early 20’s when we would go diving for Florida lobster (crawfish).  We would bring back our catch to one of the spoil islands in the bay and we would take empty beer cans and use a “church key” to punch out the top.  The cans were still made of steel and zip tops, pop tops, and aluminum cans were a few years down the road.  We would fill the cans with salt water from the bay, drop in a crawfish tail, and place the cans in a circle around a fire.  One can was used to melt a couple sticks of butter near the fire.  When the tails were cooked, we would dip the meat in the melted butter and dust the top with salt from a little cardboard Morton salt shaker. Eating that lobster with cold beer on a hot summer’s day was what growing up in South Florida was all about.

Made in Miami, the Worst Beer on the Planet, but cheap

"Church Key" Punch holes on opposite sides;
2 holes on the drinking side if you were really thirsty.

We had polio, car wrecks without seatbelts, and cigarettes to kill us.  We had to worry that we would need to duck under our classroom desks and bid a fond farewell to our posteriors because someone just dropped an atomic bomb in the vicinity.  However, we didn’t worry about some kid walking into the room with a semi-automatic rifle or handgun and shooting everyone in sight.  It was a different time, my time.  Those are the memories that get me through current events.

The Great Bicycle Mix-up of 1956

Dear Santa,

I have a bone to pick with you.  Back in 1956, I was called Jackie and lived on 120^th street in Biscayne Park, Florida.  It was the two bedroom one bath yellow house on the north side of the street.  I know, this was over 60 years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday.  These days I can’t remember what I had for breakfast but the Christmas morning of 1956, I will never forget.

December 25^th fell on a Tuesday that year.  It was 55 degrees in the morning and the skies were clear.  I know it was 55 degrees inside my house because it was also 55 degrees outside.  In Florida, 55 F stands for 55 Florida degrees which means you have to subtract 20 degrees to get the equivalent in "up north feels-like" temperatures.  It's kind of like wind chill, but for Florida. We wouldn’t have heat in the house that day until my dad woke up to light the two-burner Kenmore kerosene stove.  After the stove was lit the temperature would rise about two degrees, but only if you were within ten inches of the heater.  The house had no insulation. With our typical leaky jalousie windows, the wind was only slightly impeded.  So, insulation wouldn't have mattered anyway.  What with growing up in the Florida tropics with no air conditioning and only one bathroom between two adults and two children, heat was the least of our worries.

Our Christmas tree was in the corner of the living room next to our 21” black and white Magnavox console TV.  You could tell it was a Florida Christmas tree because the star at the top was an actual star.  It wasn’t the burning kind of star from the sky, but the lacquered kind from the ocean.  It was lacquered to keep the starfish from stinking.  We also had a few sand dollars hanging from branches with ribbons.  I am taking the time to describe the house so you might remember the Great Bicycle Mix-up of 1956.

It was just a couple of weeks before Christmas that I sat on your lap in the Burdines Department Store on Flagler Street in downtown Miami.  I know, what's an eleven year old kid doing believing in Santa?  I was tall but rather skinny and I wanted to milk the Santa thing for as long as I could.  You should really be asking yourself, what's a septuagenarian doing writing Santa?  Read on and you'll find out.

Santa, your office was just to the right of the
Christmas tree in this picture

In 1956, I made myself very clear.  I wanted a new 3-speed English racer bicycle.  I say I wanted it but I should have said I needed it.  I started the seventh grade that year and had an almost two-mile commute to the junior high school in North Miami.  My old balloon tired single speed bicycle just wasn’t going to cut it. 

This is a modern replica of the historic 3-speed English racer I wanted

English racers were really cool.  They were lightweight and had three speeds just in case you encountered a hill.  I know there aren’t any hills in Miami but, as a Boy Scout, I wanted to Be Prepared.  If this isn’t reason enough, suffice it to say that all the other kids had English racers.  As a twelve-year-old, conformity is not just a rule but also a requirement to avoid ridicule and ostracization.  I didn’t know what that second word meant back then but I knew it wasn’t cool.

I know my dad thought that English racers looked flimsy and would fall apart but, I just knew you would understand.  You were Santa Claus, a gangster with more aliases than a Chicago numbers-runner.  You are Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, and my favorite, Santa Baby.  You had more B&E's to your credit than anyone in the world.  I didn’t want socks and underwear; I just wanted my English racer.  You only had to get one thing right that year.

However, did you remember my wish?  Did you get it right?  I think you can guess that a 72 year-old kid wouldn’t still be writing you if you had.  You messed up "bigly" as our current president likes to say.

I woke up that Christmas morning wearing my flannel pajamas and climbed excitedly down the ladder of the bunk bed I shared with my little brother, Ricky.  You remember Ricky; he’s the one who got excited and peed on your leg, not me.  I put on my red and black checkered flannel robe and faux leather bedroom slippers and ran the ten feet to the hallway where I could gaze upon my new English racer.  Only, I didn’t see a new English racer did I?  Do you remember me now?

Western Flyer X-53 Super Tank bicycle

What did this excited twelve-year-old see before him?  Well, it certainly wasn’t a new lightweight three-speed English racer.  It was more like 75 pounds of gleaming chrome fenders, huge chrome springs, fat white-walled balloon tires, a chrome rear carrier, a chrome center tank with electric horn, and a chrome headlamp.  All of these were components of my new single speed Western Flyer X-53 Super Tank bicycle.  The most accurate word in this title was Tank, as in Sherman-like.  My look of disappointment was clearly visible in my reflection as could be seen in the shiny chrome rear fender of my new albatross.

Ahh, the Chrome

My brother Ricky was also to be disappointed this Christmas.  He got a new bike too.  It was a balloon tired single speed bike with the standard coaster brake.  It had a maroon and white paint job and fancy handle grips with colored tassels hanging down.  At first, he was excited to be moving from a tricycle to the more grown up bicycle.  It wasn’t until he managed to fall down with the new bike and scraped the maroon paint which then revealed blue paint underneath, that he was troubled.  As kids in the fog of Christmas delirium, neither one of us had noticed the mysterious disappearance of my old blue and white balloon tired single speed bike with the standard coaster brake.  Things that make you go Hmmmm!  Looking back, perhaps you did remember him peeing on your leg.

Well, as it turned out, my new bike was virtually indestructible and, as much as I might have secretly wished for its theft from the school bike racks, nobody in their right mind would steal such a monstrosity.  I rode this bike to the junior high and the senior high.  I was too embarrassed to actually ride it all the way to the senior high at a time when most of the guys were already driving cars.  I, out of social necessity and teen-aged angst, was forced to park my over-sized chrome Western Flyer at North Miami Junior High and then walk the last long block to North Miami Senior High.

School bike rack

Pedaling my heavy single speed Super Tank X-53 Western Flyer to school did accomplish one thing that stayed with me throughout my life, large muscular calves.  While my classmates flew by me on 8^th avenue on their lightweight 3-speed English racers, I was laboriously pumping iron in the slow lane.  While getting a bit nostalgic writing this letter, I decided to see if anyone had pictures of my coveted English racer.  It would seem that those flimsy lightweight bikes didn’t fare too well through time so I only managed to find vintage photos of the original.  Somewhere I can hear my Dad saying, "I told you they wouldn't last."

Vintage Image or an English Racer circa 1956

I did however manage to find plenty of pictures of my two-wheeled childhood curse.  It seems that many of these behemoths survived the past six decades. The best example was in the form of an eBay ad where someone was selling one in mint-condition for $5,800.  The bicycle had been found in an attic in Cleveland, Ohio.  I can only guess that the kid who lived there hid it in the attic and told his parents it was stolen.  I would have done the same but, in Florida, we don’t have attics or basements.

I guess, at $5,800, I should have taken better care of my old bike.
(Click to enlarge to read detail)

     Still disappointed, your friend,

Just remember, A bicycle can't stand alone; it's just two tired.

The Music Festival Experience With 460,000 of My Closest Friends

After recently completing my sixth trip to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (aka Jazzfest), I thought I would relate my experiences for those of you who don’t do such ridiculous things.  It will perhaps reinforce your more sane decision to get your music the old-fashioned way, on your smartphone or car radio, as God intended.  Yes, music festivals are not for the faint of heart.  These bacchanalian assaults on human sensory perception require a particular mindset bordering on the unstable.

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

  

My wife Sue and I once went to an outdoor Steppenwolf concert.  We spread out our blanket, sat down and prepared for our Magic Carpet Ride.  We were surrounded by the typical rogue’s gallery of Steppenwolf aficionados, many of whom had last bathed during the Nixon administration.  I think we made it through one song before a nearby spectator, who was ardently enjoying the Skoal chaw he had tucked between his cheek and gums, decided to test his spitting accuracy.  He managed to mostly hit the grassy area near our blanket but not without some of his discharge splatting on the back of Sue’s outstretched hand.  I heard a squeal that sounded like “Hey Lawdy Mama,” turned, and saw only the back of Sue’s head as she made a beeline for the exit.  She has never expressed any desire to go to another such event.

For those of you who have attended outdoor concerts and think that you have some perception of the day’s long pursuit of music from 7 outdoor stages and 4 tents, spread over 145 acres, think again.  The New Orleans Jazzfest has some form of musical entertainment being cranked out simultaneously on11 stages and through the streets eight hours a day, for seven days, spread over two weekends.  Only the strong survive.

Festival Fairgrounds Map

In order to attend Jazzfest, you have to decide how much you want to spend on your tickets.  You can buy daily general admission tickets for $60 plus service fees or any of a vast array of premium tickets for as little as $325 to $400 per day.  These premium ducats with titles such as Brass Pass, Big Chief, and Grand Marshall, entitle the holder to wear a ribbon around their necks that tells everyone that this person is special.  At Jazzfest, these passes allow various forms of access to covered seating in the rear bleachers or standing room near the main stages.  Some passes include the best seat in the house, which is, drum roll here, a clean toilet.

Crowd View of Acura Stage

  

All tickets are “rain or shine” which translates to, “if it rains and we cancel, you lose.” Additionally, you have to pay for parking or for some form of transportation to the festival.  You will also suffer vastly inflated prices at any of the local hotels.  Actually, the Jazzfest ticket prices are quite reasonable when you consider the prices charged for just one of the many headlining acts at a separate concert.

Elton John 2015

Once you arrive at The Fair Grounds, you realize that you are standing on a famous racetrack.  Yes, horses have been standing, walking, and running on the dirt below your feet since 1872.  During this time, they have also been eating hay and pooping.  When it rains, you are immediately reminded of the pooping part.  The wonderful aroma of wet horse manure will forever hold a special place in your olfactory memory. The odoriferous assault on your senses begins.  It is here, at these fairgrounds, that Eddie Arcaro and Willie Shoemaker have ridden such steeds as Whirlaway, Black Gold, and Risen Star.  Yes, thousands of equestrian speedsters have graced this track with their partially processed oat and hay offerings for over 140 years.  Wine may get better with age but horse manure just gets more, well, horsey.  I found out at a gardening site that, "Since a horse only digests one-quarter of the grass and seeds it eats, its poop is high in weed seeds."  I believe that may account for the other occasional concert smell, burning weed.

New Orleans Racetrack May 4, 1872

Blend together all of the above and the assault on your senses takes on an Invasion of Normandy scale when you add in the various food stands spread throughout the grounds.  In New Orleans, they can fry or boil just about anything from bread dough (Beignets) to miniature lobster (crawfish.)  There are pecan brownies, coconut macaroons, oyster, duck, and chicken Po-boys, red beans and sausage, shrimp and duck pasta, creole stuffed crab, shrimp and grits, shrimp and okra gumbo, crawfish remoulade, shrimp etouffee, crawfish beignets, and catfish almandine.  These delights are being cooked, fried, and boiled to add to the atmosphere.  All of these gastronomic delicacies can be washed down with beer, wine, or soda.

Festival Eating

The plethora of food and drink offerings brings us to another sensory assault, the Port-A-Let.  The portable toilets at music festivals start out their day with reasonable functionality and then deteriorate until they reach a condition that would gag a maggot.  This progression from serviceable to fly larvae ralphing takes about twenty minutes.  At the various rows of toilets, you will find people standing in lines waiting for their turn to enter.  It is here that Einstein’s theory of relativity takes on a new meaning.  You see, time is relative to which side of the toilet door you happen to be.  Outside, time moves like a glacier before we screwed up the atmosphere.  Inside, things are moving faster than the speed of smell.  Nobody lingers in a Port-A-Let.

Portable Toilets Loaded With Political Promises

If you are a “people-watcher,” you are in for a treat at Jazzfest.  It seems that music festivals turn normal people just a little crazy and the fruitcakes just get nuttier.  Another observation at these events is that people are very friendly and polite.  My guess is that politeness is almost an imperative when you are forced into such close proximity.  You will regularly find yourself standing in front of stages packed like a New Delhi commuter train at rush hour or sitting in folding chairs that are half the measured width of Mick Jagger's ass.  In these close quarters, there is no room for rudeness.

Festival Goers Ready to Party

The declared purpose for all of your efforts to attend Jazzfest is to hear the music and see the performers.  The hearing part is done to excess in that giant speakers will allow you to hear the music even if you happen to be seated in coach on a jetliner flying overhead.  In fact, you will need earplugs if you ever want to hear your spouse again.  Read that as, earplugs optional.

Actually seeing your favorite performer requires a bit more effort.  For popular acts, you will need to arrive early and try to work your way close to the stage.  At 6’-2”, I have a slight advantage over some and I have been able to actually see many great acts.  Over the past six years, I have seen Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Chicago, Jerry Lee Lewis, Al Jarreau, Chaka Khan, John Fogerty, Kacey Musgraves, Lyle Lovett, Alabama Shakes, Arlo Guthrie, Alison Krauss, John Boutte, Dr. John, Pete Fountain, Keb Mo, Robert Cray, Taj Mahal, Dave Koz, The Beach Boys, Ramsey Lewis, and Fleetwood Mac.  I have also seen countless other acts, many of whom are just as talented but have not yet gotten the recognition that better luck and circumstance could have provided.

Paul Simon 2016

You have perhaps already ascertained from the list of performers above that the term JAZZ-fest is a bit of a misnomer.  While the term jazz incorporates many variations, the musical offerings at this event defy such a simple classification.  This being New Orleans you will also find music indigenous to the local culture.  In addition to jazz you will find blues, R&B, gospel, Cajun, country, bluegrass, zydeco, Afro-Caribbean, folk, rap, Latin, and rock.  I have tried each of them and, with the probable exception of rap; they all have their place here.  This year I couldn’t find a seat in the Blues Tent so I wandered over to the nearby Gospel Tent.  As you can see, I must have been very tired.  As I rested, I listened to the large gospel choir as they praised Jesus and called for the rapture.  I managed to escape just before I would have been saved.  Then came my miracle; I found a seat in the Blues Tent.

Festival Chairs Area Before the Rain

Festival Chairs Area After the Rain

My latest trip to Jazzfest was perhaps the most challenging.  I brought plenty of sunscreen but left my poncho at home.  I’ll give you one guess what happened.  We had rain of biblical proportions.  Stevie Wonder was cancelled and his piano was ruined.  Neil Young performed to an audience standing in puddles with rain coming down, electrical wires running across the ground, and the occasional lightning strike nearby.  Not having been to church in around 40 years (the Gospel Tent doesn’t count), I decided to not tempt fate.  I will have to enjoy Neil’s music the old-fashioned way, by listening to illegally downloaded MP3’s. I can only imagine that, with all of the water around the Neil Young performance, Wooden Ships and Down by the River took on a special significance.  I spent my final day of the 2016 Jazzfest hunkered down in the Blues Tent.

No article on Jazzfest would be complete without a shout-out to the Jazzfest Commanders.  The Commanders are a group of music lovers with whom I have had the pleasure of joining at Jazzfest for each of these past six years.  Rain or shine, we always have a good time.

L-R Hot Dog, Jazzman, Rainman, Maui-Falafal, Photoman, Chili Dog, and Jay Dee

Aging, A Look Back

There was an often-repeated saying during my youth that went, “Live fast, Die young, and Leave a good looking corpse.”  Well, I didn’t live fast enough, didn’t die while I was young, so it would seem that leaving a good-looking corpse won’t be on my agenda either.  Since aging is the alternative to dying, I’m kind of a big fan of the former.

The “Live fast” quote prompted some quick research and I found it traces back to a Humphry Bogart movie, Knock on Any Door.  The movie debuted in 1949, but it wasn’t Bogie’s line.  That was left to John Derek.  Yeah, the same guy who later married Bo Derek.  I’m guessing that, if John Derek knew he would later be marrying Bo, he might not have been so eager to die young.  Bo wouldn’t even be born for another seven years.

Bo Derek

Bo Derek would be made famous in the movie, 10, which also loosely involved aging.  In that movie, a middle-aged composer/playwright (Dudley Moore) falls for the much younger beautiful newlywed (Bo Derek).  Cue Maurice Ravel’s Bolero here.  You can find an undercurrent of aging in many movies.  The Ron Howard film Cocoon comes to mind.

Groucho Marx

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”
― Groucho Marx

Most of us don’t think about aging until it is too late.  Yes, it creeps up on you like a windshield on a bug.  There you are flying along through life and all of a sudden, splat, you are old.  As Will Rogers once said, “you know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.”

I knew I was getting old when I started making noises like my Espresso machine.  Little aches and pains creep in and you are forced to slow down a bit.  I find myself listening to my parent’s music and thinking that yes, there is something there.  Then I put on some Doors, Janice, or Stones and snap out of it.

Eat that garden salad.  Have that plate of fresh vegetables.  Then grab the phone and call Dominoes. Eat chicken and fish several times a week but, every once in a while, toss a steak on the fire.  All of life is a balancing act; just try keeping the scales tipped in your favor.  A man once went to a doctor to ask his chances of living to 100.  The doctor asked him, do you smoke, drink, or keep late hours with loose women?  When the man answered no to each of these the doctor then asked, why in the world do you want to live to be 100?

Throw a Steak on the Barbecue

You want to live a long life but not too long.  It is predicted that by 2100 the earth’s seas will rise about 6 feet.  That will put my hometown underwater.  I enjoy splashing around as much as the next person, but the traffic around here is bad enough without contending with people swimming while texting.

Texting While Swimming

When I walk, I sound like the advertised bowl of Rice Krispies after you add the milk.  I couldn’t creep up on a deaf blind man.  Muscles ache where I didn’t know I even had muscles.  If it doesn’t hurt, it’s broken.  I went through my entire life without needing glasses and now I need “cheaters” to know what’s on the menu.  I can step into an elevator and I know all the words to the music that’s playing.  

Snap, Crackle, and Pop

I now have a bit of arthritis in my hands and have to contend with childproof caps.  I would like to meet the idiot who invented these.  I’m guessing this is the same individual that decided to put the “lift while turning”, “push down while turning” or “align the arrows and push up here” instructions clearly written in small raised white letters against a white background.  Just make sure, when you make the introduction, that I am holding a Louisville Slugger.  I’ll bet I can still knock his butt up into the cheap seats.  I’ll also bet that a jury of my elderly peers would find me not guilty by reason of sanity at the trial.

Solution to Childproof Caps

One of the pleasures of aging is retirement.  They call these your golden years.  By that they mean, you better have saved enough gold or retirement is just another word for unemployed.  With cautious investment however, and a little help from Social Security, you can easily make ends meet.  This of course assumes you can still get your head down between your legs to get those ends together.

I’m joking of course.  Retirement is wonderful.  You can lie in bed in the morning and watch the traffic report knowing you aren’t doing 6 mph in a 60 mph zone.  You can get up, get out of bed, shower, and get dressed whenever you want.  Or, you can just put it all off until tomorrow.  Your choice.

Think back on the technological changes that have happened during your life.  If you are over 50, those changes have been immense.  We have seen the age of AM radio give way to television.  We watched small black and white picture tubes as they morphed into wide screen high resolution giants.  The kids today can’t appreciate what they have.  In my day, I had to walk across nine feet of shag carpet just to change the channel.  The card catalogue at the local library was my Google.  While sitting at a computer today feels natural,  I have to admit, having information coming to me from around the globe in an instant, feels a bit euphoric.  I will also admit, being required to scroll down and down and down to find my birth year, still upsets me.

Another advantage of aging is Senior Discounts.  I'm sure you remember getting into the movie at a discount when you were under 12.  In today’s world that might be nice but there aren’t any movies you can get into if you are that young.  It’s better to get the discount when you are old.  You can get senior discounts on meals, hotel rooms, and many different things, just ask.  You’ll find that, as you age, you just don’t get embarrassed as easily as when you were young.

Our views on aging change throughout our lives.  As children, we looked forward to being a year older and even counted half years as milestones.  We looked forward to being teenagers and, as teenagers; we really looked forward to turning 21.  You are now finally an adult.  Many of us eventually realize that turning 21 made us adults in a legal sense and had nothing to do with us having good sense.  Think back on your 20’s.  Did you do stupid things?  If you can honestly say you did nothing really stupid back then, I feel sorry for you.  You wasted a great opportunity.  My greatest stories come from that time in my life when I was too young and stupid to know the consequences of my actions.  I'm just lucky to have survived to be writing this today.

Do Something Stupid While You Are Young

If you survive the early years, life then happens in earnest.  You live through your 30’s and 40’s.  Aging is not part of your consciousness.  When 50 happens you start getting the “Over the Hill” cards and wonder, how can I be going over the hill when I never made it to the top?  You are now surrounded by “middle age.”  You start thinking about your future.  That magic number of 65 is no longer around the next bend; it is in sight just ahead.  Somewhere between 65 and 70 is when the windshield splat analogy takes you by surprise.

By now, you have gray hair or little or no hair left at all.  Your skin has wrinkles and begins to sag just a bit.  Weight loss is not as easy as it used to be.  You have lunch with friends and the conversation will generally involve health issues. 

Words also change their meaning as we age.  “Getting a little action,” means that the fiber is beginning to work.  “Getting lucky,” means you found your car in the mall parking lot.  "Happy hour," is now a nap.  An “all-nighter,” means you didn’t have to get up to pee.

Eskimos have many words for snow and the rest of us have a similar number of words for getting old.  Alphabetically we have ancient, antiquated, archaic, dated, decrepit, doddering, elderly, fossilized, geriatric, kaput, medieval, moribund, moth eaten, obsolete, outdated, over the hill, passe, prehistoric, quaint, rusty, senescent, senile, senior, tottery, and vintage.  Age, any age, is tempered by how you feel.  I happen to feel good at 70.  Youth is about how you feel, not when you were born.  You must also realize, the young cannot know how old age feels, but we have failed if we forget how it was to be young.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Sláinte