KING MANGO'S 40TH BIRTHDAY, article in Key Biscayne's Islander News 12-22-21

                  The Top Banana Reminisces

                                                                         By Bill Durham

 

Everyone loves a parade but Glenn Terry, co-founder of Coconut Grove’s zany King Mango Strut Parade, seems to love a parade more than most. For 28 years he served as – as he puts it – “top banana” of the King Mango Strut.

      Glenn Terry and his son, Ian, performing in the 2001 parade

 It all started back in 1977. “I’m no musician,” says Terry, “but I always wanted to be in a band.” On a whim, he organized “The Mango Marching Band,” composed of a rag-tag group of non-musicians playing mostly kazoos and conch shells. The group first marched in the Grove’s Goombay Festival Parade and later, in 1978 and ’79, in Key Biscayne’s Fourth of July Parade. “Our performances were great fun. Eventually, we asked to march in The Big One—the Orange Bowl Parade.”

 

 Perhaps not surprisingly, the organizers of “The Big One” deemed the Mango Marching Band to be too silly and turned them down. Not the sort to be easily discouraged, Terry and co-conspirator Bill Dobson decided to start their own parade. From the get-go, the goal of the King Mango Strut Parade was to be silly. Entries in the King Mango Strut Parade have ranged from merely creative to extremely creative. For many years a crowd favorite was The Marching Freds. “Anyone named Fred could join,” explains Terry. They chanted things like “We’re Fred, You’re Not!” and carried posters saying “Three Cheers for the Fred, White, and Blue.” The Freds were organized by the Miami Herald’s Fred Tasker. Sadly, Tasker passed away earlier this year. So the Marching Freds will be forever down one.

No topic was off limits. The parade once included a group working to protect the Everglades. They had a car rigged up to look like a bulldozer and, in a parody, held up signs saying, “We give up — PAVE THE EVERGLADES!”

 Sometimes the irreverent entries had a deeper purpose. One year, 25 men and women dressed as Marching Marjories protested plans to move the home of conservation giant Marjory Stoneman Douglas out of the Grove. It worked. The house remained where it stood and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. And of course what would a parade born of silliness be without the occasional mishap. 

Terry recalls one such incident with a chuckle. “One year we had a guy who was supposed to portray George W. Bush, but he forgot to bring his rubber face mask. So we covered him with hedge clippings and dubbed him ‘a bush named George.’ That turned out to be even funnier than the original idea.” But as with any institution, things change. 

(Below, Art Kendallman receiving the "Weirdest Strutter" Award at  1988's King Mango Black Tie Dinner at Burger King)

 

 In 2009, following a tug- of-war over the future direction of the parade, the City of Miami selected someone else to produce the event. After being the parade’s “top banana” for 28 years, Terry was out. “Some folks had a different vision for what our parade should be,” he explained. “And the City decided to give them the annual permit. I wasn’t thrilled, of course, but am glad the parade continued. It is still the Grove’s greatest event.”

       Below, a reunion of the original King Mango crew, 2018.

 

After spending much of his life as a fixture in Coconut Grove, Terry and his wife Francesca, moved north to Gainesville in 2019. They like the slower pace there. He enjoys riding a restored Italian bicycle—a gift from his sons—on an 18-mile trail near their home. Though the locale is different, Terry’s commitment to his community does not waver. “For me life is about friendships, building community, and making people smile.” 

 Due to Covid, The King Mango Strut parade was canceled in 2020 – and there are no plans to hold a parade this year. But Terry hints that something special just might take place in Coconut Grove to mark the parade’s 40th Anniversary. “We’ll be doing something to honor the King,” he offers surreptitiously. 

And of course he is right. As longtime fans of the parade know, a milestone like this one is too important to go unnoticed. I don’t know exactly what the friends of King Mango are cooking up, but whatever it is, it is bound to be fun. And silly. The parade’s long-time top banana wouldn’t have it any other way. 

(Glenn's Note:  Yes, we celebrated the King's 40th birthday on closed-off Fuller Street in style on

12-26-21)

GLENN'S 2003 COCONUT GROVE TOUR

 

Another One Bites the Dust, SCOTTY'S LANDING

Journalist John Dorschner called me in 2003 to tell me about his new camera and editing equipment. "Why don't we make a movie about Coconut Grove?",  he suggested.   We shot it in a day and he did some editing for a few weeks.  Here is a link to our magnificent 20-minute creation,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx0D6aOiGIc

NORTH RIM HIKE

         We enjoy visits to Paynes Prairie, the wild open space south of Gainesville. Some say it's North Florida's most significant natural feature, 21,000 acres of open savanna surrounded by towering trees and tall bluffs. Walking out on the boardwalk we look east at the far side's 40-foot embankments 

 

 

and wondered, "What's it's like up there?".

      Yesterday we found out. For starters, the view was breathtaking. 

 

 We got to explore this special place with a state park ranger. For the first time in two years the North Rim Trail has opened up for once-a-week tours. 

      It is rarely opened to the public because the hilly, sinkhole-filled landscape is easily damaged by public use.  Our guide explained, "In a way, this place is too cool. The bikers come roaring through and climbers tear up sinkholes by rappelling down the sides."

        These holes were everywhere, some filled with water, some not. We learned a new one is forming nearby as they have here for 15,000 years.

        Sixteen of us threading our way through the woods until we reached the the "the summit", nearly fifty-feet above the lake below.  This, we learned, is where famed naturalist/artist William Bartram set up camp in 1774.  His illustrated book, "Travels"

He described what we were seeing this way,

       It is a level green plain, fifteen miles over, fifty miles in circumference, and scarcely a tree or bush of any kind to be seen on at. It is encircled with high, sloping hills, covered with waving forests and a fragrant Orange grove rising from a exuberantly fertile soil. The towering Magnolia grandiflora and transcendent Palm stand conspicuous among them. Herds of sprightly deer, squadrons of the beautiful fleet Seminole horse, flocks of turkeys, civilized communities of the sonorous watchful crane, mix together, appearing happy and contented in the enjoyment of peace.

      You can meander through this primitive hole-filled topography on any Saturday now through April (even Dec. 25th, gift a friend with a unique hike.) 

A ranger will take the first 25 showing up by 10 a.m. at the La Chua Trail horse barn.  It is easily reached by going south on SE 15 St. until the road ends. Admission is $4 per car.

    We loved it.  We're going again.

 

BOILIN' THE CANE

      Friends ask, "Why don't you blog anymore?"  My best answer is, "Yeah, I used to write several every month in Miami but we're  still getting to know North Florida. It takes a while to get comfortable enough in a new place to write about it. 

    We did have a unique experience yesterday. We went to our first "Cane Boil".

Let me tell you 'bout it.

       Gainesville has a park on the outskirts of town where they re-created an 1800's farm.  Every fall they invite the public to go there for a day to see "how it was".  Volunteers, appropriately dressed, bake biscuits, feed chickens, and boil sugar cane juice. 

      As we entered we saw the harvested sugar cane  being crushed in a mill powered by young children. 

They lacked the usual mule and  child-labor laws did not exist in 1880 -so- kids pushed the big stick in a circle. As they did the cane was crushed and sweet juice rained down.

     Buckets of it were collected and poured into a hot iron cauldron. 

After heating it 12 hours  sixty gallons boiled down to six gallons of thick, sweet syrup.  You could buy a bottle for seven bucks.

    And that was just one of the  seven stations where you could visit cows, hogs. and chickens,

      

 

 

 

 

 

 

Watch a blacksmith mixing iron with fire

 

And borrow a draw knife from the tool barn

 

 

 

 

to trim an axe handle on a shaving horse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parents and their children

were amazed by

 

the woman carding wool,

 

the girl rolling dough for biscuits,  

 

 

 

 

 

 

the woman baking them in a wood-fired stove, and,

 

this young man trying his hand at plowing. 

 

There was folk music everywhere recalling a time

 

 

when the songs, sweaters, and biscuits you enjoyed would have been made by you and your family.  

       I asked a young lady, "What did kids do before video games?". She showed us one more way to have fun 150 years ago.

     Myra handed us bunches of feathered corn cobs called "whirly gigs".

  Francesca and I laughed ourselves silly trying to toss them into a distant basket.

  I suppose it wasn't all fun and games back then but that's the part we got to enjoy at this weekend's Cane Boil. 

We hope you can meet us there next year, when the cane is ripe, on the first Saturday after Thanksgiving.

   

     

 

 

A YEARN TO BURN

 It's Burn Time, the end of August, when all God's (crazy) children head to the desert for Burning Man.

Covid changed all that and like the 2020 gathering, this year's Burn has been cancelled. I went to NW Nevada four straight years before the pandemic. Now there's just a hot, dusty void. I miss it most when I think of my friends there and peruse the photos I took.

Here are a few. 

Ain't nothing like a Burn.

 

Our hometown crewe at Burn '18

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We live in 800 camps with creative names. Here is our troop, Camp Journeylizm.

 

My son,Ian, preparing to head to the high desert (where it can snow in August).
 

I was constantly amazed at Burning Man, so much to see and explore. 

 

 

 

Here's the Auto Shishkabob, eight cars impaled on a huge, steel stake. If you made it to the top there was a small trailer with cold beer inside.

 

You might not find that at Disneyland. 

 
One of four hundred "mutant vehicles" that roamed slowly roamed the desert floor, always lit up the night.

Our vehicles were illuminated bicycles

that took us all over to tour the ChickenHous,

 

see giant puppet shows, 

 

and to ride the giant, spinning pig.

  You can walk into most of the sculptures and be a part of the art.

 

 

You haven't lived until you've danced with a hip-hoppin' robot.

 

 

 

 

When I visited the Burn's "big projects" I marveled at how things this fantastic could be brought to life in a distant, sweltering desert.  

 

 

 

 

Some were more successful than others. This huge Mylar sphere was supposed to "mirror the world" but it reflected little after the first dust storm embraced it.

 

 

Can you imagine what it took to turn this old airplane into a tourist tower? Groups form to create these miracles every year like Oakland's "Flaming Lotus GIrls".

Mr. Mushroom

 

 

 

 

Occasionally, you run into families who apparently could not find a baby sitter. This dusty kid was giving her art away while

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my posse drew portraits badly for anyone passing by on foot, bike, 

 

 banana car

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

covered wagon

gigantousVW van

or land yacht. 

There were parties onboard mutant vehicles day and night. Its a multi-million dollar with no advertising. Art is created for art's sake.

 

Out in the desert the nomads have their own dress code  (Yes, the hilarious guy on the right came as "Florida Man"). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's an international affair so you meet folks from all over. 

 

 

 

 

If you're doing it right you're always prepared for the next dust storm.

 

In the middle of it all is a fifty-foot stick man. As the week-long event winds down you pay one last visit before he's set on fire.

 

On the last day you greet the morning sun,

 

doing your best to avoid land sharks,




 

witness the glorious final ceremony,

 

  The Terry Boyz, 2017

 

jump into your torpedo car

and head

 

 
 

Hopefully we'll see an end to the dreadful pandemic so we can create dreams in desert again.