THERE LIES LAHAINA

     Forty-two years ago I was taking a ceramics class in Santa Monica, California. A friend came in with a

deep tan and I asked, "Where'd you get the new look?".  She answered, "In Maui last weekend. My friends live in Lahaina, you should go visit them!".  And so I did.  The magical seaside Hawaiian  town became my home for a month. 

 

In the last 40 years many of the sugarcane fields have been developed

Ever since I've continued to think of it -nestled between the gentle surf and bright green sugarcane fields- as the perfect place to be.

     When it was destroyed by a raging fire last week-taking over a hundred lives- it was beyond heart-breaking.

      To me, Lahaina was Shangrila, "just right", a friendly, multi-cultural community. The weather was  perfect and the cool air, scented with frangipani flowers (we sewed them into a leis!). Heck, I even took a hula class and surfed for the first time.

 

      Saturday, June 13, 1981 was their annual holiday celebrating their great leader of the past,  King Kamehameha.  I joined my friends there for a 5K race in his honor. All entrants were required to wear fresh flowered headbands.

     Afterwards we enjoyed a grand parade down the main thoroughfare, Front Street.

 

From my "magical place" scrapbook

     

 

 

 

 

 

These lovely .young women in the parade really knew how to sew a flowered headband.

 

And now the historic town is no more, burnt to a crisp, perhaps a harbinger of things to come. 

 

Parade float passing the historic Pioneer Inn, now, reduced to cinders

 

     

 

     I do remember the extremely loud sirens that sounded regularly. Hawaii boasts having the largest system of outdoor public safety warning sirens in the world, alarms that blare in cases of danger.  They seemed to sound too loud and too often -at a set time on Saturdays- when I was there. 

      They were silent on the day of the fire. Those who survived it wonder why no one activated them. I do too. They were impossible to ignore.

      I'm sure something like the town of my dreams will rise again,  It'll take years but I probably won't see it happen. My Lahaina still exists. It will always be the perfect place and a happy Hawaiian memory.

                  _______________________

 (You can help by donating to "Maui Strong".  Here  is the link: 

https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/maui-strong

A friend and me after a boat trip that took to visit Lanai, an island on the far horizo

n

"UP THE CREEK Pt. VI"- August Neighborhood Newsletter

Our beloved Rattlesnake Creek

     

 

                          -UP THE CREEK- 

               AUGUST '23 NEWSLETTER 

     Florida Park is a lovely, quiet, neighborhood. My neighbor, Patsy, commented yesterday, "The big news here is when a tree falls down".  She's right. When it happens we gather, stare, and remind each other that trees don't last forever.

This happened to our neighbor at the corner or NW 8 Ave. and 18 Terrace last week. 

The stump of the tree that crashed into the house on NW 8th Avenue

      Most houses in Florida Park were built 60 or 70 years ago.  Back then many homeowners planted laurel oak trees which are now toppling from old age. These trees have a relatively short life span, 50-70 years.  When you hear chain saws chances are the are cutting down an aged-out laurel or one that just crunched a house.          

This big'n toppled (fortunately, away from the house) on NW 12 Rd. a

few days earlier.  It's best to have tree experts check you trees regularly if you have any doubts. Hurricane season is here so now's as good a time as ever.

 

 

 

 

 NEIGHBOR OF THE MONTH, FOREST LISLE- 

The retired professor with his daughter, Katherine

The retired UF architecture professor lives on a splendid estate at 1920 NW 8 Ave. His remarkable residence is perched on a 60-foot ridge that overlooks the south side of Rattlesnake Creek.

 

His backyard drops sixty dramatic feet

Professor Lisle has enjoyed living on his three-acres of lush, forested land since 1971. Far below his back deck, a second waterway, Magnolia Creek, heads north to meet Rattlesnake Creek. Just before it does it drops six-feet.  This results in one of the G-ville's rare

One of Gainesville's rare waterfalls

waterfalls. Fifteen years ago Forest discovered a seven-foot alligator basking in the water below. He had the authorities take it away before it could eat anyone.

Forest is a good neighbor and when I drop by I am always greeted with a broad smile.

 

   

 

 

 

While there's little happening on the UF campus this summer, I did stumble upon a reception last Wednesday for guest artist, Amor Munoz.  She is visiting from Mexico City, here to greet visitors to her art sound installation at the Libby Gallery on SW 13th St.

She explained that her piece represents how, in nature, one thing affects another.  

 

Amor with her magnificent creation. When you touch a sculpted fabric column, a podium robot responds.

 

This sounded much better than the press release which explained,  

The "bioautomata" on top looked like pee pee.

Chimera, Expanded Bodies (2022) is “a sound installation made up of a set of bioautomata, artificial entities that contain living matter and generate performative gestures through their biological processes, which are monitored by sensors.”

Anyway, it's a cool show in an air-conditioned building.  It'll be there for you to enjoy 'til September's end. 

ONE MORE AIR-CONDITIONED WONDER TO VISIT on a hot summer's day...  The Theater of Memory Museum

at 1705 NW 6th St. Open Wed. thru Sun., 10:30-4:30. It's a wonderful place to visit any time of the year.

 ANOTHER COOLING TIP,  Today we traded our 96 degree air for the 72 degree water in Poe Springs.  

 

The water was cool but green, somewhat reminiscent of Jello.

I'm not complaining.

It's probably something left over from a St. Patrick's Day celebration.

 

 

Francesca and I visited Gainesville's version of the Sistine Chapel -otherwise known as "Room A" at the downtown library- Tuesday evening. It was another monthly "Roundtable Discussion on Housing" sponsored by Gainesville Neighborhood Voices. For a change a wide-range of people were able to speak up about development and housing problems in their neighborhoods.  This group led the way to get rid of the former city commission's efforts to eliminate single-family housing. Now we're seeking better solutions.

 

Developer Andy Coffey explains his affordable housing plans

 

This month's Good Neighbor Award goes to Lee Zeitlin.  He and his

wife live next to an abandoned construction site on NW 11 Road. In a week's time he filled an empty dumpster with all of the crap the non-resident homeowner and her workers left in the yard.  Thank you, Lee!

 

 

 

 

 

Plans for December's Flying Pig Parade are moving right along. We've raised almost half of the funds necessary.  Next week we start our Go-Fund-Me drive.  We have many

  Come join our planning group! That's Chef Mark in the grey shirt.

exciting fund-raising events planned for the fall. 

Mark Newman, the former owner/chef at the much-loved Leonardo's 706 restaurant, will be hosting a brunch in November.  That will be one hot ticket!

 

 

You might have heard that our governor says he going to spend a year

enslaved on a plantation to prove that the slave life was actually not that bad. I don't know if this is a joke or not but if he's holed up in Haile Plantation I'm gonna complain.

 

 

 

LOCAL BUSINESS NEWS-  We're getting a new Thai restaurant on

the SE corner of NW 10th Ave. and 6th St.  It opens in the spring.

It's great that we'll have more options than Appleby's for walkable restaurant locations.  It's unfortunate that we don't have more useful retail stores south of 16th, on busy 13th Street.

The building they've been working on the NW corner of 16th Ave. and 6th?  Sadly, a worker there told me its going to be another smoke shop.

 

                                                                  They're still cleaning up the fire mess at Lloyd Clarke Sports. They have been good neighbors and we hope they will be in business again soon.

 

The secret ice cream store just north, at the corner of NW 16th Ave. and 13 St. has been open for 17 months and is still -without a sign- continues to looks like an empty storefront. 

 

 

GETTING THE WORD OUT-  Someone asked me, "Why are you spending hours writing another newsletter when you wrote

 What remains of ours...

one three weeks ago? I explained, "Heck, I could write one everyday. People used to do that for these things we called 'newspapers'."

(Note:  I actually still subscribe to several!)

 

Hate in the Hood-  Two years ago we had antisemitic brochures delivered to our driveways. Three months ago the "We Say Gay" banner was stolen as it hung from the United Church of Gainesville  on NW 5 Ave.  When they replaced it with a similar sign last week, a night visitor ripped a hole in it.

  Repaired, it is displayed once more.

 

 (Who does this stuff?)

 

 

 

Let me close with happy news.  

                                                                                                             The Fairy Village in Rattlesnake Woods is open again. Summer storms caused some problems but our elfin friends are back in business. Their ice cream store even has a sign.

 

 

                                                 ______________________________________________________________________________________

Giving the Pig Wings

  Another monthly PARADE REPORT- August 4th, 2023

     I brought the watermelon, Bryce, the red licorice, and Cypress & Grove provided the beer for Wednesday's Flying Pig Parade meeting. It went well.

     Ten of us gathered at our favorite 10th Ave brewery to discuss the latest on December's parade. 

 

 

    

   Most of our work continues to focus on fund-raising. We have applied for 7 grants. We rec'd one, did not receive two, and are waiting to hear about the other four.

 

      In the mean time we are beginning to reach out to the G'ville

business community to see who will help us create a terrific new event for our city. Speaking of, the City of G may change its mind about giving us some help.  If they do, we will know in a month.

      Treasurer's report- We have rec'd four donations from individuals

and one homeowner's association totaling $800.  The city's redevelopment agency gave us a $2500 grant which means we'll get that $ in January.  We have spent around $100 on flyers, $250 for

a traffic engineer's fee and $22 to convert kitty litter containers in to aerial oinkers.

Michael and Carol's garden pig

     We have $428 in our account, $2500 expected in January, and need to raise another $9000.

      We hope to cover this with grants, donations, and a Go-Fund-Me campaign  (Savannah volunteered to head that project). 

 

      A new member of our crewe, Mark Newman, is well-known as the

former co-owner of Leonardo's 706 restaurant. The talented businessman/chef has offered to put together a fund-raising dinner at his beautiful home on Hogtown Creek. 

More on that later.

 

     While Hutch was not at the meeting, he let me know our parade would greatly benefit by having a large flying pig balloon. We're looking into that.  While Shirley Lasseter could not be there either, she gave me glow-in-the

dark pigs to pass out. Much appreciated they were.

     We kicked around a few parade ideas like having UF faculty members marching with their mouths taped shut and having our governor wrestle Micky Mouse (or Kamela Harris...or both) in the procession.

     Hopefully the funding part will soon end and we can concentrate on making the world's first flying Pig parade the greatest event ever.

 

Hangin' in there,

-Glenn