UP THE CREEK- FEBRUARY EDITION

       Democracy dies in darkness and  honest news continues to fade. One exception is the UF's Alligator newspaper. There is still no shortage of student reporters in Gainesville doing great work.

In a recent issue we learned a state audit  found that former UF President, Ben Sasse, went "cra-cra" with his UF checkbook.

Among many things, there was the $900-a-plate sushi dinner for forty friends, $300,000 spent on private jets and he is currently getting paid about $5000 an hour to teach a course on campus. The audit goes on to say "the public purpose of his getting a $1 million teaching salary is not readily apparent".  

What is apparent is that power-hungry politicians are pulling the strings that control our local university. They are a dire threat to its standing and integrity.

Five years from now the UF might be a larger version of our recently dumbed-down state school, Sarasota's New College.

 

THE SUN SHINES ON THE PIG 

Last January our pigish parade made the front page of the Gainesville Sun.   

   We're already meeting to plan the next one. This time we'll do it well after Christmas, on 1-3-26.

 Get in touch if you want to help. 

 

 BLACKOUT FRIDAY

     Our country is in trouble. We're having an Economic Blackout on Friday, Feb. 28th, to express our disgust with big businesses falling in line with #47's make the rich richer policies. For 24 hours don't buy anything unless it is from a small, local business.  Ward's YES, Publix No.

WORLD PREMIERE

    Earlier this month 140 of us enjoyed a festive evening watching the film we made of last December's Flying Pig Parade.  We thank our friends at the First Magnitude Brewery for making it all possible.

 

FINALLY CUBA

   We flew south to Cuba last month, an  eye-opening experience.

While the Cubans have limited income they do a lot with a little. Their citizens have free medical and dental services, free education, and low-cost housing. I was told no one is hungry or homeless.

Still, if you criticize the government you might get thrown in the slammer.
  Cuba is spectacular, filled with friendly people who are healthier than Americans.

 Our friend, Taylor Stein, returned from his Cuban adventure this week. He told us, "I found it remarkable that so much of the island is pristine and undeveloped. It's rare to visit any country now where there are no KFC's, McDonalds, or advertising, anywhere." 

 

NERDS GONE WILD 

    I attended Hogtown's Medieval Faire last month in Depot Park. It was a great success attracting large numbers of NeverLand fans.

I tried to recruit the Ocala guy, who made this fantastic dragon for the Flying Pig Parade.  Said he, "The thing weighs 95 pounds.  I can't walk very far".

Chasing the runaway ballot box

 

To fly with the pig you've got to be able to move!

 

 

 

Where else can guys put on armor and wait their turn to fight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's the perfect place to wear that tight leather outfit you haven't broken out since Halloween.

   A friend calls The Faire "a nerd fest" and that's a good thing, a coming together of dungeons, dragons, and pointy-eared fairies. We need things like this to distract us momentarily from our crumbling democracy. 

 

RAISING HELL

On Presidents Day 400 of us gathered on four corners downtown. For two hours we showed our disgust for the billionaires taking apart our democracy. 

 

 

Come join us when we raise hell again on March 4th.  That's from 4-6 p.m. at Main Street and University Avenue

MANGOES GROW IN GAINESVILLE

        As a lover of mangoes its nice to know a few manage to  grow here.

   They hate the cold so a fruit fan on NW 14 Av. built a heated tent to protect his front yard tree. I stopped to admire it today now filled with the glorious yellow blossoms of spring. Five months from now he's going to have a feast!

 

 ACT BENEFIT MARCH 15th

     The annual benefit for the Alachua Conservation Trust is coming up on Saturday, March 15th. Held at the picturesque Prairie Creek Lodge, it's not to be missed. The $100 tickets

include cocktails, dinner on the lawn, live music,and a silent art auction.  I donated one of my fish.

 

 DO THEY COME TOPPED WITH ZIGGY STARDUST?

  A new pizza joint, "Bowie Pizza", is opening next month on the corner of NW 13 St. and 16th Ave. Named after David, the dead rock star, the forty-seat eatery   could be Florida Park's new neighborhood hang-out.

 

A WORLD AWAY

Last week we ventured to Georgia's Cumberland Island for the first time.

It's just ninety miles away. It's wild horses, broad beaches, and tangled trees can make you forget -if only for a few hours- the incredible problems we face today. 

Wishing you peace,

GT

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HERB HILLER, SWITCHING GEARS TO A HIGHER CALLING

 

     Herb Hiller’s 10-speed got wings this week. It carried the Coconut Grove trailblazer up a steep, heavenly hill. He died in North Georgia at 93 this week. 

 

     Although he spent just 20 years living in the Grove, he had a huge impact on the seaside village and South Florida. After he moved to North Florida in the 80’s he’d return for visits often.

   The New York native found his niche helping to create South Florida’s modern cruise industry. With savvy PR skills he preached,  “Get on a ship and visit the sun-filled Caribbean!”, to a world filled with island dreams.     

    A friend told me as communications director for a major cruise line he was constantly on the phone and writing letters to make things happen. To create a closer bond to the neighboring Bahama Islands he led the effort to produce the Grove's popular Goombay Festival in the 70’s which still exists today.  Soon after, he got Coconut Grove’s first farmers market off the ground.

    He and his wife, Mary Lee, raised their two daughters in their spacious compound on South Main Highway. In the 70’s I’d see this tall, thin, man whizzing by on his 10-speed.  When he finally stopped to talk he told me his life had vastly improved since he traded his car for a bike.

He was changing in other ways too.

    Rather than stuffing people into cruise ships Heb started promoting something new, bicycle tourism. He wanted everyone to peddle their way to new adventures. He’d return to South Florida for bicycle events and Eco-tourism conferences.

     Herb biked all over Florida discovering the Sunshine State’s hidden wonders. As a  talented writer he would share them in his travel guides and numerous magazine articles. 

      For several years the brilliant Harvard grad led bicycle tours. He told me once, "Yes, you can look out on Lake Okeechobee but why not really get to know it and its people?  He invited me on one of his two-day, 135-mile bike tours that straddled the top of the dirt levee that surrounds the watery expanse. I politely declined as I think it would have killed me.

Visiting Herb on his island, 2010

     Fifteen years ago my wife and I caught up with Herb at his 1850's home. Being Herb, it was on an island in the middle of North Florida’s Lake George. You could only get there by boat.

    While he made sour-dough bread from scratch, he told us about his tireless work to create a 3,000-mile bike path stretching from Florida to Maine. Most 79-year olds don’t take on things like that.  

      A few years later, when we all became well aware of global warming, Mr. Hiller transformed into a formidable octogenarian climate warrior. He began working feverishly on ways to stop tourism from adding to the problem.

   

     He began writing his “Climate Traveler” blog. It became part of a continuing effort to get us thinking about how his baby -tourism- could stop contributing to the slow destruction of our planet. Each entry (the last just five weeks ago) was extremely well-written and included extensive footnotes.

     Last year he summed up his post-cruise-line life writing that after he quit the cruise lines he became "the maverick director" of the Caribbean Travel Association. His new career focused on promoting interactions between travelers and the people in the places that they visited. 

 

    He wrote about the importance of getting people off big ships and into nature, the growth of Eco-tourism, and the subsequent realization of how travel has a profound effect on climate change. "Trying to get people out of their houses and cars is not easy work,” he told me back in 2010. “Sometimes it feels like pushing boulders uphill”. 

     My maverick friend was still writing eloquently about saving the world a month ago when his health took a turn for the worse.  

     We should all be grateful for the likes of Herb Hiller. They are the ones that keep pushing the boulders, who open our eyes to new possibilities like home-made bread, stepping outside, and saving our marvelous planet.

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  Addendum:  Anyone can still share a bike ride with Herb. By going on his "The Climate Traveler" blog this morning, I was able to briefly escape to Trinidad. Here's his first sentence of a four-part series describing his 10-day bike ride across the island,

       Memories of cycling in Trinidad hang full  like a cluster of ripe papaya, like the fast flutter of feeding hummingbirds, the lure of pungent roti, of aromatic sweet cocoa, of bananas eaten four at a time, of a chin slobbered with coconut water, of the rippling sounds of steel drum, the jook of calypso, and everything from flocks of scarlet ibis to the regalia of Carnival in the vivid colors of the soda pop that Trinis swig.

Grande Riviere, Trinidad

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CUBA

   I'd like to share a few more photos from last month's trip to Cuba. Below, "on our way", 29,000 feet over Key West.  

 

 

 

When we  arrived in Old Havana, we were greeted by a group that could have marched right out of the Flying Pig Parade.

We soon learned these artists perform here almost hourly.

The view of "Plaza Vieja" from our apartment balcony. There was plenty of room for all seven of us.

 

 

"Woman With Fork", plaza statue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking up from our interior courtyard,

 

 

Old Havana -just 10 % of the city- is where most tourists congregate to visit museums, cafes, the Buena Vista Social Club, and 400 years of architecture.

 

 

 

 

It wasn't unusual to see buildings with no roofs and crumbling walls.

 

 

   I guess people were much taller 300 years ago because all of the buildings in Habana Vieja had twelve-foot doors.

 

 This one led to a stairway and the many apartments above. Stepping inside,

 

 

1780's mansion now the Ceramic Museum

Others stairways were magnificent. 

 

 

 

 

Ceramic typewriter

 

Francesca and her brother shopping.

Chair parade

 

I'm not a city person and so was thrilled when we left for Vinales in western Cuba.

 

The hills you see popping up are vine-covered limestone "magotes".  Rock climbers love these things.

 

 Below, clowning around with our niece and nephew.

 

We rode horses and unlike the last time, I was not thrown by mine. I thanked "Pancho" profusely.

 

Tobacco farm's privy door lock

We enjoyed exciting live music almost every night

Where cigars come from

 

Tractors, like cars, are rare. Much of the  plowing is done with oxen. 

 

 

Days later we headed to Cienfuegos where we enjoyed a bay side sunset.

  In the morning we encountered a Sunday concert by the city's community band. I asked why there were few women attending and was told, "They're in church".

   

On the main square we toured the Terry Opera House where Enrico Caruso once sang for the local sugar barons and their families.

Cabbie on his way to pick up a fare

 

 

The last city we visited was Trinidad on the south central coast.

 

The view from our cottage patio 

 

 

A restaurant down the street was decorated with the shackles used to transport the slaves that built this place. 

 A nicer place to dine

 

 

    Thanks for coming along.  I'd like to close with one of my favorites, "Blue Shirt the street dog".

 

 

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