Ghostly encounters in NE Florida

With Halloween just around the corner, some people begin thinking of ghosts, but Ghosts and ghost sightings are not just confined to Halloween. Many people claim to have seen ghosts or evidences of them all during the year. Two books about ghosts in Florida detail such events.


Ghosts of St. Augustine
David Lapham
1997, Pineapple Press, Sarasota
In twenty-four stories set in St. Augustine, people see ghosts and observe evidence of ghostly activities. A chill will run down your neck as you read accounts of objects being moved, lights clicking off and on, mysterious smells emanating from corners and shadows drifting in and out of rooms. You may find yourself looking around for reassurance that you're really alone.
St. Augustine has had 400 years of frequently violent history, and many residents do believe that some places in the city are haunted.  Ghost Tours of St. Augustine conducts ghost walks to point out such places to tourists.

Haunt Hunter's Guide to Florida
Joyce Elson Moore
1998, Pineapple Press, Sarasota
You'll learn of thirty-three places in Florida haunted by ghosts. The book divides Florida into seven regions. The author then details the ghostly tales about places in the region, visiting info and directions to the locations.
Northeast Florida has ten places where people have told of seeing ghosts or evidences of ghosts: They have been seen at Ft. Clinch St. Park. A mysterious woman in white has been seen at the Tabby House on Ft. George Island. Kingsley Plantation was the location of a moving bed and a gingerbread aroma. Guests and employees of the St. Francis Inn in St. Augustine have reported presences, sounds and whispers. Figures and footsteps at the old lighthouse have convinced some people that it is haunted.
Other Northeast Florida ghostly locations are the Castillo de San Marcos and the house at 46 Avenida Menendez in St. Augustine, the Devil's Millhopper in Gainesville, Herlong Mansion in Micanopy and Washington Oaks State Gardens. The Herlong Mansion was actually investigated by "ghostbusters."

You can also take a Florida Ghost Tour at Daytona Beach, Haunts of the World's Most Famous Beach

When "The Help" met Jim Crow

Segregated Coca-Cola Dispensing machine.

  The Help grossed over $26 million its first weekend making it seem that just about every reading-movie-going person in America has read the book by Kathryn Stockett or seen the movie.  Based on the attendance at the theater where I saw the movie, certainly most aware Southerners have seen it. For a person like me who grew up in the South, the story and the characters ring true.  
       I clearly remember "Colored" and "White" signs on bathroom doors, over water fountains, and in train/bus waiting rooms.  In the small Florida town where I lived, the city closed the one public pool rather than allow anyone who was not White to swim there.  Public restaurants were open only to Whites.  The phone book had separate listings for "Colored" and "White" taxis.  We had one movie theater in town.  The balcony was reserved for "Coloreds" and Whites sat downstairs on the main floor.  The only work available for nonwhites was for women to serve as a maid and manual labor for men.  
      The social climate was extremely oppressive if you were not White.  There was no opportunity and little chance to succeed.  In the African-American community, which was on the outskirts of town, a few Blacks had their own businesses, entertainment establishments and bars.  I used to wonder what mothers told their children.  How did they explain to a child that he/she could not go to the bathroom if there was not a door marked "Colored."  
      This was the way of life accepted by most people in my little town and in the South.  There was kindness, of course, and helpfulness, but basically, the African-American was made to feel lowly and inferior.  Why did they tolerate this treatment? One word, FEAR.  Jim Crow and Law enforcement protected Whites and encouraged, even demanded demeaning treatment of the African-American.
      Jim Crow was not an actual person, but a stereotype made popular in songs and black-face musical acts.  In The Help when Skeeter comes across a booklet "Compilation of Jim Crow Laws of the South" she finally understands the consequences of interviewing the maids and of even being alone in their company.  
      The Jim Crow caste system operated between 1877 and 1960, and it was not exclusively a Southern thing.  The laws justified most any treatment of the African-American.  Christian ministers preached that God supported racial segregation.  Newspapers and magazines used "nigger," "coons," "darkies" without apology. Jim Crow dictated not only law but etiquette norms. For example, a black man could not offer his hand to shake with a white man.  Blacks and whites were not supposed to eat together.  Black couples could not show affection to each other in public because it might offend whites if they saw them.  Whites did not use titles such as Mr. or Mrs. when referring to Blacks.  Blacks were called by their first names.  If a Black person rode in a car driven by a White person, he had to sit in the back seat.  White motrorists had the right of way at all intersections.
       A few typical Jim Crow laws compiled by the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site Interpretive Staff:
*     All passenger stations shall have separate waiting rooms and separate ticket windows.
*     The White and "Colored" militia shall be separately enrolled and shall never be  
        compelled to serve in the same organization.
*     Any Colored person shall not be buried on ground set apart for White persons.
*     White convicts shall have separate apartments for both eating and sleeping from Negro 
       convicts.
*     Any instructor who teaches in any school or college where members of the White and   
      Colored race are enrolled as pupils shall be deemed guilt of a misdemeanor. 
     There are many, many more such laws.  What was the punishment if they were violated?  beatings, burning of property, lynchings, arrest.  This was the reason the women in The Help were so scared of being caught giving information to Skeeter.  Even though she was White, she was in the same danger.  
      Thankfully, through long and painful events, society has changed, but understanding Jim Crow restrictions, gives a more complete view of the book and movie, The Help.


      Information from:   "Who Was Jim Crow?
                                      "What Was Jim Crow?" by Dr. David Pilgrim, Ferris State University

The penalty for voting

      

Tina Fey as Miss Bossypants

        I just completed Tina Fey's newly published memoir, Bossypants.  While she certainly has many talents and a lovable zaniness, Tina Fey can never be considered a dilettante.  Based on this book, she is a focused, workaholic.  All-nighters at work are nothing to her.  If she starts a project, she sees it to its end, and sees it done well.  Tina is a pioneer in the worlds of comedy writing, producing, and acting.  Historically, comedy has been the purview of men.  I've long been a fan, since her days at Saturday Night Live.  It is hard to realize how she completes all that she does as writer and producer of the television show 30 Rock, as performer, wife and mother.  She must not waste a minute of time.
      The book tells mostly of the start and rise of her career from the improv days to 30 Rock.  She includes information about her adult personal life only in the context of her work. We don't learn details of her meeting and relationship with her husband.  We're not even sure of his name. We do hear about the birth of her daughter and her love for her is obvious.  She tells about her childhood and her father, who was a very dominant figure in her early life.  In true Tina Fey style, her story is told with humor and honesty.  She seems without guile and without vanity.
      After portraying Sarah Palin on SNL during the last election, she received hate mail from the many fans of Mrs. Palin, but seems undaunted by it.  It did help that Mrs. Palin was eventually a guest on the show.  Tina Fey really enjoyed imitating her in the "debate" with Amy Pohler as Hillary Clinton.
      I recommend the book to anyone wanting a career in television, anyone who admires Tina Fey, and anyone who likes a laugh.  The book is just so Tina Fey, or at least the one we know and love on tv.
My only complaint about the book is the cover, a portrait of Tina with great, hairy, man arms, but I think I understand the symbolism. What she does is often seen as the handiwork of men.  Only someone without arrogance or vanity could have agreed to that photograph.

    ( Bossypants by Tina Fey, published by Little Brown and Company, April 2011, $26.99)

     

Confessions of an ex-English teacher

The junky bookcase in the computer room

My dear husband Dan posing before New Year's Eve dinner

      One passion I have had since grade school is books.  My sister used to call me "Books" because I always had one, was looking at one in stores or reading one.  Through the years, I have kept quite a collection of ones I've read or wanted to read.  I've given many of them to library book sales and to friends, but I still have two walls of  filled book shelves in my house.
      Halloween, when kids were coming around for trick or treat, one little boy looked through the open
front door at one book shelf and asked, "Is this the library?"  I like to read books and almost always have one going, and I like to look at them and hold them.  Some day, I might buy a Kindle, but I'm not ready yet. It might be too hard to stick in my pocket, the car glove compartment, or on the hammock.
     I have a small collection of first editions that I keep in a closed, fairly dust-free cabinet.  Most of them are modern books, but I have one or two that in 100 years may be worth something. My favorite was given to me by my mother-in-law, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" by T. S. Eliot.  It was the inspiration for the Broadway play "Cats."
     In this blog, I will occasionally write about a book or an author.  I'll never get over being an ex-English teacher.
                                      A Book of verses underneath the bough,
                                      A jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou
                                      Beside me singing in the wilderness
                                      Oh, wilderness were Paradise enow!
                                
                                  (E. Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam)

For the latest on good books see the blog, BookSlut.