Death of a One Design: the Clearwater Optimist Pram

One my first writing submissions was to Sailing World magazine in April, 1987, about the impending demise of the Clearwater Optimist Pram. Written after the last Clearwater Optimist Pram Association sanctioned regatta, held in Key Largo, it was my second submission to a sailing magazine. The mostly-a-rejection letter from editor Chris Hufstader was encouraging however, asking for a shorter, less detailed article and better, higher detailed black and white photos to be used in a later issue.  The article never happened [ed note: at least to the best of my knowledge.] 

A recent meeting with a youth sailing group in Port Charlotte led me to dig out my old files and the article about youth sailing was one of the files I found stuffed in an old envelope. Here is the original article, complete with the originally submitted photos. 

George
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"They didn't invite prams!” my daughter wailed as she read the racing flyer for the 1985 Junior Orange Bowl Regatta. She had taken 2nd place in her age division the previous year in the Clearwater Optimist Pram class. This year, however, the event was only for International Optimist Dinghies.

The previous Jr. Orange Bowl regattas had separate competition for each class, the prams and the dinghies sailing for separate trophies. The regatta organizers, the Coral Reef Yacht Club, fearful of a small turnout in prams, elected to concentrate on the dinghy, called the IOD, [today universally called the "Opti"] and drop the pram altogether.

Two separate classes for the funny little 7 foot, spit-rigged, blunt-bow boat that has been familiar in Florida waters for many years? Yes, the Pram and the Dinghy are different boats, with separate USYRU governing bodies to sanction their respective events. Both classes are identified by the 0 with the over-struck I. The pram sail, however, is identified by it's affiliated club or group. LYC for Lauderdale Yacht Club, MYC for Miami Yacht Club, SSS for the Sarasota Sailing Squadron for example, followed by the assigned number. The IOD sails are all identified with a country's letters followed by the nationally assigned number.

International Optimist Dinghy, sailed by Josh Rosen and Clearwater Optimist Pram, sailed by Monica Mindling

The boats seem identical to the casual observer. In fact, many skippers can't tell a wooden IOD hull from a fiberglass pram hull when they are down-rigged and sitting side by side. Everyone is accustomed, however, to seeing the two boats built the other way around, as the IOD today is usually fiberglass and the traditional pram a varnished mahogany. Both are racing boats. Anyone who has ever attended one of the many youth regattas on the Florida circuit can attest to that fact. The pram, however, is facing a shorter schedule with fewer and fewer regattas. Why? What has happened and what is happening to the boat that started one of the most popular racing classes in the world? How did the odd predicament of two boats with the same insignia come about anyway?

The "Soapbox Derby" was directly responsible for the creation of the original pram. Optimist Club of Clearwater member Ernie Green had been promoting an idea of a "waterborne orange crate derby" as an alternative to the four wheeled, home-built creations that would more aptly suit Florida's climate and mostly flat terrain. Colonel Clifford McKay spoke to the club in August, 1947, suggesting a year-round activity to occupy the local boys and girls. With plenty of sailing water at it's disposal and a want for a project to combat juvenile delinquency (remember those days?), the Optimist Club of Clearwater found the answer. The timing was perfect. Local boat builder Clark Mills, who also designed the Windmill, another one-design, had the answer in a design that a father and son (or daughter) could build in the backyard and sail in a fleet of boats that were all built to the same specifications. The club quickly voted on adopting the pram as their youth project and the Clearwater Optimist pram was born. To build a fleet of boats was a task that would need help. Local merchants were asked to sponsor boats. For $75.00 a sponsor could have his trade name or store name painted on the side of the hull. No one was concerned about USYRU officials, who today would be gasping for air, when the fleet set sail with 29 boats boldly emblazoned with names of proud sponsors.

The last sanctioned COPCA regatta

A similar fleet soon was formed in nearby Dunedin. Col. McKay traveled Florida widely extolling the virtues of youth sailing. Ernie Green loaded prams in one of his moving vans and visited neighboring towns where youthful skippers put on sailing and racing demonstrations for interested parents and potential sponsors.

The Clearwater group was to suffer a major setback in April 1949 when a fire wiped out 20 of the 29 boats in it's fleet. An appeal was made over local radio station WTAN by Howard Hartley. The marvelous response from the people of Clearwater not only replaced the original 20 lost in the fire, but added 22 more! The launching ceremony was held July 2nd, 1949, and a new chapter in sailing was opened. The popularity of the pram spread quickly to Florida's east coast. The Miami Yacht Club started pram classes in 1951 that have been held twice a year, for 5 months each, ever since. The Lauderdale Yacht Club, Coconut Grove Sailing Club, Coral Reef Yacht Club, and the Biscayne Bay Club became involved and before long, regattas were sprouting up on both coasts. In Ft Myers, the Royal Palm Sailing Club, and further north, the St. Petersburg Yacht club. An interesting observation is that four of the mentioned clubs are members of SORC, the Southern Ocean Racing Conference.

The Clearwater Optimist Club was the sanctioning body for the class. Rule changes were voted on and generally accepted as proposed by club members. The popularity of the new, inexpensive boat was spread by several magazine articles extolling the virtues of the pram and the benefits of youth sailing. The Clearwater Optimist Prams even caught the eye of the City of Miami and the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. The second Pram National Championship was held in the Miami Marine Stadium in 1970. Unlimited hydros do very well there because the wind-protected facility was designed for power boat racing, but it was a disaster for the prams. The preliminaries for the Nationals were sailed in Biscayne Bay, but the finals were sailed in the Marine Stadium. The young sailors simply sat in the protected waters and floated aimlessly in front of the grandstands. It was an one hundred boat float. First time sailing spectators were less than impressed. The pram, however, was firmly entrenched with the sailing groups that used them.

Back in 1954 Axel Damgaard, a Danish architect, introduced the pram to the Vordingborg Sailing Club of Denmark. Several were built according to the standard pram plans and it wasn't long until the boxy, hard chined little dinghy spread across sailing groups throughout Denmark. Olympic champion Paul Elvstrom became involved in 1957 and in 1959 the first regatta between Denmark and Norway took place. Sweden joined them in 1960 and a governing body was formed in Denmark to control the increasingly popular class. Regattas spread to Germany and England. An American delegation even competed in Denmark in 1964 and it was becoming more and more obvious an international body would be required to govern the burgeoning class. Viggo Jacobsen of Denmark became the first chairman of the International Optimist Dinghy Organization in 1965. The first International regatta held in the U.S. under IODA sanctioning was held in Miami in 1966.

However, several major changes were made to the original Clark Mills design in the migration to the International rules. First, the sail was slightly larger and the shape was altered to allow the use of two battens. There are no battens in the original Clearwater pram sail. The main sheet was no longer controlled from the end of the boom but from a center boom ratchet attachment, much as a Laser style versus the Force Five style of control. The dagger board was redesigned and the rudder was completely new. Instead of the pram's round inverted P shape, the IOD rudder now was a squarish, angled shape with the same width, top to bottom. The most important changes were made to the control the skipper had over running adjustments while under sail. The pram skipper could adjust sprit tension, down haul, vang, outhaul and even a jibe tensioner. The IOD skippers worked only the sheet. The changes to the hull were minimal, but enough that a properly built pram would fail to measure in against the stricter requirements of the IOD.

The American clubs were impressed with the speed the dinghies had over the prams and the fact the skippers could concentrate on racing tactics. Also, of course, it was a truly international class. As the lOD caught on with Florida skippers, many of the clubs began adding two classes to the youth regattas. Having separate starts over the same marked course for the prams and the 10D's. The Clearwater Optimist Club elected not to adopt the IOD rules and decided not to modify the pram to the new format as one factor was obvious; cost. The new IOD's with certificate were far more expensive than a pram, and they tended to be far harder to certify if home built. Trying to refit all of the current prams would not only be next to impossible, it might have killed the class altogether. The pram group suffered its second major setback as the IOD became more and more popular because of its international organization. By the middle of 1971, the pram group was for all practical purposes dormant. But enter Susan Bankston, of Largo, Florida. Susan's daughter, Debbie, became interested in pram sailing. It wasn't long until Sue became the spark-plug for the prams revival. Due to Sue's efforts, a real organizing body was founded specifically to govern the Clearwater Optimist Pram.

The Clearwater Optimist Pram Class Association, or COPCA, applied for USYRU membership. It scheduled four sanctioned events a year in addition to the multitude of individual club regattas. Each club had a delegate member in addition to the club officers. COPCA elected to tighten the rules, requiring rigid control of hull numbers and the Measurer's design rules. Strict rules were put in place to insure standardization by the boat builders. The pram class was designed to develop progressive sailors, not progressive constructors. Several well documented and publicized blatant admissions of cheating by some of the young skippers did the pram group no good. COPCA faced the problems by stiffening the signature over a COPCA stamp on strictly measured sails. The rules were still not as rigid as the IOD, but they solved the problems. At the 1978 Championships in Dunedin, Florida, Chief Measurer Fred Dinger noted that of 47 boats measured for specification tolerances, 23 boats, or 48% of the fleet, were rejectable to IOD tolerances. Judges and race committee members were enforcing the "no sculling, no rocking no ooching" rules with new enthusiasm and the protest committees became as proficient as anyone design class sailed anywhere. Most of the skippers were as knowledgeable of the rule book as the adult club members. As one protest committee member once told me after a particularly long drawn out protest, "Do you know what its like to be in a room full of twelve year old Ted Turners?"

The four events were the Florida State Championships, the Pram Nationals, The Pram Internationals, and the Clark Mills regatta. Several clubs became annual sponsors for these events and began a lasting association with the venerable pram. By the Early 80's, 60 boat pram fleets were again common. The Annual Miami Yacht Club December regatta in 1981 registered 103 boats, 60 in prams and 35 in IOD's, with the remainder in Laser M-rigs. The 1986 Nationals, sailed at Key Biscayne Yacht Club, had over fifty prams. That year was the current zenith as pram registration has gradually slipped backwards against the IOD.

Last year's (1987) Florida State championship had only 35 entrants. Today, the clubs that like to promote youth sailing are still using the wooden pram as a training boat but finding the competition is finer tuned and more visible in the IOD class. As one past US National champion in prams once remarked, "No one is interested in buying my pram, a championship boat, just because it is a pram."

While the COPCA pram regatta schedule seems to be full, missing a regatta isn't a traumatic event. Missing an IOD event is. Many parents find it hard to devote the time and money necessary to run the full IOD schedule, particularly if there is more than one skipper in the family. The pram group, while just as fervent in their support of their skippers, tend to make the outings a tailgate party rather than an event of Olympic importance. However, most of the IOD skippers still find prams to race when it comes time for the pram states and nationals. Almost all of the top IOD skippers have shelves filled with pram trophies. The age groups for the two classes are the same, eight through the year of the 15th birthday. COPCA has traditionally sponsored the fifteen to eighteen year olds in the Laser M rig, now switched officially to the Laser Radial, at the same regattas. Various groups pressure COPCA at times to change boats, depending on who sells what and when, and whether a particular boat favors a particular club, or even a particular skipper. 

Consistency has been COPCA's strong point, however, and maintaining the pram as the sanctioned design has been its strength as well as its weakness. In the last several years, traditional sites, dates and clubs have slipped away from COPCA. The Pram Nationals are no longer held at the Key Biscayne Yacht Club on Easter weekend. KBYC now hosts an IOD event that weekend instead. Coconut Grove Sailing Club has dropped the Clearwater prams altogether, even from their annual October youth regatta. New clubs are cautiously picking up the open dates. The newly revived youth group at the Royal Palm Sailing Club held the 1986 State Championships, and the Upper Keys Sailing Club of Key Largo, Fl, hosted the 1987 Nationals. At the Key Largo National event there were 22 prams and 7 Laser radials, a far cry from past Nationals. At the Key Biscayne regatta the week before there were 35 IOD's. The cost of traveling and staying on Florida's Gold Coast is not cheap, especially at the height of the season, and many parents are finding themselves making a choice between the pram and the IOD.

This isn't the first ebb the pram youth program has suffered. It has rebounded from inactivity as each successive group finds this inexpensive, safe and reliable little boat. It has withstood attacks from new designs, schedule changes, financial binds and rules changes. It will be around a long time to come. It would be interesting to survey the adult sailing population to see how many learned to sail in Clark Mill's little square boat

http://www.littletar.blogspot.com/2012/11/miami-teaches-more-than-sailing.html

George Mindling
Chief Measurer, Clearwater Optimist Pram Class Association 1986-1987

Miami, FL

Half Full

I never really thought much about philosophy. Well, except that it doesn't pay very well. I've listened to many philosophical conversations over the years and decided a lot of people are really good at fooling other people. But, then again I'm a techie, and have been ever since the Air Force stuck a wrench in my hand back when I was eighteen and said, “Here, kid, turn this.”

Philosophy has always seemed to be for those who had too much time on their hands, or an independent income that didn't rely on any particular skills or talent. I always laugh at pseudo-intellectual questions such as whether or not a tree falling in the woods really makes a noise if one of our arrogant, entitled humanoid species that coexists with everything else on this planet isn't around to hear it. That pretty much sums up my desire to engage in time-consuming, inconsequential exercises that keep me from going fishing.

Relationships? I have always treated other people pretty much the way they treat me. It seems to work, and I seem to be relatively happy for a 72-year-old white male who is supposed to be continually grumpy and upset about something or other. Well, from what I gather from television and the books I read at any rate. Apparently being happy at my age is like flagging yourself as being senile.

So, when the planned tour of the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile museum at the Cape Canaveral Air Force by our TAC Missileer Association earlier this year was canceled, I was disappointed but not discouraged. When the museum people offered to seat us in the press area for the launch of an Atlas V the same day as a substitute, I was thrilled.

When, just twenty-four hours before the scheduled event was to take place, the launch was scrubbed, I was once again disappointed, And, once again, when the staff at the museum came through and reinstated the original cape tour, I was once again thrilled. Our group spent two days touring both the Cape Kennedy Space Flight Center and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. We were among the fortunate few who get to tour the entire Cape, from our old pads at 21 and 22, to the Shuttle pads 39 A and B on the other side of the Banana River. With a little luck, I might get to see the launch after all, it was rescheduled to the following day when I would be visiting an old friend down in Vero Beach, some 80 miles south.

Some things are just not meant to be, a philosophical person may say, but I prefer to think we were just looking the wrong way when the Atlas V lifted slowly through the cloudless sky. We were ready, my friend and I, having set up lawn chairs under two huge shade trees, ready to watch the delayed show of immense power and technical skill. My friend's wife approached us as the scheduled time passed and asked why we were looking the wrong direction. Sure enough, moving to the other side of the tree, we could see the faint, disappearing contrail of the long departed missile as it headed down-range. Still, it was great to renew old friendships and catch up on old times. The missile was just anti-climatic.

The weather was great and it was time for me to head home after three days away. I had also managed to visit old friends in Orlando on the first day of my trip, and again on the evening of the second night when I met up with an old high-school friend for the first time in 55 years down in Cocoa Beach. Things just couldn't get much better.

Traffic was light as I headed across the state from Ft. Pierce toward home on Florida's west coast. The road is good, even after it drops to two lanes as it heads almost arrow-straight across the cattle country of Florida's mid-section. As I sped along, a flock of vultures gathered around some kind of road kill on the side of the road caught my eye. One of the birds in the flock was white. I slowed and at the first possible place, turned around and drove back to the congregation that included mostly Black Vultures and Turkey Vultures, or buzzards as everyone knows them, and two out-of-place Crested Caracaras. I got four photographs before they got apprehensive and flew off.

I was home within an hour, soon showered and fed, and before too long, back in the familiar grasp of my PC. Later in the day, I posted one of the Caracara photos on Facebook along with a comment I made about not seeing the launch. One of my friends commented I'm a “Glass is half-filled” kind of guy. Well, yes I guess that would sum up my philosophy, if I had one.

Black Crested Caracara foraging alongside State Road 70, Okeechobee, FL

Like a Rock

I carefully selected the old photographs I envisioned for our walk-in video. You know, the background video accompanied by knock-your-socks-off music every corporation puts on the big screen at the opening of every major corporate event. Or sometimes, as we have done in the past, played on the video playback units of the huge tour buses as we headed toward one of our special venues. 

While I thought the big tour buses would be a great way to show the video as the audience is basically captive, I found out at the 2009 Dayton reunion that wasn't always true as two old missilemen in front of me on the bus jabbered about a faded memory they shared from fifty years ago while my masterpiece played to the few who bothered to look up. I decided I would do it differently this year. I would make this one so dynamic they wouldn't even have to turn up their hearing aids. I was going to evoke memories that would bring tears to their eyes.

Visions of people wildly clapping, joyous at the marvelous integration of our nostalgic photographs from days gone by with the soul-stirring words and powerful guitar of Bob Seger's classic anthem, “Like a Rock,” flashed before me. This would be the third such video I've done for the TAC Missileers Association and my last, so I decided to keep it short and powerful. This video would have no Air Force anthems or bugle calls of Reveille. No, this would pluck the strings of everyone's heart as they saw themselves as we were some fifty years ago, standing tall as missilemen on combat duty in Okinawa, Taiwan, Korea, and Germany, overlaid by photographs from recent reunions showing us as we are now. Just over five minutes long, including every single unit's patch shown in chronological order with its own label, I knew I had a masterpiece. 

I pondered contacting the publisher of “Like a Rock,” or even Bob Seger himself to get permission to use the song, but decided it was far easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Besides, it was only going to be used once. I didn't plan on uploading the video so no one would know I'd used his music without permission. I rationalized he would allow using the song if he saw the video, so I wasn't worried. After testing the final video on my wife, who couldn't attend the upcoming TAC Missileer Reunion in Orlando because of her class schedule, really liked the video. I burned three copies to DVD as we used three buses the last time we visited an Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. I was ready, one for each bus. We had two tours scheduled at the nearby Cape Canaveral, but only Friday would we have all of our people together at one time.

There are two separate, distinct parts of the Cape. The civilian NASA part, which was our Thursday tour, houses the Kennedy Space Flight Center and includes the huge Vehicle Assembly Building, shuttle launch pads 39A and 39B and the Saturn V display hangar. The KSFC is located west of the Banana River. All other launch pads, such as the ones used for Apollo and Gemini, are on the east side of the river known as the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which we were scheduled to visit on Friday. The Air Force Station also houses the Air Force Space and Missile museum. Unfortunately, it is a military establishment and has been on security code Bravo since March. 

The museum was closed to the public and all tours were canceled, but only after our association had already reserved a tour. As a gesture of good will, the folks who run the AF Space and Missile Museum invited us to watch the launch of an Atlas V on Friday as their guests instead. Being invited to watch the launch of an Atlas V from the press area was a remarkable event for our group, the TAC Missileers Association. The consolation was as exciting as the scheduled tour as many of our association members have never seen a live launch.

Saturn V

Atlas V at pad 41

Pad 21 A & B Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

Our first bus trip on Thursday from the Embassy Suites on International Drive in Orlando to the Kennedy Space Fight Center didn't include all of our attendees as some elected to visit Mickey and his friends, or more productively, the Morse Museum of Art in Winter Park that houses the Tiffany collection. Only two buses made the trip, but it didn't matter, I lost two of the three video disks anyway. As long as I had all three for the trip on Friday to watch the Atlas V GPS IIF-11 launch from pad 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air force Station, my dream would be fulfilled.

Murphy was riding on our NASA bus on Thursday – yes, NASA runs its own tour buses around the Kennedy Space Flight Center as part of the admission ticket – and as we passed pad 41 off in the distance on the other side of the river – where we could see the Atlas being readied for launch – our bus driver casually mentioned it was an Atlas V mission scheduled for Friday that had been scrubbed.

After an agonizing night for our organizers and the marvelous people at the Space and Missile Museum, the original Cape tour was reinstated to compensate for the scrubbed launch. So, on Friday morning, armed with the only Walk-in DVD I could find, I was ready to show the video on each of the three buses in succession.

While many of the members had little connection with the one pad that was special to all the veterans from my particular system, the marvelous volunteer tour guides let us stop at Pad 21A and B, and get off the buses. Special memories from the early sixties swept through the few who knew the place, and as we all know, we'll never be back. As we pulled out of the Museum parking lot, I handed the DVD to the driver to play on the bus system. A great time for the video, you'd think, but cries of protest from two women in the front of the bus put a crushing end to my vision.

“Turn off that horrible music!” wailed one gray-haired woman even before the TAC Missileer logo rolled onto the display screen. A second woman immediately picked up the complaint, loudly protesting that the music I specifically selected to get everyone's attention was awful. The bus driver quickly stopped the video and that was that. I put away the DVD, disgusted that the two women who stopped the video weren't even missilemen. They outranked everyone on the bus: they were wives.

Saturday morning was filled with goodbyes and handshakes and promises to meet again in two years in Las Vegas. We know we won't all make it to the next reunion, our ranks get thinner every year. I started my truck and rolled south and thought about the video, “Like a Rock.” Yeah, we were like rocks back then. Young, smart – or dumb as rocks depending on your point of view – but we were the best. Well trained and dedicated to our beliefs. We did what we were trained to do, and we did it better than everyone else. Yes, we were rocks back then, but that was a long, long time ago. Way back before we got married or began wearing hearing aids.

Stuff

"Stuff" Originally published in the Florida Weekly Newspaper the week of October 22-28, 2015.  It was my entry to a writing contest.  I didn't win, but they published the entry in the paper. _______________________________________________________

Stuff

He stooped over, a reaction he immediately countered by quickly straightening up and slowly looking around. Everyone was busy researching computer data bases or involved in their scanners. No one paid attention to him. He stood on the staircase, confused by the diversity of the items carefully, almost lovingly, laid on the wooden steps that led up to the second floor. The items up there were being indexed by Orom's team. The two team's members did not interfere with each other as even the stair case had been politically divided into a lower half and an upper half. One of Orom's specialists, a female from the domestic anthropological research team worked several meters above him. She glanced at him, he could see her eyes shimmering through the clear environmentally secure face mask, but they did not communicate.

DonTel returned his attention to the items below him, His first scan had returned a positive on an item known as a “Doll,” laid a single increment above a vessel made of natural, woven material that ingeniously incorporated a carrying handle into its design. The contents of the basket confused him. They were obviously used to facilitate eating, but they were much smaller than the ones found earlier in the main food preparation area. InfoBase reported the items might be used for training the young, but they doubted the offspring used such an incomplete set of vessels as the actual utensils for nourishment. InfoBase had no idea how the white container next to it integrated into the scenario. The closest item in the data base was a fragile, oddly shaped device used to display flowers instead of containing a food stuff. That did not fit known parameters, especially since his diagnostic scan indicated the vessel was created roughly within the same time frame as the doll.

How did they select which food to eat and which ones to display, he mused. He once again focused on the doll, dressed quite differently from what the electronic media intercepts had led them to expect. The garment covering the doll held his stare, it was actually quite beautiful.

A light glinted to his right, from above, on the stair case. The female above him slowly pointed to another basket laying on the step below her. The basket was bigger than the one with the miniature food serving vessels. His scanner displayed “Sewing kit” as he focused on the basket that was daringly not in his authority to index. He felt his metabolism increase. It was the first time he interacted with a female member of the investigation team since they had entered earth orbit. He simply hadn't had the opportunity. The preparation for the on-earth probe had been intense and no time was wasted on anything but the task at hand. He looked up at her and stared directly into her dark eyes. She turned away to again look down at the artifacts. Her ID tag was orange-orange–green. He would look her up at the debriefing after they returned to the on-board laboratory.

He scrolled through the data on the sewing kit. It was a collection of components used to manually assembly clothing. He had seen such items during his in-depth holographic training, but this was his first encounter with the real thing. The female of the human species actually manipulated their five-digit extensions on the end of each arm to fasten different pieces of fabric together with a continuous filament of some sort to adorn themselves, and, oh, for warmth, he remembered.

He stared at the doll with new interest. Obviously, it didn't need to be kept warm, yet it was cloaked in one such manually assembled garment of shimmering blue. Cautiously he glanced around. His counterpart working above him again gave no sign of his presence, but she slowly turned her head to watch as he slowly stooped over and allowed his scanner to envelop the doll with its reddish force field. The doll was instantly recreated over three hundred kilometers away exactly as the scanner read it, atom by atom, molecule by molecule. His vision became intense and narrowly focused. He wanted more than to scan the doll, he wanted to touch it. He wanted to pick it up and hold it, an absolute disobeyal of orders! Under no circumstances were there to be any indication of their presence! Nothing was to be moved, or even touched. There would be no history, no clue to their visit. To disobey the order meant immediate removal from the exploration program. Nothing would be tolerated that would jeopardize the voyage. Betraying their presence on earth was a breach that could possibly end the entire visit, much less the data collection process.

The rules didn't encompass his desire. He was so excited he was afraid his vital signs would flag him for security monitoring. He couldn't contain his emotions as he shut off the scanner and slowly extended his upper left extremity, hovering just beside the doll. He paused, and as soon as the scan field completely collapsed, slipped his multi-jointed appendage under the doll and slowly lifted it off the stair case. The dolls eyes mechanically opened as he tilted the doll toward him and from inside the fabric and ceramic creature a bellows collapsed and the doll said quite clearly, “Ma ma.”

His analysis team responded immediately. Every probe team member's visor filled with red alarm warnings and the emergency recall was initiated before DonTel could look up. Both entire teams of twenty were gone within seconds.

Balanchine waited an hour before crawling out from behind the window curtains. She sat on the window sill anytime she wanted privacy from the humans who noisily dominated the house. She slowly crept to the edge of the stair case and laid down, tail twitching nervously. The strange energy was gone, except for a faint, strange odor that her owners would never detect. She cautiously sniffed the air and listened for any sound, her ears twitching and turning. The dog downstairs had slept through the entire probe, not even barking at the doll's unexpected call. Only a cat would know they were gone. Only a cat would know they were even there.

George Mindling

Port Charlotte, FL

West Lake - January 2nd,1987

I've put several of my first articles in blog format. One of my first, and definitely one of my favorites, is about my daughter, Monica, and a canoe trip we took on January 2nd, 1987. She was 15. 

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Monica and I arrived at the West Lake boat ramp in the Everglades National Park over an hour later than planned. We were late getting up having spent the day before, New Year's Day, eating and watching football. Even though we packed my pickup truck the night before, we didn't get to the park office until well after sunrise. 

My daughter and I usually headed south to Everglades National Park every Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, while many of our friends crowded to Dadeland Mall for the annual shopping frenzy, but not this year. The day after New Year's was our first opportunity to canoe the park and camp overnight. We hoped we would have the vast National Park to ourselves once again.

Loading the canoe at West Lake Boat Ramp

The park ranger at the main gate advised us our destination, the primitive campsite at Alligator Creek, might be awash and probably not usable. He called the park office to check and they advised us not to plan on camping due to recent incredibly high tides. They had not issued any permits for over a week because lunar and solar alignment had caused serious problems as far north as the Carolina coast. The high tides had receded in the last several days however, and the rainy weather that spoiled everyone's Orange Bowl parade had finally dissipated. Bad weather wasn't due again until Sunday, two days away, so it was go now, or wait until my next time off in April. I convinced the ranger we could arrive at the campsite and have time to return to the facility at West Lake if indeed the site proved "uncampable." Everyone liked that idea and we were given the permit with the ominous warning, "WARNED OF HIGH WATER AT CAMPSITE" printed across the space for destination.

We wanted calm water to cross the first three open miles of water at West Lake in our fully loaded canoe. The first mile was no problem and we enjoyed the quiet lake taking time to just adjust to our cramped canoe. The calm air lasted until we were exposed in the center of the lake. The first ominous "cat's paws", the innocuous and slight changes in water color caused by the first minute ripples, the first gentle hint of wind, were beginning to scatter around us from the north. At first I was glad they weren't coming out of the east as I have no great love for paddling into the wind. It only took fifteen minutes and the waves were rolling against us, almost as high as our gunwale. We timed our strokes so the crest of the waves arrived as we had the port side as high as we could manage without rolling the canoe. For once I wished the wind were head on instead of dead abeam, or broadside. Luckily, the wind didn't get worse, and the waves held at less than white caps. Monica started facetiously singing about it being a pirate's life for her as we worked toward the far side of the lake.

Entering Long Lake

As we took our first breather and coasted up to the white plastic PVC pipe used to mark the trail at the end of West Lake, we noticed the old wooden marker was still in place. We had canoed West Lake before and knew the marker was the beginning of a short, twisty creek through the mangroves that leads to Long Lake. We usually turned around here on our day trips, this would be our first paddle all the way to the end of the trail

Heading into the shade of the mangrove canopy meant break out the industrial strength bug repellent. This is one routine we have down pat. We always wear long sleeve shirts, light cotton ones as much for the sun as for the bugs. We cover everything plastic we ever want to use again, from plastic sun-glass lenses to watch crystals, because the insect repellent will destroy most plastics. Then we spray each other down, buddy style. It doesn't pay to have your buddy upset with you or he or she may leave insidious gaps in your chemical armor. Today, however we are pleased by the comparative lack of mosquitoes. We have been here in the summertime, called the "off season", and paid dearly for it. Not just with mosquitoes but also horse flies and what we used to call deer flies. I'm sure they have a different name down here. Probably alligator flies.

We took it easy through the first creek and I checked the time. It was 10:35 a.m. We had shoved off shortly after 9:00 o'clock and had worked hard the last hour. We paddled the creek slowly, waiting for the hordes of insects we knew were waiting for us. We broke out into the northwest corner of Long Lake and searched down the lake with our binoculars for the next marker. The marker sits ominously in the middle of the next section of the trail. We picked up the pace again and watched a lone egret off against the western shore of the lake. The wind didn't effect the narrower, more protected lake as much as the first one, and we paddled without the constant fear of being swamped. We were between being quiet for the sake of seeing wildlife and the need to be as quick as possible with a full canoe.

We were startled by a Great Blue Heron that made great squawks as it jumped from the overhanging foliage just a few feet from our port bow as we passed to the right of the first mangrove island. We saw no more wildlife for the next hour as we worked our way down an appropriately named lake. The mangrove islands make it a little more interesting than the first lake. The National Park Service has done a well thought out job and there is no need to take any maps at all as long as you follow the trail markers. Anyone could canoe this trail without any serious detours into never-never land. They might complain about the endless mangroves, perhaps, and maybe about the lack of convenience stores for beer or soft-drinks. They would most certainly complain about their bladders. There is no solid ground on this 8 and a 1/2 mile trail and endurance here is a necessity. We carried bottled water as we stay away from soft drinks especially in the sun.

Red Mangroves at Long Lake

As we approached the end of Long Lake we were startled by the sudden and dramatic change of water color; It turned red. Not clay red or just reddish, but blood red. Monica suggested it was probably from 'gator feeding. The color was from decaying red mangrove leaves. It is startling, none the less. Oddly enough, it was the only place on the trail that was that color. By the time we had paddled on another five minutes, the opaque water again turned a brownish color.

After a short, wide creek came a sharp left that skirted the edge of a wide pond that is actually Long Lake. The turn takes you into a mangrove canopy that is so thick the overhead foliage does not belie the presence of the shallow, wandering trail. If it weren't for an occasional tree limb obviously cut with a saw you would think you had made a wrong turn at the last pond. We startled a small green heron into flight. It flew down the creek with nowhere else to go but along the creek.

We took another breather, this time a little more seriously, and in the silence we're soon startled by voices coming from further down the trail. As we emerged out into the next lake, called the Lungs, we surprised two men fishing from a blue canoe tied to the trail marker. They appeared as startled as we were. We exchanged small talk. While we were talking one caught a salt water catfish. The other held up a stringer of what appeared to be good sized drum. When we told them we were going to Alligator Creek campsite they told us it was muddy, but usable. I was relieved to hear we would be able to pitch our tent but I was still concerned about conditions.

  
Monica made another crack about a pirate's life for her and we started across the last long stretch of open water. There are three markers in the Lungs, one at each end to mark the creeks, and one where the trail bends to the west about halfway across the lake. The wind was at our backs for the first time since we started. We talked about the return trip and decided this would be the hardest part of the return trip if the wind didn't clock around on us.

We started the next creek surprised by how much wider it was than the earlier ones. The foliage changed, too. Buttonwoods and hardwoods covered the banks as we realized this was more than just mangroves. We startled flocks of tri-color herons and egrets of all sizes as we worked slowly into the narrowing creek. As the noisy herons settled down it got quieter and quieter. Soon, not a sound could be heard. Not even our paddles softly pushing us further and further into the overhang made any sound. After five minutes or so, we stopped paddling altogether just to marvel at the stillness. We glided silently along the creek, neither of us paddling. My ears began to ring as I looked around the creek. Monica sat motionless. Our creek had become an environment neither of us expected.

There are times in your life when you forget what quiet is. Really quiet, absolute stillness, when your visual senses become so heightened you think you've lost your hearing. When you experience it again you are amazed by the impact of silence, a feeling of almost deafness. Our incredible stillness exploded when a large alligator crashed through the creek overgrowth inches from our bow and crashed heavily into the water almost hitting the side of canoe. The spray from the splash got Monica more wet than me. She sucked her breath and pulled her paddle tightly across her chest. We sat motionless for a few moments as the entire experience slowly evaporated back to the silence that allowed us to hear our own heartbeats.

Monica finally exhaled, still clutching her paddle across her chest. We watched the trail of bubbles that marked the alligator's path through the brown, murky water. After a few moments we paddled on, neither saying a word. I noticed Monica wasn't taking a full bite with her paddle. The gator was at the bottom, below us somewhere, waiting for us to leave. We have startled alligators completely out of the water with our paddles before, and seeing the size of this one, I didn't blame her. I hit one in the back with a paddle accidentally while pushing through a slough at Noble Hammock and scared it as badly as it did us when it jumped high out of the water alongside our canoe. Monica had been sitting in the middle of the canoe between my brother and me and got to see the white underbelly as the gator flopped back into the water.

This was our first 'gator on the trip but not our last. We paddled another hundred yards and scared three more sunning gators off the creek bank. They dove into the water one after another as if choreographed. It was like someone throwing refrigerators in the water one after another. I have been around alligators since I caught my first one in a shrimp net when I was twelve. I don't fear them but I certainly don't get careless either. They can be very dangerous, and can cause serious damage or injury even accidentally. I hadn't envisioned a startled gator crashing into the canoe, or worse yet, in it. I was curious about the size of these guys, though. Usually we see smaller ones in greater numbers than the big ones, but not here. We have seen only fairly big alligators. None of the four we scared off the bank were under nine or ten feet. We thought we had been observant before, but now we were really observant! 

The famous Noble Hammock trip with Dean & Monica
 Taking a break after accidentally hitting an alligator. 1979

The largest of the three arrogantly surfaced not six feet off Monica's left shoulder. Monica started to raise her paddle and the 'gator slipped quickly back beneath the surface. I told her he was looking for a peanut butter sandwich. I'm sure that as remote as this seems, the trail is very popular and I'm sure it had been fed before. Sort of an odd comparison to the bears out in the western parks I suppose, but the effect of free food can cause problems with any creature.

We start around the very next bend, and because we are tense and nervous, make a big mistake. We run up on one of the submerged logs that are plentiful in this one section of the creek. Stranded! We were stuck with our canoe bow wedged tightly in a submerged dead tree. We paddled backwards, at first normally, then almost frantically, but to no avail. Without speaking we stopped trying to free ourselves. We sat quietly watching the tidal flow. Watching the tidal flow for telltale bubbles. We finally spoke to each other and decided to backstroke hard on the left side while we both leaned to the stern of the canoe. One! Two! Three! and we were free. Traveling quickly backwards, we shot into the overgrowth on the creek bank behind us. After a few quick references to my canoeing ability, Monica leaned forward and started her Mark Twain act and called out the few logs and limbs we encountered as we slowly continued paddling down the trail. We scared one more alligator off the bank before we finally broke into a wide pond.

All the breaks we took before were simply for sore arms and tired backs. This break ranks in the Guinness Book of Records for total relief. We were both exhausted, as much from the tension as from the physical paddling. I checked my watch. It was almost one o'clock. We had paddled almost four hours. If we couldn't stay at the campsite, we would have to be back at West Lake ramp by sunset at 5:45 pm.  I checked my chart and was positive we were close to the campsite. We decided to press on.

As we started across the pond, I noticed a blotch of pink in a buttonwood tree at the far end. I talked Monica into a short detour to take a look. I managed several photos before the most beautifully plumaged bird I have ever seen in the wild flew off giving the appropriate noisy protests. It was a Roseate Spoonbill in full courting colors. It circled the pond several times, and as we left the pond, returned to the branch it rested on before we disturbed it. They are beautifully plumaged birds with an incredibly ironic twist; Nature gave them heads that would make a buzzard wince.

We pass a small island and start into the second half of Alligator creek. It is narrower than the first part but still wide enough for two canoes. We come across another large 'gator on the bank but this one doesn't move. We watch it at eye level as we glide past not six feet away. The lower branches of the overgrowth have eelgrass hanging from them. The water had been recently very high here as the eelgrass hanging at eye level had only started to dry out. We pass a clearing on the north bank. Camp site? No, no markers. We passed the remnants of an old wooden bridge, left over from the cotton days back at the turn of the century. It is at the end of the hiking trail that follows the old logging road.

Alligator Creek Campsite

The camp site lays just a little west. It is not a primitive campsite, it is a wilderness campsite. There is no chickee. There is no platform. You can see Florida Bay from the landing. You can also see the alligator lying not ten feet from the landing.

 

A ten foot alligator quietly watches from across the creek. Its head is directly above the bow of the canoe.

 
This campsite has a Macho Factor of 10. I was under the impression Alligator Creek was a primitive campsite with a chickee, a chickee being nothing more than a raised platform with a thatched, palm frond roof cover, it isn't; it is a wide spot in the mud.

Obviously, there is no decision to be made. We will be back at West Lake as soon as possible. We will walk out carrying the canoe, if necessary. We may even walk out without it at all! Monica states firmly that she does not like being watched while she eats. We had to land the canoe. I had to stand up and walk around. We landed the canoe and cautiously stepped out into the wet grey marl that looks amazingly like someone backed up a dump truck and unloaded several tons of modeler's clay. Everything was wet. There was nothing to use as firewood. The twelve footer had slowly turned itself for a better view of the newcomers to what is without a doubt, his domain. We knew we were being watched as we checked out what is really a great campsite.

We checked the time. It was twenty minutes after one pm. We gave ourselves ten minutes to stretch and eat. The eating didn't take long as Monica never took her eyes off our host. The thought of sleeping in the wet mud with no fire, separated from the inhabitants of Alligator Creek by only the thickness of tent fabric was not particularly appealing. I could have stayed home and watched Penn State and the University of Miami go at it in the Fiesta Bowl. It was time to go.

Monica knew the return trip would not be fun. We have been canoeing for several years and know when to switch sides, strokes, and even when to swap insults. She starts singing jokingly but we are soon saving our energy for the hard part. We are tired but not yet sore. The spoonbill watched cautiously, but since we didn't come close this time, decided not to fly off. I was sternly warned of logs in the second half of the creek and we avoided any problems. We scared only one gator off the bank during the return trip.

 We met two young men in a rented empty, aluminum canoe going toward the campsite just before we broke out into the Lungs. They were German tourists and naively wore only shorts. From what we could see, they had nothing with them except one bottle of water. They asked us politely if we had seen any alligators as they hadn't seen any. Not one! They were unimpressed with our experiences, so we smiled, wished them the best and pressed on. They probably paddled all the way to Flamingo without seeing anything. I didn't know what their plans were but ours included paddling hard for the next four hours.

Our worst fears were confirmed when we broke out into the Lungs. We were dead on the wind. It wasn't quite a mile but we couldn't pause even slightly as the wind was causing us more grief than expected. The blessed relief of the next creek, the overgrown one, was an opportunity to catch our breath. The fishermen were gone. We had our second wind as we started Long Lake, No jokes about the water color. No jokes about how the lake got it's name. Just plain, hard work. The wind was off our starboard quarter and while not helping any, it wasn't as bad as the Lungs. We pulled up into the lee of one of the small mangrove islands and broke out the drinking water. Our planned ten minute stay lasted only a couple and we were again under way. Monica had settled into the repetitious state similar to long distance swimming. Stroke after stroke after stroke. As we passed the last marker leading to the last creek before West Lake, we sighed with relief. Just through the crooked path was West Lake and finally, the ramp. Just three more miles to the ramp! We had been paddling hard for over two and a half hours, but the knowledge of only one last challenge, I believe the motivational books call it, brought back the humor and the feeling of accomplishment.

West Lake 

We headed into the lake with the wind from the north and still very brisk. We stayed closer to the north shore and avoided the problem we suffered when caught in the middle of the lake earlier in the day. Pain had set in long, long ago, but if we knew if we kept up a constant pace we would be back at the ramp well before dark. We knew we didn't want to be in the canoe in the dark. We were in the lake for an hour and ten minutes.

Making the final right turn into the short, narrow channel to the boat ramp was quiet satisfaction for both of us. After several hard strokes, we silently coasted toward a group of tourists standing on the modern concrete dock, intently watching a medium size alligator floating in the water at the foot of the boat ramp.  

He too, is looking for a handout. The startled gator quickly disappeared and the surprised tourists watched us in awe as we tied up and unloaded at the dock.

I am immensely proud of my daughter. She hasn't complained once. Well, other than commenting on my canoeing skills. Nor has she quit. Monica put in more than a full day's work, and she still smiles, helping pack away the gear and tie the canoe down on the truck. By 5:00pm we were headed down the highway toward the campground at Flamingo. The last time we camped there we suffered one of Florida's coldest, windy April nights to watch Halley's comet at 4:00 a.m. But that is a different story.

The Coleman stove and lantern worked just fine. The tent was pitched and no sooner was dinner finished and the gear washed than we were both in the tent. Dry and somewhat warmer, we tuned a portable radio to the station that would carry the National Championship football game. Could Vinny Testaverde and the Hurricanes do it again? It didn't matter. By halftime we were both sound asleep.

© 1996, 2014 George Mindling

Go, Crackers!

We're Number One! We're Number One...

After the recent hype about how really noble and regal Florida crackers were, elevating a maligned, economically deprived segment of Florida's past inhabitants to a new level of admiration and respectability, I propose a change for the University of Florida mascot, currently a poor, disparaged alligator. Let's face it, "Gator" just doesn't cut it in today's market. 

Alligators are protected by law and somehow it doesn't seem fair in the area of "knock 'em silly" football for a team to be viewed as the sissies of the Southeast Conference by hiding behind legal shield of a protected animal. Besides, sometime, somewhere, someone is sure to file a lawsuit because they believe the name "Gator" defames alligators. After watching several recent football games, they may be have a point. Something needs to be done to bolster the UF football program in the post-Tim Tebow football era at University of Florida. I believe a name change just may do the trick. National greatness may once again lie ahead if they just change the name. What could possibly be more appropriate than Crackers!  Go, Crackers! Wow! I'm already excited!

Rival Florida State University has manipulated the "Tomahawk Chop," while murderous in its symbolic form, into an addictive power to synchronize not only a stadium full of 90,000 fans who will buy anything painted garnet and gold, but actually induce normally sedate adults sitting thousands of miles away into babbling idiots through the medium of television. Even certain ESPN commentators televising the game fall victim to its hypnotic power. Ever hear of garnet? FSU can sell anything painted that color as fast as it comes off the boat. Florida State University was way ahead of the politically astute curve by asking the Seminole Tribe of Florida to endorse their Seminole mascot and his pre-game spear tossing. I'm sure the benefits of that agreement are not for public consumption.

While seductive as the native American theme might be, the fact is they lost. That fact is also lost on the fans and the media. The newcomers won. The Seminoles, and the Calusas and Miccosukees all lost. Well, technically the Seminoles didn't lose the war as they famously never signed any formal cessation of war treaty. On the other hand, who owns Miami Beach? Remember, the University of Florida plays in the "swamp," better known as the Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, not Chief Osceola's Stadium.  Like it or not, the crackers won. Well, until the casinos came in, at least. 

The nickname University of Florida Crackers has a distinctive, erudite, superior connotation to it. Seriously and carefully developed and nurtured by a movement to elevate Florida's distinctive group of settlers who in reality, didn't have a pot to pee in, to a revered level normally reserved for "Daughters of the Mayflower." Real Florida Crackers couldn't afford bullwhips, much less use one. But, hey, to the victor go the spoils. The winners get to rewrite history and Erskine Caldwell book sales fall away as Tobacco Road gets paved over with modern history's rewrites. It's exactly what UF football needs...

 Go Crackers! We're Number One, We're Number One...