The Black Eel

Today's beachwalk revealed a black eel curled on top of a rock outcropping, while warm waves crashed and splashed against yet another eroding shoreline cliff, very similar to the scenario at Blowing Rocks Preserve. The setting was Santa Lucea Beach on Hutchinson Island.

Because a family member sports an inked (but not needled) tattoo of a remora on her upper back, bestowed during a week-to-week party in San Francisco, California, the similarity was noted and categorized as 'suspicious' in maternal brain-memory.

However, the proximity of the historical House of Refuge is a hint that other creatures might also periodically be flung onto the beach from the water, nearby -- hence the shoreside building. It is rumored quite officially, in the local newspaper, that an historic Spanish ship lies sunken underwater nearby as well, although only the hints of amateur boat-launchings can be seen wedged between two sizeable rocks (some kind of wooden crosspiece bearing nearly-new nails and screws).

One eel is not a lot, yet every bird within eyesight flapped and soared and dipped as his/her chance to grab the stiffened and very visible fish became instead the increased probability of airborne collision. Not far away the age-55+ condominium retirement community residents riveted their eyes on the lone seaboard tidbit (almost a two-footer) just as they had been taught to do whenever some odd creature gasps its last breath within the range of a household stove, the slope of the terrain and population mass become a palpable strain on the atmosphere.

The local newspaper also tells us that a great white shark that chomped the leg of a guy named Martin in Solano, CA, is long gone from those environs. As nightime darkens the skies and people turn their eyes and thoughts elsewhere, does Santa Lucia Beach become a tableau where a naughty shark finds repast?

Here's another

Remember the Presidential candidate who cried?

Stone 'hearts' are also found along the shoreline, as Mick and buddies will explain.

The Nose knows

There's nothing better for a body's health than an old-fashioned 'sleeping porch'. These typically can be entered only from within a house or apartment/condomium; one or two walls are entirely windows.

Forget drugs and devices to remedy sleep apnea (both the Associated Press and the National Education Association have your number). During a variety of physiological states, including grief, at least an entire bank of screened windows allows fresh, cool air to circulate such that real sleep becomes possible night after night. With many layers of bed covers or just a sheet, oxygen quietly permeates porch enclosure and nostrils when inhalation seems to be too much effort, or billows around a sleeping body so that a "heaving bosom" regularly intakes oxygen and releases carbon dioxide. A few potted plants to uptake the CO2 virtually guarantees safe, restful sleep.

Houses built during a certain era have enclosures which are specifically designated using the term 'sleeping porch'. Condomiums routinely include a porch area; only the ground-level porches have exit/entry doors. The second-floor-plus porches are approachable only wholly withIN the condo premises, and seem ideal for those who are paranoid (justifiably or not) about intruders.

Popular public-housing-style Florida condominium complexes have the enclosed porches with frosted/opaque glass panes at floor level, so that the sleeper is invisible to passers-by when bunking on the floor (unless grossly overweight). Social climbers are easily spooked when other, operational windows are opened and closed at floor level with the twist of a wrist, fearing that they have been left in the dust with regard to remote-controlled window-openers. When bunking on the floor in some over-rated neighborhoods, kneeling to the floor to sleep on coupled chaise-lounge pads also causes 'red alert' responses where guns are habitually passed along to control 'gators or armadillos roaming the region.

The household anachronism known as the 'day bed' was/is invariably found within household sleeping porches -- the size of a twin bed, it sports arm-rests and a back panel, and also seats two comfortably during balmy summer/tropical weather. 'Oriental' futons are functional analogues to the traditional daybed. Tote along some drinks and snacks.

Into the Can -- Theory and Sentiment

Decades ago, planning to investigate a small roadside-rest/monument site in Degolia, Pennsylvania, as an archaeological endeavor was broadsided with telephone report-demand calls that used all my replies to initiate new business enterprises and political actions. As reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Philadelphia, PA, small-building and flag designs intended to signal formal investigative work at the site were instead 'erected' elsewhere -- checkpoint building designs were set up to operate recreation-site snack bars elsewhere among other uses; incredibly enough, the flag designs have been published and claimed to be the new 'picks' of various foreign nations.

Other examples of 'Murphy's Law' include the installation of electric-window switches within many popular vehicle 'makes and models', with the knowledge that entrapment within such automotive confines during crashes or conflagrations might be inevitable -- as is characteristic of those escorted/guided into the legal-casework profession, the first tragedy and resultant test case was awaited but that test case might well appear to be 'Jackson' in California, where a glove-compartment 'escape hammer' device could not be reached through flames.

As previously noted as Internet input, the behavior of drivers operating the electric-window vehicles is observably different from that of other drivers, and there is some possibility that the extensive new road-building activity is intended to clear the way for such vehicle owners to drive directly to Detroit, Michigan, and demand window installations that have the greatest -- not the least -- probability of safe exit during accident or intentional smash-up.

Then, perhaps following, is the most direct route to fill the Niagara Basin at Niagara Falls, New York, with the rejected most inescapable vehicles, with the option for the Lackawanna Steel Mills to reclaim the metalwork and collect 'special' overtime pay.

The Cold Pope

Decades ago, the small city of Bradford, Pennsylvania in McKean County won a District Nine Basketball Championship, and although the games were ended the wordplay continued to use team-member names as a way to move southward. A branch campus of the University of Pittsburgh had been installed near Bradford city limits, while Saint Bonaventure University remains situated across the 'state line' in Allegany, New York.

Never mind that the Tun'a Creek watershed in McKean County really needed a research facility to document the unique features and characteristics of the region. Public school textbooks had already implanted the phrase, "look west young man" and swarms of Pittites relocated near the city of Pittsburg in the state of California. With the hope to maintain their positions in California, team memberships and alumni associations collaborated to plan and bring a Catholic Pope of the European continent to the San Francisco peninsula.

Never mind that the Catholic religion exists to perpetuate human existance within the mid-Mediterranean Sea environs of the nation of Italy, situated between continental Europe and the north African coast. Journalism of that time tells us that the Pope was injured within the confines of the Bayview District stadium where he was scheduled to speak. Ostensibly, he and his religious constituency agreed that earthquake study justified the trip.

This past week, a German-born Pope was again transported to the United States to speak at Yankee Stadium in New York City, apparently borne within a bullet-proof vehicle across the playing field to the podium. A Pope was again visiting to study circumstances of tragic catas-trophe as a function of religious role.

Will a bobble-head figurine of the international dignitary, holding a basketball, next be found on variety-store shelves?

It's Gone

Radio station WFRM was initiated in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, after the Queen of England made a surprise visit in the 1950s. The Queen as a representative of her people, apparently, suspected that the World War bombings of London were somehow traceable to German-American populations residing in PA. At the present time, website www.wfrm.net serves the Potter County region in PA, and provides printed accounts of happenings there.

Therefore, it is not a surprise that the egg mass described in a previous post has been immediately removed post-haste, together with the plastic-like panes from the solar lamp where it had been deposited here in the Kingswood condominium complex (Florida). A certain number of senior citizens from PA still carry a direct memory of the Queen and her visit, and maneuvers to take control of the orb seem to be an instinctive demonstration of scaled-down civil defense.

Reconstruction -- and some beachfront ordnance is gone

In past recent issues the Stuart News has printed up what we need to know during the present Martin County reconstruction phase, following two hurricanes in the region -- a very brief history of the cement block business, descriptions of explosive ordnance found and removed from various sandy oceanside locations, record-keeping that documents waterspout activity, unusual seal and bird visits from polar regions, and a predictable influx of populations who "winter" in Florida from places such as Canada.

Which brings us to some facts that should be a warning:

Bear Point county park on Hutchinson Island has been the depository of rubble in the form of cement block chunks carried away from structures damaged by the hurricanes -- a one-after-the-other wind-wave-and-rain pounding of Martin County -- and placed along the Indian River Lagoon shoreline to stabilize adjacent sandy road/trail, which appears to be a satisfactory use and solution to the problem of eroding trailways in tropical storms. That, and a boom in rebuilding with the use of cement blocks yet continues apace, perhaps heralding a future windstorm cement-block assault force never yet experienced.

Waterspout activity can be attributed to fish aggregates that 'storm' shorelines whenever desirable food is cast into the water, meaning that the fish back each other to reach the bounty. Add racism to the equation, and removal of explosive ordnance during shoreline survey/ construction work, plus the reality of human death toll from the previous hurricanes, and the possibility that the region hasn't "seen nothing yet" looms large in the species' psyche.

Popular ethnocentricism dictates the persecution of specific surnames, such attention contributing to a death rate from debilitated 'man-overboard' boat-capsize incidents, during which other species perceive who is wanted and who is not within genetic pools. Yacht clubs are numerous in the region, as an indication of maritime social status, but do the historically-pestered-and-peeved relatives of Pocahontas care a whit?

Televised weather maps show post-capsize cloud formations that have a pinwheel appearance when photographed. The bigger the weather-map pinwheel, the more active the storm and water disturbance from -- whale sharks, ocean sunfish, manta rays, and giant squids hurling themselves toward a drowning victim from points throughout the planet?

'Civilization' has been the title of a magazine publication, not expected to be a 'reduction' of military diplomacy.

Solar Cool

The advent of solar-powered outdoor lamp-lights is apparently an ongoing celebration among other species as well among humans.

Here in Florida, near four major waterways. lizards and frogs cohabit in and around the solar lamp-lights, with such resultant phenomena as:

o Frog sheds skin upon outside air-conditioner metal housing, inches from whirling fan blades; skin dries to lustrous hardness and can be removed or replaced as a sort of knick-knack.
o Lizard sheds mucousal coating which gives the little beast a gecko-like appearance; mucousal coating has resemblance to other mucousal matter, such as human vaginal discharge or fetal tissue lying in the roadway.
o Frogs pile up within the upright posts of solar-light lamps arranged along a condominium complex pathway, hanging heads and upper bodies out through post holes which at one time contained (as if threaded) a short cross-post (lost? differently appropriated?). Retreat means that the entire post vibrates and shakes from within, as if electrically wired to do so, as novel nightime action. Entire gestault viewed near cactus digitally modified to have cross-like appearance.
o A Komodo dragon lays eggs and dies in a United Kingdom zoo (journalism tells us); suddenly, a small white gellish orb with the appearance of a lifeless egg is found deposited on the inside glasslike pane of a solar lamp at Florida condo doorway near reptile mates.


And others:

o Tiny gopher tortoise digs tunnel near thorny vine on sandy road; the plant shoot arches a few inches just past a roadway curve, such that a bare foot or large toe might slide beneath the arch and be impaled or at least raked.
o A black snake variety known for its eventual huge size 'hangs out' near condominium complex signs that bear the appellation 'Kingswood'.

Stepping carefully is a must-see.

Toward a 'Special Tree' -- Body Count

Suspicions about the sudden boom in storage facility conversions have confirmed that such premises may be used to store more than family bric-a-brac and furnishings.

Last year, Florida journalism described a mummified infant found in a suitcase housed in a regional storage facility. This week, TV journalism ('Snapped') documented the discovery of an elderly woman found contained in a plastic-like trash receptacle housed in a California storage facility; the television situation comedy titled 'The New Ad-ventures of Old Christine' had already provided informal documentation of a certain sort. The influence network that had routed the woman into storage also exerted pressure on living 'Christines' to contribute comedy material to the sit-com with a resultant death rate.

The storage-facility business has been expanded into upscale acreages of buildings with gates and alarms, a business-domain which began with family-owned-and-operated garage conversions. It has become apparent that all such businesses should become the subjects of scheduled professional review actions, since "old Christine" may have been locked away in the trash receptacle for "more than three years" while participating influence networks pooled information that would continue the TV series.

Planning Presidencies and the Need to Have '111'

Northwestern Pennsylvania's Appalachian Mountain range includes the Allegheny Mountains, home to oil refineries installed after boom-town woodcutters cleared the deadwood from forests to build homes. The oil industry can be dangerous and exhaustive work, demanding much cooperation from area denizens as family-owned-and-operated businesses strive to maintain standards of safety and cleanliness. The Cline family is one such company located just outside Degolia, PA, in McKean County's Bradford, PA area.

Cut to the Clinton presidential campaigns and the Democratic Party, which brings us many new and innovative machine designs and purposes. Both bids have been backed so as to require mandatory citizen reports and other cooperation which will assure continued and complete fail-safe industry operations -- an effort that also hopes to formalize practices which route U. S. citizens into Canada and beyond if immediate responses are not made during report-demand actions.

Many people die during such demand actions, when sleep and other vital functions are compromised -- at the least an embarassment for those who have contributed to such untimely demises. Therefore, an effort has been made to generate first the '911' emergency-call procedure (successful) and also a '111' sudden-death call procedure (huh?). '911' is no longer big news but where is '111'?

As hurricane season approaches...

The health of easterly condominium populations near the St. Lucie River is assured with an adjacent wooded area left in its natural state in northern Stuart; the wooded area extends to the river proper, also assuring a mental grip for boaters and other waterway habituees. Since concrete-block houses have been built along both sides of the river in Martin County, access to or from the waterway is now restricted, such that the woodland has become especially vital.

A West Palm Beach television station broadcasts reminders that all trees should be trimmed and properties cleared as hurricane season approaches. The woodland left in its natural state contains dead brush that can be removed; with that aim the attention of the Scouts of America was noted last year. However, the Scouts have only cleared out areas near their family condos; although it should be a simple matter to schedule legal small-site troop-training clean-up within the post-hurricane region (Scout troops are on record throughout the state of Florida and beyond) the pile-ups have instead been deteriorating naturally.

So far so good, but the question remains -- what do the troops actually do beyond continuous training and badge awards, erection of structures and clearing of land so that their members can be employed within the U. S. Forest Service? Tiny tots with guns are not an unusual pheno-menon within the troops, and alarm over the behavior of hungry salamanders and the flight patterns of sparrows may have been translated into the bombing of Japan (giant salamander of Japan) and the United Kingdom (English sparrow) in the past, not to mention the continual shootings of other young people claimed to be "gangland" warfare within regional journalism.

Shifting sand covers and uncovers embedded rocks in the soil, while gardeners 'go haywire' over the movements of other species and the lack of trimming/harvests from the preserve. As a vital source of oxygen near river and coastal waters, the preserve remains the same.

Roadway renovation finished -- roadkill toll rises

Only last year I ate alligator for the first time in my life, tucked away in some gumbo pre-doused with Louisiana hot sauce. Sad to say, the 'gator meat appeared to be young and cut into tiny squares.

How insensitive of me. Returning to the Stuart, Florida, area last year with a family member, an adult armadillo was observed in the roadway, cracked open alive with a split extending from throat to tail, internal organs spilled out onto the pavement. The roadway extends onto the first of two bridges spanning two major watersways, where cars must accelerate (per instructions in driver-training manuals) around a curve; there was not an injury or mark on the beast otherwise.

Most of the roadkill observed drop dead from anxiety before they are ever hit or slaughtered within vehicular traffic flow -- a polecat, as example, in perfect condition with the appearance of a plush children's toy and physiology that seems to be a cross between California 'tuxedo cats' and large squirrels. A telephone call made to local animal-control dead-animal pick-up apparently could not be accomodated by the hurricane-shocked populace, so that an eagle carried away the dead creature and returned only the pelt weeks afterward.

Such pelts are routinely left along roadways as returned by the eagles, both here and in other regions of the eastern United States, as if communicating that "they are sorry, but they are hungry, too". Squirrels, skunks, cats, bears and other mammalian remains litter roadways along with the shed skins of reptiles, peeking yet-alive with bright new scales from grass and trees.

Journalism during this past two weeks reported a large-pig kill in a regional roadway that also killed the driver that hit 'im. Last night a West Palm Beach television station broadcast a video of a large alligator dead in a roadway, bloody and shredded in traffic together with a crashed truck, injured driver and several disturbed motorists while large wading birds shrieked and hip-hopped near the carcass.

Red, skin-searing ants march without much opposition throughout Martin County, as if on patrol avenging their much larger, toothy relative the armadillo. The bites can only rise up in the form of painful, white-capped pimples where-ever the insect mandibles get a grip; they pierce and hold on to skin and curl up, resisting efforts to dislodge them -- which means that sandals are not verboten, but that crowding the little beasts is not recommended.

Flocks of crows signal with loud cries when a human drowning victim surfaces in the local waterways, with a mourning note when one of their own is blamed and pulled from the air to be smashed on the ground.

So what else is new?

more transportation spectacles

The Stuart News dated 4/2/2008 has a front-page story with headline titled, '20-year-old to sail solo across the Atlantic', telling us that a young man from Sweden has parted company from his "friend, mentor and professional sailor" aged in his 60s. A photo shows the young sailor, become the subject of an influence network, leaving Martin County "to begin his...solo voyage across the Atlantic". We are told that the mentor is an author, but are not told his whereabouts as the return trip begins.

On the way to the Savannas Preserve State Park hiking trails near Jensen Beach, Florida, a boat nearly the size of the "vogage" vessel could be seen foundered in the Indian River Lagoon after the weekend's thunderstorms; not far away a dinghy floated along the shoreline as well, without any apparent mooring. Hiking through the ranger-staffed park was uneventful -- young alligators could be seen paddling in the flooded terrain basin, in the company of a small toad and tortoise reconnoitering on the trails from a distance, as well as baby fish and a sizeable number of birds. The park has a new bridge built across one portion of the flood-plain basin, and a sign at the entrance names the place as one of the best, medal-awarded; the visitor's center informs us that feral cats number among the menaces to the flood-basin aquatic nursery/natal grounds.

Below:  unusually close praying mantis [time-stamp dates are wrong]

After repast at a local Mexican restaurant, the return drive to the condo complex was notable because an usually loud impact noise could be heard from afar.

The 11:00 p.m. TV journalism broadcast from West Palm Beach Station showed a video of an older-model semi-tractor-trailor truck being driven the wrong way on a four-lane roadway, directly beside the concrete center-barrier (opposing the fast lane). The video also showed the truck ultimately crashing into the barrier and jack-knifing, the entire vehicle set afire from the impact, as an instant holocaust in the roadway. The setting appeared to be daytime.

The young sailor, obviously coached to speak prior to send-off, had said he was "very, very nervous"; his generational counterpart in the truck has perished perhaps as a result from similar attention.

Apes R U. S.

Decades ago, with buddies while surveying the Willow Bay area of the Kinzua Valley dammed and become the Allegheny Reservoir just outside Marshburg, Pennsylvania, a large porcupine and progeny hurled themselves through the air to grasp a tree trunk high off the ground. The common interest was the same -- to ascertain just what type of hazards/dangers the new dam
had generated. Already, a fellow had 'forgotten' that some area roads no longer led into the game preserve valley, slated to be written up picture-book-style, but instead were suddenly submerged within tons of river water dammed.

Within the United States there are other habitats that have generated different sort of hazards and but similar types of dangers using transplanted palm trees -- a quantifiable percentage of such trees shipped in from mid-Pacific Ocean islands, bringing with them the attention of deep-sea creatures to North American ports-of-call. Other palm trees are planted in neat rows; with anthropomorphism largely decried, some populations choose to instead identify themselves with the palms in appearance and physical timbre as demonstration of symbiosis, without the historical comprehension that some adult palm trees are transplants from different ecosystems.

Which means, therefore, that the porcupine's behavior was appropriate, but that populations of human beings who purposefully fling themselves at palm trees can be a harmful displacement phenomenon and damned.

What color is your pyramid?

Officially, there hasn't been a peep in public forums or lobbys, but a characteristic mad rush on southerly downslopes confirms construction-industry influence-networking recruitment that is just slaying some contacts.