Now Showing

Posted Nov 28, 2006 by Chris Chmura

Updated Nov 29, 2006 at 08:20 AM

Flying Friday? If so, your in-flight entertainment might not be listed in the seatback magazine.

The Associated Press is reporting that 34 airlines will show the film “Beat The Drum” on 40,00 flights, with $300,000 in proceeds going to African charities.

Friday is World AIDS Day.

“Beat The Drum” depicts the impact of AIDS on African children by telling the story of an orphan boy who sets out for Johannesburg with his father’s final gift, a tribal drum.

Among the airlines that are scheduled to show the film are American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, British Airways, Lufthansa, and Air Canada.

Some carriers will continue screenings into December.

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Meat Your Holiday Gift

Posted Nov 28, 2006 by Jeff Houck

Updated Nov 28, 2006 at 08:16 AM

My colleague Greg Williams saw something funny in the toy store the other day:

Jeff,

I saw this action figure in K-B Toys this weekend. It’s part of a series of collectible “figures” for all of the “Rocky” movies – including the one that’s coming out soon.

What kid wouldn’t love to find this under the tree on Christmas morning? It’s the perfect plaything.

Greg

While one can appreciate the verisimilitude of the bloody butcher coat, you might not want to buy this for your vegetarian child.

 

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New Grocery Comedy: Paper Or Plastic?

Posted Nov 28, 2006 by Jeff Houck

Updated Nov 28, 2006 at 07:51 AM

TV doesn’t do a lot of non-Food Network shows with food as a central theme or setting.

Oh, every now and again you’ll get a bar (“Cheers”) or a restaurant (“Alice.”). And occasionally you’ll get an episode that uses food to great effect (“Seinfeld”‘s Soup Nazi episode comes to mind), but those are few and far between, what with all the forensic science and deals-or-no-deals being explored on an hourly basis.

Tonight could mark a turning point.

The Tribune’s Walt Belcher writes that the new 11 p.m. TBS comedy “10 Items or Less” follows “the misadventures of the nutty workers at a small grocery store. It’s like a light version of ‘The Office.’”

Not a bad description for a show to have.

Tonight’s episode: Leslie’s father passes away, he moves back to Ohio to continue to run the family’s business- the Greens and Grains supermarket. To Leslie’s surprise, Amy Anderson, the manager of the competitor Super Value Mart, tries to close a deal she made with Leslie’s dad to buy Greens and Grains from Leslie. He doesn’t sell.

Hmmm. Doesn’t sound hilarious. Then again, show descriptions rarely do

 

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Hello It’s Me Again

Posted Nov 27, 2006 by jriley

Updated Nov 27, 2006 at 10:46 PM

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at my house this year. My husband and I love to have our family and friends over. My husband is the last of eleven. Yes, I said eleven. So you can imagine our house is bursting at the seams with adults, kids and dogs. Since we were in the Air Force (many years ago) we have a unique understanding about what it means to be alone for the holidays. When we were stationed in England our house was the local hangout where all our closest Air Force friends who could not make it home could come and celebrate the holidays. We would eat, drink, play and watch football, sing (off key), dance and have a great time. I hope you enjoyed your holiday as well. 

On to the weight loss challenge. I am so proud of myself. This is the first year I can remember that I did not go back for seconds and thirds. I also treated myself to three thin slivers of three different pies. For me this was a true testament to what I am trying to accomplish. I refuse to gorge myself this year. I allowed myself to try a bite of everything and I refuse to feel as if I would be missing out on something if I didn’t eat more. Isn’t it crazy how you tend to eat as if this is your last meal? It is not as if you will never eat mashed potatoes again in your life. I compare this situation to when I am having my blood work for my annual physical. Every year the doctor tells me to fast for 12 hours before the draw. For some reason I momentarily lose my mind and want to eat everything in my path. I never eat that much or that late in the day anyway until that one event and I then suddenly I am starving.

This week I am revisiting my goals I originally wrote at the beginning of this challenge. I am addressing my strengths and weaknesses. I intend to summarize my plan of action to address each area within my strengths and weaknesses. Remember baby steps.

The best way to measure your success is to document everything you eat and your exercise. I purchased a pack of pocket size notebooks. I attached a pen to each one. One I keep in the car. One in a drawer at the house and the last in my purse. I have no excuse for documenting. I answer the following questions. What did you eat? How much did you eat? What time did you eat? Why did you eat? The same with the exercise. What type of exercise did you do? How long? How hard did you push yourself? Could you push harder next time? This is a great way to hold yourself accountable because this is all about you. If you think about it no one else is going to hold you accountable.

So this week revise or set your goals in writing, document your hard work, and give yourself a pat on the back for doing so well. Atta girl I did it!!!! 
 

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Just like back in the day

Posted Nov 27, 2006 by Mike DeWitt

Updated Feb 3, 2007 at 04:28 PM

Mornin’ Hikers!

For those of you following the blog – I slept like a baby.  And this despite the grim, tortured eyes staring out from the portraits that hang on the wall above my bed.

And what of my bed?  It is an original fixture of this cabin, built by Henry Hamilton Wells a century and half ago.  It’s “box springs” are made of rope, strung beneath the mattress in a checkerboard fashion.  Firmness is adjusted by tightening or loosening the rope. 

The rope supports a mattress stuffed with horse hair.  Nothing, and I mean nothing, was wasted back in the earliest days of Florida’s pioneers.  The big surprise is that this bed is more comfortable than that upon which I sleep at home.  The expression “sleep tight” comes from these very beds.  Tightened ropes beneath the mattress keeps one from rolling to the middle.

Next to the bed is a fireplace with a huge hearth.  I build a fire in it an hour or so before I plan to sleep.  It does a nice job of warming the room. Next to the hearth is window which opens on to a wood scaffold.  It is upon this that the firewood to feed the hearth is stacked.  Open the window and grab some split logs for the fire, easy as can be.  This arrangement also meant that the Wells family didn’t have to go outside for wood at night, a good thing, given the dangers that once lurked in these woods.

There is a coffin three feet from where I lay my head. It sits upon a sandbox, rough hewn box designed to keep the sand from filling the freshly dug grave until the coffin is interred. These were built by a 92 year-old man by the name of Preston Nichols who once served as the town’s coffin maker. It is upholstered in white linen.  Coffins were built from the straightest of boards.  In fact, the sawmill operator would take his finest boards and stash them up in the loft above the sawmill to season up - nothing but the best for the dearly departed.

Back in the day, there was no need for a funeral director.  The deceased where washed and laid out in the home.  It was here that friends would visit and share memories.  They’d bring with them food to tie the family over until they were back on their feet.  Families depended on each other back in those days, and the whole community mourned the loss of one of their own.  The mourning was not only for the lost life, but also for the loss of that individual’s contribution to the well-being of the community.  So important was every pair of hands.

For warmth, my bed has three quilts.  Quilts and their making is an art born of necessity.  When clothes finally wore out, they were not thrown out.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, was ever thrown out.  Pioneers were our first recyclers. 

No, the best of these tattered clothing was sewn in to quilts.  The worst of it was twisted and made into rugs.  As a guest of the long-dead Wells family, I sleep beneath those quilts, and step out of my boots on those rugs.  I am as grateful for their warmth as they must have been a century ago. 

Just a short piece down the way from me is the Sexton cabin.  Its sparse furnishings make my place look like a palace.  It has but one room and it’s not much bigger than a one-car garage.  The Sexton’s conceived and raised sixteen young’uns within those four log walls.  The kids slept in the loft above the room when they grew old enough to ascend the ladder to it.  There were 15 Sexton sons and one daughter.  The Sexton family would host a “frolic” now and again.  Young people would come from miles around to dance and play music.  When they got thirsty, they’d dip a ladle into a cedar bucket on the porch and have a long drink of water.

I was introduced to fellow named Jerry Neel, 76, who told me a passed-down story about a Sexton frolic.  Seems that one ole’ boy switched out the water in the bucket with moonshine.  According to Jerry, that started the “frolic’n” in earnest. 

                                                                     

I am awakened by a choir of roosters each morning here.  My first order of business after dressing is to barefoot my way into the kitchen and kindle a fire in the wood burning stove.  I head out to the well behind the Yon place to draw my water from an old pitcher pump there.  It is cold and clear and sweet.  I fill the kettle and place it on the stove.  In less than a half hour I’m sipping the day’s first cup of coffee.  I add just a touch of cane syrup.  That’s how one does it here.  The amber sweetness of this home-made syrup favors the black coffee with a dash of Florida that no Starbucks can approach. Indeed, it is the taste of our history.

And those ghosts I wrote of in my last blog?  They’re all over this home.  In the floors worn down by a century of walking and in the quilts still piled high after a century of warming.  I feel them all around me as night falls and I write in my journal in the light of an oil lamp.  It is through them that I have come to know this warm hospitality that is unchanged since the first settlers carved a living and a state from these forests.

It’s here, in the Panhandle Pioneer Settlement, that these old ways remain alive and well. The settlement began as the dream of a man raised on a one-mule farm right here in Blountstown.  His name is Willard Smith, and yesterday we spent the afternoon together.  I’ll tell you his story, and more about this beautiful, peaceful dream of his, in my next blog.

But right now I’ve got a mess of eggs – I collected them from the coop behind my cabin just this morning – frying up in a cast iron skillet on the stove.  We’re going to eat good today, aren’t we, hikers?

Youbetcha, we will.  Cheers from the Florida Trail. Mike

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