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Put the lime in the coconut

If you ever want to get an education, post something just slightly wrong on the Internet. I noticed these Persian limes at the grocery store this evening and put the picture on Facebook, writing something silly like “Persian limes, from Mexico.”

My dear friend Kelly, who is not a horticulturist, but did stay at a Holiday Inn Express near some lime trees once, wrote “Persian limes are just a kind of lime. You know what makes them Persian limes? They aren’t Key Limes.”

One thing led to another and now I have to know all about this particular citrus. Wikipedia tells me they are also called Tahiti limes. Great, another geography-challenged fruit.

They were developed in California. I feel duped.

Kelly, as always, was right though: they aren’t key limes. Wikipedia, and I’ll take their word, says Persian limes are less acidic than key limes and don’t have the bitterness central to key lime’s unique flavor.

We bought the store’s entire inventory of groceries. It was us and the poor gentleman behind us at the checkout line who had to make do with the crumbs we left in the back corner near the dairy section. You’ll be happy to know that we remembered to save the earth this trip and took our canvas bags. (We sometimes forget. Once they made it into the car but not into the store.) The kindly man who bagged our purchase up managed to completely load them up. If we’d chosen plastic there’d be 14,000 bags floating around on the kitchen floor just now.

Those bags, too, have a purpose. We keep a small supply on a hook in the mud room, but eventually it swells out to something you have to bob and weave around, less you take a glancing blow from the big tumor of plastic. You only need so many of the things for storage and secondary disposal.

Really I want to take a competitor’s save the earth bags into our grocery store and see what they do. Would they sack the groceries up without complaint? Would they glare? Would there be a conference? Their big on conferences there. Would they signal in the manager, they are ever-present like you see in the movies set in casinos when the hero makes too much money and the suits get involved. They are much, much, nicer than all of that, but it is remarkable how quickly a manager will swoop in.

Alabama Adventure may be for sale again. This is an amusement park and water park combo near where I grew up. I remember, just after my senior year of high school Larry Langford, who was mayor of Fairfield, a suburb of Birmingham, pitched his plan for VisionLand to a room full of high school kids. It was his dry run. He announced the project publicly a few days later. All the nearby towns, he said, would chip in land and money for land and they were going to build this incredible park. It would start a bit small and grow every year. Langford got the land, got the money, got a lot more money from the state legislature and built his park. He even had a statue inside.

He’d go on to being on the county commission and then the mayor of Birmingham, despite still living in Fairfield. And now he’s in jail.

But the park has struggled since not long after it was created. The current owner is the third owner. It was the second owner, after the park went bankrupt (the $65 million project went for just $6 million), that changed the name from VisionLand to Visionland, and finally to Alabama Adventure.

The entire Wikipedia entry is a sad collection of grand ideas that never came to fruition for one reason or another. The place has earned a bad reputation in some respects, but there’s a lot of that going around that area, too. The best part of the place, to me, was that you could spend a day at a real theme park and not have to drive all the way back home from Atlanta smelling like stale water. Home was minutes away!

I had a few dates at the park, and one company picnic. On a separate occasion I took some nice pictures there. Some of those photographs went into my portfolio which helped me get other freelance work. Here’s one of them that just happened to be floating around in some dusty corner of the site. It isn’t the best one, but I loved the water bucket obstacle course part of the water park:

I scanned that eight years or more ago, which is why it is so small. I’ll dig up the original at some point and do it a bit more justice. (Don’t bet on it.)

I enjoyed the lazy river, and never caught any problem worse than standing in the place where the fireworks debris falls. You never think about that, when you’re watching fireworks, but the cardboard and the embers have to land somewhere. Don’t let it land on you.

In my freshman year literature class I wrote a comparative essay on Machiavelli’s Prince and Larry Langford. I’m sure the paper was dreadful, though I somehow recall getting an A on it. Don’t ask me why I kept that memory. Thinking back on it, though, I’m intrigued by how different parts now apply to Langford’s tale. Some of it was all wrong in the beginning, but he grew into the treatise’s notion of idealism (he was vainly spurring on a campaign to bid for the 2020 Olympics in Birmingham when his political realm fell down around him) and then it all turned into a sad, sad parody, as some considered The Prince.

Sometime after the second owner of the theme park came along they removed Langford’s statue. It was the preface to Langford’s version of Machiavelli’s Mandrake*.

Who comes here for obvious references to 16th century Italian comedies? You can raise your hand. It is OK. You’re among friends.

I trimmed the bushes today. Well, one bush. It was so hot that I’d broken into a sweat by the time I’d gotten the extension cord untangled.

So, one prickly shrub, scoop up the trimmings and remember that old saw about discretion being the better part of pruning.

When The Yankee came home she didn’t even notice the trimming. Subtlety is an art form, friends.

We rode our bikes this evening. Or I did. She tried, but had a flat close to home. We are out of tubes, so we’ll have a stock-up trip to the bike shop tomorrow. I got in 19 miles and was not pleased with any of it, really. Seems 10 days off is too many. Now I must recover my legs again.

But I cruised down a road I’ve never been on before, so that was a nice treat. Well, I’ve gone the other way, the uphill side, of that road before. Today I got to see how the road should be attacked: from its highest point.

Auburn / Glomerata / history / links / site / weekend — 1 Comment
13
Aug 11

The 1901 yearbook

8/16 UPDATE: This piece has been syndicated at The War Eagle Reader.

I won an auction earlier this week for one of Auburn’s 1901 yearbooks. (You know I collect these, right? Here are the covers of more than 100 years of history. You can see the inner details from a few select years, too.)

There were two annuals in 1901, the traditional Glomerata, which was then all of five years old, and this one, The Chrysalis:

No one in this book would recognize the place today. From their point of view, only Samford Hall, Langdon Hall, the University Chapel and Hargis Hall remain. One of the advertisers in the back of the book would be familiar to modern eyes, and nowhere inside is there a reference to Tigers or War Eagle. Auburn, A.P.I. and the Orange and Blue are used interchangeably as the names of the place and collective people.

But why were there two yearbooks? The editors of The Chrysalis explained that the independent students were being shut out by the Greeks. Because they were organized, the seven fraternities, making up about a third of the student body, felt they could dictate terms. (Read the complete argument and rationale for the Chrysalis.)

The Chrysalis complains that each fraternity got a member on the Glomerata’s editorial board, and the non-fraternity students were represented by only one person. This led to the best sentence, and the worst rationale ever, to explain the purpose of something like a yearbook.

“The non-fraternity men demanded equal representation on the Advisory Board, which they should have had, for eight of the eleven players on the Varsity Foot-ball Team belonged to their number …”

(The football team, by the way, went undefeated that year. Auburn hosted “the Nashville boys” and defeated them in a cold rain, 28-0. They traveled next to Birmingham to face a Knoxville team that was “the strongest team we played.” After the game people that stayed in Auburn received a telegram “We have met the enemy and they are ours.” Auburn won 23-0. Up next were “the Tuscaloosa boys,” as Auburn and Alabama (the yearbook didn’t use their name) met in Montgomery. Auburn thrashed ‘Bama, 53-5. But that game wasn’t the finale as it is today. Back then Georgia was still the biggest game of the year. In this, just the seventh meeting of the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry, Auburn whipped Georgia 44-0. A capacity crowd of 3,500, watched the game, according to the yearbook.)

The dispute between the fraternities and independents raged and, ultimately, a panel of professors stepped in to arbitrate. Those three professors decided the Glomerata’s editorial board should be more evenly divided. But that didn’t happen.

“(T)his time, as usual, they were offered ONE and told that they did not deserve more – this was not accepted, and it was decided to publish a non-fraternity annual.”

And so there they are, the editors of the non-fraternity book. The Chrysalis was published for only the one year. How the dispute was resolved in 1902 remains a mystery to me. I don’t yet have that edition in my collection.

Here’s the sophomore class of 1901. How young:

I collect these because they look great on the shelf and they are stuffed with history. There’s a great history lesson of the university in this book, too, written by Professor O.D. Smith, who taught English and mathematics. Soon after writing this history he would find himself serving as the interim president. Today Smith Hall is named in his honor. (You can read his full accounting here.) Here’s a lengthy excerpt:

The Alabama Polytechnic Institute and A. & M. College was one among the last of the land grant colleges established under the act of congress passed in 1862, known as the Morrill Act. Owing to the confusion and demoralization incident to the reconstruction period, the donation of land script granted by the act was not accepted by the State Legislature until December 26, 1868. The amount of land allotted to the state was 240,000 acres. A Board of Commissioners was appointed to receive and sell the land script and invest the proceeds in Alabama bonds. The amount of bonds ultimately purchased was $353,000.

A striking commentary upon the unsavory financial operations of that period is, that over three years elapsed before the sale and investment was completed. A still more remarkable fact is, that not a trace of a record exists of these large transactions. During this period, a large part of the fund was misappropriated to the use of the state and came dangerously near being lost in the wrecked finances of the state.

By an act of the Legislature approved February 26, 1872, by Gov. R. B. Lindsey, the offer of the grounds and building of the East Alabama Male College, made by the Alabama Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, was accepted and the A. & M. College was located at Auburn

[…]

The first session of the college was thus inaugurated March 25, 1872. A provision was made that the senior class of the old college should complete their course and graduate at the usual time, and should be recognized as Alumni of the A. & M. college. The usual commencement was held in June, and this class received their diplomas, but it was provided that the session should continue through the summer and close the 30th of October. The theory seemed to have been that the summer was especially adapted to the acquisition of Agricultural knowledge. One experiment was enough. It was never repeated. During this year, owing to the bankrupt condition of the state Treasury, the college received but a small part of its interest. The close of the session found it burdened with debt, which necessitated a reduction of the faculty, and a reorganization of its work …

The college reopened Jan 1st, 1873. This was really the beginning of the first session of the independent existence of the college, and the class of 1873 was the first class to graduate at a commencement held exclusively under the auspices of the new college.

It is well to mention that the number of students matriculated that year was 103, and of that number only 47 were in the college classes. From such a small beginning, the college has risen to its present numbers, when its graduating class for the present year is twenty per cent larger than the entire number of college students the first year of its existence.

The location of the college was fortunate. Auburn had been famous as an educational center, and the seat of much wealth, refinement and culture. The Methodist church had established in 1858 an excellent classical college, officered by some of the ablest educators in the south. The college, its buildings, equipment, patronage and good will, were all conveyed to the state. According to the records, the most zealous and effective workers in securing this transfer to the state were the present treasurer, E.T. Glenn, Esq., and the first president of the Board of Trustees, the Hon. W. H. Barnes.

Under the first charter of the College, the Board of Trustees was a self perpetuating body, electing their successors whenever a vacancy occurred, with the exception of the Governor and the Superintendent of Education, ex-officio members. The change made by the present constitution providing for their appointment is of doubtful advantage, as it opens the way for partisan political influence, than which nothing can be more disastrous to an institution for higher education.

[…]

Naturally at first the institution encountered serious difficulties. It was an experiment, and it had to meet both jealousy and prejudice. There was much ill concealed skepticism as to the practicability of combining mental discipline and intellectual culture with practical training in the arts and sciences. The financial resources were limited to the interest on the bonds paid for some years in depreciated currency which the college was compelled to dispose of at as much as 25 per cent discount. In addition to this embarrassment, the college was burdened by a heavy debt incurred the first year, from the failure of the state to pay the interest on its bonds. And yet this decade was not an era of stagnation, its curriculum was extended, its faculty increased and new chairs established … The average attendance was 151 …

The second decade, the beginning of its period of development on scientific lines, was ushered in by the election of Dr. Wm. Le Roy Broun, president … The college was just beginning to move forward under the impulse of these new forces when the main building and all its contents were burned June 24, 1887. This seeming disaster proved a blessing in disguise. With the insurance on the old building and an appropriation of $50,000 by the state, the present Chemical Laboratory and main building were erected, giving much increased facilities for college work.

The laboratories destroyed by the fire were re-established, enlarged and better equipped, and the department of Biology was established in 1889. New energy and increased zeal seemed to be infused into every department and the growth of the college in patronage and in every direction was much greater in the five years succeeding the fire than in the five preceding years. The average annual attendance from 1882 to 1887 was 141, from 1887 to 1892 was 235, an increase of over seventy per cent.

[…]

The third decade has been characterized by growth and development in all the old departments, and by the addition of several new ones. Of these the most important were Pharmacy and Electrical Engineering … The shops of Mechanic Arts department have been greatly enlarged … A large three story building has been added as an annex to the Chemical Laboratory, which is devoted to the departments of Chemistry, Pharmacy and Mechanical Engineering. Three commodious buildings have been erected for the use of the department of Veterinary Science. Three large rooms in the main building and a separate dynamo building has been provided for the Electrical department. A separate State Chemical Laboratory has just been completed. One of the most important additions is the library, which has been created almost during this decade and under the management of its efficient librarian, Prof. C. S. Thach and the library committee, has become one of the best collections of books in the state. To sum up, there have erected nearly a dozen separate structures, some of them most handsome … The buildings and equipment are easily valued at $200,000 and yet the demand for more is urgent …

During this decade the annual average attendance has been 325. The enrollment for the present year has reached 412, of that number 341 are from Alabama, and 68 from thirteen other states and three from Cuba and Nicaragua.

(T)he number of permanent instructors six, attached to the experiment station, not connected with the faculty of instruction, one associate chemist and four assistants – total 27. The present income approximates $58,000 … An institution is known by its graduates. These are its epistles read of all men; and by their career and success is to be judged the worth of the training given by their Alma Mater. Among the 579 graduates, the idlers can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Farmers, engineers, chemists, lawyers, physicians, ministers, teachers, business men are all included in the list: not less than 80 per cent of the entire number following employments closely related to the physical sciences, and other than the so-called learned professions. Not a few have achieved distinguished success. The profession of teaching has claimed a large number and the graduates of this institution are to be found in many of the important colleges and universities of the south.

Co-education cautiously attempted by the college has proved a success. The young women have demonstrated an ample ability to master the most difficult subjects of the curriculum and easily take rank among the first in their classes. There has been entire harmony in the relation of the two sexes …

In conclusion I would urge there is a great work yet to be accomplished in Alabama by this institution. What it has already accomplished is but vantage ground for still higher achievement. It is to be hoped that the Alabama Polytechnic will do its full share in the great work of leading the state to higher and better things. And this it will do, as year by year, with the guidance of able trustees and a competent faculty, and with the earnest support of its alumni, and the sympathy of all good citizens it strives towards the full accomplishment of the ideal of its founders in sending forth class after class of young men who are once scholars and trained specialists, public spirited citizens and technical experts; young men of broad intelligence and sound morality who are able and willing to address themselves to any of the practical problems of life.

Remember: You can see all of my covers here and details of a few books here. Also, there’s the complete argument and rationale for the Chrysalis and Professor Smith’s full historical account here. That one is lengthy, and probably only of interest to serious Auburn enthusiasts.

And now, the last of the pictures that I scanned from the book. Just because.

The pastoral turn of the 20th century setting of Auburn, Ala. I think this is from perhaps the belfry of Samford Hall, looking into town. What do you think?

Here’s a street view. The book does not say which street. Maybe it wasn’t even named yet. I’m guessing it is the modern College Street.

And, finally, a page of ads from the back of the book. This page features the only business name recognizable to contemporary students:

Auburn / football / history / journalism / links / Tuesday — Comments Off
2
Aug 11

Football season

Practice starts tomorrow. Here’s a look at last year, a fine photo gallery put together by Oregon Live before their Ducks faced Auburn in the BCS Championship game.

Thirty-something days and counting …

In professional camps, Cam Newton is getting positive early reviews with the Panthers. As always on a sports post, read the comments at your own risk.

There’s other stuff, too, National Night Out, where our neighborhood said “Dude. This is August,” and just recalled that they met people last year. Even the police didn’t bother to cruise through the neighborhood handing out the campaign literature. Now, if someone had been out offering ‘Smores and lemonade …

Speaking of lemonade, there’s the intent of the law and then there’s the intent of the law, and you can add this to your list of communities to avoid — or flock to, as you like — when reading this story:

Police closed down a lemonade stand in Coralville last week, telling its 4-year-old operator and her dad that she didn’t have a permit.

An officer told Abigail Krutsinger’s father Friday that she couldn’t run the stand as RAGBRAI bicyclers poured into Coralville.

And here’s another one, same town:

A mother of six also said her kids had their lemonade stand on 18th Avenue shut down after just 20 minutes.

Bobbie Nelson said she laughed when a police officer told her that a permit to sell lemonade would cost $400.

“The kids were devastated,” Nelson said. “They just cried and didn’t understand why.”

[…]

Mitch Gross, a member of the Coralville City Council, said he believes the city will learn a lesson from this. Gross said he expects future ordinances to apply only for vendors who set out to “make a profit.”

“It was never our intent to shut down kid’s lemonade stands,” Gross said. “We never really thought about it.”

That’s refreshing of the councilman, who admitted openly that he and his colleagues did not think through the two-day ordinance they passed in order to capitalize on a visiting bike tour’s tourist influx. Err. I mean looking out for people. So which is it? Money-hungry or nanny statism? So hard to choose sides somedays, isn’t it?

Do read those comments, where the people are throwing lemons back at the city.

And, finally, what space shuttles and horses have in common:

When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.

The railroad from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track …

That’s as fun a tongue-in-cheek mini-essay as you can read today.

That’s enough for one sitting. Try to stay cool out there. The heat index here today was 102.

adventures / history / iPhone / Monday / photo — Comments Off
25
Jul 11

Writing retreat, Day Three

That rather looked something like a jail cell, didn’t it? It shouldn’t even have appeared monastic, honestly. We’re on the lovely Lewis & Clark campus. Small liberal arts college, some very nice scenery, though we are mostly stuck in the one building, Smith Hall.

We took a little afternoon walk to a nearby circle, sat on a bench and chatted for a minute, just to break up the reading and thinking.

trees

Nearby is the 35-room Tudor-style Frank Manor House, built in the 1920s for Lloyd Frank, of the Meier & Frank department store family. I’m told he donated the land to the college, and today his former home houses the administrative offices.

FrankManorHouse

Elsewhere, I’m writing a literature review. And that’s day three of my writing retreat.

adventures / Friday / history / iPhone / photo — Comments Off
22
Jul 11

Oregon pictures, Day Three

Hit the beach!

The first white person here is believed to be William Clark — who did not lose a bet to Meriwether Lewis, really what happened was they Googled themselves, found a small accounting firm in the northeast named Clark and Lewis LLP and decided on their own brand. He and his team crossed what they texted back to Jefferson as “OMG, Worst. Mountain. EVAR.” before seeing the ocean and finding natives processing a beached whale.

Clark did not use AT&T, who’s coverage is somewhere down in the Five Bars and Lousy range in this region.

So they traded with the locals for whale oil and blubber, turned around and noticed there were suddenly condos everywhere. Such is beach life.

Cannon Beach was originally named Ecola, which was borrowed from the local stream. Ecola, not E. coli. We ate lunch today at a place named Ecola. They have their own boat and bring in their own catch from the Pacific which, I don’t know about the depth of your experience, is the way to go.

The water is chilly. The beach isn’t dirty, but the sand is darker than I’m accustomed to seeing. There are great rock formations to enjoy at the coastline and dramatic rolling hills rushing down into the sand. This is a beautiful spot.

Later, on the advice of someone who lives in Portland, we set out for the quiet Oswald West beach. You park on one side of the road and then take a path beneath it and through these woods:

This is a stream that is escaping into the ocean at Oswald:

Some people love the ocean, others find their home in the mountains or feel natural on a plain or a steppe, but I could stay in spots like this forever:

Here’s Oswald, in panorama. Click to open in a new window and magnify:

This is a shallow cove and a favorite of the surfers. It feels primitive and unspoiled and perfect. I brought a few round stones home, thinking I’ll put them in my office, so I can remember that sun and those waves and part of an afternoon walking over driftwood.

I shot it in my free iPhone app Panorama which isn’t perfect, but is very free. This one didn’t work very well because I stood in shade and shot sun-shade-sun. Now, though, the finished product — stitched by the app — looks wonderfully dramatic.

We went south for the next town, thinking we would find dinner, but nothing inspired us. On the way, though, we found this terrific view:

You see that and begin to wonder “How spoiled are these people?”

So we came back up to Cannon Beach for dinner, found some family-owned chain where the menu said “Not much has changed since the 1950s.” And to see the dishes, you’d think Yeah, my grandmother ate this. Even the pictures of the food on the menu looked dated. How does one make lemon slices and broiled shrimp look dated? The apathy of the staff was incredible. We ate there because of the view of those giant rocks on the shoreline and because we wanted to see the sunset on the beach. Our waiter, who was a little too old and just a few hits away from a Grateful Dead concert in his head, was only too happy to hold us up, but we just did make it.

If you’re curious and you know the area, here’s your hint:

More importantly, the sunset:

Those big haystack rocks. In fact one of them is called Haystack, but I believe that one is farther up the beach:

Those are my best cell phone pics of the day. The following are some of my D-SLR photographs. There are lots of kites on Cannon Beach. Some of them will find their way into my trip video.

Wild berries in macro at Oswald Beach West:

Need a hiding place?

The Yankee enjoys the side of Oswald Beach:

There’s sand in the center, separated by a wooded estuary feeding into the ocean. The beach, which is probably less than 250 yards, is framed by woods on one side and a rock face on the other side. Whomever donated or sold this land to the state did not understand what they could have done with this real estate, but generations are lucky they did share it.

Walking Cannon Beach at sunset:

The Yankee wraps up her day in style:

Tomorrow we go back to work.