Ken's Maine Trip -- Day 3

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Today the temperature is up into the mid-70s and it's raining hard. Both the temperature and the rain are thanks to the outer bands of Hurricane Danny, now a tropical storm off the coast of Nova Scotia northeast of us here in Augusta.

Despite the rain we drove up to Waterville, about 18 miles north of Augusta. We ate at a favorite seafood place, the Weathervane. It's a small chain of restaurants in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The one on the dock in Belfast with sail boats bobbing around is more popular, and more scenic, but with the rain the closest one is the best one. And the food is always wonderful.

If you are ever in Waterville don't miss the Ticonic Footbridge, better known by everybody in town as the Two Cent Bridge. Built in 1903 it's a toll, suspension pedestrian bridge that connected Waterville's mill workers with their jobs in the factories on the Winslow side of the Kennebec River. A hundred years ago there were many of these footbridges throughout the industrial Northeast. Waterville's Two Cent Bridge is the only one still around.
(Photo from Ed's Gallery.)

Waterville is also home to Colby College. I graduated from there almost 50 years ago.

Pensacola History Featured In This Month's Smithsonian Magazine

Here's a link to Smithsonian Magazine's online edition and an article about Pensacola and its maritime history. Don't miss the photo gallery and the video.

Flora-Bama Lounge

Known generally around here as just the "the Bama", sometimes you see its whole name in print -- Flora-Bama Lounge, Package, Oyster Bar & Grill. It's located on Perdido Key at the western-most tip of Pensacola, Florida, just inches from the Alabama line. Right on the beach.



The owner calls it, "The Last Great American Road House." Playboy Magazine, among others, has voted Flora-Bama the best beach bar in the world. It offers multiple bars and music venues with a huge deck where you can eat, drink and listen to live music while having a beautiful view of the Gulf of Mexico.

It was badly damaged by Huricane Ivan and other storms in 2004 and 2005. Rebuilding was delayed by the difficulties getting all the necessary permits for coastal construction. We went there several months ago and the rebuilding was about to begin. We will return soon and I will have updated photos so we can see the progress they've made.

Each year the Flora-Bama sponsors a variety of musical and athletic events. All are great fun and raise a lot of money for local charities. Probably the most famous of these festivities is the Annual Interstate Mullet Toss. Individuals compete on the beach throwing a mullet from a 10 foot circle in Alabama across the state line into Florida. This is on the last weekend of April every year.

Here's a link to the Flora-Bama's Wiki article.

Ashley Brown In Concert

Everyone in the Pensacola area was thrilled two years ago when 22 year old Ashley Brown from Pensacola suburb, Gulf Breeze, debuted on Broadway as Belle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. A year later she was still on Broadway, but now creating the title role in Mary Poppins, for Disney. Last night she came home to sing, backed by the Pensacola Symphony. It was a smash hit. She was wonderful.

The Ultimate Food Lover's Companion to the South

From the Pensacola News Journal, July 29, 2007

In a weary old world, it's always time to eat
by Carl Wernicke (cwernicke@pnj.com)

When the issues of the world grow too heavy, I eat. There's nothing like a good meal to take the edge off.

Iraq? I need ribs.

Congress? Fried mullet.

The presidential candidates? Gumbo -- and lots of it.

Fortunately, just off the press is a "revised and expanded" edition of "Southern Belly, The Ultimate Food Lover's Companion to the South," by New South food writer John T. Edge.

Included is a section on Pensacola informed by Edge's eating binge here in 2005, when he spoke at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition.

He doesn't include many Pensacola stops, but what he lists is quality. I have to hand it to John T., he knows his food.

He should.

He has written for for Gourmet and Oxford American magazines, edited "Cornbread Nation: The Best of Southern Food Writing;" and is director of the Southern Foodways Alliance at Ole Miss in Oxford, where he lives.

On his Pensacola visit, he told me that "Food is a way to write about race and class and gender. Southerners like to tell good stories about themselves -- we talk about food and music and lifestyles to avoid the ugly stuff out there."

Then he went out to eat.

Edge went looking for Southern cooking. He's trying to keep it from being smothered by the homogenization of America, even if it means raising cholesterol levels across the South.

This is a guy you expect to see sopping up the gravy from a plate of smothered chicken with his last biscuit.

Ken Ford, founder of the IHMC and the catalyst for getting Edge down here, put it this way: "He's looking for authentic food."

He found it.

First in the book is the Coffee Cup on Cervantes Street. He celebrates the chicken and dumplings, omelets and grits -- including Nassau grits, and I've never had a better BLT. And of course long-time cook Creola Rutledge figures prominently.

Frankly, it is hard to claim you are a Pensacolian if you have never eaten at the Cup.

Next on his Pensacola tour list is Jerry's Drive-In.

If there's a test, Edge passed it. You can't do a piece on authentic Pensacola eating and not mention Jerry's; the very thought of it brings on the vapors.

He highlights the mullet at Jerry's, which is appropriate in a section headlined "Mullet Holiday." Mullet is, after all, a large part of Pensacola's culinary claim to fame.

Still, the burgers, fries and shakes deserve a mention, too. Ford says Edge was blown away by the fact you can order oysters a la carte at Jerry's. Ford says Edge ordered a single oyster on his first visit, apparently just because he could. (Edge makes multiple visits in rating a restaurant.)

Then it was on to the Marina Oyster Barn, which to various generations of Pensacolians is known as the Marina, the Oyster Barn, Rooks, for the owners, and sometimes even Johnson's (for the nearby marina).

Again, while he justifiably celebrates the mullet at the Marina, he could also mention the gumbo, consistently among the best in town, and the oysters. It is one of the few outlets for local East Bay oysters, which Dale Rooks serves when he can get them, and as far as I'm concerned there isn't a better raw oyster on the planet.

Finally, Edge goes where any true mullet holiday must take you, to Chet's on Navy Boulevard, for the marinated mullet.

The only real problem with Chet's is that it is only open Thursday through Saturday. But given that owner Randy Sanders and crew catches their own mullet, asking for more would probably kill them, given that they also stay constantly booked with catering.

One day, after years of puzzling over the bizarre phenomenon of seeing people eat at a bland chain eatery in the New Orleans French Quarter, I had an epiphany: Of course, that's exactly what you want -- if there are people who would go to New Orleans and eat in a chain restaurant, you wouldn't want them cluttering up the good restaurants.

Now, don' t get me wrong -- I eat at chains, and the food is often good. You know exactly what you are getting, and sometimes that's all you want.

But in an eating town like this, we should all support our locally owned restaurants as much as possible. The Coffee Cup, Jerry's, the Oyster Barn and Chet's make a darn good start.

Maine Trip, May 2007 -- Day 2, Part 3

After looking at the arsenal restoration project we passed the nearby, and beautifully restored Fort Western, built in 1754. For reasons I must have known as a child, but have forgotten -- I do not know why the fort, clearly on the east side of the Kennebec River would be called Fort Western.

We crossed the Kennebec and continued south along the western bank of the river to the next town, Hallowell. In pre-colonial days Augusta was part of Hallowell. The first settlement was in 1625 by British traders and trappers. The city of Hallowell was founded in 1762 and Augusta became a separate city in 1797.

Maine became a state in 1820 having been a territory of Massachusetts before that. In a way it was a colony of a colony. Hallowell's granite quarries were famous and many grand buildings throughout the U.S. including several in Washington, DC and New York City were made from Hallowell's stone.

Today Hallowell is best known for the many antique shops that attract visitors from all over the northeast U.S. and eastern Canada. There are many beautifully well-kept, lovingly restored old homes big and small here. But there are many more in sad shape. One needing massive restoration work is the 1875 Governor Bodwell House on Middle Street in Hallowell.

Fortunately an organization in Portland identifies the state's most endangered structures and coordinates restoration efforts. To read about the Governor Bodwell House and other properties on Maine Preservation's list of Maine's most endangered historic properties click here. Their site also has a list of their success stories. The photo is by Joe Phelan of the Kennebec Journal.

Maine Trip, May 2007 -- Day 2, Part 2

The drive from Bangor to Augusta takes about an hour and fifteen minutes. On a sunny day it is very pretty, with low hills, distant mountains and some lakes here and there. For my drive I didn't see much of anything other than the highway. There was fog and heavy rain all the way.

I got to my parents' house mid-morning and we had a nice visit. After lunch we went out to run errands and drive around town. On the east side of the Kennebec River along the riverfront we drove through an area that was the Augusta Arsenal.

The old Arsenal is a complex of eight granite block buildings, dating back to the 1820s. Today it is part of the Kennebec Arsenal Renovation. The buildings will be fixed up and will be part of a riverside recreation and tourist area -- planned are residences, a marina, a major hotel and lots of shops.

After the military stopped using the arsenal buildings they housed patients of the Augusta's Insane Hospital, later known as the State Hospital. In recent years the arsenal building looked abandoned although I believe the state government used them for storage.

The location is on a beautiful part of the Kennebec River looking across to the State Capitol buildings. If this project goes as planned it will be a great benefit to the city, its visitors and residents. It will take unused land and make it a destination -- creating something from nothing.

Where has Save Our City's website gone?

It had been a long time since I checked out what the folks at Save Our City were up to.

I had placed a link to their site on this very blog in the section devoted to Pensacola's Blogosphere. But after what I discovered today I had to remove the link. This was after I tried to go to the SOC website and got the ominous message you see above.

Apparently the SOC site is, or was, using a web host (out of Newark, Delaware) that doesn't have a current Server Certificate. Bad news. Scary bad news if you ask me.

Like you perhaps, I have no idea what this means to my or my computer's personal safety but it sounds serious. And not good. And why did they ask me to check my computer's clock? Does the SOC's penchant for wanting to live in the past means they are out to meddle with everybody's computer clocks?

Or is this all just a springtime trick by those pranksters over at the Independent News?

The Strange Maine Blog

The blog called Strange Maine Blog promises "Freaks. Weirdos. Unmapped roads. Lost in the woods. Whispering rocks. Deadening fog. Ghost pirates. Lonely islands. THINGS in the WOODS. Maine -- the way life should be!"

It includes lots of links to other strange folks and happenings Down East. And, of course, naked bowling.


Strange Maine Blog contents copyright © 2006 their respective authors and/or Michelle Souliere.
Photo credit: www.curiouslittlemonkey.com.

Live Free or Love It Here

In case you think I pick on the State of Maine too much here's a link to an excellent blog about another northern New England state that's full of unique individuals -- New Hampshire.

The blog is Cow Hampshire. It's all "...about New Hampshire History, Genealogy, Photography and Humor."

And signage, and dueling slogans.

The Signs of Maine

Last November I posted a photo of a sign I had seen at a rest area in Maine. It warned about "snacking wisely." You can view the post by clicking here.

The Voice of Maine, an online forum devoted to Maine issues has a collection of comments about the sign and the "thinking" behind it -- they call it, 'The Ultimate in Nanny Statism'. Big Mother is watching you.

Someone contributed a photo of another sign, below, this was also found beside a Maine highway. It encourages exercise while driving. Are there more signs like these? Would they make just two versions?

Can these be for real? I wonder if they might be hoaxes. Everyone seems to be all too willing to blame the government of the State of Maine for such intrusive silliness. Perhaps some art students at the Maine College of Art in Portland thought this up after a silk screen class?

There was a case in Los Angeles a few years ago of a fraudulent highway sign that looked so real it stayed up for five years. Yes, an art student did it.

Take Destin, please.

Today the Pensacola News Journal printed a wonderful letter to the editor from Mary Brockett. She responded to an article from earlier this month that asked why Pensacola can't be more like Destin -- sleek, trendy, congested...

She closed with, "The only thing Destin hasn't been stupid enough to do is spend millions putting a baseball field next door to a sewage treatment plant in a floodplain."

As much as I want to see the Community Maritime Park built, and soon, I have to agree. The sewer treatment plant is a much more urgent matter. A new one is vital to the survival of Pensacola. We need the new plant built now, on the new site, even if we have to pay for it.

You can read the whole letter by clicking here. When you get there you will have to scroll down five or six letters but it is worth it.

Downtown Pensacola Dining Guide 2006

The new dining guide is available now online. It's on the Downtown Improvement Board's site.

The DIB site has a variety of useful information. And promises to have more, someday -- a lot of pages say "coming in August." Do they mean August 2005 or August 2006?

And on the subject of Downtown Pensacola, here's a site that's sure to help you keep on top of the positive news about the Community Maritime Park.

Remember this?

Remember when the Pensacola Beach sign was intact and looked like this postcard shot?

A few weeks ago there was a note in the Pensacola News Journal that some company has been hired to restore the sign. When? As of yesterday the wreck of a sign has not been touched.

Why doesn't the City of Gulf Breeze get the mess torn down? The eyesore is in their town after all. Are they waiting for the next hurricane to blow the sign away?

It is time to take it down. It is a disgrace. And it says way too much about local pride, or the lack thereof.