POSTING #103

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"What was the weather like in Florida?"

I've been having trouble finding an appropriate answer when friends ask that question.

Do I say to people who have been enduring the worst Ontario winter in decades that the weather was lousy, and hope that that makes them feel a little better?

Or, do I say that it was gorgeous and send them into an even deeper fit of cabin-fever?

After all one's perception of weather is subjective---it all depends on one's point of view.

Which reminds me of an old story about a woman in California who invited her widower father from Minnesota to spend the winter with her. After several weeks, she noticed he looked a little blue.

During breakfast one morning on the patio she asked, "Is there something wrong, Dad?".

"No", he sighed, "just another damn beautiful day."

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I'll just say that we had a lot of 'damn beautiful days' in Florida.

But let's move on!

Returning to Canada

In last week's Posting (#102) I described our trip to Florida. This one will look at our trip home.

Once again, we studied weather forecasts trying to decide on the best route home: I-75, the western route we had used traveling to Florida, or I-95 along the east coast.

We heard that conditions were ripe for a potentially huge storm coming from the mid-west about the time we had planned to drive north, so we decided to leave two days early and slip up I-95 ahead of the storm.

On Saturday, January 29th we were on the northbound Interstate in very good time. We set the cruise control and relaxed. It would be clear sailing until at least Pennsylvania.

Or, so we told ourselves.

Twenty minutes later we ran into a mix of fog and smoke and then a sign warning that the Interstate ahead was closed because of accidents. We exited the Interstate and worked our way north on small roads until we could get back on the throughway.

Then there was more fog and another closure because of accidents. This meant another hour of stop and start driving on minor roads.

These problems were clearly omens, telling us that the trip home was going to be 'interesting'.

When we finally got to our first overnight stop, Brunswick, Georgia, we turned on the weather channel and learned that the storm was larger, nastier and moving faster than predicted. It was going to be particularly nasty in the areas we had to cross---northern Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York.

You know, TV weather people really seem to enjoy a good storm and they smiled as they described what was about to happen---"heavy snow, blizzards, sleet, freezing rain, treacherous driving conditions, downed branches, likelihood of power outages", and on and on.

Great!

We had hoped to get to northern Virginia for the second overnight stop. We decided that although we could probably have reached that area, the roads would not likely be drivable the next morning.

And the hotel might have lost its power and heat over night.

Looking at the map, we decided to head for Emporia, just inside Virginia, a town with which we had a sort of hate-hate relationship because of unpleasant experiences the previous year.

At least, Emporia was outside the storm's expected range, and it was the devil we knew. We made an on-line reservation---for two nights, just in case.

As I was checking in at the hotel in Emporia, it occurred to me that it might be good to splurge on a larger, more comfortable room since we might be there several nights. The check-in clerk. Antwon---according to his badge---was young, witty, helpful and fun. He showed me a larger room that was perfect but when I asked the cost he said he would have to check.

Back at the desk, he tapped away at the computer trying to find the best rate.

"You're not military, government, corporate, or special promotion?" he asked, hopefully.

"Nope, just AAA."

He finally found a rate that was totally acceptable.

After moving into the room, we had trouble getting the TV to work. I phoned the desk and Antwon was at our door in 10 seconds and in another 30 more seconds had fixed the problem (the previous guests had been watching a DVD and the remote had to be re-set). We thanked him but he shrugged it off with an 'aw-shucks' smile and this ditty:

"Thank you for dialing zero,
So I could be your hero."

And with a theatrical flourish, he exited.

You might wish to remember the name, Antwon. I don't know what is going to happen to him, but he is too talented to spend the rest of his life in a hotel in Emporia.

The next morning was surreal. Emporia was warm and sunny but in the hotel breakfast room the television was showing pictures of snow-bound Oklahoma, and Chicago with the 2000 mile long storm pounding into Ohio and Pennsylvania.


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What to do with our time?

Pat found a quilt shop on the Internet that was an hour or so due west of Emporia. Unfortunately, when we got there we found the store had closed down.

We re-traced our steps and decided to explore the historic district of a small town, Lawrenceville. Our own town, Virgil, used to be called Lawrenceville so we felt a kind of psychic connection.

In the middle of the town was a sign for the Brunswick County Museum. We are suckers for a museum, so we pulled in.

The curator, a woman in her 40s with high cheekbones, dark eyes and black hair in a long braid down her back, greeted us with a warm smile.

"Welcome to the museum. Are you from around here?'

Interesting, no accent.

"No, we're from Canada/"

"I'm from Ontario!"

"We're from near Niagara-on-the Lake, where are you from."

"Manitoulin Island."

"We had our honeymoon on Manitoulin Island!"

It turned out that the curator, Meg Cywink, is a Native American born on a First Nations reserve on Manitoulin Island and is a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

We spent two fascinating hours touring the museum, and learning about how she had come to settle in Lawrenceville and about her work as a museum curator.

Pat and I have been volunteers at the Niagara Historical Museum  and know something about the problems of running a small museum.

For example, how does one persuade people to donate their items of historical value to the museum rather than leave them to relatives who will probably sell them on eBay.

Museums also have to deal with sensitivities from issues in the past. At the Niagara Historical Museum, one of the issues is about how to present the War of 1812 in a way that accurately depicts what happened but respects the feelings of both Canadian and American visitors.

I am sure that the Brunswick County Museum must have to deal with sensitivities about how to depict issues involving race---for example the history of slavery, the Civil War, and the end to segregation. We had been told in Emporia that this southern part of Virginia considers itself part of the 'deep south' and refers to people from northern Virginia as Yankees.

These sensitivities must create problems for the curator from Manitoulin Island but she seems to relish the challenge.

Meg is a remarkable woman with a wealth of stories that we were only able to begin to sample.

When we said our reluctant goodbyes we promised to stay in touch.

And we will---either during our next trip to Florida or perhaps when Meg comes north to visit her Ontario relatives.

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Back at the hotel, the weather reports were getting worse so we decided to stay a third night.

After dinner at a local restaurant, we drove to the Food Lion supermarket for some snack items. In the parking lot I spotted an older car that was covered with stickers. As a lover of bumper stickers, I wandered over to read them.

A middle-aged man returning to the car with his wife saw me studying the stickers and quickly said, "It's our son's car!"

There was a "'Vote Obama" sticker and one that said "A nuclear bomb can ruin your day" and yet another that contained the famous quotation from Mahatma Gandhi: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."

Plus at least a dozen more.

It turned out that their son is a student at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, a college with extraordinarily high admission standards and an enviable record of producing scientists, doctors, Fulbright Scholars and Peace Corps Volunteers.

The father wanted to know where we were from.

When I told him Canada, near Niagara Falls, he said, "There was a video made in Canada of a group singing the Hallelujah Chorus in a food mall".

I told him that the video was shot not far from where we lived, and that a friend was one of the singers.

"You know", he said, "a lot of people around here don't like Canadians. They think you are all godless socialists."

"I've heard that", I nodded.

"\But they liked the video, even played it in church. They thought it had been made here in America."

"Un-hunh", I offered, wondering where this was going.

"I love to tell them", he carried on, "that it was made in Canada, and then I ask them did they know that every person in that video has health insurance while we have 40 million people without insurance. And pharmaceuticals cost a lot less in Canada."

As he told me all this, his wife was nodding and smiling.

We chatted some more. I wished their son success in his studies and they wished us a safe trip home.

Nice, pro-Canadian people.

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We spent the following 'free day' visiting the superb Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk Virginia.  More about that in a future Posting.

The next day, after our third night in Emporia, the weather reports were much improved and we had an uneventful drive to Lewisburg PA, where we spent the night.

In case the name, Lewisburg, seems to ring a bell it is probably because of the nearby Federal Penitentiary with its 'Mafia wing' that houses many convicted Mafiosi. Or, the name may seem familiar because it is the home of a respected university, Bucknell.

Lewisburg is supposed to have some of the best-run hotels in the US---ours was great!---and in a future Posting I will explore why that should be. Is it the impact of relatives and friends visiting the Big House, or that of parents and alumni visiting Bucknell?

The next day we were safely home in Virgil, 'enjoying' the three feet of snow that covered everything.

I wouldn't call it 'a damn beautiful day' in Virgil, but it was good to be home!


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See you on February 27th for Posting #104 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.