Tag Archives: Fifth Wheel

Kitsch Transcended

I was expecting a full-on kitschfest as Dave and I made a right turn off one cornfield-lined county road onto another headed for West Bend, Iowa. We’d been on a trek to northwest Iowa to see family, and were perusing the Iowa visitor’s guide for things to see nearby—when we stumbled upon an entry for “the world’s largest manmade grotto.” Pretty enticing right there, but when Dave piped up that as a teenager he’d met the priest that built it —we were headed to the car.

Dave awaits our entry into the grotto.

The Grotto of the Redemption was not what I expected. It covers an entire city block. It is kitschy. But it’s also extraordinarily beautiful. “Priest, spelunker, and grotto builder extraordinaire,” is how the grotto’s website describes Father Dobberstein who was born in Germany in 1872. I’m thinking you could count on one hand the list of “priest spelunkers” throughout history. Father Dobberstein immigrated to America when he was twenty and entered a seminary near Milwaukee, but soon became critically ill with pneumonia. As he fought for his life he prayed to the Blessed Virgin Mary to intercede for him and promised to build a shrine in her honor of he lived. The illness passed, and he came to West Bend as Pastor of the local Catholic church in 1898. He began stockpiling rocks and precious stones and commenced keeping his promise in 1912. He worked on the grotto for the rest of his life—after which the next pastor (the one Dave met) Father Greving took over. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of stones cover the massive construction, many donated to the project from all over the world. During the depression when there wasn’t money to have stones shipped in, Father Dobberstein would melt glass in his kiln and mix it with crayons to create gems. And on the brilliantly sunny day we visited, those “Dobberstein stones” as they call them, along with the thousands of others,

While the angel announces the arrival of the Christ child, sirens behind stand ready to announce the arrival of a tornado.

Proof that a tornado shelter can be both esthetically pleasing and built from very sturdy materials.

The Way of the Cross.

were putting on a stunning show. It is indeed a very inspiring creation. And as we learned later from a local, a great place for the town’s teens to go drink beer at night.

We Have Seen the Future

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These are voyages (albeit short ones) of the Starship Enterprise.

At yesterday’s Trek Fest, we discovered a place where parade-goers applaud the advancements achieved by the technology behind interstellar aircraft…and

No warp drive, but advanced technology for its time nonetheless.

vintage tractors with equal vigor. A place where corn farmers and

Klingons come in peace.

Smart Car…err make that shuttlecraft, with photon torpedo in tow.

Klingon warriors mingle in peaceful harmony. Riverside, Iowa is indeed indeed worthy to be the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk.

Mountain Musings

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Awhile back I posted a note to Facebook about how delighted I was that Jerry Yester, formerly with 1960s rock band The Lovin’ Spoonful, was playing the piano at a restaurant where we were dining in Eureka Springs…which is near where Jerry now lives.

“Wow what a has-been,” responded one of my Facebook buddies. A cruel remark from someone who really isn’t. It made me realize how easy it is to buy in to assumptions embedded everywhere in our culture.

The band you once played in isn’t at the top of the charts anymore. And now you play piano for a small, but equally delighted audience near your home in the beautiful Ozark Mountains. Is this life any less deserving of admiration? I think not.

The noted blues legend Henry Gray is in his eighties now and still tours. But when he’s not, he’s happy to play piano at the Piccadilly Cafeteria in Baton Rouge, where I often had lunch. He does so because it gives him a much pleasure as it did the patrons.

The audience was very much in on the joke and applauded riotously when Jeerk performed their encore dance routine using walkers.

When we made not one, but two visits to Branson during our stay here in southern Missouri, there were several comments about the place that all “the old people go to,” where the shows were “schmaltzy.”

And yes we did attend a magic show, where the final illusion had as its big reveal a giant mock-up of the stone tablets with the ten commandments (and where the magician invited the audience back on Sunday morning to hear him preach.)

But we also saw a very talented young Swedish rock band, (who happened to be astonishingly good tap-dancers as well.)

Dave pauses for a photo-op before heading in for his chicken fried steak dinner.

And yes, we did eat chicken-fried steak at the restaurant with the giant rooster out front. But we also dined at a mountaintop restaurant on the stunningly beautiful campus of College of the Ozarks, on campus-raised pork medallions served over polenta made from cornmeal ground in the campus gristmill, and garnished with vegetables grown in the campus greenhouses.

Student operated gristmill on the campus of College of the Ozarks.

And yes, there were a lot of old people there. Old people who despite the need to use a cane, or a walker or a wheelchair—were out having the time of their lives.

As we slowly evolve into a society that embraces equality for all, and as important as I believe the current struggle for marriage equality to be, I’m reminded that ageism remains deeply imbedded deep in our culture, and that we must be ever vigilant in our quest to end it as well.

Marlene’s Mexico

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Pastries pretty in pastel.

Armed with a pair of tongs, a large tin tray, and Marlene’s expertise, we plunged in to the gluten equivalent of Willie Wonka’s wonderland: El Bolillo. Towers of pastel-colored shell-shaped pastries to the left, a cooler of of tres leches cake slices to the right, yeasty loaves ahead. The tongs flew. Our tray filled.

Marlene offers a tong tutorial.

We approached the cash register in fear of the economic havoc we had wrought on our fixed income. “Five dollars,” said the lovely senorita. Dave and I exchanged quizzical, then furtive looks. “Let’s get out of here before they figure out the register is broken,” we whispered to each other. Marlene smiles, and assures us no mistake was made.

Life is especially good this day when two of the prime directives of our journey have been met (and yes, I just saw the new Star Trek movie). We’ve discovered an amazing place new to us. And we’ve been guided there by an old friend with whom we’ve been reconnected. Marlene and I worked together and became close friends during the decades she lived in south Louisiana, but she returned to Houston, the place she was born, a few years ago. She lives in The Heights, an old neighborhood filled with charm, shade, and craftsman bungalows.

Every heat and hue.

On the day of our visit though, she has brought us to the adjacent neighborhood she’s adopted as a favorite haunt-Marlene’s Mexico. It is there that we found El Bollilo, after working up an appetite wandering the stalls at the farmer’s market across the street that caters to the needs of Houston’s Hispanic folk. As with most farmer’s markets there are stalls piled with fruits and vegetables. But here there is a special emphasis on one particular vegetable genus—the pepper. Thousands and thousands of peppers in a full spectrum of hues denoting the full spectrum of culinary heat. The other offering distinct to this market was burlap bags filled with homeopathic herbs purported to offer relief for everything from to impotence to hepatitis.

Need your blood purified? Have we got an herb for you.

We should perhaps have stopped by after our visit to El Bolillo for a pound of the herb marked to treat diabetes.

Through the Eyes of a Newly Minted Texan

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One of the things I love most about Dave is his insatiable curiosity. I’m also curious, but in a cursory “isn’t-that-interesting-as-I walk-by-and-take-a-picture-with-my-iphone” kind of way.

Dave digs in. And I can always trust that while I’m in the gift shop at the end of my lightning tour of any museum—looking to see if they have those finger puppets of historical figures—Dave will come tug me on the sleeve and guide me back for a “best-of” tour with his selected highlights from everything I missed.

This is where Texas began.

Which is why we spent four hours at the San Jacinto Monument. Where, thanks to Dave’s dedication to detail, this newly minted Texan got a full immersion course in my new state’s riveting history.

Little kids. Big monument.

As cool as the view was at the top of the monument, I was equally riveted by the impressions left by ancient creatures in the limestone used to build it.

The lesson actually begins on the drive in. To reach Texas past, you drive through its iconic present, surrounded by one tank farm after another. The monument itself, even at 567 feet tall, is hard to pick out amidst the forest of refinery cracking towers in the foreground.

It was here that Sam Houston defeated Santa Anna, because a Dave tells me in one of his tug-the-shirt-come-back-here-and-see-this sessions, “Santa Anna was a complete idiot.”

“Well actually he was arrogant,” Dave continues. “He knew that there was a force of Texans in the area, but je could not conceive that they would ever attack and defeat him.”

Deep breath: Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón.

One afternoon Santa Anna let his troops take a siesta. No sentries. How stupid is that? Houston and his troops sweep in. The battle lasted twenty minutes. Soon thereafter Texas is a nation unto itself. (Fun fact: When Texas was admitted as a state, it negotiated the right to fly its Lone Star flag at the same height and size as that of the Union—a right Texans proudly exercise to this very day.)

Santa Anna ran away from the battle and tried to blend in dressed as a common soldier. Wikipedia says that he was found hiding in a swamp. But Dave’s version is more fun, which goes that when the Texans began rounding up the Mexican soldiers they noticed that they addressed one among them as El Presidente. Oops.

But here’s the part that amazes me. Despite the fact that Santa Anna wiped out everyone at the Alamo when they wouldn’t surrender, and then when those he defeated at the next battle did surrender, summarily executed them all anyway, he was spared by Houston, and sent off to Washington, lived in exile and actually once met with President Jackson.

AND THEN, twice returned to Mexico, twice attempted to regain his status as dictator, and was twice more exiled. But somehow, after repeatedly pissing of one nation after another, never faced a firing squad. Amazing.

The amazing raisin de-seeder.

Also amazing was this little machine that took the seeds out of raisins back before botanists had crossbred the seeds out of grapes.

Hey, I have eclectic interests.

We’re Not Pleather People

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So just why is it that virtually every RV comes with two matching recliners? Where and when did this cultural phenomenon—apparently indigenous to this new culture of which we’ve become a part—originate? I hope to have an in-depth investigative report soon, but for the moment we’re busy rebelling. We’re just not pleather people. And so the recliners were loaded on the truck and sent off to the resale shop, where I’m sure they’ll bring delight to someone who IS a pleather person. In their place is now our beloved wicker rocker that came along with us on this journey. It’s lighter, it opens up our living room and it lets in much more light from our biggest window. More importantly it connects us to a special friend.

Our friend Annette gives Martha Stewart a run for her money when it comes to stylish pragmatism. Some years ago we looked around our house in New Orleans and said, “We need some help classing up this place. Cheaply.”

And so we reached out to Annette and offered to wine, dine and show her the town if she’d come for a visit and lend us a hand. You read that right. Gay guys asking their straight friend for decorating help. Another stereotype busted.

And help she did, guiding us to fabulous paint colors for our walls, fabrics for our chairs, and this lovely (and inexpensive) rocker. See that little pillow there? It was made by our fabulously frugal friend out of remnants from the chair fabric. Across the middle is embroidered: D&D: Waste not, want not. A. Hall.

And now everywhere where we go, that advice comes with us…and a bit of Annette too.

Wandering Off the Riverwalk

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There we were last weekend in San Antonio on Cinco de Mayo. As one might expect the shops and restaurants along the Riverwalk teemed with tourists. But surprisingly, and to our delight, just a few hundred yards away—we had the spectacular Mexican Cultural Institute all to ourselves. The first floor exhibition space was devoted to a show of remarkable artwork from contemporary Mexican artists inspired by the Monarch Butterfly, millions of which winter in central Mexico each year. The second floor’s permanent exhibit explored thousands of years of Mexican art and culture. And way in the back, a wall lettered with carefully curated type announced the “Frida Kahlo Gallery.” That wall, in the hallway that led to the restrooms, was an odd setting for the single Kahlo painting that apparently comprised the gallery’s holdings. But then, one of Mexico’s most celebrated and eccentric artists might have found this spot perfect for “The Two Fridas.” Created at the same time as her divorce to another of Mexico’s most celebrated artists, Diego Rivera, it is believed to depict her deep hurt at losing her husband. On the left is the Frida rejected by Rivera. Her blouse is ripped open, exposing her broken and bleeding heart. The Frida to the right, the one that Rivera still loves, has a heart that is still whole. She holds a small portrait of Rivera in her hand. After her death, this small portrait of Rivera was found amongst Kahlo’s belongings.

Kahlo was born in 1907, but preferred that people believe her birthday to be in 1910 to correspond with the Mexican Revolution. She died at age 47, a brief life that burned brightly. She overcame polio as a child, and an horrific bus accident as a young woman that left her immobile for three months and in pain much of the rest of her life. And still she managed to accumulate an extraordinary body of acclaimed artwork, not to mention an extraordinary collection of lovers of both genders. She had affairs with everyone from Leon Trotsky to Josephine Baker.

That one painting, and the story of the artist behind it, was alone worth the visit to this remarkable place we’d stumbled upon by quite by accident. More folks should will wander off the Riverwalk and discover it as well. But I’m glad they didn’t that day. Because this was just the sort of secret I’d hoped this adventure would unearth.

The Arnaudville Experiment

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George Marks did what many young people do who grow up small towns. He moved to the city—New York City to be precise, where his career as an artist was taking off quite nicely thank you.

Then his father became gravely ill. And George moved back to his tiny hometown of Arnaudville, in the heart of Louisiana’s Cajun country, to help care for his dad.

After his father’s death, George realized that he wasn’t ready to leave home again.

And so, with the power of his gentle yet wildly infectious personality, George began nudging his hometown toward an amazing transformation. George will be the first to tell you that many, many people have made this transformation possible, but it seems clear to me that he was the catalyst.

Over the last decade this tiny hamlet has reinvented itself into a Mecca for all sorts of artists and artisans, and at the core of that transformation is NUNU’s Arts and Culture Collective. Step through the door past the weathered gray exterior of an old lumberyard building and into a explosion of creative spirit. On one recent visit to NUNU’s, quilters gathered around a frame suspended from 20-foot ceilings, not only celebrating and preserving that ancient art—but practicing their French, part of another community initiative to keep that part of local culture vibrant. The adjoining space serves as studios for Marks and other regional artists—and on the occasional evening as a music performance space. The town’s old jailhouse and waterworks have also been converted to artists’ studios. Down the road there are weekly jam sessions at the music shop Tom’s Fiddles, hosted by a fiddle maker from Maine, one of those drawn to The Arnaudville Experiment—along with a bass player from Rhode Island and a blues guitar player from Nashville.

We spent some of our final week in Louisiana back in Arnaudville, for its Semaine Francais—six days exploring how small communities can build on their cultural foundations to become even stronger, more vibrant places to live. Alongside local townspeople and politicians were a hundred folks from a similar small community in Brittany—from business people, to musicians, to high school students.

There were bi-lingual workshops in the day—and lots of food and music at night. (Including a joint performance by a band from Brittany and a local band in which they collaborated on new songs that blend their music traditions. How cool is that.)

Next up for Arnaudville is an ambitious plan to draw upon its French-speaking heritage to create an “immersive French weekend experience” for those who’d like to brush up on that particular skill without the cost of a plane ticket to France. Ideas include a French speaking lane at the grocery store, French speaking window at the post office, art and music studio tours in French.

Pretty groovy eh?

From this very special small town—comes very big ideas. Glad we got to visit one more time as we hit the road.

The Little Big Cup

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One of the joys of our time in Acadiana was hanging at The Little Big Cup, a restaurant and coffee shop opened last year by Kevin Robin, when he returned to Arnaudville from New York—with a partner he met there in tow.

How did you convince Sanjay to move from New York to tiny Arnaudville I ask? “His only condition was that there had to be a coffee shop,” Kevin responded with a chuckle. “And so I opened one.”

Here’s an excerpt from a piece I wrote about The Little Big Cup for Country Roads Magazine:

“We’ll have acoustic music on the deck and let it drift off lazily over the bayou.“

That really is just how Kevin Robin talks. And thirty seconds into the conversation you can’t wait to hear what he’ll say next. The 1800 square foot deck in question will be behind the restaurant he’s opening in Arnaudville next door to The Little Big Cup, a combination coffee shop and restaurant he opened with his partner Sanjay Maharaj last fall. It was so wildly popular from the start that he explains, “The restaurant hijacked the coffee shop.”

And Robin is very clear that he has a distinct mission in mind for each part of that equation.

He’d like the coffee shop to continue to be a a gathering spot—a community “nucleus.” A place where folks can come to visit with their friends, a place that’s embracing. Robin’s family runs a local grocery store that has long served the community, and just inside the entrance to The Little Big Cup are the vintage doors to the old store from which his family’s business evolved. Intended, he explains, “to bring people to a place of their childhood, when they pulled on those doors.”

Robin has recently returned to Arnaudville from New York where he was pursuing doctoral studies in neuropsychology. Which helps explain the way he expresses one of his visions for this place. “My idea was to create a place where we can foster intergenerational connectivity.”

And just how does one do that? In part with a really big table in the middle of your coffee shop. Each afternoon, his plan is to gather a half dozen folks from a nearby nursing home, and pair each of them with two latchkey kids to help them with their homework. Has it become clear yet that this place is about a lot more than a cappuccino and biscotti?

The restaurant next door draws upon that same vision.

“We decided to become the home of the $5 plate lunch,” Robin says, but adds that the special will be available in the evening as well.

“It’s traditional stuff like most of the folks would cook here,” he explains, delighting in the fact that they’ll often get an order from someone with a request to deliver the meal to an elderly parent so they won’t have to cook that evening.

What a guy. Glad I’ve had a chance to get to know Kevin and Sanjay a bit. Hope to see them again on next year’s swing through Louisiana. Keep up with the evolution at The Little Big Cup’s Facebook page.

First Stop: Acadiana

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Cajun Palms. I almost crack up every time I say the name of the RV resort we chose for our first stop. Here on the edge of the Atchafalaya Basin, one side of the road has been cleared and planted with sugar cane that stands about knee high this month. The other side of the road has been cleared and planted with palm trees. Lots and lots of palm trees, each one waving over a concrete pad awaiting an RV. Palms are not native to this part of the world, but they seem to like it here. As did we, despite our first encounter with the quirky side of RV culture, upon which I’ll expound in an upcoming post.

We chose Cajun Palms not for its amazing bar and pool complex or the weekend drinking and line-dancing beside that pool, but purely for its location within easy striking distance of all the exploration we wanted to do in Acadiana during our last week (for awhile) in Louisiana. We packed a lot in to those last few days.

We celebrated Dave’s birthday the first night at a pot luck in an old lumberyard that has been converted to an arts collective, and where on that particular night a gathering of locals and visitors from France celebrated their historic connection. They sang Happy Birthday to Dave in in French accompanied by a band from Brittany.

We made the ten minute drive into Breaux Bridge for the legendary Zydeco breakfast at Café des Amis. The dance floor, inches from our table was packed, while we chowed down on an etouffée topped omelet and a huge boudin-stuffed oreille de cochon pastry.

We visited with long-time friends who live in a beautiful, art-fill Acadian cottage that happens to be just down the road from our home du jour.

We chatted one afternoon with the tiara-topped winners of the Miss and Mrs. Catfish Festival Queen contest who were the guests of honor at a outdoor arts show in charming, historic Washington.

We made a quick stop to see the irises in magnificent bloom at the über-cool, design-award-winning, eco-friendly St. Landry Parish Visitors Center.

We visited the branch of the Jean Lafitte National Park that interprets the lives of those exiled Acadians who ended up in the fertile prairies around Eunice.

At a reception one perfect Spring evening we chatted with the French Consul to New Orleans about Le Grand Dérangement des Acadiens when they were exiled and then enjoyed the view from a flower-filled deck overlooking Bayou Fuselier—at a beautiful restaurant that is part of the emerging arts community of Arnaudville.

We scored smoked boudin from a drive-through window across the street from our RV park. We at a LOT of boudin this week.

Another morning it was off to Lafayette for a trip down memory lane for me. This is where I got my first job out of college, directing an early morning TV show that was half in Cajun French, half in English. We had sweet potato and pecan pancakes at Dwyer’s Café, the owner of which was once my mess chef when I was a platoon leader for a National Guard unit in Lafayette. I’m convinced we had the best field rations in military history.

We were serenaded that afternoon by a 90-year old volunteer at the charming historic interpretation village of Vermillionville. He teased two young women in the front row asking where their men were and if they were married. “Not in this state,” they answered wryly, smiling at each other, and then gently back at him. We smiled at each other too.

Then it was home for soak in the hot tub and a nap.

Old friends. New Friends. Great food. Great music. Cultural quirks. Inspiring stories. We’ve only been on the road a week, and we’ve only traveled 100 miles, but so far this adventure is everything we imagined it to be and more. I’ll expand upon much of this in the next few posts.

Fabulous Fifth Wheel

Living large in a little footprint.

Tag Archives: Fifth Wheel

Kitsch Transcended

We Have Seen the Future

Mountain Musings

Marlene’s Mexico

Through the Eyes of a Newly Minted Texan

We’re Not Pleather People

Wandering Off the Riverwalk

The Arnaudville Experiment

The Little Big Cup

First Stop: Acadiana