Reprinted from my blog on fiftyisthenewfifty.com

Most guys our age can rattle off every car they’ve ever owned.

But not me. I’ve owned so many that I can’t remember them all. But I do remember the stories …

My first car was a blue 1960 Studebaker Lark, inherited from my mother. I remember two things about that car. The first was that it was so slow you had to pray when you merged onto a highway. And the second was that one of my college suite-mates challenged me to “run” him in a race. His proposal immediately raised my curiosity—as he didn’t have a car. But he actually meant “run”… as in, he’d run, and I’d drive my car, in a 100-yard race.

I can still recall the crowd of guys gathered on the road outside our dorm … all of them rooting for him. I can still hear their cheers as he took the lead at the start. And I can still see him to my left, a frantic figure pumping his arms and legs. It was close the entire race. But—thankfully!—I edged him out at the finish line.

Then there was “The Jet.” The Jet was a blue 1966 Chevrolet SuperSport with a 396 engine and a convertible top, which I bought from my uncle. It was a monster! I took it on the highway to “run” whoever I found. I raced Firebirds. GTO’s. Camaros. Mustangs. Even an occasional Corvette. And I beat them all.

Unfortunately, though, all that racing caused the rings to blow out. So, rather than pay for a ring job, I put the car up for sale. Anyone who drove it could see the smoke pouring out of the exhaust. But it apparently didn’t matter that much to two servicemen who had hot dates that night … but no car. They paid me $1,500—in cash – and sped away to pick up their dates, black smoke shooting out behind them.

Then there was the used Volvo that broke down in the middle of the Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys, and tied up traffic for miles in both directions. And there was the spiffy little English roadster (red!) called a TR250. One day, in the middle of winter, the heating/defroster system failed. The repair shop told me it would take a month for the parts to arrive from England. So I drove around in the dead of winter (in New York) without heat, with white breath coming out of my mouth, teeth chattering, and a windshield that froze over every time it snowed or sleeted.

I remember three rickety Ford Pintos, in the years after college; each time I bought one, I’d keep it for a few months and then decide to sell it so I could go back to Europe or the Middle East. I  also had a beautiful new sports car from American Motors (remember them?), called a Javelin, in 1970. I sold a few months after I bought it … because I didn’t want to pay (my Dad) the $75 a month for it.

There have been Toyotas. Mazdas. Nissans. Volkswagens (remember the Karman Ghia?). A second Volvo (the one I own now). A Camaro. And Lord knows what else.

My buddies used to joke that they never knew what they’d find in my driveway when they came over.

My favorite car, though, was the Saab I drove from 1999 to 2002. A sleek, beautiful black job whose engine rumbled with a low, throaty roar when you started her up, and would cruise easily at over a hundred without you even realizing how fast you were going. And the dashboard? Like a jet plane. The interior had an array of funky features. For example, even today, you don’t put the key into the dashboard in a Saab; you insert it into the middle console.

Once I was driving around Vail, Colorado, with a friend from there. We passed the police station, which was full of police cars—Saabs! My friend explained it was because Saabs were fast and maneuverable, and they could overtake the bad guys on a winding Rockies road.

I love my Volvo. But I still think about that Saab, every day.

Steve Winston (www.stevewinston.com) has written/contributed to 17 books, and his articles have appeared in major media all over the world. In pursuit of “The Story,” he’s been shot at in Northern Ireland, been a cowboy in Arizona, jumped into an alligator pit in the Everglades, trained with a rebel militia in the jungle, flown World War II fighter planes, climbed 15,000-foot mountains, explored ice caves at 11,000 feet in the Swiss Alps, and trekked glaciers in Alaska. When he’s not flying around the world, he lives in Greater Fort Lauderdale.

STEVE WINSTON
(www.stevewinston.com)

Reprinted from My Blog at fiftyisthenewfifty.com

Me and Teddy Kennedy

As the plane carrying my Dad and I arrived at the gate in Washington, D.C., that day in 1968, everyone crowded into the aisle to get their stuff from the overhead bins.

My dad was having a hard time getting his sport coat on in the cramped space. From behind him, a tall, ruddy, red-faced man grabbed the coat and helped him get it on.

My dad threw a “Thanks” over his shoulder, never even looking at the man. But I did. It was Senator Ted Kennedy.

I frantically tried to signal my dad to turn around. But he wasn’t picking up on my signal. Finally I just said – when I could finally get the words out of my mouth – “Dad, turn around!”

I had always been fascinated by politics; I had even recently served as a part-time aide to a Congressman from Long Island named Lester Wolff.

We started talking, me and my Dad and Ted Kennedy. As we walked off the plane and into the terminal, I told him of my passion for politics and my work for Congressman Wolff.

Ted Kennedy listened to every word I said as if I was testifying at a congressional hearing. When he responded, it was with sincere interest.

Then, to our amazement, he invited us into a private lounge. He ordered a drink for himself and my dad, and a Coke for me. And he motioned us to sit down at a table.

And there we sat, for another half-hour, as he listened intently to what was probably incessant babbling on my part. He talked about various ways that I could, indeed, use my passion to change the world. He talked of his boyhood summers in Hyannis Port. He even, at one point, referenced his dead brothers.

He also talked a bit about the Senate, and how difficult it could sometimes be to get legislation passed. (Sound familiar?)

As I watched him, I felt the burden that must have been his every day of his life. The burden of sadness, and the burden of responsibility. But he was quick to laugh, and it was a sweet, loud, deep laugh.

And then he had to go.

He wished me luck, and urged me to be involved in the causes in which I believed. And as he shook my hand in front of everyone else in the lounge, I had an incredible feeling of newfound self-importance.

I never saw him again. Thought about writing him after that … but, somehow, I never did. I guess I figured he wouldn’t remember me.

Now, I wish I had. But, whenever I think of that afternoon at Dulles International Airport, I can’t help but smile.

My Drink with George Bush

It was the fall of 1978. And I was a cub reporter at The Palm Beach Post.

“George Bush is going to be at his club in Jupiter (FL),” my editor was saying on the phone. “Get out there and talk to him.”

So I got in my car and drove out to Jupiter Island. I noticed very quickly that the people at the club were very deferential to a slightly-scruffy kid reporter with longish hair and a notebook. And I knew why. With a resume that included a stint in the House of Representatives, Directorship at the CIA, and United Nations Ambassador, George H. Bush was positioning himself for a run at the Presidency in two years. And he needed media coverage.

Having grown up in a family of Democrats, I was prepared for a somewhat-bombastic, rigid Republican. But he was anything but.

He greeted me warmly, and we walked over to a table with an umbrella. When he asked what I wanted to drink, I said, “A coke, please.”

He looked at me with a wry grin, and said, “No, Steve … what do you really want to drink.” So I ordered a glass of wine, and he followed suit.

For an hour, we sat beside the pool in his fancy club and traded opinions on everything from politics to sports to life in Florida (where I had just arrived a month or two earlier).

The conversation was warm and easy and comfortable, and he showed a hearty wit and a sincere laugh. Even though I took notes some of the time, I had the feeling I was in a great dinner conversation, rather than conducting an interview.

Much to my surprise (and, I’m sure, to the consternation of all my relatives), I found him surprisingly moderate in many of his positions. And more than willing to consider mine. And he showed me one skill that many political figures lack … the ability to listen.

Because of this interview, and my resulting story, I became a mini-celebrity in the newsroom. How many reporters – of any age – get to have drinks with a future President?

George Bush didn’t win the Presidency, of course, in 1980. But he became Vice President in the Reagan administration. And eight years later, his time came.

As the sun began setting over the Mediterranean-style roof of the club, I remember thinking that this was a day I’d remember for a long time.

And I guess I was right.

Steve Winston (www.stevewinston.com) has written/contributed to 17 books, and his articles appear in major media all over the world. In pursuit of “The Story,” he’s been shot at in Northern Ireland. Been a cowboy in Arizona. Jumped into an alligator pit in the Everglades. Trained with a rebel militia in the jungle. Climbed 15,000-foot mountains. Flown World War II fighter planes in aerial “combat.” Trekked glaciers in Alaska. Explored ice caves at 11,000 feet in Switzerland. Driven an ATV to the top of an 11,000-foot peak n Colorado, and – much scarier! – back down again. And been thrown out of a reception given by the Queen for the British Olympic team.

STEVE WINSTON
(www.stevewinston.com)

Reprinted from my blog at fiftyisthenewfifty.com

Chauncey Mabe knows books. And well he should. Mabe was a book critic for The South Florida Sun-Sentinel for 22 years. He’s an accomplished freelance writer and ghostwriter. And his apartment in a Fort Lauderdale high-rise has more books stuffed into it than any other apartment – or house, for that matter – I’ve ever seen.

Chauncey Mabe is also one of my closest friends. We’ve know each other for more than thirty years. (And we still keep a regular “Bad Cinema Night” tradition, in which we purposely hunt down the greasiest food and the lowest-rated movie – so bad it’s funny —we can find.)

When I posed the question to Chauncey, “Is men’s literature dead?” he thought about it for a minute.

And then he answered, “No, men’s literature isn’t dead. But men aren’t reading it.”

“You’d think men would be reading ‘masculine’-type things like spy novels, war novels, or crime,” he continued. “And those types of books are certainly being written by men. It’s just that men aren’t reading them. In fact, the overwhelming majority of readers of ‘Men’s Literature’ are…women.”

Chauncey Mabe (his dad named him after a ballplayer he knew when he was in the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Minor League system) says the statistics are sobering:

Espionage Thrillers – 69% of the readers of these books are women.

Science Fiction – 52% of readers are women.

Mystery and Detective Novels – An astounding 86% of the readers are women.

Men, he says, are more enamored of electronic gadgets, video games, and fantasy-league football than they are of a good book. And he lays the blame partially at the feet of our educational system.

“Boys often start out reading books when they’re young,” he says. “But then they turn into adolescents, and get more interested in sports…and girls. That, of course, can’t be helped. But – at exactly the same time, our English teachers start focusing more on symbolism and abstract concepts, instead of story, myth, and character…which should be what reading is all about.”

When asked if electronic readers such as Nook and Kindle would be a boon or bane to men’s literature, Mabe says he thinks, in the short term, that it may get more men interested in reading. But, he adds, once the technology gets more sophisticated, men will probably use their I-Pads to watch TV rather than read.

“There are great writers producing great men’s books these days,” he says. “And telling real men’s stories.” People, he says, like Jon Krakauer, author of the mountain-climbing epic “Into Thin Air.” Sebastian Junger (“The Perfect Storm”). Elmore Leonard (“Get Shorty,” “Out of Sight,” “Hombre”). And Benjamin Black (“A Death in Summer”), the pen name of an Irishman who writes crime fiction.

“Men’s literature isn’t dead at all,” Chauncey Mabe says. “It’s actually alive and well. It’s just that men aren’t reading it.”

When asked which writers/books every man should read, Mabe listed “Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain; “The Kon-Tiki Expedition,” by Thor Heyerdahl; “Treasure Island” and “Kidnapped,” by Robert Louis Stevenson; “The Lonesome Dove,” by Larry McMurtry; and authors such as Ernest Hemingway (his short stories rather than his novels), Peter Matthiessen, and Philip Caputo.

“We actually live in a golden age of writing,” Chauncey Mabe says. “Even with all the junk being produced by ‘popular culture’ today, there are still wonderful books coming out all the time. And wonderful men’s books coming out all the time.

“But until we figure out a way to pull men away from their gadgets and their TV’s, most of the people reading them will be women.”

Resource: Chauncey Mabe’s blog, “Open Page,” is at www.flcenterlitarts.wordpress.com.

Steve Winston (www.stevewinston.com) has written/contributed to 17 books, and his articles appear in major media all over the world. In pursuit of “The Story,” he’s been shot at in Northern Ireland. Been a cowboy in Arizona. Jumped into an alligator pit in the Everglades. Trained with a rebel militia in the jungle. Climbed 15,000-foot mountains. Flown World War II fighter planes in aerial “combat.” Trekked glaciers in Alaska. Explored ice caves at 11,000 feet in Switzerland. Driven an ATV to the top of an 11,000-foot peak n Colorado, and – much scarier! – back down again. And been thrown out of a reception given by the Queen for the British Olympic team.

BY STEVE WINSTON
(www.stevewinston.com)

Reprinted from my blog at fiftyisthenewfifty.com

I can still remember that now-famous poster on my wall, that summer of ’69.

It was red, with a guitar slung across it, and a white dove standing astride the guitar. “Three days of peace and music,” the poster read. When I woke up each morning in that teenaged summer, it was generally the first thing I saw. And it called out to me, like some irresistible siren.

“Woodstock” was going to be held on a farm in the Catskill Mountains, in upstate New York. It was going to be the greatest rock concert ever held, with performers like The Who, Jefferson Airplane, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Joe Cocker, Richie Havens, Sly & the Family Stone, Joan Baez, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. It was a clarion call to what became known as “the Woodstock Generation.” And damned if I was going to sit home while the rest of the world – my world, anyway – went “up to Yasgur’s farm.”

Besides, the New York radio stations said, we wouldn’t be roughing it. There was plenty of food, plenty of bathrooms, and good sanitation. Don’t bother bringing food, the ads trumpeted…we have enough for 50,000 people!

So, on that day in mid-August, I fired up my Camaro convertible with the green body and the sleek black hood and stripes, packed it full of as many of my friends as would fit, and set out – along with two other similarly-filled cars – for upstate New York.

But, of course, 50,000 people didn’t show up; 500,000 did. I’ll never forget my first sight of what I came to call “the Monster.”

As we came to a hill, and then looked down into the meadow below, I saw a half-million people sitting in a meadow. Imagine, the population of Atlanta or Washington, D.C. sitting in a meadow. Which is why, by the time we had arrived in late-afternoon, and I had waited nearly an hour on line to use a port-o-potty, I realized there wasn’t going to be enough food. Or toilets. Or toilet paper. Or good sanitary conditions.

The food stands had already run out of food – and it was only the first day. So we survived as best we could the next three days…by grubbing, pleading, cajoling, and just-plain begging for food. But – even though just about everyone else was short of food, as well – there was still a wonderful spirit of sharing.

I remember when the music started. Richie Havens came on stage, singing “Freedom, Freedom.” And for a while, we forgot our hunger. Then It’s a Beautiful Day came onstage (remember “White Bird?”). And we allowed ourselves to just be taken away with the music.

And then the rains came. And came. And came. And turned that beautiful meadow into a thick, mucky swamp. And the half-million young people sitting in it into a soaking-wet mass that had come prepared for three days of peace and music – but not summer rains.

I honestly don’t remember a lot about the rest of the weekend. I remember being hungry. And being wet. And I remember the music. But I also remember thinking that this was a really miserable experience. And I remember, on the last day, being scrunched into my Camaro with four other guys, trying to make our way out of the mass. It was steaming-hot that day, and then it started raining again. It must have been over a hundred degrees in the car. But I couldn’t run the A/C…because we were stuck in traffic for hours, and in danger of over-heating.

I remember the three days of music. But I have a hard time remembering the three days of “peace.”

I met a business acquaintance in Denver a few weeks ago, and it turned out he had been at Woodstock, too. Like any two aging ex-hippies, we reminisced…and we smiled at the memories.

Funny how time has a way of making hard memories a bit softer.

Steve Winston (www.stevewinston.com) has written/contributed to 17 books, and his articles appear in major media all over the world.

STEVE WINSTON

(www.stevewinston.com)

Reprinted from my blog at www.travelhoppers.com

On the Hudson River Painters’ Trail, You Can Walk in the Footsteps of Early-America’s Greatest Artists

Some of Early-America’s greatest painters and writers called this one of the most beautiful spots in the world.

On the map, it’s only two hours north of Manhattan. But it may as well be a world away.  The Kaaterskill Clove is a Catskill Mountain ravine of stunning beauty, with dense forest and thundering waterfalls. And the biggest of those waterfalls – Kaaterskill – is higher than Niagara. 

This region is a place of Technicolor surprises at every bend in the road, with quaint villages like Woodstock and stunning highland panoramas. It’s a place of red barns and country-craft shops and fruit stands and old bookshops and B&B’s, with little bells that ring when you open the door. It’s a place of small towns where everybody still knows everybody else, where people still say hello to strangers, and where time seems (happily) stuck in the past.   

“This area of the Catskill Mountains attracted Thomas Cole, the first of the so-called Hudson River School of Painters,” says Bob Malkin, a local historian and owner of an aptly-named vacation cottage called The Waterfall House (www.waterfallrental.com). “In 1825, Cole completed one of three known paintings he did of the Kaaterskill Falls.”

Thomas Cole was soon followed by well-known artists such as Frederic Church, Jasper Cropsey, Sanford Gifford, and Asher B. Durand. This Hudson River Painters “movement,” lasting until 1875, is considered the first genuinely American “school” of painting.  

Today, on the Hudson River Painters’ Hiking Trail, we can follow in the footsteps of these artists. And, as a result, we can now stand on the spots where the artists first sketched the ideas for their paintings. And we can look out at the same vistas they painted. 

If you stand at a spot called Sunset Rock, looking down into the Kaaterskill Clove, you can see the views first sketched by Thomas Cole. On the Painters’ Trail, you can see the spot where Cole painted his majestic “Autumn in the Catskills,” (ca. 1836), with a distant figure standing in the midst of mountains and forest. You can stand where Frederic Church stood when he sketched the outline of “Looking West From Olana” (1864), which became a visual feast of forest, mountain, mist-shrouded waters, and setting sun. And you can compare Catskill Creek to Church’s painting, “Scene on Catskill Creek,” with its brilliant colors and its distant lakes and clouds.

If you head up North Mountain, you can see where Cole and Church, who became Cole’s student at the age of eighteen, sketched the Catskill Mountain House Hotel. From a bit higher, you can see one of Cole’s favorite views, a spot from which he could see his house (called Cedar Grove) in the town of Catskill – twelve miles away. On the nearby hilltop where Frederic Church first sketched the Catskills is Olana, the whimsical Persian-style home he built, with ornately-carved red doors and arched windows with fluted tops.

Both Olana and Cedar Grove are open to visitors. Here, you can see the workspaces of these two famed artists…along with some of their work.

There are a variety of great hikes here. The 24-mile Escarpment Trail, for example, was America’s very first hiking trail. The actual Hudson River Painters Trail is a more-modest six miles, starting atBastionFallsin the Kaaterskill Clove. But the views are spectacular. From certain vantage points on the Trail, you can see not only the Hudson River, but also into Connecticut and Massachusetts. 

Painters weren’t the only artists who came here, though. Many of America’s most treasured writers, such as James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Herman Melville, and Mark Twain, also considered the Kaaterskill Clove one of the most beautiful spots in the world.

“In James Fenimore Cooper’s ‘The Pioneers,’” Bob Malkin says, “Leatherstocking remarked that you could ‘see all of creation’ from the top of the falls. And the sleepy little hamlet of Palenville became the setting for Washington Irving’s ‘Rip Van Winkle.’”

On the Hudson River Painters’ Trail, you’ll see more wild turkeys and deer and rabbits than people. And, if you listen, you’ll hear the footsteps of the legendary pioneers and scoundrels and heroes who swept through here, on their way to immortality either in the history books or in the famous novels of the day.   

And, of course, there’s Bob Malkin’s “Waterfall House” – perhaps the only vacation rental in the continental U.S. with a major waterfall in its backyard. 

When you’re sitting outside on the deck, overlooking Niobe Falls (an arm of Kaaterskill Falls), you just may find yourself agreeing with all those early painters and writers…that this may be the most beautiful spot in the world.

RESOURCES: www.travelhudsonvalley.org; www.americantrails.org; www.waterfallrental.com;

Steve Winston (www.stevewinston.com) has written/contributed to 17 books, and his articles have appeared in major media all over the world. In pursuit of “The Story,” he’s been shot at in Northern Ireland, been a cowboy in Arizona, jumped into an alligator pit in the Everglades, trained with a rebel militia in the jungle, climbed 15,000-foot mountains, trekked glaciers in Alaska, explored ice caves in Switzerland, and flown old World War II fighter planes in aerial “combat.” He lives in Greater Fort Lauderdale. 

by

STEVE WINSTON
(www.stevewinston.com)

Reprinted from my blog on www.fiftyisthenewfifty.com

The night of my college graduation, my dad drove me to Kennedy Airport. The next morning I landed in Ireland. And spent the better part of three years hitch-hiking across the continent and the Middle East, and living out of a knapsack. It’s hard to tell the story of a three-year journey – both physical and spiritual – in a few hundred words. So, instead, some of the most vivid memories:

The fighting between Protestants and Catholics and the British in Northern Ireland. The streets lined with barbed wire and broken glass. The crumbling (from explosions) entrances into each neighborhood, with warnings scrawled on the brick walls, and with each neighborhood’s residents challenging me as I approached. And getting caught in the middle of several gun battles.

The lush greenery, on the other hand, of the Republic of Ireland, with its warm people and its great pubs and its ancient family graveyards behind the cottages in the countryside.

Getting tossed out of a reception in London given by Queen Elizabeth for the British Olympic team.

Running into a schoolmate at the base of the Arc D’Triomphe.

In Rome, waiting patiently for a nun to cross the busy streets. And then crossing next to her … because that was the only way I felt I’d make it to the other side without getting run over.

Being pretty much the only one not hurling over the side of the boat on crossing the English Channel toward France … every time I made the trip. And being pretty much the only one not hurling over the side on crossing the Irish Sea from Ireland to Wales … every time I made the trip.

Meeting the family of a long-lost, school-days pen-pal in Israel.

The snowy majesty of the Austrian Alps. And the unbelievable beauty of the Dolomites and Italian Alps at sunset.

A restaurant in Switzerland called Raclette Stube, which had the greatest version of a Swiss dish called “raclette” that I’ve ever eaten.

Being taken aback when, after I asked a Swiss guy about good clubs in Zurich, I was told “where all you foreigners like to go.” (Guess I never thought of myself as a “foreigner.”)

Getting thrown out of the first-class section on a German train (into which I had sneaked with a German friend).

The rain in the British Isles, clouding my vision and weighing down my backpack.

The French people who never seemed to understand my French. And the food in France, sampled in the underground cellars of the Left Bank.

A two-year-old, runny-nosed girl (now probably forty) named Ruthie Jones in Wales; I rented a room in her family’s working-class flat for a week or two.

Seeing the face of my aunt – who I’d never met before – waiting for me in a hotel lobby in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Despairing of ever finding a room in a French village, and just bedding down for the night under a stone bridge, with a bottle of wine.

A group of Turkish guys with whom I shared a compartment on an Austrian train, their fascination with the “yellow woman” (a blonde) in my “Playboy” (the only English words they knew), and the incredible Turkish food they shared with me (especially the grape leaves!).

The signs in Wales, with arrows pointing to towns with names like “Llythllwydd” and “Wylywtthhlydd.”

The Coliseum in Rome.

The golden, eternal beauty of Jerusalem.

The nights spent in shabby hostels with guys from all over the world.

The old lady in Rome who kept screaming at me (“Meestah! Meestah!”), while pounding on the door of the room I was renting from her, because the shower I was taking upstairs was somehow causing a flood in her kitchen.

Trying my first Indian food, while roaming around London with another American guy I had met on the road, and pouring tons of curry all over it. And, a couple of hours later, listening to him moan in the darkness in the decrepit warehouse in which we were staying with some other American and Canadian kids (and hearing him say the next morning that he had heard me moaning all night!).

Those were invigorating, wonderful years, in which I learned not only about the world … but about myself. And in which I was so damned young…!

Steve Winston (www.stevewinston.com) has written/contributed to 17 books, and his articles have appeared in major media all over the world. In pursuit of “The Story,” he’s been shot at in Northern Ireland, been a cowboy in Arizona, jumped into an alligator pit in the Everglades, trained with a rebel militia in the jungle, flown World War II fighter planes, climbed 15,000-foot mountains, explored ice caves at 11,000 feet in the Swiss Alps, and trekked glaciers in Alaska.

by

STEVE WINSTON

Originally written for Visit Florida, the tourism marketing arm of The State of Florida

“The Wild Man of the Loxahatchee” lived off the land in the northern Everglades. He was a legend in his own time. And when he was found dead with a shotgun hole in his belly, the legend grew.

Hobe Sound, FL – I’m in pursuit of a ghost. But as I glide up the dark-green waters of the Loxahatchee River, into the interior of the northern Everglades, I’m not really sure that I want to find him.

“Trapper” Nelson (born Vincent Nostokovich) lived in the murky swamps and mangroves of the Loxahatchee from the 1930s until 1968.  

He was called “The Wild Man of the Loxahatchee” – and with good reason. He stood 6-feet, 4-inches, with 240 pounds of muscle. He lived in a log cabin. He ate only what he could kill – and he never went hungry. He hunted, he fished, he trolled the “River of Grass.” And he apparently had little fear of the alligators, water moccasins, rattlesnakes and panthers who also trolled the “River of Grass.”

Trapper Nelson caught so many creatures that he eventually built a small zoo to house them, buying 800 acres from the surrounding landowners (the cages are still here).

He entertained visitors by wrestling alligators. He apparently had an eye for the ladies, as well – many of whom hired guides to bring them upriver to his cabin.

As he got older, however, Trapper became convinced that people were trying to steal his land. And he began complaining of various ailments. He wasn’t the type to go to a hospital. So he diagnosed himself with cancer.

On July 24, 1968, an acquaintance found Trapper Nelson dead inside his cabin, with a shotgun hole in his belly. 

The county coroner ruled it suicide, that Trapper had done himself in because he figured he was dying. To this day, however, some locals maintain the killer was a jealous husband, or a disgruntled landowner who believed Trapper had “stolen” his land.

Some people, though, will swear that Trapper Nelson is still there.

Cheryl Wells, park ranger at Jonathan Dickinson State Park, said during her first encounter with the ghost of Trapper Nelson in 1994 that he was looking for love. “If I weren’t dead, I’d be asking you out,” Wells said the ghost told her, according to Haunt Hunter’s Guide to Florida, by Joyce Elson Moore.

“It was the first week of training,” Wells said. “All of the sudden I heard him. He was flirting with me. (Later) I said, ‘Was Trapper a ladies’ man?’ And (the instructing ranger) looked at me and said, ‘How did you know that?’”

Another story has it that two men landed their canoe at Trapper Nelson’s cabin. One was struck by something he couldn’t see. Others claim to have seen Trapper waving from the dock, as if trying to get their attention. And some have been tapped on the shoulder inside the cabin.

Mark and Rose Watson live near the Loxahatchee, on the dirt road on which Trapper used to go for supplies. They claim to have seen him at least a half-dozen times. And Rose Watson speaks from first-hand knowledge… because she knew him.

When she was little, her older brother used to take her along when he rowed upriver to visit Trapper.  

“My brother Buddy was 20 years older than me,” Watson says. “And he and Trapper were good friends. After they put me to sleep, they would sit up most of the night talking by candlelight. I remember all the animals Trapper kept there. And I remember he was a huge man – especially to a little girl. I never saw him with a shirt on. And I don’t remember him wearing shoes.”

One night several years back, while she and Mark were watching TV, Rose suddenly felt goosebumps on the back of her neck. She didn’t think anything of it at the time. But a month later, it happened again. This time, she turned around, toward the sliding glass door in the rear.

And she saw Trapper Nelson.

“I saw him clearly,” she says. “A big man, with the outline of the face I remembered from childhood. There was – I don’t know how else to say it – sort of an aura around him. He was moving back and forth, side to side, as if he was trying to see inside.”

She heard him, too.

“I heard him running down the old path he used to take for supplies,” she says. “Then I’d hear the footsteps stop, when he was looking inside the house. And then I’d hear him take off again.

“I saw him clearly,” Rose Watson says. “There’s no doubt in my mind. It was as real as it could possibly be!”

Steve Winston (www.stevewinston.com) has written/contributed to 17 books. In addition, his articles have appeared in major media all over the world. In pursuit of “The Story,” he’s been shot at in Northern Ireland, been a cowboy in Arizona, trained with a rebel militia in the jungle, jumped into an alligator pit in the Everglades, climbed 15,000-foot peaks, flown World War II fighter planes in aerial “combat,” trekked glaciers in Alaska, and explored ice caves at 11,000 feet in the Alps.

STEVE WINSTON
(www.stevewinston.com)

reprinted from my blog at www.travelhoppers.com

Don’t laugh.

Often, when I travel, one of the first places I seek out is the local cemetery, and not just during Halloween season. Why? Because there, believe it or not, you can learn a lot about the place you’re visiting — about its people, about its history, about its lifestyle, and about its colorful characters and legends. You can be moved to tears, of course. But you may also find yourself laughing out loud, at the poetic or funky or outrageous or angry or funny remembrances etched into tombstones.

Don’t believe me? Well, ponder this. For anyone who’s ever been there (and for us Floridians who go there regularly), Key West is the epitome of “funky.” In fact, I think it’s just about the funkiest town in America (or, as the independent-minded locals like to say, “in the Conch Republic of the Keys.”) Separated from the mainland by 160 miles of keys (little coral islands) and water, Key West is, literally, the last stop. (And it’s closer to Cuba than to Miami.). It’s always attracted folks who like moving to the beat of a different drum: the wild, the weird, the artistic (and would-be artistic), the bikers, the treasure-hunters, the rum-runners, the speculators, the wacky (and wacked-out), the wanderers, et cetera.

Small wonder, then, that a number of visitors (not only me!) eventually find their way to the Key West Cemetery. Here, they find a “city” of some 70,000 inhabitants — twice as much as the living population above ground.

And here, they’ll find gravestone inscriptions such as the one etched by a woman scorned on the grave of her scoundrel — “At least I know where he’s sleeping tonight.” Here, they’ll find the grave of B.P. “Pearl” Roberts, apparently the town’s resident hypochondriac, upon which is inscribed, “I told you I was sick!” They’ll also find the grave of “General” Abe Sawyer, a 40-inch-tall little person who demanded that he be buried in a full-sized grave. Then there’s the eternal resting place of “Sloppy Joe” Russell, who owned the legendary Key West bar that’s today named for him, which was Ernest Hemingway’s favorite haunt when he lived here in the ’30s. Also buried here is Hemingway’s chief source of material for To Have and Have Not, a Prohibition-era bootlegger named Willard Antonio Gomez. And the inscription on the grave of Gloria Russell simply says, “I’m just resting my eyes.”

My other favorite American cemetery is the one at Boot Hill, in Tombstone, Ariz., site of the Gunfight at OK Corral. Here, most of the markers are plain wooden crosses, or wood planks, rather than concrete or marble. And many of them are hilarious. For example: “Here Lies Lester Moore / Took six shots from a .44 / No Les, / No more.”

And it’s hard not to feel badly for this poor soul who felt the sting of frontier justice: “He was right / We was wrong. / But we strung him up, / And now he’s gone.”

Or how about this one? “He was young, / He was fair, / But the Injuns / Raised his hair.”

Or this Tombstone original: “Here lies Butch. / We planted him raw, / He was quick on the trigger, / But slow on the draw.”

Tombstone’s not the only town in the Old West with some great gravesites, though. Try these on for size: In Colorado, “Bill Blake. Was hanged by mistake.”

Silver City, Nev.: “Toothless Nell. Killed 1876 in a dance hall brawl. Her last words: ‘Circumstances led me to this end.’ ”

And, lastly, in Dodge City, Kans.: “Here lies Arkansas Jim. We made the mistake. But the joke’s on him.”

In fact, there are interesting cemeteries — and individual graves — all over America.

Ruidoso, N.M.: “Here lies Johnny Yeast. Pardon me for not getting up.”

Girard, Penn., the grave of Ellen Shannon: “Who was fatally burned March 21, 1870, by the explosion of a lamp filled with R.E. Danforth’s non-explosive burning fluid.”

Atlanta, Ga., on the grave of an adulterous husband: “Gone, but not forgiven.”

Stowe, Vt.: “I was somebody. Who, is no business of yours.”

Cemeteries can serve not only as a mirror on a person’s past or as a Halloween-time novelty, but also on the region in which he or she lived. And the times in which he or she lived.

Shortly after I finish writing this blog, I’m going to Colorado. One of the places I’m going to explore is the old town of Cripple Creek, where the West, apparently, was very, very wild. And when I get there, one of the first places I’m heading for is the old cemetery, in which there’s an 1880s grave with this inscription: “Here lies a man named Zeke. Second fastest draw in Cripple Creek.”

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I’ve written/contributed to 16 books…and just sent my 17th off to my publisher. And my articles have appeared in major media all over the world, among them The New York Times, “Business Week,” “Travel & Leisure,” “Men’s Health,” The Jerusalem Post, The Irish Times, “LaMark International” (Brazil), “Donde” (Spanish-speaking Latin America), and The Associated Press. In pursuit of “The Story,” I’ve been shot at in Northern Ireland; been a cowboy in Arizona; jumped into an alligator pit in the Everglades; trained with a rebel militia in the jungle; climbed 15,000-foot mountains; rafted Class V rapids; flown World War II fighter planes in aerial “combat”; trekked glaciers in Alaska; explored ice caves at 10,000-foot altitude in Switzerland; and been tossed out of a London reception for Queen Elizabeth. My website is www.stevewinston.com.

STEVE WINSTON
(www.stevewinston.com)

Reprinted from my blog in www.fiftyisthenewfifty.com

Into the Wild Blue Yonder

September 13, 2011

BY STEVE WINSTON

I love flying old fighter planes from World War II. When I squeeze into the cockpit, with a wooden instrument panel that looks like an antique toy, I’m transported back to those days when these planes helped free the world, and “The American Century” was in full flower. I nearly got to fly my dream plane – a P-51 Mustang, the most beloved fighter in history – a few months ago. But one of the sponsors who had helped restore the plane wanted to fly it … and that froze me out. But I stood and gazed at the ground until he took off.

My plane of choice is usually an AT-6, nicknamed “The Texan,” because it was built in Fort Worth during the War. This old warhorse helped train tens of thousands of airmen, and was also used in combat. I’ve learned to ignore all the pre-flight instructions given me as I strap my self into the cockpit, especially those about bailing out in the event something goes wrong. I figure that if I have to bail out, I’m dead, anyway. And by now, I know where the ripcord is on my parachute. When you ignite the engine on these yellow or blue or green babies, 600 horses – less than some cars today – cough somewhat hesitantly to life. The wind from the propeller blows into your face. You take off by “touch,” since the noses of these old planes point up so high that you can’t really see the runway. In a moment the ground is falling away, and the whirling propeller up front is pushing up into a sea of blue. And when you pull up the landing gear on these planes, you really do pull the landing gear; no computers here.

The skies around me are generally clear. But not to me. I see a dozen German Messerschmitts or Japanese Zeros all around me. And I love to do “combat” maneuvers to shoot them down. One of the first things I generally do is to turn the craft sideways – 180 degrees. When I look to my left, all I see is the ground. And when I look to my right, all I see is sky. As your stomach struggles to keep pace with you, that’s a move that really gets your blood (as well as your heart-rate) going. Your headphones cackle with communications from all sorts of aircraft in the surrounding skies.

One of my favorite maneuvers is the roll … a sort of sideways somersault. When you go into it, your world turns around – every which way around. First, you have to dive, to gather some speed. And that’s an experience in itself. The ground swarms up toward you frighteningly fast. Then you point the nose up and bring her into a climb. You pull the creaky (and balky!) old stick to the right. Your head is suddenly under the rest of your body … with clouds racing by below you as if they’re on fast-forward. Sky becomes land and land becomes sky. Your head is below your body, and you’re holding on to the canopy … from below it. You’re completely upside-down. And the same thing happens when you roll over to right yourself.

But the true highlight of any flight, in my opinion, is the loop … a backward somersault. You’ll turn the nose down to pick up some speed, and then force her into a sudden climb. A steep climb is murder on the body – and the mind. Normally, in an airplane, you have fixed points … the land below you and the sky around you. But when you’re in a steep climb, you’re totally disoriented. You’re heading straight up into a blue vacuum, with no horizon, no beginning, and no end. As you pull the AT-6’s stick toward you, all hell breaks loose. You begin to flip over backwards, and your body is pinned back against your seat. It’s impossible to hold your head up, because you’re experiencing pressure of three “G’s. You’re totally disoriented; there’s no “compass point” in the sky or the land. You have to fight to keep your eyes open because of the pressure. Upside-down images of blue and green and flash past you. Finally, just as you think you’re going to lose your breakfast – and your composure – you see the ground as you begin to level off.

Occasionally, on the way back down, I pass a rainbow. And the sight seems poetic somehow. Whenever I land, I always think of the young pilot who once sat in the seat where I’m sitting now … except that he saw real Messerschmitts or Zeros (coming at him with their machine guns and rockets spitting out instant death). And, sitting in this sacred seat, I almost feel as if I don’t belong there.

But, perhaps, that pilot would be relieved to know that people can now fly his old plane just for fun! If you’re looking for a pure adrenaline rush, you can’t do better.

RESOURCE: There are a number of flight museums offering rides in vintage aircraft. In addition, there are still a few small groups that barnstorm around the country, taking their planes to you. Perhaps the best-known is the Collings Foundation, which offers flights in restored WWII bombers and trainers; www.collingsfoundation.org.

Steve Winston (www.stevewinston.com) has written/contributed to 17 books, and his articles have appeared in major media all over the world. In pursuit of “The Story,” he’s been shot at in Northern Ireland, been a cowboy in Arizona, jumped into an alligator pit in the Everglades, trained with a rebel militia in the jungle, flown World War II fighter planes, climbed 15,000-foot mountains, explored ice caves at 11,000 feet in the Swiss Alps, and trekked glaciers in Alaska.