Colonial Theater (Moravia, NY)

 

The building that once housed the Colonial Theater at the corner
of Main and Church Streets in Moravia

Located on Main Street, the Colonial Theater was once located within this building. An advertisement from 1948 provides the only dates that I am aware of when the theater was open.

A longtime Moravia resident told me that when she was a little girl, she would go to the Colonial on Saturday afternoons to see a Western, “for next to nothing.”

An advertisement from the 1948 high school yearbook

Carpenter Falls

 

Sunday evenings, when I was a kid, was usually reserved for television with a bevy of family shows. Among my favorites was Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler. Perkins was twenty-five years older than Fowler, and frequently the show seemed to suggest that the latter was doing most of the active work on the expeditions into the wild. I remember one comedian quip in Marlin’s voice, “I was making coffee, while Jim was wrestling an alligator.” Jim Fowler later insisted that it was erroneous to think that it was the case, instead saying that because there was only one camera filming the episodes.

Nevertheless, I could not help but think Marlin and Jim while we explored the Carpenter Falls near Skaneateles Lake. Carpenter Falls is a ninety-foot drop on Bear Swamp Creek, less than a mile before it empties into Skaneateles Lake. The creek cuts a deep gorge, making it and the falls hard to access. The access point for the falls is from Appletree Point Road, off NY41A. A small parking lot with no information has two paths running from it. The path seemingly offering the most direct access is treacherous, and near the falls, has a rope that acts as a makeshift handrail. While we could have attempted the dangerous steep descent into the gorge, returning via that path was not feasible. We returned to the parking area, less than a quarter of a mile, to take the other trail, a less direct path but more manageable. Although it was still step and a tumble into the gorge and creek was not out of the question.

Carpenter Falls

Once we accessed the creek, the only way to get an unobstructed view of the falls was by traversing the slippery rocks protruding from the creek. With only tennis shoes, Angie declined to get closer. Ever the one to try to get a better photograph, I hopped from rock to rock to get closer. Although the angle of sun made a great shot difficult, getting close and having the roar of the water ringing in my ears was great fun. Angie photographed me as I carefully navigated the rocks. In the middle of the creek, I was reminded how treacherous nature could be. Wedged between some rather large rocks, I espied the carcass, little more than the skin, of a red fox. What happened, I wondered. Did it get caught in the torrents of the water, or did its body simply wash into the creek? We, and our cats, lead sheltered lives I concluded.

Fungi growing on a log in the middle of the creek

After our adventurous trek, we wandered down Appletree Point Road toward Carpenters Point on the lake. The lightly used road took us by the adjacent farm fields. It was a pleasant walk on the last day of spring. Wildflowers and birdsong marked our post-falls exploration. There was no direct access to the lake without violating someone’s property, but it was a different way to experience the lake area.

Secluded and rural, the walk stood in contrast to the one through the gorge at Watkins Glen, where there where far more falls and people. This walk offered challenges but also time to reflect and enjoy as well.

Navigating the trail to the falls

Admiring the falls

Skaneateles Lake from Carpenters Point

Birdsfoot trefoil that lines the road

A song sparrow singing in the surrounding fields

Auburn-Fleming Trail (Auburn, NY)

 

Located southeast of the city of Auburn, New York, the Auburn-Fleming Trail is located on an abandoned railway bed that crosses steams and is surrounded by wetlands. Consequently, the insects can be particularly ferocious during the summer. This is the second time I walked the trail. The previous time in 2019, I did not encounter anyone on it. This time, I saw one runner who seemed as surprised to see me, as I him. Wildlife, too, are not used to human presence. I spooked a blue heron at one of the three creek crossing, which in turn startled me as well.

One of the small bridges using trestles from the railroad

Although at the northern terminus there is quite a bit of trash and debris, further from the beginning of the trail it seems hardly used. There are several signs within just a few feet of the trail asserting private property. The trail was part of an interurban trolley line and on the northern end several railroad ties are visible, partially buried. I like the trail because it feels remote, and unexplored. It is maintained by a snowmobile clubs, suggesting to me that reveals its primary use. But as I am an infrequent visitor, that could be an erroneous assertion.

Railroad ties barely protruding to the surface

Running for about one-and-one-half miles, the trail stretches south from Dunning Avenue in Auburn to NY Route 34 near Shumaker Crossing.

Colonial Theater (Skaneateles, NY)

 

Legg Hall was a portion of the second floor that was added to the existing building in 1868. It was used for traveling shows, local productions, basketball games, as well as for roller skating. As silent films became more popular across the country, the space became known as the Huxford Theater the 1910s. In 1940 or 1941, the theater changed its name to the Colonial and a new marquee was installed. After the Colonial was closed in 1977, the second floor was converted to condominiums and the marquee was removed. Today, the building look much like it did in the 1940s, although the façade of the building is somewhat obscured by the trees that line the sidewalk.

Moravia Post Office

 New Deal artwork: A sculpture from Kenneth Washburn in the Moravia, NY Post Office.

"In Moravia in 1819 Jethro Wood made the first successful all-metal plow" (1942)

United States Post Office, 100 South Main Street, Moravia, NY 13118

Joara

 

On an unassuming backroad in rural North Carolina, there is a field with a few overturned wheelbarrows and holding some plastic in place. One would never guess that this was a place of historical importance. A plaque on a rock is there to mark the spot, but it is about 500 feet from the road, and not even facing it. If Angie were not along, I probably would have missed the small plaque that marks the spot. Just outside of Morganton was Joara, the largest Mississippian culture settlement in present day North Carolina. As an economic and transportation hub, it was the largest and most dominant town in the area, perched on the northeastern edge of the Mississippian cultural influence.

The site was also the furthest inland where Spanish explorers built a fort in the 1560s, Fort San Juan, in the United States. Despite the substantial economic and political influence of Joara, the Spanish explorers, under the rule of Juan Pardo, were effectively claiming territory. After about 18 months, the indigenous people revolted against the Spanish incursion and burned the fort, effectively ending Spanish ambitions in the area.

There is not a lot to “see” at the Joara site. But I did enjoy getting out and walking around for a very few minutes and think about what was no longer. It was a world that we do not, and cannot, understand. Archaeologists and historians are not even positive about the language spoken by the local inhabitants. But the people who lived at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains were our predecessor. Such sites, which dot the Eastern United States, are not easily found nor well publicized or understood by the public. It has led to a false narrative that the country was a blank slate before the arrival of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts in the 1620s and suggests that what came before was not history.

Plaque placed in 2012 at the Joara / Fort San Juan archeological site

Where the earthen mound and Spanish fort once sat in the foothills of the Appalachians 

Dickens Quote

 [Honeythunder’s] “philanthropy was of that gunpowderous sort, that the difference between it and animosity was hard to determine. You were to abolish military force, but first you were to bring all commanding officers who had done their duty to trial by court-marital for that offence, and shoot them. You were to abolish war, but were to make converts by making war upon them, and charging them with loving war as the apple of their eye. You were to have universal concord, and were to get it by eliminating all the people who wouldn’t, or conscientiously couldn’t, be concordant. You were to love your brother as yourself, but after an indefinite interval of maligning him (very much as if you hated him), and calling him all manner of name. Above all things, you were to do nothing in private, or on your own account.”

- The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Chapter 6 

Blind Willie McTell Trail

 

Located in central Statesboro, Georgia, the Blind Willie McTell Trail traverses 1.1 miles through residential and commercial districts of the seat of Bulloch County. Named after a relatively obscure blues singer who found fame after his death in 1959, the trail honors a history, a person, and an art form that would not have received such accolades when McTell was alive. From the baseball and softball diamonds of the county parks, the trail makes its way north toward the downtown commercial district, paralleling where the Savannah & Statesboro railway line once was. Along the way it passes warehouses that once stored cotton as well as abandoned railroad tracks and rights-of-way that transported it around the world. It passes a relatively large animal hospital where each time I walked past I watch anxious humans wait patiently with their feline and canine friends. A little further along, a dog park was a point of refuge for many happier dogs. The trail ends at Main Street, near the Eagle Creek Brewery and the Sugar Magnolia Bakery and Café. 

A statue of Blind Willie McTell outside the Visitor's
Bureau in Statesboro

My original plan for exploring and walking the trail was to occur in November. But a surge in Covid cases postponed it to March. But even then, the virus continued to rage and spread, making travel unsafe. After I received my second vaccine in April, it was late May before we made our way to Statesboro. We planned two nights in Statesboro. As soon as we arrived, I was anxious to get to the trail. My first walk was hot, it was 92° and I had the trail to myself. A reasonably paced walked brought me to Sugar Magnolia Café after about twenty minutes to enjoy an iced tea. Over the next two days, I would walk the trail twice more, out and back. There is precious little information about McTell’s life, and this is reflected on the trail. Other than a plaque at both terminuses, the signs along the way emphasize the benefits of nature and greenspace to those who pass by rather than recount McTell’s accomplishments.

Just a few steps from the trail’s downtown terminus on Main Street is city hall that was formerly the Jaeckel Hotel. The hotel once served as a business and social hub for the city. By several accounts, Blind Willie would play for the businessmen on the porch of the hotel during tobacco season. He was popular and the hotel’s guest were anxious to hear him play. As I walked through the downtown, I imagined Willie walking the streets he knew so well and thought about what he would have experienced. There is evidence to suggest that he and his mother lived on a house on East Cherry Street near where the trail is today. He claimed that he knew every step in the city and, although born in Thomson, some ninety miles north, McTell considered Statesboro home, and joked that he did not want any new construction because he would be lost. Life as an itinerant black musician could not have been easy. When McTell was a child, a statue to confederate soldiers was erected on the grounds of the county courthouse downtown in 1909. Five years before, Georgia led all states in the country in the number lynchings, including a particular brutal incident in Statesboro.

The former Jaeckel Hotel, now city hall

Despite the genre of the blues having a reputation, McTell’s songs tend to be upbeat and gregarious. His particular sub-genre, Piedmont blues, is different from the more famous variant, Delta blues whose legendary, shadowy figure is Robert Johnson. McTell’s considerable musical talents, particularly his skill on a 12-string guitar, brought him to the attention of many. Perhaps the itinerant live of a blues singer is best reflected in a trail. In McTell’s most famous song, “Statesboro Blues,” famously covered by Taj Mahal and the Almond Brothers, he sings, “hand me my travelin’ shoes.” In fact, many of his songs are about travel, something that he knew quite a bit about. In “Travelin’ Blues,” he tells the story, one has to believe autobiographically, of trying to hitch a ride on a train as a hobo. Throughout the song, despite his plight as a poor traveler, the narrator recounts the kindness of strangers to offer him food and help him on his journey.

In the 1920s there was a burgeoning recording industry in Atlanta, where McTell recorded at least eighty sides. The Great Depression put an end to the recording industry in the city, and he never found commercial recording success in his lifetime. He complained that he never benefited from a recording session, which is probably true. McTell died in 1959, after suffering from diabetes and alcoholism in his later years. The fame that was elusive in his life grew as blues aficionados discovered his music and his hometown recognized his greatness. Success came too late for him to enjoy it, but we are lucky to have many of his recordings available if not a better understanding of the man.  

 

Georgia Theater (Statesboro, GA)

 

Built in 1936, the former Georgia Theater is now the Emma Kelly Theatre, part of the Averitt Center for the Arts. Kelly was musician born in Statesboro, who reputedly could play 6,000 songs from memory on the piano. She was featured in both the book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, and the 1997 film based on the book.  

The Art Deco Georgia Theater remained open until the 1980s. In 2004, the Averitt Center for the Arts has operated the theater.

A previous cinema, the State, was nearby at 10 East Main Street but has been since demolished.

The former Georgia Theater (May 2021)

Location: 33 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia.

Pulled Pork Barbeque in the South

 

Pulled pork, smoke houses, and barbeque houses are ubiquitous across the American South. Although perhaps not the best for one’s diet, eating at these establishments is a culinary treat and an adventure in history and tradition. Hungry as we made our way toward the Georgia Coast, we spotted The Pig Bar-B-Que in Callahan, Florida. Still wary about inside dining because of the pandemic, and wanting to save time, we decided to place a takeout order at the obviously popular local restaurant. We pull into line with only three cars ahead of us. It seemed easy, and fast. But the wait was interminable; with three cars ahead of us it took us thirty minutes to get to the microphone where we ordered. Because I worked in restaurants for years, I am patient about such things. A Sunday after-church-rush can be brutal, and the crush of people can easily delay everything in a restaurant. My father always commented that those who have just been to church seemingly forgot today’s sermon in their impatient demands for immediate food and service. No one is very kind to a server when their food is delayed. Yet waiting in the car while it is hot is no fun. While I was not hungry when our car joined the line of customers, the expectation of food made me desirous of an afternoon meal. To pass the time I watched anole lizards dart back and forth, on the hot concrete from beneath the bushes, occasionally puffing out their reddish pink throats to attract a mate. We finally reached the pickup window and received out generous sandwiches, overflowing with pulled pork, and iced tea. The young woman, probably in high school, did not say a word about the long wait, but told me to “Have a blessed day!” Pulling around to the front of the restaurant we understood the delay. A firetruck and ambulance sat idling in front of the restaurant. Apparently, a medical emergency had occurred as we waited to order. 

Vandy's Bar-B-Q (Statesboro, GA)

Located at the corner of West Vine and South Walnut, in downtown Statesboro, Georgia, Vandy’s Bar-B-Q has been a local institution since its inception in 1929. The eatery even elicits a historical plaque outside the front door of its restaurant, where it relocated to in 1943. Vandy’s is situated across the street in what was once called “Blue Front,” the African American commercial district of Statesboro. In the 1930s and 1940s, the area was a vibrant area with barber shops, dry cleaners, restaurants, and other local businesses; however, by the end of the 1960s all the businesses were gone. Today, this square block is little more than a parking lot. Despite its proximity, Vandy’s was not a part of this commercial district offering a separate window where blacks could order food prior to the civil rights movement. During the racial strife of the 1960s, the restaurant was targeted and severely damaged after being firebombed.

Serving breakfast and lunch, Vandy’s is, of course, famous for their barbeque pulled meat sandwiches, which have a distinctive woodsmoke flavor. Served on Sunbeam white bread, the sandwiches are not pretentious. The blue-and-white checked floor, the cinderblock walls, and the straightforward menu that meets the expectations of locals, all harken to earlier days. It is difficult to walk into the restaurant and not feel like you are stepping back in time. 

We only spent two nights in Statesboro and only learned about Vandy’s after its weekday closing time of 4pm. The next morning, on our way out of town, we stopped by to take two sandwiches, and an order of coleslaw to go. We happened to arrive at shift change, so there was a bit of confusion, exacerbated by some cultural misunderstanding. I was unfamiliar with the ordering process; the workers were perplexed by my accent. I forgot to order unsweetened iced tea, receiving the sweet version instead, and the young woman who endeavored to help me had a difficult time understanding why I wanted another cup for tea. A nice young man stepped in to translate and remedy the situation. Despite the momentary confusion, we soon put our sandwiches in a cooler to keep them warm and made our way north on US25. A couple of hours later, outside a McDonald’s in South Carolina, we had our delicious pulled pork sandwiches. I felt smug eating a much better lunch than those lined up in their cars, spending their lunchbreaks waiting for a burger that is replicated billions of times over, instead of the prepared in the back of a famed restaurant. My barbeque sandwich was prepared the same way it had been for decades, but with a completely unique and local taste. 

Loaves of Sunbeam Bread, in case you need more

Gas Station, Columbia County, FL

 

There are parts of Florida that remain remote and harken back to a time before swamps were drained and theme parks were the primary attraction of the state. When tourists and travelers first started venturing to the sunshine state, automobiles traveled the US Highway System rather than the interstates. About fifteen miles north of Lake City on US441, an abandoned gas station is a reminder of that old Florida. Today, this portion of US441, not far from the Georgia state line, is a lonely road; we went miles without seeing any other cars. It is easy to see why gas stations are few and far between today.

A Derelict House in Morganton

 Out for a walk early on a Sunday morning in Morganton, North Carolina, this grand old house with its bright azaleas in bloom, caught my eye. The materials and debris left on the porch suggests that the abandonment was sudden, not something that had been foreseen. I was lucky in my timing because the sun was shining exactly right to make it stand out against the trees and, barely perceptible in the photograph, a nearly full moon peeks just above the house between its two chimneys.

Boone Post Office

 

The New Deal artwork from the Boone, NC post office by Alan Tompkins.

Daniel Boone on a Hunting Trip in Watauga County (1940)