10 minute read
COLUMNISTS
Behind theBeat
By Randal C. Hill
In Jim Croce’s brief career — he died at age 30 in a 1973 Louisiana plane crash — he released five Top 10 singles, the first of which was one of the best story songs of modern times. “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim” on the ABC label brought music fans into Jim Croce’s fun-loving world, one that was often replete with rather bizarre (but always memorable) characters.
Born in Philadelphia, Croce played the accordion before switching to guitar. After high school, he attended Villanova University, where he worked as a guitarist in numerous bands. He graduated from college in 1965, became a guitar instructor at summer camps and briefly taught at a Philadelphia middle school. (One undocumented story has Croce being beaten up by a 250-pound girl student in front of the class.)
He met Ingrid Jacobson at a folk music party in 1966. They married and began writing and recording their own compositions, frequently touring and trying in vain to catch a break. Eventually discouraged, the Croces settled onto a Pennsylvania farm with their infant son, Adrian. Croce drove trucks and worked construction while Ingrid finished college. All the while, Croce continued to write songs, never abandoning a lifelong dream of having a music career one day.
He turned to selling advertising time on Philadelphia radio stations. His work occasionally took him into the darker corners of the city, where he would sometimes visit less-than-savory pool halls. Jacobson recalled later, “He would sit there and watch the pool games and see what people were doing. He ended up with a guy named Jim Walker, who was one of the guys who used to play pool there.”
And what a character Big Jim Walker became in “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim.” In Croce’s mind, he imagined a cartoonish version of an intimidating New York City pool hustler—big and dumb as a man can come, but he’s stronger than a country hoss. Walker reigns supreme around town as “the King of 42nd Street” and he cruises his domain in a drop top Cadillac.
As the story unfolds, we learn that
SENIOR LIFE photo
Jim Croce’s “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim” was one of the best story songs of modern times. Big Jim hustles people for money with his well-honed pool skills. But one day, a southern boy nicknamed Slim comes to town, explaining that Walker had recently hustled him and that Slim was there to get his money back. (Good luck, Slim!) Big Jim’s sycophants then explain some basic survival tips to the visitor:
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape You don’t spit into the wind You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger And you don’t mess around with Jim
A bloody melee erupts, and to everyone’s surprise Slim manages to dispatch the fearsome bully. Big Jim’s followers then acknowledge the new order, and the last time we hear the catchy chorus, we’re made aware of one crucial change:
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
And you don’t mess around with Slim. SL
Live long lives awestruck of the magnificent creation that surrounds us
When was the last time you were awestruck?
As we continue our journey as seniors, there continues to be inspiring, overwhelming, and mind-blowing happenings. Our perspective and focus make a difference in how we face our many challenges.
A lady at St. Mark’s Methodist Church celebrating her 100th birthday gave her secret to a long life: “I get up in the morning, go into my garden, look at the flowers and watch the buzzing bees. I am in awe.”
What do you see in your garden?
Others who have lived a long life commented about their awesome moments: “holding a new grandchild, walking in the woods, sitting in a chair at the beach, hearing the call of a seagull, watching the pelicans dive for fish, noticing the change in flowers that bloom, and watching the rocket launches from the Space Center.”
Then there are the sunrises and sunsets; the thunderstorms and flashes of lightning. We are enamored of the world of God’s creation.
Still others see an ever-changing world unfold. There is the bad and the good. Russian attacks on the Ukraine are met with endless efforts of world organizations to aid the refugees. Tornadoes demolish communities and aid rushes in from volunteers. Homeless and hungry people find an outpouring of assistance and service. If we are helping or if we observe from a distance, we are in awe of the goodness of people.
When protests develop over court decisions, law changes, injustices and demands from people who care, we marvel at their dedication and determination to make life better. Freedom of speech, constitutional rights, heated reactions, remarks by media commentators and politicians spin our brains as we reflect in awe.
On the other side, awe can include fear and dread. Another random shooting, armed citizens, brawls and riots, road rage and disrespectful people at the shopping center are matched with helpfulness and kindness. Some of us are concerned about a health challenge and then are in awe as a medical provider finds a remedy, treatment or cure.
The “Wonders Diary” site wondersdiary.com shares thoughts that help us experience life and continue to be in awe. A recent quote helps. “Life is better when you cry a little, laugh a little, and are thankful for everything you’ve got.” SL
Challenges of Living to Age 100
Ed Baranowski
The Florida Long Term Care & Nursing Home Book is inside the Boomer Guide
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A large machine that resembles a floating piece of farm equipment helps protect the ailing Indian River Lagoon by removing tons of invasive vegetation from many Brevard County stormwater ponds.
The county’s Mobitrac Amphibious Harvester rakes weeds and other undesirable plants from ponds before the vegetation can decompose and release nutrients that can be carried by excessive rainfall to the river. Those nutrients can trigger algae blooms that deplete the waters of oxygen and block sunlight, killing fish and leaving large swaths of the lagoon barren of seagrass.
“In the last three years, we’ve removed about three million pounds of vegetation,” said Robert Rindone, a maintenance worker with the Brevard County Natural Resources Management Department who teams with heavy equipment operator Chris Hall to operate the harvester.
Equipped with a nearly 12-footlong rake about 3 feet wide, the diesel-powered harvester churns through department-managed ponds from Scottmoor in North Brevard to Long Point Park near Sebastian Inlet, Rindone said.
Crews collect the vegetation — mainly hyacinth, water lettuce and alligator grass — year round and transport it to county landfills to spur grass growth.
“On a good day we can get out about 35,000 to 40,000 pounds,” Rindone said. “It’s an impressive number. We just finished the ponds on Merritt Island off Florida Boulevard. We removed 137,000 pounds of vegetation in about two weeks.”
A federal grant obtained several years ago provided Brevard with funds for the aquatic harvesting program, Rindone said. In addition to the harvester, the department uses two excavators, a Bobcat loader and two trucks for the work, Rindone said.
The equipment allows the department to remove vegetation from its ponds without using herbicides almost all the time, said Raleigh Berry, the department’s senior environmental scientist for ecosystems management.
“While we now focus on harvesting to control vegetation, we do occasionally encounter situations in which limited use of herbicides in our managed ponds remains unavoidable, such as around stormwater structures that might be damaged by our equipment,” Berry said.
Rindone and Hall recently cleared ponds at Chain of Lakes Park in Titusville and at Fairglen Elementary School in Cocoa.
“We were trying to get it done before school starts for safety reasons so we’re not slinging stuff around with a big cutter head on the Mobitrac,” Hall said.
Rindone said he’s proud to help preserve the lagoon for future generations.
“We do a great service for the county in my opinion,” he said. “We’re saving the river. Maybe it’s just a little bit, but each little bit helps. I’m out there fishing every weekend and I’ve got a 6-year-old boy and a 2-yearold girl. But, I want to have that river there in 30 years when my kids are grown up.” SL
SENIOR LIFE Courtesy of the Brevard County Natural Resources Management
The Mobitrac Amphibious Harvester rakes up weeds and other undesirable plants from ponds before the vegetation can decompose and release nutrients that can be carried by excessive rainfall to the ailing Indian River Lagoon.
Could injecting a limited amount of seawater help the Indian River Lagoon?
Can we flush the Indian River Lagoon clean?
The short answer is no. Flushing would take huge amounts of seawater, and that could destroy life in the lagoon. It would export lots of pollution to the ocean. It’s not realistic.
However, scientists at Florida Institute of Technology have been working on an idea for injecting limited amounts of ocean water into the lagoon to help clean up the pollution. They just received $920,000 from the Florida Legislature to begin work on a pilot project to test this approach.
The plan is based on recent discoveries about the chemistry of the lagoon.
The lagoon is polluted by too much total nitrogen (TN) and total potassium (TP) that act like fertilizer for algae blooms. The lagoon’s water often has very little (or no) dissolved oxygen. It turns out that the TN and TP actually decrease when the bottom water has higher dissolved oxygen (and increase when it doesn’t).
The reason is that the microbes in the bottom sand can convert TN into nitrogen gas (which bubbles off) and can bind TP into the sand if there is oxygen. When there is no oxygen, TP will be released from the sand bottom.
Now, back to injecting ocean water. The ocean water flowing into the Indian River Lagoon has good oxygen levels, so it should stimulate the microbes which should decrease the pollution.
This process has been documented and now Florida Tech is preparing to test this in a pilot project near Port Canaveral.
The state funds will be used this year and next to design, permit and begin monitoring at the Port Canaveral site for the construction of the Lagoon In-Flow pilot project, which hopefully will begin operation in 2024.
The Save Our Indian River Lagoon Plan has already completed 75 pollution reducing projects and has some 300 more in the pipeline.
Having the lagoon waters themselves helping to reduce pollution would be a great help.
Thank goodness for the diligence of the Florida Tech researchers.
Ain’t science great? SL
For more information, visit HelpTheLagoon.org.
Lagoon Straight Talk
From the Brevard Indian River Lagoon Coalition
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