Beyond Belief-Bubble Boy

Beyond Belief “Bubble Boy rides again”

Last winter we took a chance and left both our cars on the mainland before the last ferry stopped running in December. We made a commitment to use our electric golf cart as our sole means of transportation for the duration of the winter. We had gotten a zippered weather enclosure and some knobby tires to make our cart “winter friendly”. As it turned out it really worked great. The enclosure kept us “relatively” warm and by keeping the battery charged every night we never needed to beg for a ride home.

But what about those really cold nights and the snow and the ice you’re wondering? As a car guy, I was often asked about the battery’s performance and the winter handling of our cart in the snow. There was this one morning in particular when we had just had a big snowfall that required digging out the driveway to get the cart to the road. The golf cart, unlike its ATV cousins, cannot double as a snowplow. So after a bit of shoveling I finally was able to “blast” my way out of the drive, and through the drift by the road. I was worried I would get stuck but amazingly no problem!

Luckily, the road crew had already plowed the road smooth long before I got the shoveling completed so we were able to drive around the island with impunity. The knobby tires gave us ample traction and some common sense kept us from following the ATVS off road, though it was a tempting option. Since we can never really go faster than 12-14 mph even “panic” breaking on snow was not a problem. At 14mph if you simply take your foot off the accelerator in an electric golf cart you come to a stop in less 20 feet. Try getting a car to do that on snow!

One afternoon as we rode around in our enclosed golf cart towards the end of last winter, we drove past one of the island golf cart vendors walking along Catawba. He yelled out to us “Bubble Boy rides again”. For those of you who are Seinfeld fans you will probably remember the seriously funny “Bubble Boy” episode. According to Wikipedia “The Bubble Boy” is the 47th episode of the American sitcom Seinfeld, as well as the nickname of Donald Sanger, one of the characters in that episode. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bubble_Boy_(Seinfeld_episode).

For those who don’t remember, “Bubble Boy” was an angry rude man confined to a controlled environment “bubble” because of his suppressed immune system. So while the “bubble boy” comment was not exactly a direct compliment, I realized that the larger reference in his statement about traveling in our protected slow moving “bubble” enclosure was right on. Heck we liked it so much we left the “bubble” on all summer as well.

It is so easy to get attached to our comfortable cars, especially in winter. Heat, comfy seats, windows…it sounds so luxurious. However, we found that there was no place we were headed on the island that ever took more than five minutes to get to by cart. We could get home in about the same time it takes to get the average car warm anyway. And I see a lot of folks here that willingly drive their ATVS in the winter with no wind protection, which has to be much, much, much colder than our “bubble” cart.

After reviewing our bills, we used very little electricity, less than 5 dollars a month. The annual cost savings were really worth a few shivers when compared to the cost of gas we had used the winters before. In fact we still have gas credits at the gas station from 2008.

Perhaps you saw the article in the last gazette about how the new electric golf carts for sale actually qualify for a huge US energy tax credit. This could be a very motivating consideration if you have been on the fence about this subject. There is no doubt that electric golf carts are a great transportation option year round here on the island. I am not sure if this is “green”, or carbon neutral, or if we are saving the planet, but I can tell you for certain golf carting works year round and its doesn’t cost much. See you on the road.

Beyond Belief- Why fi?

Beyond Belief “Why-Fi?”
Moldavia, Bulgaria, China, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine, Slovenia, Russia, what do they all have in common, “Skype” Internet phone calls from PIB. If I was a government agent from say “Homeland Security” I might at first notice think we were a hotspot for clandestine foreign operations. Well they got the “hot spot” right, but no more clandestine than any kid away from home for the first time missing their mom’s cooking and the comfort of his or her own language. Remember “ET’s phone home”? Exactly.
What makes this possible is free access to Internet with local Wi-Fi and share ware programs like “Skype”. Many years ago Doonesbury had a cartoon where Zonker Harris was parked in his car out in front of some random persons home. When the homeowner finally came out to ask him what he was doing, he said that not only did he enjoy the free Internet surfing they provided, but also he probably knew more about what websites the kids in homeowner’s family visited, than the parents did.
Today, we have superior encrypted signal security to safeguard us from others seeing our emails and web surfing, but if you have a WI-FI network in your house with no password you’re providing an opportunity for our young visitors to “phone home” just like ET. This is probably one of the nicest ways to give back to these kids who come here and work so hard, so far from home. Think of it as a “home cooked meal” from home.
No doubt you have seen kids with their laptops hanging out at the bakery, by the school, near the monument, DeRivera Park near Frosty’s, or down at the marina. Across town businesses, non-profits, and private individuals have allowed free access to the Internet by leaving their WI-FI on with no password for Internet access.
The earliest origins of the Internet were based on the need to provide free communication access between large colleges and government institutions. There was never meant to be a subscriber cost for Internet usage, but the idea caught on, growth and demand for web access beyond the college world demanded that private companies provide servers for websites and “nodes” for access and emails just to handle the increased traffic. In fact the @ symbol use for internet addresses was created by a fellow I met who worked for a think tank in Cambridge MA known as BBN Technologies.

They had been hired by the military to create a system for directing electronic messaging to and from a specific site. He told me in an interview that his most important contribution in life was inventing the @ protocol so we could say peter@bigdoghill.com etc. How many times a day do we use that simple symbol to “phone home”, or work?
The growth of the Internet and the creative share ware software designed to maximize its’ use included a brilliant concept a few yeas ago called “voice over IP”. The idea of talking live via an internet connection really upset the phone industry and they complained loud and long, but today there are millions of people talking to the loved ones at home or with friends half way around the globe for virtually free. The best gift we provide to so many, so far from home, is unfettered access with no passwords. Where’s the hot spot now? Just look for a kid with a laptop. No passwords, please phone home.

Cabs of Put-in-Bay

Beyond Belief – Cabs of Put-in-Bay

North Coast, Checker, Kens, Supercab, Matt’s, Chick with Attitude, Put-in-Bay Cab Co., Island Club, the list goes on and on.  I swear there are more cab companies and gypsy cabbies working in PIB on a busy weekend than New York City. For three bucks these folks will take you anywhere on the island. Not a bad deal. I can’t remember getting into a cab in any major city without the meter starting at $2.70 (plus extras, whatever that mystery charge is…), before I even get a chance to discuss with the cabbie where I want to go it has cost me 5 bucks.  Like all cab stories, you know there’s never one around when you really want one and 20 waiting when you don’t, but the good news is that the island is only 3.5 miles long so if you call, you’ll probably get one in 5 minutes or less.  And if not, luckily there is always Buck, Pam or Roger driving the Island Transportation bus from the downtown depot to Lime Kiln dock just about every half hour.

Checking out the drivers and their vehicles is almost as much fun as the cab ride itself.  The fleet of cabs on the island varies from almost new 2008 diesel Ford Econoline; to a bonafide antique 1978 Dodge passenger van.  The most popular style is the older modified airport limos that allow you to stand up inside the vans while riding, which comes in quite handy at closing time when everybody needs a cab at the exact same time. I heard a rumor that one of these vans had over 30 people in it one night a few weeks ago.

Anyway, the drivers range from young college kids hoping to make money for tuition to retiree’s looking to cover Medicare supplemental coverage costs. For many people coming to the island, these cabbies are the first people they come in contact with.  Most are quite friendly and will go out of their way to help you find what ever you are looking for. They are in a way the island ombudsmen.

Over the last few years only Larry Kowalski, who owns PIB Cabs, has stuck it out all winter long. The rest usually disappear by mid September. We personally have moved furniture, groceries, remodeling supplies and even our recycling with Larry to and from the ferry. His dedication to the Islanders year round makes him a standout.

During the summer, especially on weekend nights, you might get the feeling that the cabs are like sharks, circling looking for bait. If you need a cab, you might want to be a bit choosey. Not all the cabs are the height of comfort or cleanliness. However, most of the cabbies want to make you a happy customer, so what they lack in comfort and style they try to make up for with a positive attitude.  Nothing beats a good cabbie story.  Spend some time riding around the island in a cab and you are sure to hear a few. One of the island drivers who can tell a good story is Dusty (Chick with Attitude). Dusty is a very hard working lady, and the only cabbie with a handicapped van so her ride is often requested. And not only is she a very nice person, but from time to time she has her grandkids with her helping out.
So this summer, if your driver was friendly and got you to your destination safely remember to tip. In the big picture the tip is really the measure of appreciation the drivers work hard for and we should reward those that do a good job.

Pirates Among Us

Beyond Belief- Pirates among us

There will be pirates among us this summer for the first ever Pirates Fest the last weekend in June. Luckily, I am not talking about real ne’er-do-wells and antiheros from the golden age of piracy like Captain Morgan, Captain Kidd or Blackbeard; just your happy go lucky Johnny Depp Jack Sparrow types. The Jack Sparrow character, along with Disney’s movie series Pirates of the Caribbean, made it possible for many of us to like pirates, and as a country we have become completely enamored with them since Disney Land opened it’s exhibit in 1967. They represent the scoundrel, albeit tame ones, that we only uncork on special occasions. Usually pirates have been limited to Halloween and have had to compete for our attention along with the gangsters, nurses, and ghosts we see on this once a year alter ego holiday manifestation.

If you have been keeping up with recent news you may have noticed that real life pirates have been working off the coast of Somalia which is on the east side of Africa. Their story and motivation is born out of the dire straits that the country of Somalia is in now, going through civil war and general lawlessness. Desperate times called for desperate measures. These later day pirates have taken to the seas with AK-47s and high speed launches to commandeer large cargo vessels at gunpoint. They take the passing vessels goods and food to a port they control and sell the confiscated bounty for personal profit. They are a good reason why real pirates need to be regarded with some trepidation and a reminder why pirates of the past need to remain “characters” for fun and entertainment and not be idolized.

If you have ever read the Master and Commander Series or know a little about the pirates of the south seas, you know that those “golden years” (1680-1850) were also lawless times on the high seas. According to Paul Gilbert at http://www.piratesinfo.com,  “piracy was the outlaw practice of preying on merchant ships and raiding coastal towns for profit. Pirates were often, but not always, mariner subalterns who had illegally obtained their ship and the captains were selected by the crew, and could be replaced at any time with a majority vote.”  This was truly democracy at its finest.

Here on the Great Lakes we had a few pirates of our own.  According to the book Great Lakes Crime: Murder, Mayhem, Booze and Broads by author Frederick Stonehouse, during the 1850’s there were gangs that plied the riverbanks of the Detroit River. If unsuspecting captains came to close to shore they were sure to lose their cargo. But the two most notorious, and I use that term loosely, great lakes pirates were James Jesse Strang and the Mormon Pirates of Beaver Island and Roarin’ Dan Seavey. James Jesse Strang was an early leader of the Mormon movement. After charismatic leader of the Mormons, Joseph Smith died, Strang dueled with Brigham Young to lead the faithful and he lost. Disillusioned, he and his followers set up an encampment on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. Their exploits on the lake were focused on casting down the lost and unfaithful souls, more of a religious quest for survival than unbridled piracy.

Dan Seavy on the other hand was the more traditional type pirate, sailing into ports and looting warehouses and ships and then taking the plundered cargo to Chicago to sell. It is a fuzzy line between Pirates and Privateers. Seavy appeared to be a little of both.  Paul Gilbert explains “Privateering consisted of the same pirate actions, but they were sanctioned by a government to be conducted against an enemy during war.  Many mariners engaged in both activities, during times of war, they were legitimate naval axillaries and if captured were treated as prisoners of war. Privateers were often, but not always, commercial ventures, financed by merchants and investors, with captains that worked for the ship owner.” We can’t be sure which category Strang fell into, but Captain Seavy certainly could easily have been called a Privateer.

I had a great-great-great Grandfather who was a “Privateer”. At the time that the Pirates were terrorizing the Caribbean, my relative John Graves was plying the waters between the orient, Europe and North America for hire on his own ship. The British and French were at war and the British were seizing US ships and pressing them into service for the King. Captain Graves eluded the British only to be conscripted into the US Navy to defend the east coast against the British fleet. He didn’t complain. Many of the American privateers at that time became Captains in the Navy. And that leads us to the Battle of Lake Erie.  Navy ships and privateers preyed on the merchant fleets as an on going act of war. Our fleet of support vessels here on Lake Erie came from many different ports. The captains had various reasons for supporting the US Fleet.

So no matter what flag you fly this year at Pirate’s Fest, remember we can all be patriots and pirates. Enjoy the celebration of piracy without condoning it. Perhaps even learn the lingo to blend in. There’s a website (http://www.talklikeapirateday.com/translate/index.php), that will translate pirate speak for you. So before the month of June goes by learn a little pirate speak, be just a bit more wily, and perhaps for a few hours during Pirate Fest the scallywags in all of us will rule the town. I am of course speaking about pirate speak when I say: “Aye har they come mate aye, har the come.”

We’ll be back

Beyond Belief- We’ll be back

What do a bunch of elementary and middle school kids (and one high schooler) have in common with Robin Hood? Good Aim. It was the end of a long winter and just when you thought you’d never get off this island something amazing managed to warm the ice. Now I’m not saying that this group of 17 kids changed the weather, but I know they changed people’s minds about what we call fun. Archery.

Archery for me has always been Errol Flynn, in his tights, locked in mortal combat with Basil Rathbone with a swooning Olivia De Havill looking on, the object of both their affections. Or perhaps the funnier version our kids might know, the humorous spoof “Men in Tights” directed by Mel Brooks. Archery really has never been a mainstream school sport until now. With the help of the ODNR, some grant money secured by Susan Harrington and the school and a little magic, archery has come to the island.

Every year April is a month of new beginnings here on PIB, when hope stirs our hearts. Businesses dust off winters grime for a new season, softball teams start to shape up, (this will be the Winery’s year I can feel it), and a brand new play, “Never Kiss a Naughty Nanny”, (at town hall April 2,3,4) is being presented. But that can hardly compare to fun of a possible first ever trip for our school kids to a national level competition when our first year Put-in-Bay School Archery Team aims for success at the National Archery in School Program (NASP) competition in Louisville Kentucky on May 8th.

How did this happen? It was cold, the ice was lingering, and on a chilly dark and dreary afternoon as the fog began to form over the water our intrepid team flew off the island fearful that if they waited until the next morning they might never see Arnold Schwarzenegger (but that’s a story for later).
The team made its way by van to the balmy weather that greeted them when they arrived at the third annual Ohio NASP State Tournament held at the Ohio Expo Center in Columbus on March 6, a competition in coordination with the Arnold Fitness Classic.

Dozens of Island folks from the bay also converged on the Lauche building at the Ohio State Fairgrounds. They had come to see what all the buzz was about. Some were returning from their warm winter haunts in the south, others escaping from the frozen tundra known as South Bass. All who came managed to see something we could have never imagined.

And I can tell you it wasn’t just RANDY COUTURE showing off his physique and posing with our kids or ARNOLD signing autographs (and looking for stimulus money from President Obama also in town the same day), no it was something much more. Now over the years Put-in-Bay has had some shining moments in sports, some great runners, sailors, even some talented ball players (not to mention some quick thinkers on the academic challenge team) but how about these 17 kids.

Out of 800 plus contestants and 100 or so teams our kids placed 8th in the state in the middle school division. Now I’m not sure everyone gets the idea about how this works, but a 50 pound 10 year old kid has just as good a chance of being a top scorer as a 200 pound 18 year old. In the scoring of the sport, even though they are broken up into divisions, Put-in-Bay can compete “toe on the line” with the big schools. This unique sport is the great equalizer for kids of all age and sizes.

Now our team is qualified for the national championship in the High School Division in May. Singer Elvis Costello said it best “my aim is true”. Each and every one of our kids, under the direction of Coach Harrington, has learned how to aim. Now that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but when less than an inch could be the difference between winning or not, you start to see that we’ve got the “right stuff” right here in Put-in-bay. And this is no flash in the pan accident; some of the highest scores on our team were managed by 4th graders. Yes in the inimitable (albeit somewhat twisted) words of Arnold “we’ll be back”.

Fuzzy Logic

Beyond Belief- Fuzzy Logic

By the time you read this there will be just a few shopping days left before the big switch. Yup, I’m talking D-day. Digital TV is on its way. America is going completely digital on February 17th. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has been hyping the crystal clear pictures and surround sound audio, and more channels to choose from than Philo T. Farnsworth could have ever imagined. No more fuzzy, ghosted, snowy television pictures and rabbit ear antennas that make you get up every time you want to change the channel. (As Bill Cosby used to say, rrrright!, but more on that in a minute.) The FCC will even give you a $40 dollar coupon to buy a digital converter and switch.

Don’t worry you don’t have to buy a new TV yet. Luckily we can still use our old TVs after “D-Day”, though right now you couldn’t give away a really nice tube TV to the Good Will if you begged them. But it is a great “fuzzy logic” argument to get that new flat screen your kids (or husband more likely) has been salivating over for the past two years.

I’m guessing, however, that your son or daughter announced to you last fall that the government “required” that your family would “have to” get a new TV, not just any TV put a 40 or 50 inch large flat screen plasma or LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) “high definition television”. And they urged you that you really needed to do it right away.

If after all that you still waited, well it may be too late to send in for your free government $40 coupon by February 17th, but you still have time to get to the store to buy a digital converter, but you better hurry up.
I personally heeded the FCC warnings, sent in for the coupon, bought the deluxe digital tuner and the HDTV “superior quality omni-directional antenna” and came home with high hopes of superior quality digital TV. Well I am here to tell you that D-Day will not be all wine and roses here on the island. Turns out they, our wonderful FCC, failed to mention, except in the fine print, that digital TV does not work equally for everyone. I learned this the hard way.

Here on the Bass Islands we are about 40-50 miles from the closest TV signal towers. (www.myantenna.com). It turns that in Put-in-Bay not only does your antenna need a reasonably unobstructed line of site view to the signal tower, it also needs to be within a few degrees of being perfectly aligned with the tower signal. And because of our distance to the signal towers, weather is a now a factor too. So if you don’t have the antenna adjusted just so and it’s a cloudy day you will experience what they call the “digital cliff”.

What is the “digital cliff”, well that is when your pictures goes from happy and amazingly clear to a picture that resembles a badly arranged jigsaw puzzle. The audio stops and the picture lurches forward a few seconds at a time until the cloud moves or your neighbor’s car goes by. The good news is, if your were lucky enough to heed you kids advice to buy a flat screen TV, you are one step ahead at this point because you have a digital tuner built in to that brand new HDTV, but unless you have a roof top antenna you may be wishing you signed up for cable or satellite service last fall when the installers could still get here. If not and your like me, a broken rotor on the roof top antenna, you will be enjoying the two remote digital tuner two-step. Get up, sit down, get up, move the antenna to the left, sit down, cha, cha, cha…

Thank goodness for Canada. The Canadians will not be adopting the new digital standards for at least another year. So at least on a bad night for “over the airwaves” digital TV we can still watch a fuzzy channel of “analog” Canadian TV.

Really, I’m not making this up- October 29, 2008

Humankind & Beyond Belief-are my columns published monthly in the Put-in-Bay Gazette

A short intro: I enjoy writing about life here on our small island in the western basin of Lake Erie. The island is known as South Bass Island, one of three bass islands. It’s about 1.5 miles wide by 3 miles long and is a very popular destination in the summer. The island is best known as Put-in-bay, a name with cloudy beginnings since no one can actually claim to have given the island the name. Our history starts with native Americans hunting and fishing in these waters, then French settlers showed up in the mid to late 1700′s. We are directly connected to the War of 1812 due to the battle of Lake Erie fought just off our shore by the British and American navies. The battle was won by Commodore Oliver Perry and the most often quoted by line of the battle was “Don’t give up the Ship”.

Today Put-in-bay is a wonderful Victorian styled summer island with about 500 or so year rounders. This blog is where all my columns will appear as well as past ones that I have written. I hope you enjoy reading them.

Peter Huston

Octobers column

Beyond Belief- Really I’m not making this up

Summer on South Bass Island is a smorgasbord of stories ideas for writers. All you need to do is hang around Delaware Ave, keep your eyes and ears open and great stories will walk right into you, literally. These are bits and pieces of stories ideas that hailed me like a person needing a cab on a hot day in NYC, but never made it to print.

First there was our own Don Quixote, a young guy still feeling the full effects of his Saturday evening, joisting at the cars while standing in the middle of the street on Toledo one Sunday morning. As each car swerved to miss him, he was incoherently demanding that they take him back to the Island Club so he could sleep. I finally called him a cab. Then as the cab approached he walked away just to prove he could find his own way home!

Early in July if you were down by the harbor docks you may have seen these two young girls dancing the booty dance on top of a very large powerboat from Detroit. As the mixed drinks continued to flow on that warm afternoon along the village waterfront, I can tell you these two would have made the pole dancers at the Nauti-gal Bar blush.

And on Saturday of Christmas in July did you see the two guys walking down the street mooning passers bye? Hope you missed that.

Of course there was the family of 8 with their rolling cooler that explained to me that they had walked from the ferry dock to downtown, then they had tried to rent a golf cart. After finding out all the carts were sold out they decided to take the next bus back to the ferry and leave the island. Now that’s some “day at the bay”!

And then there was this dad and his young son wrestling over control of the steering wheel of their rented golf cart at full speed until they lost complete control and spun out into a lawn, luckily no one was hurt. I was wondering who really was the better driver, I think the boy won out.
Late Saturday afternoon early in August there was this 20ish girl standing in front of one of the most popular bars as the tour train I was driving, passed by. While I was explaining that this establishment is one of our island’s most popular destinations, she loudly invited the riders on the tour train to “come on in and get messed up just like me”. Now that’s hospitality!

And how about a lady who earnestly asked at the chamber office where the bridge to the other bass island was; and then later that day two ladies asked me about the tunnel to Middle bass. Both said they had heard about it from their hotel clerk. Good information is always a big help!

Then there were the guys hanging out at the original De Rivera’s winery on PIB Road (next to the Island Club) that would start acting like monkeys at the zoo as tourists went by on golf carts. Really!
And of course even the nicest people can be pushed to their limit some days. It just so happened that on one of the busiest afternoons this July there was a line of about 15 people waiting for a single golf cart to come available along Delaware. When one finally did, the crowd booed and heckled as the “lucky” two girls drove away from the rental site in an eight-passenger cart.

One of my favorite moments was watching 5 young guys all do wheelies on their mopeds together as they headed towards town on Catawba. Only one crashed, and they all laughed. Good thing there’s no IQ test when you rent one of those.

Finally, on the Sunday morning after “Christmas” I arrived at the Depot and encountered this mother, with her husband and two children, asking me for bus fare or change for the soda machine, she wasn’t sure which she needed. She then told me her golf cart had been stolen the night before out front of their hotel so the rental company, she said, had charged her for an extra day. Now all she had was 40 dollars in her bank account and the ATM would only let her take out 50. She explained to me that her kids were hungry and they all wanted to go home. All she had was a five-dollar bill. Sounded plausible, so I gave her some change. So then she decided on getting a soda for herself and made the family walk to the Lime Kiln dock. Luckily they had bought round trips on the Miller or they might still be here! Nothing spells Christmas F-U-N like walking back to the ferry Sunday morning.

So if you ever hear somebody say weekends on our island are boring you know they were either sleeping or never really here. Now there’s no moral to this story just a series of observations about odd behavior, but as the singer Angus Young of ACDC once said “Don’t worry about tomorrow, forget about the cheque, have a drink on me, (tomorrow) we’ll get hell to pay”. What I wonder as I see such remarkably odd behavior during our peak months is, “can we become a little more boring?”