I drank from the Fountain of Youth

Originally Posted:
Sunday, August 13, 2006
6:57:00 PM CDT
Hearing Flip This House

Updated 8/15/06

My theory is this: I'm only in Savannah for a short time, so I might as well make the most of it and pack in as much of the surrounding scenery as possible while opportunity is standing on my doorstep. That's pretty well how I've lived my adult life so far because I figure life's passing me by otherwise. If you don't get out and explore, you'll never know how great life is (and in some cases, isn't). How can you have any level of appreciation for your own life if you don't know what the difference is? Unfortunately, the first half of the quarter was spent 24/7 on homework (which is takes priority!), but didn't afford me the time to venture out. Now that the Habit class has ended and my homework load has decreased one hundred fold, I can use my free time to get out and about.

Since Adrian had to work, Elan was eyeball deep in clay, Chayln was wrapped up in draping dresses, and Kanako's been whipping up paintings by the truckload, that left only Adam free to go to St. Augustine with me. So, we set out to see the oldest stuff America has to offer. Know what? I wasn't all that impressed! However, I do have a new hero: Don Juan Ponce de Leon. At 4'-11" tall, he made friends with the 7'+ tall Indians and named the land he came upon in 1513 "La Floridia." Which, I didn't know this, turns out that by default that nothing in the USA had a name at that point, meant that all of America was known as La Floridia. (okay...I'm glossing over the whole part about how the Indians were killed off and white man brought diseases with them. Let's not ruin my romantic notion of short little Ponce setting sail from Spain in search of the Fountain of Youth. Indian genocide is a story for another day.) Anywho, the reason I'm so into Ponce, aside from the fact that he could navigate a boat using the stars and I can't find my way out of a paper bag with a map, compass and an arrow pointing to the exit, is that he brought us orange trees. Now, considering I LOVE all things orange...carrots, sweet potatoes, oranges, squash, pumpkins...this is a big deal to me. Ponce is my main man! We need to rename vitamin C to vitamin P!!!

The historic part of St. Augustine is not all that large and it's so touristy that the charm is totally stripped away. Shops like Birkenstock and The Souvenier Emporium now fill the old buildings. "Colonial" men wearing three point hats, jodhpurs and white puffy shirts holding styrofoam cups and eatting pizza off a paper plate really sets the scene! I felt like I was walking down a poorly done Disney set. It's kind of odd to me to think that Rosemary Beach is modeled after St. Augustine. I see the similarity, but Rosemary is such an idealistic take on it.

I can't say that St. Augustine is all that pretty either. Granted, we concentrated our time on the "historic" section and the beach, but those areas reminded me of Highway 41 in Evansville. Lots of traffic, intermittent construction, disconnected buildings, and budget hotel chains.

The prettiest building in the historic section is Flagler College. What I found super odd about Flagler is their use of mace balls as decorations. They string the things around over everything like garland.

I'm a little blurry on the whole "who found America" first debate (I am my mother's daughter after all! The details often evade us but that doesn't stop us from trying to tell a story!!). It seems as though Ponce, who sailed with Christopher Columbus on Columbus' second voyage from Spain in 1493, is actually the first person to claim North America for Spain..not Columbus as the history books claim. Columbus had three voyages from 1492-? and did not hit American soil until his third voyage. Ponce set out in search of the Fountain of Youth and Columbus was looking for a westward route to Asia. Somehow in the mix of all this history, Columbus emerged the victor. I tried to recall the "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue" poem on the drive back to Savannah. I realized that's the only line I knew, so I looked it up. Now that I've read the whole poem, it makes sense. Here is the complete 1492 poem:

In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

He had three ships and left from Spain;
He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.

He sailed by night; he sailed by day;
He used the stars to find his way.

A compass also helped him know
How to find the way to go.

Ninety sailors were on board;
Some men worked while others snored.

Then the workers went to sleep;
And others watched the ocean deep.

Day after day they looked for land;
They dreamed of trees and rocks and sand.

October 12 their dream came true,
You never saw a happier crew!

"Indians! Indians!" Columbus
cried;
His heart was filled with joyful pride.

But "India" the land was not;
It was the Bahamas, and it was hot.

The Arakawa natives were very nice;
They gave the sailors food and spice.

Columbus sailed on to find some gold
To bring back home, as he'd been told.

He made the trip again and again,
Trading gold to bring to Spain.

The first American? No, not quite.
But Columbus was brave, and he was bright.

Okay, back to our trek to the Fountain of Youth. Talk about a National Park in need of donations! Time has not been kind to the Fountain (Ironic don't you think!). I almost want to chalk the Fountain up to one of the odd things I've ran across, but that would be doing an injustice to dear old Ponce, and we already know that I would never do that to my concurring hero who brought me oranges. So, you pay your $6 to enter and the first stop on the mulch trail is the life size diorama that looks more like a cheap oil painting than a depiction of history. Seriously, it comes complete with faded plastic flowers, astroturf, really red Indians, and a backdrop of an intensely painted ocean scene. Amidst all this cheesiness is a hole in the ground with a wooden rail protecting it. That's the Fountain of Youth. Seriously. That's it. This is definitely one of those "it's about the journey, not the destination moments." What once was a large body of water and natural spring, is now a mere drop in the bucket so to speak. We got our Dixie cup full of Youth Water and drank up. The water is filled with minerals so it has a distinctive, sweet taste. Supposedly it is those minerals that gave Ponce longevity. At a time when the average life span was 30-35 years, Ponce defied death by living until the ripe old age of 65 when he was killed. Let's see...my Dixie cup of water probably bought me an extra five minutes of youthfulness. That's one less wrinkle to look forward to. The rest of the Fountain's fifteen acre park is devoted as a nature preserve and site of Indian history. There is a burial ground on the site which is the first time protestants and Indians were buried together.

After going to Ponce's Fountain of Youth, we went to my own Fountain of Youth: The Ocean. Doing nothing but sitting on the water's edge while reading a book can mentally take years off (too bad age spots, wrinkles and skin cancer come with the deal). St. Augustine's beaches are big. Big as in lots of sand. Hurricanes have pushed the shore line back so far that there is almost three parts to the beach. First there's the hundreds of yards of soft sand, then there's the stretch where all the prickly seaweed (ouch!) has washed up and then there's the large expanse of wet sand area where the tide moves in and out throughout the day. I'm so used to the Gulf area where houses are built almost on top of the water. All this openness was a little strange. The best part of it was the lack of people. School has started here so the beach was not packed shoulder to shoulder with family vacationers. We called it a day after grabbing a bite at a restaurant and headed out.

I'm usually not impressed by nightlighting, but I must say that the bridges in Jacksonville, FL are pretty cool at night. They glow a nice blue-purple and make for an interesting scene.