| TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG VOLUME IV THE ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS Chapter 64 |
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previous chapter 63
VOLUME 4 EPILOGUE AND POSTSCRIPT
PLACES AND PEOPLE REVISITED FROM TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG
Those ten years worth of experiences took us beyond the horizons to meet a strange and different mix of individuals
that would forever leave us with the everlasting view of the alternate life styles we had not even dreamed possible as
they impacted our lives and the world around us.
A strange series of events in our lives converged in 1982.
We had become landowners and business people in Florida in a big way; to quote our dear friend Bubba Schill: we
were, “born again capitalists”.
Six years of cruising aboard Dursmirg followed by four diligent and intense years renovating our Flamingo
Apartments in St. Augustine, Florida and building our own 580-foot dock to accommodate our fleet of boats that
then included our commercial shrimp trawler that we operated by ourselves.
(I have written that story entitled; “Life of the Secotan”, of our commercial shrimp trawler).
This strange mix of non-conforming happenings straight out of a Pandora’s Box sent us spiraling into still another
realm of nebulous happenings.
Propelled by an appetite for the unknown Jane and I were ripe for a new dimension striking off on an obtuse angle
away from the norm to a non-conforming out-of-the loop existence.
We were at another fork in life’s road and would instinctively strike off on the least traveled way.
Our end destination was irrelevant; it was the journey that mattered and as long as we were together we were home.
This was the point in our lives of another remarkable beginning and the adventure would take care of itself..
Now with a home base in St. Augustine, Florida that was in effect an anchor of sorts we could now bounce back
when the spirit moved us to regroup and plan our next escape oriented getaway, whatever it happened to be.
Our friends referred to our St. Augustine property where we had 640-feet of waterfront property and our 580-foot
dock to tie our fleet of boats to as our “dock box”.
(For those that tie their boats at marinas and yacht clubs the dock box is a shore side storage locker, and that is
exactly what we had)
A new and interesting toy put a strange and remarkable twist on the next 22 years of our lives.
A quote from our dear friend and sailing associate, Bob Lance Burn; “bodies that are in motion then tend to stay in
motion.” That statement fit us perfectly as we again went out over the distant horizon, this time by land with our VW
camper van and our bicycles attached.
In our first free-spirited summer of over the road outback camper van excursions in 1982 we slowly and leisurely
visited 26 states in the U.S. and then four provinces in Canada.
The next year we were off to Europe where we spent four months touring 17 countries in our brand new VW camper
van that we took delivery of directly from the VW factory in Germany. This was the second of six camper vans that
we would own over the next 22 amazingly adventuresome years.
Many of those next 22 years, we would spend touring more than 6 months at a time. We traveled from northern
Europe to southern Europe, one end of Canada to the other, all over the U.S. and down to our Caribbean Sea front
property in the jungle of southern Mexico on the Belize border.
Jane and I shared a dream as good as it gets.
If we could have done more we certainly would have. But, our life together has been lived to the fullest.
Our plans are to fill even more chapters and volumes of our travels and adventures because as you can see my
best friend and favorite pal Jane is still here to dream a dream with me.
TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG/ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS;
VOLUME 4, POSTSCRIPT:
A return to Superior, Wisconsin and Lake Nebagamon;
It had been ten action packed years for Jane and I traveling and living aboard our boat Dursmirg.
Together we had embarked on an epic adventure that had begun as a dream shared and then unfolded into a
wondrous realm that opened up our lives into a strange and interesting new world filled and illuminated by new
sights and sounds, people and places.
As we now journeyed over the road and retraced our voyaging steps of the travels of Dursmirg we saw with mixed
emotions many of the enchantingly unique places of our previous travels that only belonged to our memories of the
past changed forever so that there could be no going back except in our dreams.
The flood of population and torrent of technology all brought our dearly loved and newly discovered places like the
Georgia Sea Islands, Old St. Augustine and the pristine Florida Keys into a new and different era that were never to
be the same again, but washed off into the past on their way to eternity.
This wasn’t to be blamed on developers alone though they were on the cutting edge of this evolutionary process.
Now after ten glorious and wondrous years, the best of our lives, we were on our way to step back into this place
where I had been born, and lived out the first 32 years of my life.
Mixed emotions coupled with anxiety and a slight surge of apprehension gripped both Jane and I as we went back
after ten years to look up some dear old friends and revisit our old haunts.
While the rest of the nation sweltered in the summer heat our memories were quickly jogged into reality by the
Superior, Wisconsin weather this August day as we descended down into that icy fog laced city by the big sea
waters of Lake Superior.
Superior is not a beautiful city but a city surrounded by beauty. Situated upon a flat red clay peninsula at the
western end of Lake Superior and the western terminus of the St. Lawrence Waterway it was a boom-town gone
bust.
Almost all of the classic old solid structures of the empire building era and expansionistic period in American history
both public and private were here languishing in dismal neglect.
The rest of the city’s structures had been thrown up with haste much like some of the old gold rush era boom towns
of the Wild West that had absolutely no architecturally redeeming features or thought of a tomorrow.
Superior’s heyday was gone away by the 1950s.
So, when the bulldozer and battering-ram of urban renewal plowed under the northern city, the world and Superior
felt no pain or loss, sort of like just flushing a toilet…the old crap was gone!
Jane has many times said to me, “you can’t go back in life, it is not so much that the old places have changed but it
is you that have changed.”
I have many times over the years experienced the shock waves of Jane’s philosophical statement about going back.
It always conjures up memories of when I returned to our old home of 12 years in Superior, Wisconsin just a few
days after the new owners had torn out the custom built kitchen and office space that Jane and I had labored so
hard to design and build, putting our heart and souls and meager savings into.
Most times in my life returning has turned out to be better off not done at all, and as I think back upon this trip it
more than likely should not have been done and would have saved us the agony of wiping away so many fond and
precious memories.
In the two weeks Jane and I spent in the Superior, Wisconsin area we didn’t encounter anyone of the many old
acquaintances we had time to look up that were at least as well off as we had left them ten years previously, they
were only older now.
I had the sensation of deep depression and hopelessness. The drab and dreary old haunts were mostly still there
with the same old people trapped in the same old situations. The place was smaller, colder, and lifeless like a
cadaver lying “in state” and facing eternity.
This so ended our sad depressing gloomy cheerless and distressing nostalgia trip.
Jane and I were far more fortunate than we had ever believed possible before and this sojourn back proved it with
chilling reality.
We had just had the experience of our dreams fulfilled at a time in life when we had the strength and determination
to make it all possible.
We had the reward of our accomplishments and the glorious memories to accompany them coupled with the most
precious of all commodities a couple could ever share …complete trust.
This brings volume 4 to an end but Jane and I are still full of dreams and young enough and eager enough to still
climb mountains and strike off to distant horizons hand in hand together with a shared dream in our hearts.
CHAPTER 64 EPILOGUE AND POSTSCRIPT
next chapter
PLACES AND PEOPLE REVISITED FROM TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG
Those ten years worth of experiences took us beyond the horizons to meet a strange and different mix of individuals
that would forever leave us with the everlasting view of the alternate life styles we had not even dreamed possible as
they impacted our lives and the world around us.
A strange series of events in our lives converged in 1982.
We had become landowners and business people in Florida in a big way; to quote our dear friend Bubba Schill: we
were, “born again capitalists”.
Six years of cruising aboard Dursmirg followed by four diligent and intense years renovating our Flamingo
Apartments in St. Augustine, Florida and building our own 580-foot dock to accommodate our fleet of boats that
then included our commercial shrimp trawler that we operated by ourselves.
(I have written that story entitled; “Life of the Secotan”, of our commercial shrimp trawler).
This strange mix of non-conforming happenings straight out of a Pandora’s Box sent us spiraling into still another
realm of nebulous happenings.
Propelled by an appetite for the unknown Jane and I were ripe for a new dimension striking off on an obtuse angle
away from the norm to a non-conforming out-of-the loop existence.
We were at another fork in life’s road and would instinctively strike off on the least traveled way.
Our end destination was irrelevant; it was the journey that mattered and as long as we were together we were home.
This was the point in our lives of another remarkable beginning and the adventure would take care of itself..
Now with a home base in St. Augustine, Florida that was in effect an anchor of sorts we could now bounce back
when the spirit moved us to regroup and plan our next escape oriented getaway, whatever it happened to be.
Our friends referred to our St. Augustine property where we had 640-feet of waterfront property and our 580-foot
dock to tie our fleet of boats to as our “dock box”.
(For those that tie their boats at marinas and yacht clubs the dock box is a shore side storage locker, and that is
exactly what we had)
A new and interesting toy put a strange and remarkable twist on the next 22 years of our lives.
A quote from our dear friend and sailing associate, Bob Lance Burn; “bodies that are in motion then tend to stay in
motion.” That statement fit us perfectly as we again went out over the distant horizon, this time by land with our VW
camper van and our bicycles attached.
In our first free-spirited summer of over the road outback camper van excursions in 1982 we slowly and leisurely
visited 26 states in the U.S. and then four provinces in Canada.
The next year we were off to Europe where we spent four months touring 17 countries in our brand new VW camper
van that we took delivery of directly from the VW factory in Germany. This was the second of six camper vans that
we would own over the next 22 amazingly adventuresome years.
Many of those next 22 years, we would spend touring more than 6 months at a time. We traveled from northern
Europe to southern Europe, one end of Canada to the other, all over the U.S. and down to our Caribbean Sea front
property in the jungle of southern Mexico on the Belize border.
Jane and I shared a dream as good as it gets.
If we could have done more we certainly would have. But, our life together has been lived to the fullest.
Our plans are to fill even more chapters and volumes of our travels and adventures because as you can see my
best friend and favorite pal Jane is still here to dream a dream with me.
TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG/ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS;
VOLUME 4, POSTSCRIPT:
A return to Superior, Wisconsin and Lake Nebagamon;
It had been ten action packed years for Jane and I traveling and living aboard our boat Dursmirg.
Together we had embarked on an epic adventure that had begun as a dream shared and then unfolded into a
wondrous realm that opened up our lives into a strange and interesting new world filled and illuminated by new
sights and sounds, people and places.
As we now journeyed over the road and retraced our voyaging steps of the travels of Dursmirg we saw with mixed
emotions many of the enchantingly unique places of our previous travels that only belonged to our memories of the
past changed forever so that there could be no going back except in our dreams.
The flood of population and torrent of technology all brought our dearly loved and newly discovered places like the
Georgia Sea Islands, Old St. Augustine and the pristine Florida Keys into a new and different era that were never to
be the same again, but washed off into the past on their way to eternity.
This wasn’t to be blamed on developers alone though they were on the cutting edge of this evolutionary process.
Now after ten glorious and wondrous years, the best of our lives, we were on our way to step back into this place
where I had been born, and lived out the first 32 years of my life.
Mixed emotions coupled with anxiety and a slight surge of apprehension gripped both Jane and I as we went back
after ten years to look up some dear old friends and revisit our old haunts.
While the rest of the nation sweltered in the summer heat our memories were quickly jogged into reality by the
Superior, Wisconsin weather this August day as we descended down into that icy fog laced city by the big sea
waters of Lake Superior.
Superior is not a beautiful city but a city surrounded by beauty. Situated upon a flat red clay peninsula at the
western end of Lake Superior and the western terminus of the St. Lawrence Waterway it was a boom-town gone
bust.
Almost all of the classic old solid structures of the empire building era and expansionistic period in American history
both public and private were here languishing in dismal neglect.
The rest of the city’s structures had been thrown up with haste much like some of the old gold rush era boom towns
of the Wild West that had absolutely no architecturally redeeming features or thought of a tomorrow.
Superior’s heyday was gone away by the 1950s.
So, when the bulldozer and battering-ram of urban renewal plowed under the northern city, the world and Superior
felt no pain or loss, sort of like just flushing a toilet…the old crap was gone!
Jane has many times said to me, “you can’t go back in life, it is not so much that the old places have changed but it
is you that have changed.”
I have many times over the years experienced the shock waves of Jane’s philosophical statement about going back.
It always conjures up memories of when I returned to our old home of 12 years in Superior, Wisconsin just a few
days after the new owners had torn out the custom built kitchen and office space that Jane and I had labored so
hard to design and build, putting our heart and souls and meager savings into.
Most times in my life returning has turned out to be better off not done at all, and as I think back upon this trip it
more than likely should not have been done and would have saved us the agony of wiping away so many fond and
precious memories.
In the two weeks Jane and I spent in the Superior, Wisconsin area we didn’t encounter anyone of the many old
acquaintances we had time to look up that were at least as well off as we had left them ten years previously, they
were only older now.
I had the sensation of deep depression and hopelessness. The drab and dreary old haunts were mostly still there
with the same old people trapped in the same old situations. The place was smaller, colder, and lifeless like a
cadaver lying “in state” and facing eternity.
This so ended our sad depressing gloomy cheerless and distressing nostalgia trip.
Jane and I were far more fortunate than we had ever believed possible before and this sojourn back proved it with
chilling reality.
We had just had the experience of our dreams fulfilled at a time in life when we had the strength and determination
to make it all possible.
We had the reward of our accomplishments and the glorious memories to accompany them coupled with the most
precious of all commodities a couple could ever share …complete trust.
This brings volume 4 to an end but Jane and I are still full of dreams and young enough and eager enough to still
climb mountains and strike off to distant horizons hand in hand together with a shared dream in our hearts.
CHAPTER 64 EPILOGUE AND POSTSCRIPT
next chapter