National Infantry Museum honors American soldiers

COLUMBUS, Ga. — There are telling moments to be found in the new National Infantry Museum just outside Fort Benning. One is inside a re-created Vietnam jungle exhibit, a dark and moist place of near stifling humidity. Helicopter sounds throb overhead, and veterans’ voice-overs on small video screens provide commentary on the horrors of battle.

Watching on a day I visited were fresh-faced young infantrymen, somberly taking in the images of war far from the grounds upon which they hone their battle skills at Fort Benning, site of the US Army Infantry School. The soldiers watched silently, separated from the soldiers on the screens by 45 years but forever connected by the shared purpose of mission and duty.

The US infantryman finally has his due in this museum, a $100 million facility that opened last year (2009), with Colin Powell, former secretary of state and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, giving the keynote speech.

“This site is much more than a mere memorial, and the word museum is entirely inadequate to describe it,’’ said Powell, who trained at Fort Benning as a young officer. “It is the only attraction in the country to tell the story of the infantry from the perspective of the soldier.’’

The museum, with a large rotunda entryway and a towering stone column topped by a charging bronze infantryman, is nearly 200,000 square feet of exhibit, classroom, and attraction space. It is full of thousands of artifacts that trace the history of the US Infantry since its beginning 235 years ago.

The most moving exhibit would seem to be the first, “The Last Hundred Yards,’’ a slightly inclined, enclosed space of 300 feet. A longheld military concept is that the last 100 yards of any battle belong to the infantrymen who must charge that last, dangerous span to finish the battle.

It is the museum’s signature exhibit, with lifelike scenes from eight major infantry battles, starting with the American Revolution and finishing with Operation Desert Storm. Here are small reenacted battle dioramas that feature cast figures of infantry soldiers bearing authentic weapons, a World War II glider, and Huey helicopter. Haunting music from the Mel Gibson movie “We Were Soldiers’’ filters down from above.

Here you will see World War I doughboys on rubble-strewn streets, old war footage playing on broken buildings. There is an Army paratrooper displayed at the recapture of Corregidor in 1945, war film playing within his parachute, and across from that, soldiers scaling a rock wall at Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, with vintage film played upon it. Just up the walkway is a display of bayonet-bearing infantrymen at Millett’s bayonet attack in the Korean War, and beyond that a Huey helicopter landing in a Vietnamese field.

Beyond “The Last 100 Yards’’ are displays of training of modern infantrymen, with exhibits of weaponry and a massive blue-lighted display, “Today’s Commitment,’’ showing where infantrymen are found around the world, including Afghanistan, Iraq, South Korea, Kosovo, the Philippines, Germany, and Italy.

Downstairs are six massive exhibits, The Era Gallery, starting with “Securing Our Freedoms (1607-1815) and ending with “The Sole Superpower’’ (1989-present). It is a largely apolitical showing of the United States’ military might throughout the ages, with a stunning assortment of war memorabilia.

In the World War II exhibit portion of “A World Power’’ (1920-47), for example, you will see such spoils of war as Nazi commander Hermann Goering’s jewel-encrusted baton and a burned copy of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,’’ with the Nazi leader’s speeches raging on a loudspeaker as he whipped up the winds of hate and war.

There is also a bronze bust of Hitler on display here that Allied troops modified into a trash can, an epaulet from the uniform of Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy, and Japanese samurai swords. In “The Cold War’’ gallery are massive chunks of the Berlin Wall.

Other “wow moment’’ memorabilia include the service cap and ribbons of the most decorated soldier of World War II, Audie Murphy, and the original letter from General Omar Bradley, his “Top Secret Orders of the Day, June 4, 1944,’’ two days before the invasion of France. In it he tells soldiers of the 1st Army they are about to be part of “the greatest amphibious operation ever undertaken by any army’’ and that “the future of this war, the future of our country depends on your success.’’ Next to it is a letter from Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower telling soldiers, “We will accept nothing less than full victory,’’ which history shows is what was achieved.

Also in the museum’s grand hall is the “Hall of Valor,’’ a glass-enclosed space dedicated to nearly 1,500 Medal of Honor recipients from the Army Infantry, each honored by a small plaque on the walls. A computer kiosk allows visitors to look up full citations for each honoree.

Outside the museum proper, the homage to the infantryman continues at the five-acre parade field with grandstand seating for 2,100. Within the ground is soil taken from battlefields in each of the country’s wars, from Yorktown through Afghanistan, the soil spread by descendants of those who fought in those wars, or veterans of more recent ones.

The facility first hosted the infantry graduation on its parade grounds last year. Jerry A. White, a retired Army major general and president of the National Infantry Association, said then: “When these young men march proudly past us they will be literally walking on the same soil as where their forefathers fought and died. It is a tangible connection to the legacy they have just joined.’’

Just beyond the parade ground is “World War II Street,’’ a collection of vintage buildings from Fort Benning, two of which were used by General George S. Patton Jr. before he left for the North African campaign in World War II.

There had been a museum at Fort Benning, but it was a makeshift one housed in an old hospital building, said Cyndy Cerbin, director of communications. The city of Columbus was instrumental in making the museum happen, she said.

“City fathers said they needed to think big and they did,’’ she said. “Many feel this museum is Smithsonian quality.’’

It also features an IMAX theater and full-service restaurant.

The museum is a unique partnership of the nonprofit National Infantry Association Foundation and the Army, the former managing the facility, the latter owning all the artifacts. A National Armor Museum is in the works, Cerbin said, which could coincide with the Army’s armor school moving to Fort Benning from Fort Knox, Ky.

The National Infantry Museum is a place at once chilling and uplifting, testimony to the horror of war and the courage of the infantry. Visitors may find themselves walking through it with a sense of national pride.

“This is what we owe to those who went before,’’ Powell said at last year’s dedication ceremony. “This is the place. This is the home. This is their legacy.’’

Secrets newest all-inclusive resort in Jamaica

In spring 2010, Secrets made its first entry into Jamaica with a $180-million project - the adults-only Secrets Wild Orchard and Secrets St. James, adjacent all inclusives on a t-shaped peninsula in Montego Bay.
They are beauties, 351 suites each, on a stretch of white-sand beach. There are nine restaurants and nine bars, mostly in a shared promenade, which also boasts a recreation area and string of shops.A few kinks cropped up needing to be worked out - spotty Wifi in room ($15 a day charge) and sluggish room service - but this is overall an outstanding property with attentive staff and gorgeous accommodations.

ROOMS WITH GREAT VIEWS
I stayed on the Wild Orchid side of the Secrets twin resorts, and the suites are big, roomy, light splashing generously within, each with balcony with ocean and/or pool view. There are three categories of rooms: Junior suites, grand suites and presidential suites, all offering a king or two queen beds; flat-screen TV and CD/DVD player; mini-bar refreshed daily with soda, water and beer (Red Stripe, Jamaica's own); a private balcony; his-her armoire, nightstand and reading lamps; plush robes and slippers; baths with separate showers and water closets, double vanity and TV speaker with sound control, hair dryer and scale - which I advise not using once you sample the food here.

There is also 24-hour room service, which as of July 2010 was slow but with the promse they are working it out. There is also a box for private room-service delivery if you don't want to be disturbed, and a do-not-disturb light system to let them know.

DINING AND WINING
Dining and imbibing options abound at this resort, mostly in the promenade, a shared space with adjacent Secrets St. James; it is closest to Wild Orchid. oceana features Tex-Mex at lunch and is oceanside dining; Bordeaux, a French restaurant for dinner only; Blue Mountain, Jamaican-Caribbean food, dinnner only; El Patio, Mexican fare, dinner only; Himitsu, Pan-Asian fusion, dinner only and the only restaurant requiring reservations for its popular Teppanyaki tables; Portofino, Italian cuisine in the trattoria traditioin, dinner only; World Cafe,the resort's only buffet style eatery open for all means and offering a truly astounding choice of food, including Jamaican; Coco Cafe, small coffee area with pastries, opens early at 6 a.m.; and oceanfront dining at St. James at the Seaside Grill on the beach.

Bear in mind casual dress code is strictly enforced, meaning sleeved shirts and long pants for men, though most restaurants feature patio dining where you can get away with shorts.

For bars, the options are many, though some close surprisingly early. The Lounge at Wild Orchid, a piano bar, Cuban-themed lounge with live music, open to 12:30 a.m.;; Manatees swim-up bar; Marlin Bar, open air with sandwiches and salads, open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

In the promenade area, Barracuda Beach Bar (at right) terrific swing seating along with bar stools and sofas, lunch service, open to 6 p.m.; Desires Music Lounge, sports bar, DJ, dancing, open until 1:30 a.m.; Rendezvous Lobby Bar, with piano, open to 1 a.m.; Sugar Reef swim-up bar, open to 6 p.m.; and Revive Juice Bar.

THE SPA'S THE THING
The spa at Secrets is terrific, with hydro treatments, spa facial rooms, dual massage rooms and cold-and-hot water pre-treatment areas. There is a wide assortment of a la carte treatments, and a peace garden with yoga facility, water circuit and zen fountains.

The fitness center is small but roomy and well equipped with treadmills, stationary bikes, step climber, universal machines and weights, aerobics room and yoga studio.

In the Promenade is an open-air game room with board games, pool and ping-pong tables and a theater with nighly movies and entertainment. Daytime activities include aerobics, basketball, bocce, catamarans, snorkeling, soccer, tennis on lighted courts, vollyeball, water aerobics, windsurfing, kayaking and yoga.


All-Inclusive Secrets Wild Orchid Information
Secrets Wild Orchid
Montego Bay
Jamaica
http://www.secretsresorts.com/wildorchid/index.asp
800-866-467-3273
Rates start at $315 a day

So I'm not the biggest jerk in Jamaica? No, Scotchies is

Come for the jerk, don't mind the sweat.

I'm at Scotchies in Ocho Rios on Jamaica's northern shores,quite near a huge number of all-inclusive resorts, watching unsmiling, soaked-with-sweat cooks labor over giant, smoking slabs of giant, smoking slabs of jerk pork and crispy mounds of jerk chicken. It is brutally humid, typical of Jamaica in July, and I'm drenched. But that doesn't bother me as much as the guys preparing our food, dripping lord-knows-where as they labor to create what some claim - myself included - is the best jerk food on the island.

I'm a huge fan of Jamaican jerk, particularly at non-descript roadside joints like this one, the original; others are in Montego Bay and Kingston. This is a classic country eatery serving typical, genuine and drop-dead delicious jerk chicken and pork as its chief offerings.

Whole chickens and giant slabs of freshly butchered pork, all heavily doused with jerk sauce and spices, and OK, maybe a little sweat, are heaped on pimento or dogwood logs and smoked over the fire below, all of it topped with giant, well-used panels of corrugated metal to keep the smoky flavor in.

That magical jerk smell fills the dark, dingy smoking room which is open for public gawking, particularly from Americans not used to the sight. Locals abound and make up the bulk of the clientele, the surest testimony of how good any Caribbean restaurant is.

There are long lines at busy times; we caught a Saturday afternoon lull and were seated and served swiftly. There's a great open-air bar here to pass the time as well, where you can sit and sip with the locals, watching sports and trying to decipher their lilting patois.

In the smoking area, cooks bathed in smoke and sweat watch the meat crisp up dark and moist, pressed into the logs by the heavy-metal atop it. When done, they yank it off the fire and pull it apart, apportioning various quantities of the steaming, aromatic meat to plates and platters and giant aluminum pans.

You eat here in one of several huts on the heavily flowered grounds, occasionally pestered by a feral cat or stray dog, sitting on heavy, handmade stools of sturdy local wood (if you make the mistake of tugging one thinking it moves easy, it won't, and your back muscles may react accordingly). This is wonderfully spicy food and you're welcome to add fuel to your culinary fire with scotch bonnet sauce that accompanies it in a cup, but beware: This cousin of the habanero is one of the hottest peppers on the planet, and the most popular in Jamaica, a little goes a long, burning way. Try a small dose at first and wait for it to infuse your lips and face with its spreading warmth before loading up on more. My advice: A Red Stripe beer or two or three or more is a nice counter to the pepper's mounting heat.

Our group had giant portions of pork and chicken and wolfed it down to the bone in no time, gorging on the succulent, moist, flavorful meat that was accompanied by generous baskets of Jamaican festival bread, braided tubes of corn meal batter deep fried to a golden brown. We also had roasted breadfruit, a Jamaican staple, slathering it with fresh butter, and roasted sweet potato, different from our American counterpart in that it's harder, chewier, stringier and incredibly good.

And you get all this on the cheap: A full pound of pulled pork is a mere $14 American, and a whole pulled chicken about $12. The sweat of its preparers? No extra charge.

Scotchies Information

Scotchies

Drax Hall

Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Phone: 876-794-9457

Hours: Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Tucker's Point Restaurant a work of art

Check out this review I did of Tucker's Point restaurant in Bermuda, a stunning mural and testimony to Ed Trippe's respect and love of art and family. Great resort, too, new in 2009, a $400 million resort in Hamilton, just gorgeous. I'll post a review of the resort later...http://gocaribbean.about.com/od/restaura3/a/Work-Of-Art-Graces-The-Point-Restaurant-In-Bermuda.htm

New England Travel Quiz

Globe Travel has a New England News Quiz, five questions from each state testing your knowledge of our six-state region. I wrote the Rhode Island quiz and aced it (not so much the rest!) But it's a fun, educational quiz so take it, my fellow New Englanders or those who fancy themselves New England know-it-alls!
http://www.boston.com/travel/explorene/specials/newenglandquiz/#/?cname=Lost

Sarah, How Dumb Thou Art

NOTE: Below is a column I wrote for a local publication in May 2010 that the editor canned because she feared angry calls and letters. I ask you, isn't that the idea behind essays of opinion, satire, etc., to evoke SOME sorta response? Not sure I'll continue to write for the publication, can't deal with censorship. Anyway, the column is below, putting it here though it has nothing to do with travel, cause I gotta link it to Facebook somehow!


I was watching coverage of Sarah Palin’s visit to Boston in April, in a weak moment when I apparently had nothing better to do when in fact even digging out a bad tooth I have with a rusty awl might have been a more pleasant alternative. Not to mention less painful.


Listening to mere moments of her mini-momentous speech to Tea Party freaks on Boston Common made me more convinced than ever that this woman – poised in 2012 to run for the most powerful job in the land and no I don’t mean right-wing talk show host – is truly as dumb as a sack of hammers.


She toddled up the steps on Boston Common looking very fetching in her school-marm specs, trashy red-leather clingy top, huggy blue mini-skirt and spiky black heels, giving her the appearance of a well-dressed Wal-Mart shopper. Then it got worse. She opened her mouth.



“Do you love yer freedom?” she crackled in that voice she uses when she wants to sound angry yet fetching, and the crowd, with a combined intellect of several thousand bags of hammers looking like not-so-well dressed Wal-Mart shoppers, roared their approval which apparently meant “Yes, Sarah! We love our freedom, and gosh darn it, you’re the ONLY one who can give it to us!!”



She continued to talk, sadly, cementing that image I have of her in Alaska looking over and identifying that country across the Bering Sea from her and then she looked up at the Boston skyline and said, “Hey! I can see the Pru from here!!!” OK, she didn’t say that, but gosh darn it, she should have, eh?



I watched clips on line of people in the crowd, including one guy with American flags sticking out of his hat who looked like he just stumbled out of a late-night Sox-Yankees game, declaring his love for Palin, saying in the most heavily accented Boston accent since “The Departed,” “She’s spunky, she ain’t afraid,” which as we all know are the only two things you need to be a Tea Party hero. Oh, and a trashy red-leather top, perhaps.



She also maligned the “B.S. in the mainstream media,” which conservatives love to bash and then pay billions in advertising to, and also said “And look what Massachusetts did in January and shook up the U.S. Senate.” Then, spotting several men wearing barn jackets in the crowd, she shouted, in a tone she uses reading “Are You My Mother?” to grandson Tripp, “Is that you, Scott???” until Brown phoned her to say he wasn’t there and to stop calling his name.



Palin, a half-term governor, actually felt rather at home in Massachusetts where governors are noted for dabbling in gubernatorial waters before dashing off to do better things. She even invoked a time-honored state tradition, when she said “Maybe it feels like we’re running a grueling marathon, like the big one coming up here in Boston next week – but not in these shoes, gosh darn it!” the last part of which I made up but honestly, can’t you see her really saying it?



And all of it made me think: What the hell was McCain thinking? I mean didn’t he actually talk to Palin before making her his running mate in 2008? Wasn’t the giveaway when he said, “Hello, Sarah,” and she said “Hello, Senator McCain..oh, hey, golly, you any relation to Lucas McCain? Boy, I love watching ‘The Rifleman’ reruns, lemme tell ya, he’s like a hero up our way! And, if I’m not too outta line here, sometimes I call my Toddie, MY rifleman!”



I don’t know, maybe Sarah Palin’s not as stupid as she sounds. I mean she attended Hawaii Pacific University. She attended North Idaho College. She attended University of Idaho. And she attended that perennial collegiate academic and athletic powerhouse, Matanuska-Susitna College in Alaska, with its fabled battle cry “Moooooo-EEE! Mooooooo-EEE! MOOOOOSE!!!” Attended. And then by 1986, got her bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Idaho with emphasis on, of all things, journalism. Which may have qualified her to not read all those pesky magazines she told Katie Couric she did.



But then again she did finish third in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant, which begs two questions: Any Mensans in that crowd and just how deep could the Alaskan beauty pool be?



I guess it just might be that accent. I mean I don’t speak in Shakespearean intonations myself, but really. That accent. When she says stuff like, “How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya?” in that whiny, nasally drone, I just want to chew small poisonous insects until the pain goes away.



That accent was cute when actress Frances McDormand used it to Oscar-winning perfection in “Fargo,” but even though her sheriff character sounded stupid, she was anything but. Palin’s accent wins that daily double every time she opens her mouth. You put a badge on her, you got Barney Fife on The Last Frontier.



Now that Palin’s front and center again, I just ache for her to please shut up and go home and stop riding this impossible-to-fathom popularity wave that has yet to crash mercifully to shore and bubble down to a foamy ending. Good lord, the woman wrote a book, “Going Rogue: An American Life,” making me wonder if rogue to her means going to Wal-Mart in pumps, not heels (the sequel has to be “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Not Actually Have, Doncha Know?”). And she’s a political commentator on Fox News, which I realize is like populating the ESPN desk with retired jocks, but still.



And in an age of everyone having a TV show, she’s also hosting “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” I hope Russian’s prime minister announces his own, “Vladimir Putin’s Russia,” releasing a smirking picture of himself standing on the Russian shoreline wearing an “I’m With Stupid” t-shirt with an arrow on it pointing toward Palin’s house.



So Sarah, we apparently will continue to love you while conveniently ignoring the fact that you truly are as dumb as a sack of hammers. And hammers? No offense.

Am I Blue?

A few of my favorite blue-toned photos...my favorite color!

Ye Olde SmarteCarte

Sometimes it’s the little victories that while they may not win the war, make the battle a little easier to take.

I was in Miami International Airport recently, aka “Hell With Planes,” when my American flight to Boston was delayed by a couple hours. Now, I never check bags; for one thing, I hate waiting on bags, but mostly I refuse to pony up 25 bucks or more for a service that should be free forever. Why is that that they started jamming us for bags a couple years ago as fuel costs skyrocketed but once they de-skyrocketed the baggage charge stayed? It’s ridiculous. I fully expect to soon see as part of the preflight safety instructions, the flight attendant to tell you about the oxygen mask popping down and how to put it on, but then adding, “To facilitate the flow of actual oxygen, it will be necessary to swipe your credit card into the overhead light fixture. Sorry, cash is not accepted.”

Anyway, they changed gates from D to E - a gate just this side of hell to a gate on the other – and I was faced with the prospect of humping my carry-on bag (laptop, camera gear, book, doesn’t sound like much, but weighs heavy on a 56-year-old shoulder) and small suitcase (minimal clothing, doesn’t sound like much, see previous parenthetical aging lament) all that way. But like a vision, there it was, to my right, where it had been abandoned and I just noticed: A badly spelled Smartecarte, a three-wheeled baggage carriage that rents for four bucks a pop. But now, here it was, there, alone, free – mine! I looked around furtively, loaded up my bags and scurried away.

I cannot tell you the degree of freedom I felt at that moment, both empowered by a much easier way to get to my gate but mostly knowing I was screwing someone in the aviation field for a change. I wheeled casually to my gate, seeing other people with other Smartecartes, maybe some of them doing it for free. I felt like we should be shooting each other Harley waves on the drive-by down low. I walked and wheeled and smiled and even went to the bathroom once, taking my bags inside and leaving my beloved chariot unattended, because you just can’t leave bags by themselves, if you so much as leave an empty Dunkin’ Donuts bag alone in an airport these days, a bomb squad descends on it and robotically removes it to the nearest gravel pit for an exploding demise. So I left it there, went in, came back – and there it was, despite my initial feeling that I’d just left a brand-new BMW in downtown Boston with its doors open and engine running.

This was just amazing, a little dose of humanity in an inhuman environment, like it would be if airports just started putting in a few more electrical outlets near seats so we all might have a reasonable chance to use our laptops and charge our cell phones without having to walk around like we’re dying of electrical thirst trying to find one of those too few recharging kiosks that once someone finds a slot, they stay, banking enough electricity to charge their current and future portable electronic devices from now until windmill power is actually a reality.

I strolled more, leisurely, from D to E and back again, relaxed and not walking like a contestant at a world’s strongest man competition waddling a Buick on my back toward the finish line. It was great, it was freeing and it was free. I had nowhere to go but could go anywhere. I was like a kid with a new Schwinn, and I have no idea what a kid these days would use for a bike metaphor but I’m old and sticking with what I know.

It was like walking a pet or a child. I stopped at an ATM and didn’t take my eyes off my SmarteCarte, fearing it would just disappear if I did. It wasn’t so much my personal belongings I’d miss, but the conveyance that for a few magic moments was making my airport-bound life of crappy food, delayed flights and moronic security bearable.

And speaking of the latter: During my peripatetic burst, a pair of TSA agents on break from keeping the world safe from bottles of water larger than three ounces were coming the other way. One jerked his thumb toward his female coworker and said to me as they passed, “Hey, run her over will ya?” acknowledging my existence in an airport other than someone to harass for not taking his laptop out of his bag (what, it’s somehow impervious to X-ray?) and also proving that not all TSA agents are drones devoid of anything but geeky humor directed at other TSA agents in a code only they get and frankly, I don’t want to.

I had walked all I cared to, so I returned to my gate in terminal E and abandoned my new wheeled friend. A scant few moments later, a woman came by and took it for her own walk. I beamed proudly, pleased to have passed along the chance for her to save four bucks and enjoy, possibly for the first time ever, a walk with bags through the crowded, sweaty, badly lit soulless pit that is the modern airport.

It is something we all should do; buying for a mere four bucks untold happiness for the untold others after. You use your Smartecarte and then hand it off to the next person in need, and that Smartecarte wouldn’t be a slave anymore, it wouldn’t be a four-buck whore, never again to be shackled into that long, metallic birthing rack waiting to emerge into the world again, freed by the next tired human with four bucks in change, bills or credit card. It would be like friendship bread on wheels, benefitting others over and over and over again…

Now if only one of those greedy bastards at the charger kiosks would detach himself from the power grid long enough to give someone else a chance..

A Blue Long Gone...

I hadn’t seen it, this color blue, for many, many years. But there it was squiggling over and across the waves, taking me back in time, back to my youth, back when I noticed things like this color blue.

I was on a snorkeling trip out of Kanantik Jungle Resort on the southeast coast of Belize and was sitting on the starboard side of the snorkel boat as it bounced along briskly, and I guess it was the polarity of my cheap clip-on shades but as I looked into the waves we cut over, dancing on the surface were these delicate, long lines, strings of them, a blur of blue that I suspect was a prismatic play on the sky’s reflection, but these squiggles on the water were the same shade of blue I’d seen as a child.

These long, wavering thin blue lines reminded me of that blue long gone, a blue I’d not seen since, a blue of precisely this tone that jogged my memory back to it instantly. Not a sky blue or cobalt blue or cerulean blue. It was deeper than powder blue, sharper, leaning toward but not quite violet, not as intense as purple. It was the color of my favorite crayon as a child, a color that just seeing again made the smell of the crayon come back, almost a candy-chemical scent and the feel as well, the feel of the paper around it, not smooth, not coarse, but a texture in between that every one long remembers. I don’t recall seeing that precise color crayon ever again.

But it was there, this color in velvety strands skipping along the waves moving as fast as the boat was, as fast as childhood escapes those who deserve it most and don’t know how fleeting it is until enough time has paced to lend perspective to what’s been lost and yearned for. The sight of that color brought my soul back to a time of innocence and huggy aunts and grandparents and Sunday afternoon meals that melted into night and black-and-white football on TV, a time when a mother’s soothing “It’ll be all right” meant that it would be all right.

I was going to retrieve my camera and take a picture, but feared it wouldn’t reproduce the magic adequately, and I didn’t want to leave the deck and lose the feeling and leave that color behind for an instant, I just wanted to embrace and enjoy it for as long as I could

And then the clouds scudded across the sky and the color was gone and we got to the snorkeling place and I soon forgot about that blue. Again.

I miss it. Again.

Catching Olympic Gold Fever

Lake Placid’s population has held steady for years, hovering around 3,000. But on Feb. 22, 1980, it was every American’s hometown.
“This place seats 7,700 but that night had about 10,000 or 11,000,” says Sandy Caligiore, former director of communications for the Olympic Regional Development Authority, overseer of all-things Olympic in Lake Placid, including the Herb Brooks Arena in which we stand. “But to listen to people who said they were there, there would had to have been a million here.”
It was here on that night the much underestimated United States hockey team defeated the powerhouse Russians in what Sports Illustrated deemed the greatest sports moment of the 20th century. They later beat the Fins next to capture the gold and America’s heart. I’m a total hockey freak and had come to this hallowed hall with my son, another huge fan, to embrace it all.
I have seen “Miracle on Ice” footage a million times, and every single time that Al Michaels roars “Do you believe in miracles? YES!” I get goose bumps that won’t quit. Walking into the arena where it happens and the memories linger thick in the air, those goose bumps are the size of goalposts.
My son, 20 when we visited in 2008, and I stand above the corner where U.S. goalie Jim Craig, draped in an American flag, mouthed the words “Where’s my father?” looking into the stands for his dad. It is an iconic moment indelibly etched in the minds of Americans who lived during that time and recall the game as being as much a political statement and patriotic shot in the arm for a country in turmoil – the Cold War, gasoline shortage and Iranian hostage crisis were all in full swing - as it was a mere hockey game.
The Olympic Center where it happened is nestled in the heart of picturesque Lake Placid, and is a remarkably open place. You walk into the arena, named for the legendary coach, the late Herb Brooks, who lead the upstart American kids to improbable victory, and just stand and let the chills warm you from the inside out. Check out the Olympic museum, where Craig's goal, stick and flag are on display.
But the hockey gold isn’t the only memory to share here. Outside on the oval ice track is where Eric Heiden took five golds in speed skating in 1980, the last time long-track speed skating was held outside, a track now flooded and frozen in winter for the public to enjoy. Also here is the Jack Shea Arena, named for a man who in the 1932 Olympics in Lake Placid took two skating gold medals. His grandson Jimmy won gold in the skeleton event at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.
We also wander over to the Olympic ski jump center a few miles outside of town, where the 120 meter behemoth defies logic as you look straight up 365 feet and wonder how the hell anyone has the guts to slide down this thing and into thin air. Take an elevator ride to the top to check out a view that will take your breath away. In summer and fall, try the 1980 bobsled run, a half-mile, 40-second blast of jarring, jolting thrills, near-vertical cornering and g-force straightaway speeds.
Having seen all that, my son and I wander to the Herb Brooks arena one last time. Little has changed here since 1980. It still has the original seats, the original scoreboard, the original locker room number seven where the American kids dressed, and the original magic still pervading this most American of sports venues.
We stand quietly, reflecting and remembering, and trying to get those goose bumps down to a manageable level. We can’t, and really, don’t want to. Ever.

Best - and only - rum punch in Belize Airport

A must-sip stop in the world of airport bars has to be Jet’s Bar in Belize City Airport, run by the diminutive, Beetlejuice-voiced Jet, a tiny Belizean with a towering personality – particularly toward women.

It is a hole-in-the-wall kinda place, with a few stools at the short bar, tacky decorations all around, a wall of police patches from the world over and an abundance of photos of Jet and women. The airport is typical Central American, tiny, requisite stores selling tourist kitsch, hot, cramped and making for thirsty waits.

Enter Jet, who’ll roam the crowd, croaking “Who wants the best rum punch in Belize?” until he finds a taker, and for five bucks you get the best rum punch in Belize. Well, Belize City Airport anyway. I’m pretty sure it’s the only bar in the building.

And he’ll haunt you to buy a hot dog (“Best hot dog in Belize”) or a ham-and-cheese sandwich (ditto) until you break down. I did and son of a gun, the ham-and-cheese wasn’t bad, so for less than a sawbuck, I got food, drink and a few minutes with the seeming mayor of Belize City Airport. This is the guy who can call your gate so the agent will call back and let you know when your plane’s boarding, in case you want to stick around Jet’s a little longer and suck down more rum punches and soak up Jet’s infectious personality.

“Here, says it all here,” he growled to me when I asked how he got the name Jet, plopping a framed news story in my hands.

Turns out Jet (I don’t know his real name and don’t want to, the nickname’s cool enough for me) was an airport worker for years with a reputation for moving fast on the job, hence the name. And seeing his slick schmooze with any woman he meets – whether they buy the best rum punch in Belize or not – he’s still living up to the name.