Another wedding had me out performing in north St Johns County, south of Jacksonville tonight.

A History of Fort Jefferson by U.S. National Park Service

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A short bit that crams a lot into too few pages. The history is well laid out from construction to the point of publication. The information is direct and specific.

I like this booklet. Most short booklets created in the past 30 years are leaden with graphics with the writing lost. However, the National Park Service has been specifically good at producing materials of parks and this very early one is no exception.

Bottom line: I recommend this booklet. 8 out of ten points.



View all my reviews

Just met with Justin of the University of Florida Health college to pass along the 5 paintings of graduates.We met stone of my new favorite stores,2nd & Charles, in Jacksonville. Folks there were terrific and let us use a table to put them in frames.

Been doodling stories today in The Villages! Great folks who have volumes of life!

Date with a Dead Man by Brett Halliday

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“Brett Halliday” was really David Dresser. Dresser wrote teh series from 1938 to 1959. This is the first book after Dresser written by a ghost writer and it shows.

The writing is good and the mystery is better. The plotting is OK with some sloppy parts here and there. The characters are also OK. Mostly distinct.

But this is all a far cry from Dresser’s work. The writers botches the two decades of books continuity with un-Mike Shayne moves. There are also many blue areas in the book placing the book in the pulpier side of pulp. Dresser never went as far as the ghost writer did with blue material.

But, I’ll judge the book as a single entity.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 6 out of 10.



View all my reviews

Prop Roots Vol. II: Hermits The Mangrove Country of the Everglades by Everglades City High School

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Considering the very high quality of the writing and layout of this publication, it’s very unfortunate this isn’t 200 pages longer. This is very well written and thought out. Each person examined is given just the right touch of revelation and storytelling.

Particularly good is not just that the folks documented are hermits but the whys, hows and whens are answered well, too.

There is a scattering of photos they are rather unprofessional and add little to the volume. They should’ve added more to each story.

This is a rich little volume and, if you can find it, well worth reading.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 10 out of 10 points.



View all my reviews

A Florida political aside: An effort to get the governor to kill a bill.

As most know, I’m pretty involved with politics but post nothing of it here. Here I make an exception because I notice a bulk majority on all sides of the issue are against a ridiculous plan in front of our governor to approve a proposal by our legislature to approve 3 nebulous highways in our state of Florida.

There is no set idea where exactly the three go, how they will be built, what they might be designed as and – most importantly – the actual number of Billions to build three highways that only those that can make a cut of the project want. One of these highways extends to the Georgia border where there is no highway on the other side to meet it!

I hear environmentalists upset and they have reason. There has to be further damage to our water supply to build, specifically the redirected “Heartland” highway. But I think the REAL anger should be to what a sloppy mess this is and how it’s set up to cost us endless supplies of taxpayer cash to build these needless roads. Two of these highways are old projects the people rose against and killed. So, not to leave road builders and their ilk out of the cash flow, the politicians just moved the roads in a different direction! 

There are preposterous numbers being thrown around by the Chamber of Commerce of 4.5 million moving here by 2030. First, the average person who moves to Florida is indigent and aren’t buying a home anytime soon after moving here. Nevertheless, in the Chamber’s logic, we need to pay for these roads which have little residential development but land owners wanting to develop. The politicians and Special Interests want us taxpayers to pay for a mighty expensive driveway to developer yet-to-be-built projects. 

What’s not mentioned is that, by 2030, a good deal of Baby Boomers are gone and we have a far poorer tax paying population that doesn’t drive as much. Something we saw coming 30 years ago. 

The governor has until the 28th, I learned today, to sign this boondoggle. Usually the deadline is later in June, but obviously there are those with hands out waiting for checks to start being written.

So, today i put a call to my pal Ken Culotta and started hammering out some good gag ideas and tonight, with pen in hand, have started drawing the lot. Hope to get these out before Friday and hope others will help get these around.

The push is to encourage Governor DeSantis to kill this bill and not blow Billions for needless highways for special interests when we have hundreds of current existing roads in need of help first or how about some REAL help to those still in tent cities in the Panhandle after Hurricane Michael ….or, better yet, with all that money saved, we all get a tax break!??!!

(By the way, I’m giving just the briefest argument. I can get real nitty gritty as to why these projects are Florida Swamp projects and just how needless they really are.)

I’m a huge fan of, what are considered, old movies. Since elementary school I have taken any and all in. I doubt many, if any, in my high school in the ’70s had seen as many Bing Crosby films as I had at the time. These days i just can’t find a film made today that isn’t inferior to films made prior to 1960 or so.

There just aren’t happy movies any more. Or happy music.Or happy much of anything. Seems to me that’s why so many are so unhappy these days. We need what Doris Day brought out in so many!

Those film stars I saw since my earliest memories include Doris Day. Seeing Doris Day from her television program to her many films to her efforts to help critters.

I’ve been so tickled that Day has still been with us for so long and hate seeing her go. The history she carried with her!

One of my favorite of her films is the great fun of her second film, ‘My Dream is Yours’ with Jack Carson, Eve Arden, Adolphe Menjou, Lee Bowman, “Cuddles” Sakall and an adorable little boy caught in the fun.

Here is great fun in music with Day, too. This is a clip from the film of Day’s ‘Cuttin’ Capers’ with Edgar Kennedy (In his last film role) tending bar, Johnnie Berkes tending the other side of the bar, Sandra Gould working with Day juggling albums and Franklin Pangborn fuming again.

On the cartoon side: Notice the caricatures decorating the bar room!

For the first time in too long I got back along a hiking trail. Or whatever Lake County calls what I walked across. I’ll post more at my Swampy’s Florida later.

This is photograph was taken along the north side of Lake Griffin.

Performing for a wedding today in Winter Garden, Florida, at the rebuilt Tanner Hall. Started reeeeeeal slowly and finally took off st the end.

Here’s today’s #MerMay drawing at Julianne’s Coastal Cottage in Mount Dora, Florida.
Learn more about the who, what, wheres and hows noontime at Swampy’s Florida.