Mark Howell's - "Soundings"
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Soundings

In the holiday spirit, here is a true story from Orin Andrus.

Are you sitting comfortably?

The tall, dark-haired Citizen hawker, who survived reports of his own demise last year, sat down with Soundings on Wednesday to tell us about Cuddles.

Thirteen years ago on that very day, at 11 minutes past 2 p.m. on Dec. 15, 1996, at her home in Arlington, Va., Orin's grandmother died in his arms.

She was 86 years old; Orin was 34. There were no other surviving members of his family with whom he was in touch.

"At the moment of death," said Orin, "I told her I loved her."

One year later, he was browsing through a catalog when he came across a stuffed animal called Cuddle Kitten. "I ordered it right away because I used to hug Grandma all the time and it reminded me of her.

"Cuddles came to my house in a white box with little red hearts all over it. I opened it up and said, 'Oh Orin, you have a baby!'"

A few days later, he told us, "I had a dream that grandma had given me Cuddles because 'I love you,' she said."

For the past decade, "Cuddles has given me tremendous comfort. We've been through seven hurricanes here together."

On Cuddles' birthday, which is on Valentine's Day, Orin enjoys some eggplant parmesan with sparkling apple cider or grape juice and shares a Cuddles cake, which has cinnamon, raisins, honey and marshmallow in it.

Orin's grandma continues to turn up in his dreams. She'd been gone eight years when he had this particular one.

"I was up in Arlington where some people met me and said they had a surprise for me. They took me to this big empty building and into a big, empty room inside of it.

"There was Grandma, sitting peacefully. I lay down before her with my elbows in her lap.

"'Grandma,' I asked. 'What is Heaven like?'

"'Heaven will blow your mind,' she said.

"'And Jesus? What is Jesus like?'

"'Jesus is delightful,' she said."

• • • • •

Why does boiling water bubble?

You may wish you never asked.

A liquid never boils from the middle. The heated bottom and the sides of a pot are where water gets stirred up enough to give off a gas called water vapor. At 212° Fahrenheit, or 100° degrees Celsius, bubbles begin to form that are filled, not with air, but with a gas called water vapor.

Water vapor is less dense than the water around it, so it rises to the top. Most of the bubbles in boiling begin at the bottom because that is where the heat is. The more heat, the more bubbles. Another suitable surface for bubble nucleation can be a mineral deposit, an irregularity or scratch on any solid surface or even an air bubble.

Water-vapor bubbles behave very differently from air-filled bubbles. They can shrink, like they do at the bottom of a heated pot just before boiling, and disappear, like they do at the surface during boiling.

In boiling, the water will turn into a gas very quickly and lots of bubbles try to rise to the surface all at once, literally pushing the water out of the way on their jump to the surface and beyond.

That's what puts the bubble in the boil.

• • • • •

NOAA's Eco-Discovery Center, located at the Nancy Foster Florida Keys Environmental Complex at 33 East Quay Rd. in Truman Annex, has received almost 100,000 visitors since it opened three years ago (4,800 of them students on field trips).

• • • • •

Tuesday was the 70th anniversary of the Atlanta premiere of "Gone With the Wind." It is the highest-grossing film in cinema history and won 10 Academy Awards.

One of the Oscars went to Hattie McDaniel, for best supporting actress in her role as Mammy. She was the first African American to win an Oscar and her exclusion from the Atlanta premiere on Dec. 15, 1939, caused Clark Gable to threaten to boycott the event (it was Gable who had recommended her for the role). McDaniel, however, urged him to attend.

Before she died of breast cancer in 1952 at the age of 57, McDaniel expressed a desire to be buried in Hollywood Cemetery on Santa Monica Boulevard, final resting place of many film stars. But the owner of the cemetery refused her request because it did not accept blacks.

When the cemetery changed ownership in 1999, the new owner constructed a large cenotaph in her honor on a lawn overlooking the lake.

(McDaniel has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.)

• • • • •

When "Gone With the Wind" was re-released in 1967 in a 70-mm stereophonic version, MGM put on a world premiere in Atlanta where the original had had its splashy premiere (minus all of the black actors) 28 years earlier.

Most of the stars then still living, including Olivia DeHavilland, Victor Jory, Anne Rutherford and Evelyn Keyes, marched down Atlanta's Peachtree Street to get to the theater.

Joining them on that march back then was a young Shirrel Rhoades, whose always-fascinating movie reviews are a regular feature of today's Solares Hill.

Rhoades recalls that Butterfly McQueen, who played Scarlett's maid Prissy, was invited to the second premiere but declined due to health. Just as well; the studio insisted on entertaining its guests, almost three decades after the racial rudeness of its first guest list, with dinner at Miss Pittypat's Porch where black children tap-danced on the tables.

• • • • •

"Trouble in Paradise" is the name on a 2010 calendar featuring 12 Jon McIntosh cartoons from The Key West Citizen. A collaboration between the artist and Peter Batty, Jr., the calendar is available at various venues around town or by calling 394-1518. A percentage of proceeds goes to AIDS Help.

• • • • •

They'll be closing the street tomorrow for the Just4Kids 17th birthday bash. The Dec. 21 party is from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Just4Kids art center, corner of Fort and Petronia streets.

There's live music, a gift giveaway by Santa, a tree trimming and the dedication of a memorial to the late Marques Butler, at a ribbon-cutting attended by city commissioners.

• • • • •

Frankincense, the herb Boswellia carteri, is native to Africa, the Middle East and India and a therapeutic aid for bladder cancer, America's fourth most common type of cancer in men.

• • • • •

Key West author Walter De Milly has been listed in a poll of the South's "great underrated books" in the latest Oxford American, a journal out of the University of Central Arkansas.

He and his book, "In My Father's Arms," are included along with William Faulkner's "The Reivers," Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" and James Dickey's "Deliverance."

DeMilly's book about his uncharitable dad is "an almost unbelievably beautiful narrative recounting unspeakable suffering," declares Chauncey Mabe.

De Milly, who grew up in Tallahassee, is at work on another memoir.

• • • • •

Friends of the Stine family are holding an Ashtanga yoga master class today, Dec. 20, from 4 to 6 p.m. at CoffeeMill Dance Studio, 916 Pohalski Lane (with guest instructor Patrick Nolan, cost is $30), followed by a potluck gathering and silent auction from 6 to 7 p.m. to contribute to the Kit Stine memorial fund. Call Sarah Fuller at 587-4478 to register for the class.

Kit, mother of Avery, daughter of Chod and Jo and sister to Che and Coton, died in her sleep earlier this month, just three days after her 28th birthday.

• • • • •

The judges are Mayor Craig Cates and Jack Niles. This year's Christmas Show and Shine of custom and antique cars, classic cars, sports cars, street rods and pickup trucks is today, Dec. 20, from 2 to 6 p.m. at Duval Square, 1017 Duval St.

This is the fourth year the event has collected unwrapped toys for children at the domestic abuse shelter. Food and beverages available from the merchants and sponsors.

• • • • •

Applications are being accepted for the crown and title of the 2010 King and the 2010 Queen of Hearts.

The annual benefit hosted by the Sister Season Fund helps out locals working in the hospitality industry who lose income necessary for their housing due to illness, injury or other situations beyond their control.

"Royalty will be crowned on Valentine's Day," said the fund's president, Ginger King. The royal headquarters have for a decade been Bobby's Monkey Bar, 900 Simonton St. at the corner of Olivia Street.

The thrones are open to any two individuals who raise the most money to benefit Sister Season and the Xena Fund. The titles are not gender or even species specific (the Xena Fund benefits four-footed family members). Candidates are expected to hold widely advertised fundraisers up to and including the final night of campaigning at the Monkey Bar on Valentine's Day. The candidate's kick-off party is Friday, Jan. 15.

Applications available at sisterseason.com or call King at 849-0991.

• • • • •

Spot the Comparison:

Easter Island: "We're running out of trees so let's chop them all down right away!"

The U.S. Postal Service -- "We're running out of customers so let's chase them all away!"

• • • • •

Quote for the Week:

"The eye which can appreciate the absolute beauty of a scientific truth is far more rare than that which is attracted by a moral one. Few detect the morality in the former or the science in the latter."

-- Henry David Thoreau

(1816-1862)