Mississippi Love Affair #4: Levee Drive

 

Our condo is right behind Waterworks Park, upper left

Levee Drive. That’s what we call it. The one-way, less than 4ish block route ends only ½ block from our condo building and skirts Levee Park. Any time we’re on our way home and have a moment to divert a block off the main road home, our Subaru, as if possessing a will of its own, veers toward the river to slowly take the beauty in.  (Process of full disclosure: it often does the same thing for casinos, as did my last car. Well, back in the day when our automobiles actually left town.)

Even though we view the Mississippi River from our condo windows, it feels different when you’re right down next to the Ol’ Man. His shiny skin sparkles more in the ripples. His power reigns more palpable. A 19- year-old boy drowned right across the river from levee drive within the last couple months. Not the first or last time for dive teams in our area. Not all bodies are recovered within such a short amount of time, his quick enough to encounter fruitless CPR on the shore.

Respect the river. 

 Officially the levee drive is named East Front Street, which I only discovered during research to type this paragraph, this after driving it since the 90s. (Thanks, Google!) You enter East Front Street via Walnut Street (the Subaru veer) where you currently pass by the busy-bee construction site of Bay State Milling’s new expansion and storage facility, the old site of Godfather's Pizza.

Aside from her occasional rebellions, even though the river stays the same, there is always change around her.

When Godfather’s Pizza suddenly closed, most in town hoped a new restaurant would take over the space since it’s prized river view location came complete with an outdoor deck. Before we moved here from Illinois—back when we rented a hideaway place in Winona where we’d stay to visit our son and family and I’d come to write under book deadline--I spent many a leisurely lunch sitting on that deck, eating, lolling, visiting while discouraging scrounging birds and seagulls from heisting parts of my meal.  You know how it is around the water.

Memories gathered along the river, like the river itself, run deep. Fond crisp memories, as crisp as the edges of a good pizza dough.

I often parked my backside in that very Godfather’s pizzeria after the lunch pizza buffet shut down (1:30 I think it was) until shortly before they’d reload for the dinner buffet around 4ish. After pigging out on lunch, I wrote major portions of my Dearest Dorothy series for Penguin Books looking at the river. Unlimited self-serve drinks, those last couple pieces of dessert pizza I’d hoard before they’d remove the remnants, taking a bite between typing words while watching the river and towboats and   … What’s not to love about that kind of working environment?

Although I also owned a laptop, I never took it to Godfather’s. I mean … pizza grease. So I often wrote on an AlphaSmart, later moving to the Neo version of same. You can still find used ones on the Internet. They run hundreds of hours (like 600-700!) on I think it was 3 AA batteries. The best news: they do not (at least my versions) access the Internet. They were big in grammar schools and nearly indestructible. You can only see about a sentence at a time, so there’s no getting bogged down in editing. Nothing but you, a keyboard and words that seem to blaze forward. Many of my author friends loved them for the same reason: no distractions; you can edit later. Then when home, after a simple tethered connection, you push a button and it dumps those words into your computer. You actually watch them TYPE IN across your screen!

This YouTube video affirms my take and shares everything else I recall, right down to people passing by asking, “What in the world is that?” The only thing you don’t see in her short take is the words actually typing on your computer screen when you dump them in. They’re kind of fun to watch, akin to a player piano.

I always tried to ignore checking word count as I worked and was amazed how the input would type and type, going to a next page, and a next page … I’d do a word count after they uploaded and consider how much lack of interruptions for self editing can accomplish. Even while licking pizza grease off your fingers.

Pieces of my past. My imagination set free and recorded in Godfather’s restaurant at the head of  levee drive, the Mississippi as a backdrop. Such a peaceful and productive time.

Before Godfather’s moved in, I have a very brief but warm memory of drinking a cocktail at a higher end restaurant, Finn and Sawyer, at that location. We dined there with our son and his college roommate during one of our many visits to see him, waaaaay back (he’s going on 50 now!) when he attended Winona State University. I recall him pointing out the gorgeous stained glass mural map section of the Mississippi River they’d commissioned and had installed. The beauty remained in the building when Godfather’s took over. I learned when Bay State razed the building it was saved and reinstalled on the 2nd floor of the 201 Walnut building in Winona, picture courtesy of their landing page which also gives you a hint of the beautiful restorations going on around our fine town. Thank you Peter Shortridge for this info and your hand in preservation around Winona.

 All these ingrained memories, right where we turn the bend to enter levee drive. Memories that spark my enjoyment of the jaunt; it’s more than simply viewing the river. The ongoing igniting of great moments along that stretch cannot be underestimated. 

For instance last year, for our 50^th wedding anniversary, as part of our celebration we invited friends on a charter of the Winona TourBoat, which departs from levee drive. We told our guests we’d be serving Golden Mimosas and snacky treats. I remember walking up and down the tour boat aisles, champagne bottle in one hand, orange juice in another, filling and refilling during the 90-minute journey up river through Yeomans Lake, up past the Dam Saloon near the lock and dam, the cut into Pollywog past our friend’s cabin, downriver past the boat houses, continuing the loop past Bay State Milling right back to levee drive.

One guest asked, “What makes this a Gold Mimosa?” He looked perplexed at the typical mix.

“Fifty years. Golden Anniversary,” I said. “Golden Mimosa.” Bam! Shortly thereafter I knocked back yet another, "Hold the orange juice for me!"

Further back in time, our beloved dog Kornflake (RIP) and I would often sit by the river together for writing breaks. He also loved walking along the cement walkway watching the ol’ man roll by. His tail activated into hyper-drive when he’d take note of the car veering over to the levee road. He knew what was coming next.

 

If I had a tail, it would do the same.

 

 

On Wheels and Walking in Amsterdam

Amsterdam. What a great place. Seriously, I loved it! (More in upcoming posts.) But beware: if you’re not careful, walking in Amsterdam can be hazardous to your life.

Sure, jaywalking and reckless drivers can cause a smack-down anywhere, but in Amsterdam, it’s walking where you think you’re supposed to walk that can kill you. Not counting water taxis on the canals, there seems to be a different traveling pecking order in Amsterdam, and from my point of view, it goes like this:

1. Bicyclists (absolutely first – jingle-jingle)
2. Trams (ding-ding)
3. City buses (hear the engine)
   
4. Cars (an occasional honk)
5. Motorcycles and scooters (vroom-vroom)
6. Pedestrians (“Yikes!”)

The first in my series of near smack-downs arrived as I was walking between the Hotel Okura (more in an upcoming post) and a salon. (Notice there is only one o in that word.) I was in a hurry because I'd just been struck with one of my I-need-a-haircut-right-now attacks.

With desperation in my eyes, I asked the concierge at the Hotel Okura, “Is there a nearby beauty salon where I might get a quick haircut?” He nodded, flipped through his giant stack of business cards, pulled out the one he was looking for, then gave his choice a quick call and query. “Yes, she can be there in five minutes,” I heard him say before he hung up. Then he jotted down an address and handed it to me.

“Go out the front door, turn left till you reach the street, turn right, cross the canal, and in about a block, it will be right there on your right.” (Man, I wish I had a personal concierge on my staff. Better yet, I wish I had a staff.) "It'll only take you a minute," he added. Nice. Four leisurely minutes to spare.

Who would think that in two short blocks, I could nearly do myself in, all for the sake of vanity? (I heard that!)

I set off like the Chicago Suburbanite I am, mindlessly sauntering into that right-hand turn. Oh, I love the canals! Oh, the architecture is so awesome here, and so European. And oh …

SAUNTER INTERRUPTUS!

Elbows of two bicyclists all but skimmed off my ears when they whizzed around me, then I heard the sounds of skidding bicycle tires behind me. I jumped to the left—only to hear a bicycle's jingle-jingle, which I quickly learned is a polite yet unmistakable Dutch version of GET OUT OF THE WAY RIGHT NOW, TOURIST! So, I lurched to the right and … JINGLE-JINGLE! Finally I realized that what appeared to be a sidewalk was instead a dedicated bicycle lane.

Now, this does not mean that bicyclists stay in the multitudes of designated bicycle lanes that look like sidewalks. They also ride the actual pedestrian sidewalks, the streets, and slingshot in front of the buses and trams, all while talking on their cell phones, carrying passengers (sometimes a couple/few children at a time), briefcases and groceries. Truly, it's amazing! For them, it is as natural as, say, walking on something that looks like a sidewalk.

Let me share a perspective-slamming stat from the Amsterdam Tourist Office: “Nearly half of all traffic movements in Amsterdam are by bike.” I would add that while I was there, one-third of all the remaining traffic “movements” was me leaping out of the way of the bikes, the trams, other motorized vehicles, and, in case I didn't make myself clear, more bicycles.

In truth, Amsterdam has a marvelous public transportation system, and their bicycle prowess is utterly inspiring. But for this foreigner, it was a harrowing task to figure out the natural Dutch order and speedy flow of things.

For instance, while dodging bicycles, cars and motor scooters to get to where I thought I was supposed to be standing (feel the wind-up) to catch a tram, I nearly got pegged by another tram. Eventually I learned I was supposed to be standing on this teensy “island” (honestly, it was barely as wide as me) that was hardly obvious, yet was located smack in the middle of all those “movements.”

As you can see by my pictures, there is a chorus of “movements” in Amsterdam, which to the untrained eye --and especially the slow moving body--might at first (and second and third) seem a bit chaotic. If you can just sit and watch it from high above, it is mesmerizing. However, when you're down in it, well . . . .

This is of course why I decided to catch a ride with a horse. Because I could. Surely an entire gigantic horse wouldn't get pegged off as quickly as the pitiful me. And honestly, a HORSE?! There are also HORSES clomping through all this “movement?”

The Amsterdam Tourist Office touts that there are “no less than” 600,000 bicycles for 730,000 people who live in Amsterdam. That is some statistic. It is also my observation that everyone is in good shape. While taking a night-time canal ride (wonderful!), our host explained that native residents get their first bicycle when they turn three. She said it comes with a tall orange flag to let everyone know there is a beginner nearby. She also said, “We are very good on our bicycles.”

To which I would add, unbelievably good. The fact that I am alive to write about it is living proof. And the next time I visit Amsterdam, I'm taping an orange flag to my body.