It's like Morris Dancing without the sticks and bells

Far be it from me to claim anything other than inspiration from the late great Alistair Cooke by adapting the title of his famous BBC radio reports from New York but I did used to enjoy his broadcasts when I was a lad and I am temporarily resident (or at least on vacation) in Florida, so it seems appropriate to send my Blog viewers something to read while I’m away from the UK GoldWing scene.

Management (as she’s known in our household) and I have been privileged to be staying with genuine Floridians (or rather one real-deal Southerner and his fully assimilated and acclimatised Yankee wife) and it’s been great to get off the tourist trail and spend time with the real people.

Out Host for our first three nights in Florida was Randy Rodriguez and his wife Cat.  We met them several years ago when I first saw a Drill Team in action, since when Randy has become the Captain and his Drill Team, the Central Florida Motorcycle Drill Team are still reigning World Champions.  And of course Randy brought three other riders over to UK in 2008 to display to the GoldWing Light Parade in Blackpool, so plenty of UK Wingers have met him too.

Randy and I have stayed in contact with each other ever since then and luckily for me we have become friends and I’ve got to know quite a few of the Team since then too.  They’re a great bunch and now include two female fully qualified Team Riders, both of whom are therefore skilled, not to say courageous – and not to say a little barmy to be pursuing this unusual hobby.

On our second day we watched a Shuttle Launch and on the third, a Saturday, tinkered with his GL1800 in his garage while our ladies did some shopping and then we strolled along the surf line on Playalynda Beach, flew a kite in the Atlantic breeze and finished the day with a huge steak, marinaded to our Host’s own recipe and cooked on his BBQ in his back yard.

Jerry's Magnificent Yamaha Royal Star - according to Randy it's a real challenge to ride for drill team purposes

The previous day, after watching the Shuttle Launch, about which more in a moment, we had eaten Gator (alligator tail, not a whole one of course, you have to work your way up to that) at a riverside eatery called the Lone Cabbage, for which “dilapidated shack” springs to mind as a first impression but “friendly and really relaxed ” is much closer to the mark once you’ve acclimatised.  It was quite a day.

Call me an anorak but I really enjoy discovering the ways in which our common language has diverged.  My latest addition to a collection of oddities emerged because Florida has just had an unusually cold winter, so cold in fact that that our Hostess, Cat Rodriguez, had to scrape frost of her car on at least two occasions which, for Florida, was something approaching outrageous.   Mind you she does start work at Cape Kennedy before 7am each day, so setting off before dawn and having to defrost her car is perhaps a bit much.   The Rodriguez family is normal by our standards in that only the GoldWing and its trailer live in the garage; their cars are on the drive outside. The trailer transports the Team’s PA system rather than camping equipment so randy and I are compatible in that respect too – and others for Randy is fond of  emphasising that he keeps in shape, adding after a brief pause that round is a shape.

Click on the image for a full size view. At this point they all need to be confident that everyone knows which way to turn next

Anyway, Florida suffered sustained temperatures in the twenties (Fahrenheit of course) so well below freezing, during December and January and the relatively coarse grass they use over here for lawns, so it can tolerate the heat, turns out to be so vulnerable to frost that they are having to get the lawn re-laid.  My wife and I already knew that turf is called “sod” in America; we had seen turf supply companies name themselves Such&such Sod Inc and the like, and we once saw a special offer as we drove past one inviting people to “Sod Today!”, which tickled us a bit.  But now we learned that in the American version of our language the act of laying turf is known as “throwing sod”.  It’s another world.

Nice place to watch a Shuttle Launch from

On Sunday morning most weekends the Team gathers for Practice on a huge Parking Lot in Orange City  – and that’s another difference between the two English languages: Americans don’t understand the term “Car Park” and when I used it I had to translate.

They rope off a remote part of it (about the size of two football pitches) which no one seems to mind. Some years ago they vaguely got permission from the then store manager to use a chunk of the parking lot outside for their practices, since when they have become accepted as part of the street furniture and no one really knows who owns the part they use anyway.  The parking lot is so big that an area the size of two football pitches can be roped off for the Teams use without inconveniencing anyone else one little bit; one thing they’re not short of in America is spacious parking lots.

Central Florida is a big place and many of the Team ride quite a distance to get to Practice – Randy for example rides for an hour and a half.  They have two Riders who live near Tampa.

By the way you probably know that distance is measured in time in America but maybe you didn’t know that the reverse is also true.  As we were driving on to Merritt Island to watch the Shuttle Launch the traffic built up and Cat announced that it would take ages to get there because it was another five miles; Randy corrected her to say it was only two miles.  Ah, she said, but it will be further in this traffic.  Men are always wrong, no exceptions.

However, back to Drill Team Practice where the Guys (a term which which includes the Gals in the Team of course) were walking one of the Routines as we arrived to join them, as shown in the picture which leads this Article.  This strange tribal ritual, or at least that’s what it looks like to the naive observer, is part of both training and practice sequences.  It’s like the Morris Dancing we have in quaint parts of England but without the sticks and bells . Actually Morris Dancing has spread widely in America – or at least according to Wikipedia it has – and there are two active groups in Florida, one in Gainsville and another in St Augustine.  The Special Relationship which our politicians value so highly is safe after all; England has its cultural fifth column securely in place.

Oddly enough it occurred to me that adding both bells and sticks could enhance the training and the spectator value of the Drill Team’s walking routines.  I’m not sure that Floridians (or at least the Southern Gentlemen among this Drill Team) could handle wearing flower- bedecked hats or garlands of bells round their legs, but maybe clashing sticks together to emphasise things at critical points, as Morris Dancers do, would do to start with.

Experience has taught the Drill Team that the sequence of turns you have to make and knowledge of which other rider you are supposed to formate upon at each stage of a Routine, and which side of each other rider you should be passing when it comes to close quarter turns requires certainty rather than ad hoc speculation.  Getting everything reliably inside your head before you try doing it on the bikes is more than just desirable.  One Team Rider currently carries the nickname T Ball, which is apparently not very flattering and refers to his special instructional needs; sometimes Team Humour has a purposeful edge to it.

Randy on the Dock with Misty Dog and Human Cat

They freeze the walking of a Routine every so often while so that the Leader can illustrate, by the displacement which had developed, what’s going wrong.  This also make the whole thing look to a spectator like a video replay which keeps getting stuck.   As I said, it’s quite like Morris Dancing and potentially completely baffling to watch unless you know what’s supposed to be happening, which only the other Team Members do.  So if you’re standing next to one watching things he will suddenly comment, perhaps with some irritation, that such-a-body is out of position or too early or too late with some manoeuvre.  I suppose Morris Dancers do the same sort of thing if they’re spectating.

Practice lasts from 9am to 12.30pm or even 1pm, by which time they’re all rather hot, especially the Harley’s motors (engines) which have to be given time out every so often; otherwise they sulk and leak oil more than usual.  The Team, if they were merely human, would probably be fairly tired by then as well as hungry.  The hunger they acknowledge and Liz and I were delighted to be invited to join them for lunch.  Lots of banter and leg pulling went on, as with any group of bikers.  And there was good food and good value; Mickey Finn’s in Orange City it is not your typical tourist eatery.

The Team has long incorporated solo routines in their displays as well as formation riding and the recruitment of ladies into the Team as Riders has opened up new possibilities.  Those of you who were lucky enough to see the Display in Blackpool will probably remember Smitty’s nifty trick of halting briefly alongside a lady standing in the centre of the Arena so she could hop on to the bike, side-saddle fashion, without him needing to put a foot down.  Well that Routine’s now been developed quite a bit. Since I couldn’t organise myself to video it you’ll have to settle for my description of it, as follows:

Meanwhile just across the Lake, Atlantis climbs silently skywards. The noise comes considerably later.

With the lady passenger (actually another Team Rider called Trudi) having hopped up on board, Smitty starts showing off as usual with a  few very tight, footpeg-scraping turns.  Then he also goes side saddle on the bike, opposite side to her.  He then slides backwards to join her on the rear seat.  At this point the couple are holding one handlebar grip each; nevertheless the bike continues to make smooth progress around the arena.

Trudi then moves forward onto the rider’s seat and takes over both grips leaving Smitty, spurned in the role of would-be suitor, isolated on the rear seat.  Trudi then shows that she can ride turns just as tightly and scrape Smitty’s footpegs just as noisily as he can.

Finally they swap seats again and Trudi ends up facing backwards on the rear seat, at which point the pair stand up simultaneously, leaning back to back and hold their arms out sideways as the Wing still continues effortlessly around the arena.  They still finish with the bit where another bike comes alongside and Trudi escapes on that rather than have to put up with Smitty any longer, but then that’s Smitty and women all over; he just can’t hang on to them at all.

Let’s hope we can get the Team back over to Blackpool soon to let us all see it.  Their next display is at Americade, in New York State, which is America’s biggest touring bike rally of the year and therefore the biggest in the world.  It’s held in the Adirondack National Park which is huge and riddled with lovely biking roads.  Interestingly the rally was originally called Aspencade, after a festival to celebrate the changing colours of the aspen (birch) trees.  This was way before Honda used the name for a GoldWing model.

Randy has a day job too of course, as do almost all the Team; he edits a Community Newspaper (and website) called Happenings which is distributed to the 11,000 homes in his local community, Port St John near Cocoa on the Space Coast.  This makes him quite well known in the local area, not least because he’s also a Realtor.  Realtors don’t appear to be held in quite the same low esteem as UK Estate Agents, even though their commission rates are quite a lot higher.  Maybe that’s because Americans have expensive lawyers (and doctors) to regard less favourably.

Cassie and Misty

Anyway Randy has lots of friends on the Space Coast including Chris and Sherri, a couple who both work “on the Cape” (i.e. at Kennedy Space Centre)  and just happen to own a lakeside home on Merritt Island (which also contains KSC) which has a dock (a jetty platform with seats) in their back yard (in their lakeside back garden) which provides an excellent vantage point for Shuttle Launches twenty miles or so to the North.  These good people very kindly allowed Randy and Cat to take us there to watch the Launch.

So instead of being boxed in with the huge crowds gathered on the shoreline we were sipping soda and chatting as Atlantis appeared (silently) above the tree line on the opposite side of the lake – and much closer than we could otherwise have got too.

Fortunately we were vaguely watching the clock while chatting and someone was facing the right way and noticed Atlantis rising majestically into the sky.  It takes a surprisingly a long time for the noise of the rocket motors to arrive.  Only two more Shuttle Launches are scheduled so if you’ve never seen one there not much more opportunity to do so.

As Mrs Beeton would have said, first shoot your Wild Turkey, then set up your outdoor Turkey Fryer (as seen on offer in a Great Outdoors Store)

The traffic along and away from the Space Coast after a Launch stays busy (and largely clogged up) for several hours so having the option to dally by the lakeside and alongside their pool where you have been invited to stay while sipping drinks and getting to know yet more really nice people was a real privilege.  Work and school starts early in the day in Florida and it doesn’t pause just for Shuttle Launches, so both Chris and Sherri had gone in very early to work that day so they could put the hours in and leave early to get back home before the Launch (and the traffic jams) and their daughter Cassie (at Grade School) somehow got back in time to see it too.  Stephanie, their elder daughter who is at High School had to stay on and arrived home later.

As the picture shows if you have your own pool you set your own rules,  so the family dog Misty is accustomed to enjoying a swim with however goes into the pool but isn’t allowed in on her own – and she knows it.  Fortunately both Cassie and Stephanie wanted to cool off in the pool after school so Misty got two swims that day.  In case you’re ever lucky enough to be in a similar situation, a Labrador which shakes as it gets out of a pool makes a great deal of spray but it’s a nice fine spray and by no means unpleasant when the air temperature is over 90, as it was that afternoon.

As I finish this Article Liz and I are back in our more familiar role as tourists, having checked into our Timeshare in Orlando. And there’s been a heavy thunderstorm here this afternoon, as often happens in may and beyond, so we’ve been sheltering indoors and I’ve had time to write this.  There has just been a news item on TV about a roundabout (they call them Traffic Circles over here and there are very few of them) which has just been built; the Authorities have felt it necessary to distribute leaflets to drivers to explain how to negotiate this novel road feature to reduce the risk of accidents.  Same language, different world.  I’ve been watch a Baseball Game on TV and trying to work out what’s supposed to be happening, so I know just how those drivers are going to feel when they get to that roundabout.