Aaron Krause, Author at The Parklander Magazine - Connecting you to our community

December 13, 2016November 16, 2016

Paging Dr. Bob: Prescription for Music, Coffee, and Cookies

A different type of ‘doctor’ strolled down the hall of a nursing home, ready to make the residents feel better. Robert Blake is not the type of doctor who’ll prescribe medication for a sore throat or headache. Still, people have known Blake as “Dr. Bob” and “the music doctor” ever since the Margate resident entered a nursing home in his native Massachusetts about 25 years ago. That’s because one of the residents told Blake his musical entertainment had a healing effect on him that was profound.

“He said I make him feel better than the doctors do,” said Blake, who is in his early 70s. The title of “Dr.” has followed Blake south into a room within the Margate Public Library, 5810 Park Drive.

That’s where “Dr. Bob’s Musicians’ Coffeehouse” takes place from 2 to 4 p.m. usually on the last Saturday of the month.

Anyone who can sing or play an instrument is welcome to showcase their talent in an open mic, casual setting. Each session features a different style of music, from variety to folk, to country music, and Blues. Anyone is welcome to attend the program. If you’re not comfortable performing, nobody will force you. Blake said people representing a variety of ages perform and attendance varies.

“Everybody seems to like it,” said Blake, who is also a guitar teacher and song writer, with many originals to his credit. You can hear his songs on CDBaby.com.

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Blake has been playing guitar since 1956 and began public performances in 1959, playing in two local bands in Massachusetts. Throughout his career, he’s taught songwriting, vocal phrasing, bass guitar, and omnichord. He’s also written multiple books, played the banjo, ukulele, and by his estimate has composed more than 600 songs.

Music runs in the Blake family. Blake’s father played the piano and organ, while his brother plays the harmonica and concertina, a free-reed musical instrument similar to the accordion and harmonica.

Bob Naylor, of Oakland Park, has been playing music for about 60 years and been coming to “Dr. Bob’s Musicians’ Coffeehouse” for two years. Naylor plays the guitar, piano, and has composed about 100 songs, he said.

“I have to be inspired,” he said. One of Naylor’s inspirations was a stewardess on a train from Ft.

Lauderdale to Jacksonville. Naylor said he has a “vivid imagination” and the “congenial, friendly” woman inspired him to write a song about her.

Blake’s inspirations sometimes stem from his curiosity. He once saw a landscape truck bearing the words “property sculptor” and wondered what such a person does. He looked it up and wrote a song about the vocation. You can hear the song at https://play.spotify.com/track/5TA6nWVg8rUcElKqGJ4tKY?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open.

At Blake’s monthly coffeehouse/open mic, you’ll find musical veterans as well as novices such as Karen Byron, who lives in Parkland. Byron plays the ukulele. She said she enjoys attending the showcases. “I think it’s awesome because it’s fun,” she said.

When attendees aren’t up on stage performing, they are tapping their toes or singing along.

2017 schedule

Shows are from 2 to 4pm, except Oct. 28

Jan. 21 Variety music show

Feb. 18 Country music show

March 11 Variety music show

April 22 50’s and 60’s music show

May 20 Variety music show

June 17 Blues music show

July 22 Variety music show.

Aug. 19 70’s-90’s music show

Sept. 23 Variety music show

Oct. 14 20’s to 40’s music show

Oct. 28 Special original music show, noon to 5 p.m.

Nov. 13 Variety music show.

Dec. 16 Holiday/winter music show

2016-jam

November 11, 2016July 19, 2018

Bonnet House is Home to Rich History

Main House of the Bonnet House Museum & Gardens, 900 North Birch Road, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Photograph taken March 30, 2011. — Main House of the Bonnet House Museum & Gardens, 900 North Birch Road, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Bonnet house is home to rich history

Near Ft. Lauderdale’s beach, with its hustle and bustle of traffic and tall buildings, it’s easy to overlook the tranquil, forest-like setting of trees, pebble-filled walking paths and fresh water lakes.

But if you turn onto a side street, you’ll soon enter a setting of nature rich with history, serenity, and whimsical sights. Once you’re within this paradise’s confines, you’re apt to think you’re on an exotic island away from the big city.

Still, tall buildings loom from the distance. The beach and Atlantic Ocean are visible through a fence. A stretch of that beach, the Bonnet House beach, spans 700-feet long.

Welcome to the historic Bonnet House Museum and Gardens, 35-acres of nature, and a house that has retained the character it boasted in the late 1800s into the early 20th century.

The attraction gets its name from the bonnet lilies found in its lakes.

Linda Schaller, director of education and volunteer programs, said that Bonnet House Museum and Gardens attracts a little more than 70,000 visitors a year, and about 7,000 school children a year.

“It’s a great educational place for art, history, and the ecology of a barrier island,” Schaller said.

Many who enter Bonnet’s grounds comment “I can’t believe I’ve never been here before,” she said.

The mostly volunteer-run attraction opened as a full-time museum in 1996, but its history stretches back about a century.

Even when Hugh Taylor Birch bought the Bonnet House site in 1895, the land dates back many centuries, to when the Tequesta tribe of Native Americans fished and farmed on the grounds.

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Volunteers know this because several shells indicate human activity on the grounds during that time.

“Further archaeological evidence suggests that the grounds saw one of the first sites of Spanish contact with the New World,” according to bonnethouse.org.

Birch gifted the property as a wedding present to his daughter, Helen and her husband, Chicago artist Frederic Clay Bartlett, in 1919. Weddings take place on the grounds to this day.

Bartlett was an American artist and collector. Images of work from famous artists as Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, and Georges Seurat grace a studio within the home. In that room, Bartlett not only amassed a collection of art, but painted his own works.

The visual appeal of the museum and grounds includes not only painted works of art, but a menagerie of animal statues, ranging from ostriches to lions. The grounds also contain a variety of orchids.

Stroll outside, and gentle swishing sounds from a waterfall soothes the senses.

“It’s so whimsical and there are so many fun things in the house,” Schaller said. She added one could tour the home and outside grounds three times and learn something new each time. That’s because the many tour guides each possess a specific area of interest; some are antique dealers, while others are musicians and gardeners. Each guide is likely to emphasize one aspect of the museum over another.

There’s one constant: the home’s decorations haven’t changed since Helen Bartlett’s days, Schaller said, who added Bartlett lived to be 109.

Schaller said the attraction’s busy months span from January through April, when 200 or more people visit. During the summer months, that number drops to about 60 people a day, she added.

They come from as far away as China, Russia and Germany, she said.

Visitors also include students. Fourth graders learn about Florida’s history, which aligns with the state’s educational fourth grade guidelines. Third graders, meanwhile, learn about ecology, which meets state learning guidelines for that grade. bonnetlily

Educational and recreational opportunities exist for all ages at Bonnet – “a historic estate sharing the past and building today’s community,” reads its website.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Bonnet House Museum & Gardens

WHEN: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Closed Mondays and holidays.

WHERE: 900 N. Birch Road, Ft. Lauderdale.

For more information about events, classes, exhibitions and workshops, visit bonnethouse.org or call 954-563-5393.

September 4, 2016July 3, 2019

Ft. Lauderdale’s Role in World War II Found in Naval Museum

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by Aaron Krause

The site where former President George H.W. Bush trained as a torpedo bomber pilot is a short drive away.

For free, folks are welcome to visit the sight — the Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum.

The attraction, located near the Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport, features World War II artifacts such as helmets, model aircraft, model ships and a radio calibrator.

You’ll also find the signatures of Bush and Sen. John McCain, who is also a veteran, on a mural depicting military aircraft on their final approach into Naval Air Station Ft. Lauderdale.

Museum director John Bloom said the mural is the museum’s most priceless item.

“It’s irreplaceable,” he said.

“In addition to the mural, visitors can browse nearly 500 models of airplanes and ships and thousands of artifacts and “tens of thousands” of pictures,” Bloom said. Medals are also on display.

In 1942, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale was constructed on the site of Merle Fogg Field as part of the national defense program. It served as one of 257 air stations during World War II. The naval base is now what might be a familiar destination for you – Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport.

Bloom said Miami International Airport was also a training base for torpedo bombers.

“Florida had tons of training bases,” he said.

The only remaining structure on the former Ft. Lauderdale base is the Link Trainer Building, which housed 6 to 8 Link Trainer flight simulators.

Bloom said visitors to the museum mostly hear about the place by searching Flight 19 on the Internet. That aircraft departed NAS Fort Lauderdale on Dec. 5, 1945. It disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle and was never accounted for.

Every year, on that date, the museum has a ceremony in memory of the 14 airmen who perished. Bloom said a couple hundred people attend each year. The ceremony includes the clinging of a bell located within the museum’s 6,000 square feet.

Bloom said in addition to the mural signed by Bush and McCain, another valuable object is a radio calibrator from World War II. On a recent day, a man entered the museum and gifted it to the facility.

“He just walked in and wanted to give it to us,” Bloom said. “It’s nice because now other people will see it. He didn’t want anything for it, he didn’t want any acknowledgement.”

Visitors will also find a British Enfield rifle, which someone discovered under the sand of a Normandy beach during the 1980s.

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A serviceman used the weapon during D-Day. That day occurred on June 6, 1944, when more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of French coastline to fight Nazi Germany.

While many are familiar with D-Day, many visitors previously hadn’t heard about the museum, Bloom said.

“Wow, we never knew this was here,” Bloom said, echoing what people often say when they visit.

The museum, run solely by volunteers, has attracted people from as far away as Hong Kong, Brazil, Puerto Rico and England.

One of its more prominent visitors has been the former first President Bush. In 1992, the former commander-in-chief stopped by, signed the mural, and identified the room in which he lived for about three months during his training, in the summer of 1943.

Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

Hours: 11:30am to 3:30pm. Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. The last tour is at 2:30pm

Where: 4000 W. Perimeter Road, Ft. Lauderdale

Cost: Free

For more information or to request a tour on days when volunteers aren’t present, call 954-359-4400. The museum’s website is nasflmuseum.com.