Friday, February 10, 2012 A Sensational Finale and Adios, St. Augustine
It’s Friday, and at breakfast, Dianne greets us in a new costume. For our last morning, she is attired as a gentlewoman in the antebellum South. A black sunbonnet is tied in a saucy bow under her chin. She’s wearing a voluminous black skirt and a rich purple blouse with a ruffled neckline. After we eat breakfast, it’s time to make our last drive into historic Saint Augustine. One last trip down Beach Boulevard, past the Alligator Farm, the surf shop, the shell shop, the rows of palms and cypress; over the Bridge of Lions, past the Cathedral and the old Courthouse with its colonial Spanish and British flags, past the plaza where Spanish moss is dripping from the trees, and to the Lightner Museum.
One of the interesting characters that we encountered in our study of St. Augustine was an extraordinary collector named Otto Lightner. His amazingly eclectic collection is housed in the museum that bears his name, right across the street from Flagler College. This building is the former Alcazar Hotel, at one time part of Henry Flagler’s hotel empire. During the Depression, Lightner purchased the hotel from Flagler because he wanted a home for his growing collection. The bells of Flagler College were chiming when we walked through the arched entranceway that led to the museum. We found ourselves in a large palm-studded courtyard surrounded by an arcade of boutiques. The courtyard, with its footbridge over a carp-filled pond, looked inviting, but we didn’t linger there. We had a scant 90 minutes scheduled for our museum visit. The first room we saw was the Music Room where a 1920s nickelodeon was playing. Several other music-making machines were on display. The adjoining Science and Industry room was chock-full of shells, rocks, a stuffed lion named Rota, Native American and African artifacts, a fossilized dinosaur egg, and a shrunken head.
My favorite part of the museum was the recreation of a shopping street circa 1900. In the window of the tobacconist shop, we saw an array of cigar box labels and beautiful snuff boxes. Another store specialized in men’s top hats and walking sticks. There was delicate Victorian porcelain in the Fine China and Crockery Shop. Le Chapeau had hats for women. The camera studio was adjacent to the quilt shop and the jewelers. Elliott pointed out the rows of ceramic mugs in the barber shop. For the children, the toy store featured cabinets of dolls, rows of toy soldiers, and stacks of story books. When we reached the lighting store, Elliott found several types of lights that reminded him of the gas lights, oil lamps, and kerosene lamps of his childhood home. The shop I liked best was called The Pink Fan. This is where the stylish woman could find hair combs, lingerie, gloves, purses, and umbrellas.
We were running short on time, so we rushed up to the second floor to see a staggering array of decorative objects. After that, we had only a few minutes for the third floor, where we found the collections of coins, buttons, marbles, matchbox labels, embroidery, lacework, and Near Eastern and Indian carved wooden furniture – and most importantly, the restrooms! The third floor also contained a gorgeous 1873 Chickering grand piano with a case of carved and inlaid wood. I barely had time to make a few purchases in the museum shop before we had to leave.
We had our Road Scholar “graduation ceremony” back at the hotel right after lunch. Elliott and I both received certificates. This was our first Road Scholar program, but it certainly won’t be our last. We’re already thinking about some of the trips that people we met in St. Augustine have recommended. It was such an easy and enjoyable way to travel, with wonderful guides, tour leaders, and fellow scholars.
So we bid adios to St. Augustine. I regret that we didn’t have a chance to take a sip from Ponce de Leon’s purported Fountain of Youth while in the city. Actually, I suspect Elliott paid it a visit many years ago.
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