St. Augustine

Working in The Ancient City

Charlie

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Tough day today, huh, Charlie?

“Yeah, it sure is. It seems a lot more days are getting tougher and tougher, for me at least”.

We’re in the break room, cooling off after driving our machines in the sun for an hour and a half on a day when the thermometer reads 103 degrees in the shade. Add another 10-15 degrees inside the cabs and today, like the past 10 or so, is indeed a Tough One.

He slips a “cooling bandana” from around his forehead. It is drenched in sweat as are his shorts and shirt. A mini cooler is pulled from the fridge and Charlie slumps into a chair while retrieving a half-eaten sandwich and a juice carton from the thermal bag. At 67, 140 pounds overweight, diabetic and with open sores visible on his lower legs, Charlie looks like he is losing the battle – with the heat, with the job and with himself.

“I wasn’t always like this”, he says. Was I staring or was he reading my mind? He had been a small-town policeman up north somewhere, I knew. Other than that, all I knew about him was that he was always polite, always soft-spoken and always the butt of jokes from the straw bosses up front that sat all day in an air-conditioned room criticizing Charlie for usually being a few minutes behind schedule on his tours. Miss your times and you, too, became a “Charlie”.

“My wife and I came down here after we retired. We had a small house. We’d go fishin’ and cook on the grill and drive around seeing the sights. We were happy. Then she got sick. Cancer. I took a job as a security guard to help with the bills. One day I was beat up and fell to the ground and hit my head. Never been the same. My wife died soon after”.

I’m sorry to hear this, Charlie.

“It’s o.k., it’s been a while. I live up the street, you know. At the motel. The one with the sign that says, ‘American Owned’ out front. Not many of those left. They treat me nice. No kitchen, though. I usually eat at Hungry Howie’s”.

Charlie is telling me this in a very matter of fact way. But, I’m not sure why. Is it because he knows that I, too, was “on the job” up north? Kind of like comrades?  I don’t know. All I know is that my eyes are stinging from sweat – or maybe it is something else.

Train’s in!

I’ve got to go, Charlie. See you later. Drink lots of water before you go out again.

He looks up and says, “Oh, yeah”.  And then, “You know, I used to be a somebody, once”.

Before I open the doors to go back into the blast furnace of St. Augustine in August I look around the office. It has changed. I will never again see it as I did just one hour before. Maybe I’ll be a few minutes late beyond the allotted 90 minutes of my next scheduled tour. Just so Charlie isn’t alone today.

At Last!

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Train first tour driving day

Disappointment is not easy. Dealing with it takes time.

Back in March I had taken the road exam for the Commercial Drivers License (CDL) – a prerequisite for driving as a tour guide for the company. The test did not go well, as I have already described in my last, several weeks ago post. Sporadic training on bus driving – mostly backing up techniques – had done little to instill confidence that the next test would be much more successful. It was a dilemma.

So weeks were filled with driving shuttle vans throughout St. Augustine, learning back streets and alleys and always honing my narrative skills and knowledge on each and every passenger. And then it happened. I was told that train driving lessons would begin. But, what about the CDL? It seems the management had more confidence in my next driving test than did I.

So, fire up the train I did – with the best driving instructor in town. All geometry he said. Axels and radius’s, turning points, weight distribution,etc. Very nice. All I wanted to do was show people the city and talk about it. But, somehow it all came together. Until I had to learn how to talk and drive. Simple? Not nearly. See, the training consisted of first talking – giving the narrative tour – while someone else drove the train. Talk what you see was the motto. Problem was, different drivers = different speeds and when I would see what. Add to that, I’d sometimes get the sideways “short eye” look of disapproval. “What did you say”, I’d hear? “What did you just say”? My response, “Huh”? It seems some of these Southern boys think I have an accent. Well!  They’d ask,”where y’all frum”?  “Kin-et-e-kit”, I’d tell them. Their look said it all. What we had was a “failure to co-mu-nee- kate“! Another learning curve to overcome.

Next, was the drive and talk test. After figuring I could speak somewhat intelligently about the Ancient City, the bosses judged it was time to drive the train and give the tour – with only an instructor aboard, of course. Without a CDL – no passengers.

O.K. So, off we go down San Marco Avenue with me wearing a microphone headset. Since I was driving, the headset was plugged in so the mouthpiece was on my right side. Something new.

Me: “So, in 1565 Pedro Menendez landed ashore just to our left in the Indian village of Faigy“.

What the *&^%$)@#!  Was I having a stroke? Or did the Timucuan Indians really name their village after my beloved Redhead? The instructor couldn’t answer me. He was too busy choking on his morning coffee and laughing.

O.K. Gibby, I thought, keep driving. This will get better.

Me, again: “Now we’re heading toward the city gates of North Benson”.

Am I really back in Fairfield? Seriously, somebody better call an ambulance or get a straitjacket. I’ve lost my mind!

Instructor: “Why don’t we take a little time to figure this out? Pull over”.

Check list: Am I sick? I don’t think so.

Did I really pass the City Board test for Tour Guide? Yes.

Think, Gibby.

Boing! The light goes on!

The microphone is on my right side and I realize that I can’t think or speak with a telephone in my right hand. Always the left!! So, a quick change of the headset and and rearranging of cords and voila!

Instructor: “We’ll, that was interestin'”

It certainly was.

Weeks go by. I’m mostly a “talker”, giving the narration on tours while an experienced guide drives the train and observes me. And some more train driving and a bit more bus driving and backing up practice – the key to everything going forward, so to speak. That’s a thought. Sometimes to move forward you have to first go back. Hmmm.

And then the day of the bus test is announced. May 9th.

And then the next day everything changes. Good news for the company: The test has been scheduled for sooner – May 2nd. Good news for me: No backing up, parking, etc. I had, unknowingly, already passed that part of the test. Countless days and nights of worry – for naught! All I had to do now was drive forward. And remember speed limits and railroad crossings and not get rattled by the tester telling you to do something quickly and forgetting – safety first! O.K.

It goes well.

On Wednesday, May 4th I took a train out, with passengers (and an experienced driver as an observer) for my first tour. St. Augustine had a gale blowing in that day, but it was o.k. Just another test.

The next day another tour. This time the instructor sat in the passenger seats.

There will be another week or so of testing, instruction and observation. But things seem to be on track again.

First day giving tours (576x1024)

And, while my Redhead is always with me in thought, Faigy is not the village of the Timucuans. I now make sure the microphone is always on my left!

Hope to hear from you,

Bill

 

Learning from the Past

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So much for a part time job.  What had started out as an interest in being a tour guide in St. Augustine has turned into that and more.

First, the technical side of being a Red Train Tour Guide.  As I’ve previously written, the City test for tour guides was successfully taken over a month or so ago. Since then I’ve been learning to properly drive extended shuttle vans and also buses. The buses have been my nemeses, especially learning how to back and “off-set park” and to parallel park the buggers. A recent test was not completely satisfactory, especially since the standards were that of driving an 18 wheel tractor trailer – something I will not be doing and haven’t even been in one! So, training continues. In the meantime I drive an assortment of shuttle vans throughout St. Augustine. If nothing else it hones my tour guide narrative and whets my curiosity for learning more and more about what it is I’m driving by every day.

Secondly, the intellectual side of being a tour guide is, for me, the most interesting.  One morsel of information often leads to half-dozen more questions – at least. 450 years of a city’s history reveals a lot about human behavior and that there really is “nothing new under the sun”. Considering all of the strife, turmoil, wars, deprivation and human failings that occurred in this small area of Florida, it is nothing short of a miracle that this city of St. Augustine survived. It is becoming more and more clear that what would become the United States of America was only possible when the emphasis was on being united. Progress in becoming this very unique nation came about only when ethnic, religious, racial and economic differences became secondary to being American.

Are we becoming again a hyphenated society? If we are, then all of the sacrifices of our ancestors were for naught. Looking back may be our guide for going forward.

Telling History

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The coast road from Jacksonville to St. Augustine was nearly deserted at dawn. Stars still shown as only the first glimmers of light arose on the horizon. A trinity of fishing boats were close to shore, facing land, booms out – embracing all. I’m going to work and it is a blessing.

Earlier this month I sat for the City of Saint Augustine Tour Guide test. Passing it (after lots of coffee and late-night studying – I thought those days were long gone) has given me more direct access to the historical records and the people who keep those records of this very complicated city. Saint Augustine is a city of peacefulness and charity. And it is a city that has seen incredible brutality. It is a city that gave shelter to refugees; it is a city that oppressed its own. It is also a city of tenacity, kindness and faith.

St Augustine Chapel

Studying the history of anyone or anything is like peeling an onion – even the sweetest of them can make you cry. On a recent trip to the St. Augustine Historical Society I asked the folks there what the most important thing a Tour Guide could do. Without hesitation their answer was: “Tell the Truth”.  I’ll do my best to peel the onion.

My next field of study were the manuals to qualify for a Commercial Drivers (truck, bus, etc.) License. I took the written tests last week and will begin training on buses this week. Since the State testers don’t have trains, I have to qualify driving a vehicle commonly used by commercial drivers before I can drive a train. Buses are not exactly the same as 65 foot trains – especially when trying to navigate tandem trains through the winding Old Town section of St. Augustine – but being able to drive both are required. Who can I get to be my first passengers? Hmmm.

If things go as hoped, I will take the practical driving test in 2 – 3 weeks. After that, driving the trains and giving tours will begin. I’m told that the goal is for me to be ready to commence with tours in time for Spring Break. Now, if that isn’t motivation, what is?  Yikes!

City Gates 1 (2)

But, safely driving the trains, while very important, is only part of the process of being a great tour guide. Dates, names, places can become very confusing for visitors to a city. I’m thinking more along the lines of being a storyteller. Problem is, time will not be my friend. I’ll need to develop several narratives – short vignettes – for each point of interest and weave them into the journey through the city and through time.  As any of my friends (and even some new acquaintances) know, short vignettes are not my usual way of telling a story. I love the road less traveled! I’ll have to fall back on some previous training for my narratives.

Back in my youth, as a young and inexperienced policeman, I had the very good fortune of having as my supervisor a tall, red-faced, Irish sergeant known as “The Tom-tom”. One evening, after making an arrest for what I considered to be the crime of the century, I submitted to Sgt. Tom-tom a considerable stack of 5×7 file cards detailing all the gory details of this arrest. Tom- tom looked at the stack, took note of the actual crime committed and then looked at me.
“What is this b.s., kid”?
“It’s my report, sir”.
“No, it’s not. This is b.s. Now, take this b.s. and cut it down to one file card – both sides – and no more. If you think I or the state attorney have the time or need to read your Great American Novel you are sadly mistaken”

I gave it great effort and returned with a much abbreviated account of the events in question – the stack was reduced to a measly 3 file cards.

“I told you, one file card! Take this back; get it right, even if it takes you until tomorrow morning to do it”.

It did. But, the final report contained all it had to – nothing less and certainly nothing more. Tom-tom taught me to cut to the chase when needed and fill in the details when requested.

So, developing a narrative for my tours to within the given time frame is possible. I think. But, I’ll need help from you to do it right.

If you have taken an historic tour, anywhere, what about it did you like most? The least? Please let me know!

Hope to see you soon.

Bill