Ma Barker House

After a life of crime Ma Barker and her son Fred decided to lay low and rented a vacation house on Lake Weir in Ocklawaha where they probably thought they'd never be found. Wrong, the FBI eventually found them and on January 16, 1935 after the longest gun battle in Bureau history, which put a couple of thousand rounds of ammunition into the house, the Barkers were dead. A lot has been written about the Barkers and a movie was made starring Shelley Winters which I am told may have stretched the truth a bit.. 

The Ma Barker house on Carney Island

The house stood on about seven acres on Lake Weir and the original owners sold the land and donated the house to Marion County who in 2016 floated it across Lake Weir to Carney Island. I'm not going to say much more because at mabarkerhouse.org you can get a detailed history of the house and the Ma Barker family. You can also sign up for the house tour which I enjoyed and includes a really interesting lecture on events of the period. Following the battle the exterior of the house was repaired but you'll still see plenty of patched bullet holes in the interior drywall!

In the house were 3 tommy guns - one with a 100 shell magazine, handguns, rifles, magazines, ammunition and bulletproof vests.

Before it was moved I remember riding out to Ocklawaha to see the house but as it was private property only got a glimpse of it through the bushes. Later, Fred Hemsley who owns the old gas station on Hwy 25 just north of Weirsdale told me there had been a 50th anniversary celebration of the gun battle in 1985. Unexpectedly, over forty thousand people turned up shutting down the highway for miles which at the time was part of Route 441 - chaos!

Kudos to Marilu Burden for reminding me to write about Ma Barker and inspiring me to do the tour.

SRO - Solo Rides Only

It's Sunday morning, John wants an article for the club newsletter tomorrow and I have no ideas. I glimpse something on TV about Alberto Anguzza, an Italian who became an internet phenom on his balcony by playing The Circle of Life on his trumpet during Covid. The next thing you know, Italians are on their balconies everywhere during the lockdown singing opera and the dolphins have returned to the canals of Venice. What was I doing while all this was happening?

Well, I'd been writing articles for Around The Villages at John's behest and I created Two Tired Tales, a blog, so they wouldn't be lost. And it was a period for me of SROs - Solo Rides Only.

I particularly remember one Sunday solo around Lake Harris to Tavares notable for an almost complete lack of traffic which made the misery miles of Hwy 27 and 441 almost a pleasure to ride. Everything was closed including the Yalaha Bakery. There wasn't a single car on the bridge across Little Lake Harris lake - imagine! I had lunch on a bench at the deserted Tavares train station - Gatorade and the PB&J sandwich I'd thought to take with me.

Another Sunday I rode to Treasure Island and the Haines Creek lock where there is a mobile home park close by called Bonfire Mobile Village - wrap your imagination around that!

Not too bad for someone who can't play trumpet or sing but I'm a great fan of opera and dolphins.

Route info

Postcards from France

Annonay - Les Freres Montgolfier

Last Wednesday (9/27) I rode about 20 miles north from Tain l'Hermitage on the Rhone, where we stay, mainly uphill to the town of Annonay in the Ardèche. This was the home of the aviation pioneer Montgolfier brothers and I specifically wanted to see their statue and the town square where on June 4th 1783 they first demonstrated their invention, the hot air balloon.

Interestingly, their balloon was not inflated as I had expected but had a fixed shape and was constructed of four linen sections with paper pasted inside to provide the form and make it airtight. The sections were joined together with 1,800 buttons and the exterior reinforced with a cord net.

The First Balloon

In order to heat the air for the balloon it was tethered over a smoldering fire and when eventually released it shot up to about 5000 feet and covered about 1.5 miles before the air inside cooled and it landed with little damage. Scientists and artists were on hand from the Paris Academies to document and illustrate the occasion.

The launch site today - Wednesday is market day!

Within 6 months the brothers had constructed a new much larger balloon with its own charcoal heat source and capable of carrying two passengers in a gallery around the bottom. Following tethered testing, on November 21st in its first free flight the brilliantly decorated balloon flew 5 miles over Paris at about 3000 feet. It had carried enough fuel to go four times this distance but when the pilots were obliged to use their jackets to quell flames from the burning fabric they decided they'd travelled far enough and landed after 25 minutes.

The Brilliantly decorated first free flight piloted balloon

After a coffee and "pain au chocolat" in a cafe overlooking the town square the ride back was relatively easy - a long downhill to the Rhone and a flat stretch along the ViaRhona bike path to Tain.

Allan Broadribb

Ride Details

P.S. There is a hot air balloon festival in Annonay held annually in June.

Postcards from France

Last year I told John I'd write a couple of articles under the banner Postcards from France but he seemed to think that might be a bit spicy - too bad - we're back in France and it's what you're getting anyway.

If you're riding a bike in France and the traffic light turns red then ride around the cars to the light because there's a 5 meter zone for bicycles at the front and you get your own traffic light low on the pole so you don't get a crick in your neck looking up at the big one. Stops bikes getting stuck between cars all over the place and cars will actually move over to make it easy for you to get to the front!

In urban areas the postman delivers your mail on an official yellow LaPoste electric bike which is really cool. Good way for the postman to stay in shape too,

On the French roads there are two highway signs that may cause you some confusion "Toutes  Directions" and "Autres Directions" which basically translate as "Somewhere" and "Elsewhere". Ask anyone and they will tell you clearly what is meant but don't ask anyone else or the clarity will fade. These signs have been a source of much amusement for natives and tourists alike and many differing opinions have been published. Unfortunately GPS navigation systems have made them meaningless - as if they weren't already - but fear not they still exist and remain a great conversation starter. Or, you can talk to your cars' navigation system but it's not as much fun. 

Au-revoir

Allan Broadribb 

Check out my favorite ride in France 

or my cycling blog Two Tired Tales

Sears Craftsman Homes

Time check - it's 100 years ago, 1923. The biggest community in the area, Leesburg (pop: 2500), next Wildwood (pop: 800). Other communities like Lady Lake, Fruitland Park, Oxford and Weirsdale were smaller but all had railroad depots and a post office.

People also had Sears catalogues to order stuff shipped by post or rail. Probably not as quick as Amazon but interestingly, in addition to run of the mill household items, you could also buy your house from Sears (pow! - take that Amazon) in kit form and it would arrive on a railroad flat car complete with assembly instructions (shades of Ikea).

Craftsman Homes in Coleman and Wildwood

The Sears Craftsman Ready-Cut House package, first offered about 1912, included plans, specifications, and detailed assembly instructions, along with pre-cut and factory-fitted lumber which was stamped with the Sears name and numbered on the ends to correspond to the floor plans. One order included everything - nails and screws, paint and roof shingles, windows and doors, woodwork, staircases, mantelpieces and even the kitchen sink. Sears also provided finance making it easy for over 75000 American families to buy a home.

A popular small home you could buy for less than $1,000 was "The Crafton" Like The Villages they gave their many designs different names.

As you ride your bike around the older areas of our local communities it is easy to recognize Sears Craftsman homes if they haven't been overly modified. The architecture is typified by a front porch with a roof supported by heavy wooden tapered columns on brick piers.