The Field Trip

Yesterday evening I saw a truck pulling a pontoon boat past the 7-11 down Mills on the corner of Virginia. There isn't anything unusual about that, except for the timing.

Earlier that day I went on a field trip with Jane and her brother Neal or it might be Neil, he shares a birthday with me, although, he's in his mid-20's. Anyway I'm drifting.

We made plans Saturday night, to go to Geneva, Florida the next day (Sunday) to see the grave of Lewis Powell, one the people involved in the Lincoln assassination conspiracy. Powell also known by his alias, Lewis Payne was supposed to take out Secretary of State William Seward, as a part of a holistic slaughter designed to knock off the top of the chain of command. Seward was stabbed in the face by Powell's Bowie knife, ended up disfigured but lived seven more years continuing to serve as Secretary of State to Andrew Johnson, who also survived, after George Atzerodt got nervous, drunk then wandered the streets throwing his knife into the road and failed to follow through on his assignment to kill Johnson.

I think there were a total of 16 Confederate soldiers buried in the Geneva Cemetery. We saw several with small souvenir shop type Confederate flags next to their tombstones. The flags were fairly fresh. Powell and couple others had plaques next to them placed by the Daughter's Of The Confederacy. We also saw some creepy looking contemporary tombstones with high school yearbook photos, hyper real etchings, air boats, deers and water logged stuffed animals lying around like flood victims.

After leaving the cemetery, we decided to head east on Hwy. 46 towards the St. Johns River to get a beer. We drank a couple of beers and had some undercooked conch fritters at the Jolly Gator fish camp.

On the way over we pulled into Fort Lane park. We read the plaque on the beach of Lake Harney. It stated that Fort Lane is named for Colonel Lane 1810-1836. He was a mathematics and philosophy professor prior fighting in the Second Seminole War.

When I got home from our field trip. I looked up Colonel Lane or John Foote Lane. He entered West Point at 13, graduated at 18. He was a professor, engineer and a soldier. He also received a posthumous patent for inventing the pontoon boat. He died at 26, after getting encephalitis, then going insane he put a sword through his head. I felt a little tense when I saw that truck pulling a pontoon boat down Mills avenue.