27: Because 26 Will Never Be Enough

I will concede that Melvil Dewey (of decimal system fame) may have been somewhat of a racist womanizer and harbored some very peculiar ideas about spelling.  And if his enemies had ever gotten together and organized themselves, they probably could have formed an entire baseball league.  But, you have to admit, the man did appreciate a well-considered number.  While all of his decimals and those little typed-up index cards may have flummoxed me a bit as an eight-year-old (and I may have been briefly under the impression that his name was actually Dewey Decimal), I think even then I’d have seen the value in not having to look for a book based on the year in which a library bought their particular copy.

But, of all the numbers in the world, decimal or otherwise (and I’m told there are quite a lot), through careful research and brazen conjecture, I’ve been able to determine categorically that the man’s favorite, hands down, was 27.  Or, at the very least, it should have been. 

Here’s why.

Aside from being just a lovely number on the face of it – it’s a perfect cube, for heaven’s sake! – it has all manner of worthy associations, some of which Dewey could have known.  It is, for instance, the number of bones in the human hand, the atomic number of cobalt, Catfish Hunter’s retired jersey number with the Oakland A’s, and the number of bridesmaid dresses a girl must wear before she can marry James Marsden.  It’s also, unfortunately, the age at which an inexplicable number of musicians have met untimely ends, but as long as you’re not an aspiring rocker this shouldn’t be a problem.

But for Melvil Dewey and the Florida town that eventually benefited from his particular brand of madness, 27 was special for a host of other reasons.  Turning southward in search of a better place to spend winter than upstate New York, his eyes lit upon Florida (the 27^th state in the Union) and the town of Lake Stearns (which sat on the 27^th parallel) upon one of the few dry patches in the middle of 27 lakes.  Nearly ten percent of the little town’s area – .27 square miles – was water.  Turns out ol’ Mel liked everything except the name and in 1927 he convinced the town commissioners to change it.  His choice?  Lake Placid.  Because he really liked the other one in New York and apparently had very little imagination.

But who needed  imagination?  How could anyone not like Lake Placid, NY, and desire its replication in all of the fifty states?  (Well, 48.  Hawaii and Alaska weren’t even a twinkle in America’s eye in ’27.  New Mexico and Arizona were still just spotty teenagers.)  It was, after all, the town that would be the home of two winter Olympics and such diverse and illustrious personages as madcap abolitionist John Brown, mean Back to the Future principal James Tolkan, and baroque pop singer Lana Del Ray (who is, unluckily, 27 until her birthday in June).  Plus the Nordic skiing has always been top notch.

Lake Placid, FL, on the other hand, is home to the caladium, a very ugly and poisonous plant that you can use to liven up your garden.  Which is nice, too.  But no Nordic skiing.

In any case, LPNY was clearly as close as it came to heaven on earth so calling this little corner of Florida Lake Placid was about the greatest compliment M. Dew could bestow upon it and the residents of LPFL have gone about their daily lives for the last 27+50 years in the comfortable knowledge that they were pretty dang special, thank you very much.

And this precious stone set in the silver, uh, lake, I suppose, this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this Lake Placid, is where I spent my last Saturday.  Rolling into town along US Rte. 27 with my homies, hereafter referred to as “Mom” or “Dad,” our eyes were instantly arrested by the prodigious Happiness Tower (which I maintain was named by a hippie), a narrow structure that looms 27 concrete stories over the north end of town and serves no discernible purpose.  When it was built in the sixties, visitors apparently flocked to the tower on the promise of an adequately elevated view and the chance to call home from the highest payphone in Florida and then buy a postcard to prove they’d done it.  Now, ever so slightly boarded up, it sits across the street from the “Sistine Chapel of Winn-Dixies,” so dubbed by local newsmen for its rendition in mural form of the old-time Florida cattle drives along the Cracker Trail.  It also moos at you if you stand near it.

Happiness Tower in the sixties, postcard style.  There's a lot more parking lot now.  (State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/163580)

So.  It might not be a big town in any particular respect, but Lake Placidians certainly aren’t hurting for moxie.  If they’re not calling themselves the “Caladium Capital of the World” (which, as it turns out, is pretty accurate), then it’s “Town of Murals,” of which they eagerly boast 44.  If you bring your own bus and arrange it beforehand with the Mural Society, you could even persuade a Mural Professional to narrate a tour for you.  Unfortunately, we were just driving a car, but I don’t think Dad would have let a Mural Professional ride with us anyway.  He has an instinctive distrust of people with “Mural” in their job titles and, if I’m honest, so do I.  In any case, I don’t think a Mural Professional would have appreciated my fairly indecent and certainly irreverant enjoyment of the Melvil Dewey mural.  Official photographs of Mel do not do him justice – maybe it’s because they’re all in black and white.  Not once had I guessed that he looked like old Tom Selleck until I saw that mural. If you want to find out what Magnum P.I. will to look like at the age of 80, head east on Interlake Boulevard.  It’s on your right a couple blocks past the clown college and well worth standing in an anthill in order to get a picture.  Mom agrees with me.

See?  SEE?  Incontrovertible proof.

So we saw the tower, a few ugly caladiums, murals of cattle drives, bank robbers, and Melvil Selleck Decimal, the much-touted American Clown Museum and School, and the Lastinger Memorial Park, which turned out to be a smallish corner lot near the train mural that consisted of a tree and a plaque.  And then we stopped at two thrift shops because that’s who we are.  We may look suspiciously on muralism (and with some distaste on clowns), but we like a good deal and you know I’m always in the market for fancy cutlery. 

I had to stand in the street to take this picture.  This is, quite factually, the entire park.

 

Though actually purchasing any cutlery proved trickier than anticipated.  Maybe it’s the decades of elevated self-importance, maybe it’s the prolonged exposure to both shuffleboard and public trashcans hidden inside fake cars that rev when you walk past, maybe it’s just the poison from the caladiums seeping into the local water supply, but the residents of Lake Placid are a peculiar bunch and hard people to engage in trade. 

If you do manage to find an open shop on a Saturday, don’t expect to be helped by those working there.  And if, against all odds, you do find a soup spoon that you like, don’t expect to be allowed to buy it under any circumstances.  In a thrift store.  Where everything that isn’t nailed down is for sale, including the bucket that holds stray Tupperware lids.  But not the silverware.  And when you are confused, as you inevitably will be, don’t expect sympathy or explanation from the clerk.  When she chases you down to bark that you need to put the silverware back where you found it, you’ll be lucky not to get tossed out on your ear.  Especially if you loudly express your disgust and make rude faces on your way out of the store.  For instance.

Though, at other times, clearly starved for human connection, some other poor shop worker may indeed become your new and very best friend, commiserate with you over the oppressive heat of an 82 degree afternoon, and want to know all about how you are Jewish after she notices the star on your necklace.  A star with five points.  That is also a little swirly. 

One gets the impression that Lake Placidians don’t have a whole lot of contact with the outside world and aren’t quite sure what to do with it when they run up against it unexpectedly.

I found these in thrift store #2.  Do you remember that song from Sesame Street?  "One of these things is not like the others.  One of these things just isn't the same."  For some reason I'm thinking of it now.

This is the town that likes to remind people that it is “the center of everything in the middle of nowhere,” and it’s a boast that sums up Lake Placid for none of the reasons it intends.  A bit perplexing and without much meaning, it’s an attempt at eccentric charm that both hits and misses.  If you’re in the market for a poisonous garden plant or have a hankering for clowns and old Tom Selleck, this is the town for you.  If you like unremarkable business transactions or soup, you should probably buy your vacation home somewhere else.  I hear upstate New York is nice.

In January of 2013, Reader’s Digest in its infinite wisdom declared Lake Placid, FL, “America’s Most Interesting Town,” based on what may not have been strictly scientifically obtained data.  And interesting it certainly is – a nice, indistinct sort of interesting that can adequately obscure whatever it is you’re trying not to describe.  What I can tell you with certainty is this: it is legitimately funny when that boxy jalopy in the shuffleboard park turns out to be a trashcan and the Golden Corral on Rte. 27 has a magnificent chocolate fountain.  But it’s easier to get into clown school than it is to buy a secondhand spoon in Lake Placid, and I can think of at least 27 reasons why you shouldn’t try either.