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20260930 Wednesday and Thursday:
Dodie Fine and I met for a planning session, our first meeting in about a year. She had never seen the Motorhome that would be her home for the upcoming trip.
John Prince Park
4759 South Congress Avenue
Lake Worth, Florida 33461
20261008 Drive to Jacksonville, early dinner with Henry Rosenblum and Susan Ticker
Henry is a retired Cantor from Forest Hills Jewish Center. Dodie and Hank (he was Hank then) in White Meadow Lake in Rockway Township, NJ where he was the Cantor. Susie was Dodie’s neighbor before Hank became a Cantor. A friendship of many years.
20261009 Savanah, Mickve Israel Synagogue, Mrs. Wilkes lunch and Red Gate RV
Red Gate Farms – RV Resort
We reserved a nice overnight campsite at Red Gate. They supplied a mystery map, a cryptic text set of directions. Dodie and I circled the campground several times with no signs. It was dark and Dodie was a directions hero, I think. Our site, D7, had the number 7 in fine print in the dark.
Mickve Israel Synagogue
Mickve Israel is the third oldest Jewish Synagogue in the United States and the second oldest in Georgia. Members of the congregation came from England in 1733. Forty-two people boarded in England. Forty-one arrived in Georgia, of these, 34 were Portuguese Sephardic and 7 German Ashkenazi (Levites).
Mickve has a 600 year old Torah (5 books of Moses) that enscribed on specially treated deer skin that is rolled into scrolls. These scrolls are unrolled and read throughout the year, every year for 5000 or more years. The Hebrew trope (chanting of ritual readings) are diacritical marks that are carefully written with the text by specially trained scribes. There are no vowels recorded with the text so special training is required.
People who ritually read the text are called Ba’al Koreh. When an untrained person reads the text, they are observed by a trained Ba’al Koreh. This is commonly seen when a Jewish child reaches adulthood and a member of the minion, the group of 10 or more men required by Orthodox law to conduct a ritual service. Remember the line “whenever two or more are gathered in his name?” This was the Christian tradition of permitting ritual prayer,
Mickve is the oldest practicing Reform Synagogue in the United States. As Jewish tradition evolved, Reform Sysagogues let the path toward equal recognition of women. Woman are not fully integrated in the Jewish rituals.
Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room
When our friends found we were stopping in Savannah, several mentioned we should visit Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room. Founded in 1943 when Mrs. Wilkes purchased a brothel where she had been cooking individual meals for men, I presume, had become hungry for food after frequenting the room upstairs. Eventually word spread and people began coming for the food, an unheard of activity in the brothel community.
As she became more interested in cooking and found others were profiting from her skill, she began to manage a growing group of hungry eaters and grew the business. Eventually the clientele grew so large she could offer only one meal per day, from 11:30 am to 2:00. pm People (including us) waited up to two hours to be seated at a group table of 8 to 10 lucky people.
The food was served family style, there were no checks, no special drinks beyond water and sweetened tea that grew more modern into a choice including unsweetened tea. And the food . . .
Known for her fried chicken, the current owner states that “If Colonel Sander’s chicken were as good, he would be a General now.” That was an understatement.
Family style servings included grits, collard greens in two flavors, cabbage, okra as both a wonderful s#t#e#w (to get round the spelling checker), and the more normal fried. For those who want to skip the chicken, she serves pulled pork and beef s#t#e#w. Wonderful coleslaw, red rice and sausage, potato salad, squash and about 10 other dishes. Terrific biscuits, corn bread and gravy and more we can’t name because overeating destroyed our brains.
You paid on exiting, one price including tax and it was cash only. If you did not have cash, you signed an IOU and paid them later. They also had a frequently empty ATM machine.
Now came the only choice, peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream and a banana cream cobbler with a wafer.
This was a day ago and I’m still full.
Mickve Israel Shabbat Services
We came back for a 6 pm Cantor led service. Beautiful voice of older melodies, old enough to predate me. Almost everyone in attendance was a visitor with the regular attendees on Zoom, Friendly and welcoming people with white egg challah, wine, and grape juice.
The Mi Shebeirach (מִי שֵׁבֵּרַךְ) is a traditional Jewish prayer when congregants ask others to pray for healing of those in special need. One of Stu’s friends, Nancy is in rehab after what appears to excessive manipulation by a Chiropractor injured her spine causing lower body paralysis. We hold her in our prayers.
Another friend, Melody, a 10th grade student studying ballet, experienced the shock involving a student death and many injuries after a car jumped a median strip causing the school bus her friends were riding to cross the median strip the other way, hit a jeep head on, and kill the driver of the jeep. It is so far unclear what caused the initial car to lose control. Many injuries and two deaths with lots of referred trauma to even the lucky uninjured students. We pray for peaceful healing and for the schools to finally install seat belts.
20261010 Lumberton North Carolina
Stu has been stopping at Roy’s Country Corral for years on trips up and down the East Coast.
Unfortunately Roy has passed from Cancer and his daughter was involved in a serious automobile accident. Thus, the place was closed.
We had a nice dinner at Village Inn Seafood, southern fried catfish and flounder with excellent hush puppies (unlimited) and very good coleslaw. Not Roy’s home cooking, but quite nice.
Continued North in seemingly endless rain and wind to our favorite campground chain, Cracker Barrel.
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This was the planning page for an upcoming road trip thru New England. Dates shown with a dot are fixed due to pre-reservations or outside commitments.
You may view the calendar as it evolves by clicking below.
Click here to see the calendar
- Liberty Marina and Campground – Reservation to be made – thinking 2 nights – visit science museum, Ruben Sandwich in New York via Ferry, Potential friend visit
- 2026 Oct 15 to Oct 28: Campgrd. Camp Catskills reservation (or Spacious Skies Campground) – this reservation is pre-paid and will be a base camp for yet to be decided ventures including
- Train to Albany along the Hudson
- visit Lake George?
- Return trip is flexible, Dodie and I both early voted. Florida permits early voting any time after the ballots are prioted -= just pick one up, fill it out, and hand it in. It gets counted as a mail-in ballot