Gulf Coast Journal with Jack Perkins; 403; GuitarSarasota, "Pepper Control," Sarasota Shell Club, Writer Rich Brooks

Oh. The phone has a special presentation of w. we do YOU Temple St. Petersburg Sarasota. Let's enjoy some of the purest of all. He was. Looking to see your old friend collect. Go to work with the perpetrator. And revisit an old friend with an older child. This volume about Gulf Coast drama will. This WTU production is exclusively brought to you through a generous grade from the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice. Building strong communities leadership partnership and Dowd calander B. Dear Journal. Aside from the surf is there any music so pure

or so almost and like. As the music of an acoustic guitar. Along the Gulf Coast. There are many appreciators of that pure music and more and more splendid opportunities to enjoy it. How different it is to hear the sweet sound of guitars in the church. This is sort of sort of St. Paul's Lutheran rather than an electric guitar in a bar. In the hands of musician Jason real. Change and so Bach had written his fugue specifically for this instrument.

If you want to really listen to classical music you have to come to a place where it's quiet and people have to listen and is not in a bar where you can experience that. Am I playing a prelude by Francisco Tarrega. A professional guitarist himself Thomas Potch. He's the guitars best advocate. The instrument. Has an ambiguity. Because it's so popular both pop and classic. As far as. The training of classical guitarist has come a long way. We are. Having such great players. On a large level. Celebrate those great players cotch started guitar Sarasota a society for guitar enthusiasts like himself.

We. We got together a bunch of friends and decided that we needed something like guitars in town. The idea was put into motion. Word spread soon found others shared his admiration. You have students we have young people we have all retired people. Guitar makers we have guitar. Collectors we have. The amateur that. Wants to perform in front of a small group of people. The guitar has not always been accepted as standard classical fare. It was Spanish guitarist I'm going to go over your life for the classical tourney compositions intended for other instruments you're masterpieces that sounds tailor made. I think that the instrument has still a

little bit of catching up to do. Even though there has been a lot of progress made over the last 50 years. By forming guitar Sarasota Thomas and society members share the virtues of classical guitar with future performers your listeners. And. Others. I didn't. Dream of this. Growth and interest in guitar So Souter a year ago. I mean you had nothing about a year ago. And we have created an audience of faithful audience that comes back. For the concerts. Attracting talent to guitarists like video shows how well respected this. I joined society because.

With the guitar community you get a more intimate audience that you wouldn't get from say playing with a symphony. As a pressure bench is flawless performance and Jason's ability to have memorized hundreds of pieces in his repertoire. I guess the memory card holds about maybe four or five hours maybe more. I'm not really sure at a time I don't know how much or how much my. My memory card holds before it's fall. You're tapping into the hard drives of experienced guitarist through master classes is yet another aspect of this guitar society. 17 year old Andrew Glasgow was inspired and perhaps a little intimidated by the theory.

Everything in here is morality. That's the crazy thing about it everything. When you get here someone. In front of someone like Jason is. Amazing and you just kind of like I guess and my playing definitely reflected my nervousness. But his advice was really greatly appreciated. That was even better. One big part of our mission is to educate and really cranking up our compas that with the concerts and even more with the master classes that take place. The number of members is growing. Concert crowds are ever larger. I'm sure most of his efforts aren't falling on deaf. One of the hallmarks of life along the Gulf Coast is the great numbers of people who are out

there every day doing things not for themselves not for money. But for all of the socialist volunteers. Here is one such group they are called the proper patrol. It's just gives you a good feeling to be outside in the air whining guys we got we're going to have a pretty good day today we're so high you know where you get a high of doing it we're going to go out we're going to clean up here get this off. My door I think down there are from the pepper Patrol will plant will cut grass will we put Moats down. It's all volunteer. This was just a big piece of sand. What do we. All kinds of grasses going through it. Were a group of about 12 fellows in a couple of the ladies who come out every Thursday. Woman My name's Tom Westfall. We get our. Name on the paper for Charles because we were cutting pepper trees along the water way before they put in the ancient waterway.

I've lived in Venice for approximately five years. It was loaded with pepper working with me on Pepper troll food for half the. Time you. Can't afford to do all these things themselves. When he gives us an opportunity to get out and volunteer help in the health care need to keep our taxes down I guess a little bit. We planted all the plants that you see in here today in about an hour so my name is Richard Sherman. I'm fortunate to have retired from a nice occupation in York City as a police officer. Pounding it beat on what we call the blacktop jungle of the concrete and asphalt. It is a pleasure to come here and to see the green the flowers and the beauty of life. I love to be outside and I think 90 percent of the guys feel the same way they like to be outside they're retired. My name is Yvonne George. They don't want to sit in the front of the TV all day long on their computer they want to be out in the air. Home from lemons to Massachusetts specially in Florida it's such a beautiful place to be. Just think

if you guys were up north how cold it is. I'm the newest volunteer and I'm here because I'm like doing this. There's another reason I just like working on the outside and making things more beautiful. And we're here all year long when it's 90 to 100 degrees we were out here workin I was in Baba for 40 years. Venice is beautiful. And this way we can keep it beautiful. The devil you've got to hear the cutting trees the trees don't talk back. And whatever I give them they're satisfied with the camaraderie with the people that you've met. This is where you go get free haircuts rights I'm. Sure. That I can do in the name of the pepper trees. It came from Brazil. You see this is a this is a female pepper truth you can tell because it's got the red berries. And they came here and they planted them for decorations for the for Christmas and the holidays. OK the mail doesn't have the berries but it has the same leaf and you can see appears to the same thing the bird the red berries. You can see why the Spanish planted it here in Florida because if you look at it it looks like it's a holly tree and now

they're Tolly and they said they're all over Florida they're over run. So now we have to get rid of them because they're choking out a lot of the native plants and then will be and the sprays this layer on. So we go around and we trim them and try to get them under control the best we can. And there is a lot of areas that we have totally wiped them out and we don't like to use the harsh. Chemical on them for the environment because it goes into the waterways these are large boats that we planted last year. All this stuff right in here these little trees there all you'll see them all way down. Do you think if you see mulch around the plant to maintain anybody that would like to volunteer. We would love to have you come on out and get in the sunshine. We'll see you next week. Thanks for what you did a great job young man. Great job guys.

Sometimes people want to program or write in through a website or a blog. You. Know. I'm wearing them to keep skin cancer away. I don't collect them I'm not a collector. Have. Stamps or points or barbed wire. But I'd like to introduce you to some collector. Who is looking at you know what they collect. Are some of the. Inner. Beauties. Of. Nature. You are. A cold blustery day a determined contingent of explorers charting their course toward the bay. Traders are not always buried. But some are very elusive. That's as big as it will ever get. Probably 70 percent.

Of the hundred thousand living species of molluscs are smaller than an inch. And amazing. The mysteries of the sea and endless stream of wonder what's next. That's an olive Allen. Peggy Williams is the resident expert and the president of the Sarasota shell club. Joanne Sharma Lou ski is the club's president in training. If you blow on it it'll come out. For. Coaching The hermit crab out of a shell comes from a lifetime of shelling around the Gulf Coast and I got a couple and that's the reason many people don't realize that the shell is made by an animal. And that there's an animal inside it when it's alive. And it's difficult to extract. So I recommend they leave the shells to reproduce.

How do these Conchology justs which is a fancy name for Shell collectors. How do they resist taking too many. Well. We just. Try to. Take only the best ones. If. If we need them to be in our collections. My. Interest now more is in what the shelf how we shall live this. Down. In. Collecting there's a trail here's the guy making it. Hot. It's a little Tulip shell. Now he's smelling around to see what he can find to eat. There's plenty on the menu in the mud and the sand flaps off the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. It's a virtual mollusk Paradise which is quite heavenly to shell Khana shores. There's always something new to learn something new to see. And. It keeps you young people interested keeps you. Excited. And keeps you busy. Finding the ship home is

only the beginning for serious collectors. Claiming. That all the calcium awful and then you have to identify them when you put them in your. Case. Maybe you got a better one than you did before. There are more than 30000 shells in Peggy's stunning collection. Her recent scientific display won the highly coveted mote Gold Award at the Sarasota shell Club's annual show. Every time I open a drawer I love it. Every time I look at another one I love a. Child club member showed me a function doesn't have to travel far to discover the wonders of the sea. One flight of stairs. Is her oyster. This. For me days the pickings are slim. Sylvia isn't easily dissuaded. Just thinking. Am I going to find a bird. Lover looking for him. I love the exercise I get while I'm walking and.

It's just funny. Sylvie especially is creating floral arrangements from the shelves she collects result breathtaking and she makes it look so easy. I buy the cheapest silk flowers back in. And take the fill them and replace them with kale. I. Save all the parts and all those little flowers and make up what I can. With what. But I have to work with. Use wire Assen. A glue pot and glue the failed and to replace the sail. That sort of thing. The finished pieces are so lifelike you have to touch one to believe it's not a real flower. I love being by the water. I love the sound of the birds. Everything that happens out there. And a lot is happening. You look closely enough and imagine all the possibilities. Let us revisit an old friend. We told you his story some time ago. As

a matter of fact when I was asked to select my favorites of all the stories we've done on the journal over the years this was one of them. It is a story of. Patience. Persistence. Courage. And Faith. And it's time now to update the story of newspaper columnist Rich Brooks. Me. All right. When we first introduced you to Rich Brooks back in 2005 he was writing his weekly newspaper columns with a rather imperfect system. His health aide at the time Jared described it succinctly. He yells and I type. He goes you know. And your friend. Rich has a whole ass Lou Gehrig's disease. And inevitably it is getting worse.

I think the thing that's changed most dramatically is that Rich has a way to communicate now and make himself understood. It's not a perfect system but he certainly can make his needs known and yeah he can type for himself now which is which is wonderful. Richard now has a laser light system that allows him to write and communicate using the muscles on one side of his face. It's a system that was used by Stephen Hawking and it's a process of triggering typing the letters by triggering an infrared switch which was set up by his face. Using this system. It still takes Richard almost a week to complete his weekly column. And discover letter by letter. Which. Led to a. Letter by letter or by word.

Of. A slow process. If you stick with it technology is a tool. I'm glad. And supporting my family. For now but for how long. For as all the brooks family I realize things change. That's one constant for me changed me. Taylor's progresses which means my health is becoming a major muscle groups legs arms and stopped functioning years ago. Now the peripheral cells that control speech and swelling are worsening. Or if I mean. At this stage. What is it that gives you comfort.

Going to church and reading in the morning. I'm very fond of some stand the book of two. Songs have mercy upon me O Lord for I am weak. Oh Lord heal me from my bones are vacs my shoulders back no more. What Spiegel thing is here. We don't know what's on the other side or even if there is another sign. I guess my thing. You do what you have to do in my life doesn't give you a lot of choice so you you roll with the punches and make it as as good a time out of it as you can. And we've been doing fine. Oh a smart alec dancer. Rich is preprogrammed into his computer several shall we say riddled replies. His sense of humor is still

unquenchable. There isn't much one can do about sense of humor one either has it or not. But. I think it's frustrating for him that he can't always make his jokes understood. Because you say he has a very quick wit and now nothing is quick. But but he he maintains a very positive attitude overall. It's frustrating as a joke that doesn't work is his inability to do mundane tasks that most take for granted. I miss doing the little things that are so foreign to finding us as you. Think actually holding and telling her that I love. What are the things the joy.

For me in this new season is doing so much for me and I think. Now writing is the only way she rang my own. For nearly 40 years of writing the book still has so much body is giving up on hope to readers. And they keep me going. Without triggers I'm just other guy in a wheel chair. If I were then I wouldn't be alone. If his readers keep him alive. He keeps his readers engaged and. Proud proud even indirectly they know him. That's our journal for this month. We thank you for being with us and we invite you to spend a

final moment with us. At the PAUL. O. O. O. O. O. O. O.

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