Malcolm Fraser flies with the angels at Ormond Memorial Art Museum & Gardens

What makes a 49-year-old artist abandon his paints and go to war?

That’s the question I pondered when visiting the Ormond Memorial Art Museum & Gardens.

Malcolm Fraser was a Canada-born professional painter and illustrator who had graduated from the Sorbonne and attended Heidelberg University. In 1917, he left the U.S., steamed to Europe, and joined, after some intense training, the French “Blue Devils” unit at the Front. He was wounded five times and received France’s Croix de Guerre for his heroics. Later, he joined the A.E.F., was promoted to captain, and served with the American Red Cross on the front lines.

Fraser ended up spending most of his time in Ormond Beach. Toward the end of his life, he looked for a place to feature his artwork and one that was dedicated to veterans. A $10,000 endowment by Fraser in 1946 got the ball rolling and led to this impressive place.

Its priorities are clear when you leave handicapped parking and roll through the jungle. As Credence sang:

Better run through the jungle, 

Better run through the jungle, 

Better run through the jungle, 

Whoa, don’t look back and see.

I roll on my electric scooter and Chris walks. A beautiful space, and peaceful. I can barely hear the traffic zooming by on one of Ormond's busiest intersections. We enter the sheltered labyrinth and follow the lines on its painted multicolored surface decorated with butterflies and hummingbirds. It was designed by by Joan Baliker and the late Carol Bertrand and refreshed by Mack Sutton (artists must be named). This one is within a big gazebo and is a great play place for kids. I think about the outdoor stone labyrinth at my hometown Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, now covered with snow. 

Along the walkway is a monument by Mark Chew to veterans of the Korean War. Its streamlined silver surface reaches for the trees and beyond. It's the shape of a flame but cold as the Chosin Reservoir. Around the next turn is a bronze for Vietnam veterans by Gregory Johnson. On what looks like an old kitchen chair sits a helmet and canteen. Dog tags and a uniform shirt hang from the chair back. Its legs straddle beat-up combat boots.

I linger. This was my generation’s war, not mine physically, but it's lodged in the memories of any guy of draft age from that time (December 1968 passed Draft physical Jacksonville FL, high school deferment; December 1969 Selective Service Draft Lottery #128; Navy ROTC midshipman 1969-71; two months served on USS John F. Kennedy as midshipman, summer 1970; released from the Draft on Jan. 1, 1972). I once read this about those times: "Vietnam sucked the soul out of an entire generation."

Memories remain. 

Johnson's statue is homey, I think, the things a grunt might leave behind when he changes into civvies. Or it could be a family's reminders of a GI whose psyche never made it back home. Think of war stories: Krebs in Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home” or Ron Kovic in “Born on the Fourth of July” or Billy Lynn in Ben Fountain’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” (whatever happened to Ang Lee’s 2016 movie based on the book?).

We emerge from the jungle and its memories. The sun shines on a colorful "Can Do" sculpture by the late Seward Johnson, part of the public art display on Grenada by the Ormond Beach Arts District. Also on the ground is the "Embracing Peace" sculpture celebrating the famous Times Square kiss on VJ Day. Inside the museum, a bronze plaque lists more than 200 residents who served in WW2 (updated in 1999 to list African-American veterans) and one dedicated to WW1 veterans. A WW1 Doughboy helmet rests in a glass case by Malcolm Fraser’s photo and bio that greet visitors. This is a decorated soldier, and we are here to see his artwork.

(To be continued)

We prepare for take-off

June normally would see me outside coaxing my tomato seedlings. But this year, I’ll leave the gardening to others. We are giving our house, both in and out, a thorough sprucing up. Plants are being selected for color, enough color to lure someone to buy our house. I keep looking for “A Planting Guide for Guaranteed Home Selling” but can’t even find it on Amazon. My bulb plants have already bloomed and faded into obscurity among  the asters, coneflowers, and four o’clocks. It was good while they lasted, these brave perennials braving spring’s snow, cold, and wind to present their colors to my part of the world. I have two big pots that flank the porch and I will probably fill them with hardy petunias. They are fast-growing and stick around most of the summer. They are annuals and need to be replanted every year. You can’t kill them, although drought and h-a-i-l have tried. Add this to the yard work being done the next few weeks and you have a house ready-to-sell. So says our realtor.

Visitors streamed into the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens this past weekend. A must-see destination as Wyoming warms up. We have the Conservatory with its tropical gardens and a Children’s Village to keep the kids occupied. Nine acres of gardens bloom outside. The most color comes from the crevice garden just outside our entrance which showcases Rocky Mountain plants, the kind you can spy on any hike in the Snowies, Wind Rivers, or Big Horns. The gardens will not reach their peak until late July or early August and on through fall’s beginnings. A short growing season with lots of pizzazz. The first freeze usually happens in September although last year it was mid-October. It’s sad, really, when the colors fade. I will not be experiencing that in my new home in Florida. Gardens grow year-round and always need attention which is fine with me. I can go into the Conservatory’s main floor and see many of the tropical and sub-tropical plants that grow in my new yard.

I should be reading up on Florida. Instead, I am sorting my books for departure. We are giving the furniture to our kids and taking a few bins of books and journals. Our new place is furnished so we don’t need much. Moving is never fun but this time Chris and I are retired and want some time to ourselves. The beach is two blocks away, so that doesn’t hurt.  Also, family and friends live nearby. It’s odd how you can be away for decades and return to your growing-up place and feel at home. We will be scouting the horizon for hurricanes. The crackerjack meteorologists at CSU, my alma mater, predict a record number of hurricanes this year. Who knows – they may all batter other places and leave us alone. That’s probably what everyone says in Florida. Cane cane, go away/I hear that Galveston and Charleston are nice this time of year. The rhyme is strained but you get the idea.

Bananas at night, Cheyenne Botanic Gardens

This is just to say…

At night, when I clean the Botanic Gardens Conservatory, I unlock the door to the tropical wing, sneak in with my stepladder, and eat a banana. Just one at a time, so nobody notices. Short squat bananas, the size of a deli dill pickle. More yellow than the store-bought variety brought from far away, their skin thick and tough, designed by science to cushion the rough handling of pickers and packers and sorting machines. But this banana? Grown right here, from a tree transported from Honduras. The staff planted it four years ago while a Wyoming blizzard raged outside. It found shelter here, rich soil, constant care. I climb the ladder and pick a ripe one from a stalk and smell its rich scent. I perch on the tip-top of the ladder, just above the warning signs. The misting machines go off, hundreds of nozzles spray a fine mist through the gardens. The trees lose their shape in the fog. I expect a monkey’s call, the cry of an exotic bird. Tiny water droplets cling to the hairs of my arm. The cold winter wind whips the building and it groans like a living thing. I peel the banana carefully, the skin thin as paper that comes off in pieces. A rich scent greets me as I bite. Smooth as banana pudding going down. I sit high in the jungle mist, waiting for my break to end. I hope to eat another Gardens’ banana when they ripen again, just a few at a time. They are delicious, so sweet and so warm, something worth waiting for.