"Drive My Car"

 No real theme to this post but I wanted to share a few things. Not one of them is how to Drive My Car.

Champlain Bridge

First, I like to use my Photography folders as the source of my backgrounds on my computer. Recently, I have been going through  the Nature-Parks folder which included the folder "NY - Crown Point - State Historic Site". There were photos of the Champlain Bridge both before and after the rebuilding. I found that interesting and wanted to document. 

I took this photo of the old bridge in 1989 from my brother Tom's boat.

In 2007 I flew to Vermont for a vacation and I took this photo of the bridge from my window seat. I am over New York looking East. The left of the bridge is at Chimney Point in Vermont and the right of the bridge is at Crown Pont in New York.

Interesting is that I saw today on Facebook they have found the basement of the house whose chimney the point is named after. Hopefully this link will get you to the story...Chimney Point

I had read some history of the opening of the bridge in 1929. The governors of Vermont and New York met in the middle of the bridge on opening day to shake hands. 

The Vermont Governor was John Eliakim Weeks who served as the 61st governor of Vermont from 1927 to 1931. Weeks was born in Salisbury, Vermont, on June 14, 1853, the son of Ebenezer Weeks and Elizabeth (Dyer) Weeks. He attended the county schools and Middlebury High School. He married Hattie J. Dyer of Salisbury in 1879. She died in 1942, and they had no children.

Weeks operated a farm and operated several other businesses, including growing and selling hay, raising and selling livestock, selling insurance, and appraising and settling estates. He became president of the Addison County Trust Company and the Columbus Smith Trust Company, and served on the board of directors for both the Brandon National Bank and the National Bank of Middlebury. The former Weeks School in Vergennes was named after him.

The New York Governor was FDR.

I took this photo in 2007 from the French Fort on Crown Point.

Another 2007 photo from the New York side looking East.

In 2010, the bridge had been demolished (there are videos online) and you took a ferry to cross the lake. That is one of the ferries; I was taking the photo from the other ferry.

Construction starting on the new bridge as the ferries ran for free to the East.

In 2012, I took this picture of the new bridge from the Vermont side. I was visiting good friend Tim Bushey with my brothers Tom and John. Tim had a camper on the lake.

The new bridge from Crown Pont.

Vermont vs Brevard County

I moved to Brevard County in Florida back in 1979 because that is where my parents had moved as I was attending the University of Vermont. My brother Tom bought the homestead in Middlebury and I ended up staying here in Florida.

I have always had an interest in numbers (I guess a Masters in Applied Mathematics implies that), and one statistic I have been keeping an eye on was the population of Vermont compared to the population of Brevard County. 

During the past year, the population of the County I live in (671,710 people) has surpassed the state I grew up in (644,663 people). There are three cities in Brevard that are bigger than Burlington,  the largest city in Vermont.

Of course, I was interested in the statistic of people per square mile. Well, when you search for areas, you get a total area, a water area, and a land area. Total = water + land. All in square miles.

• Total Area VT 9616 Brevard 1557; ratio 6.18
• VT water 399  Brevard water 542 ratio 0.74 (Brevard's Indian and Banana Rivers)
• VT Land 9217 Brevard Land 1015 ratio 9.08

So Vermont in Land Area is 9.08 times bigger than Brevard County. Vermont has about 70 people per square mile while Brevard County has about 662 people per square mile.

All this does is make me want to look up more numbers and statistics. Vermont is 31st on Most densely populated states. Brevard County is between Maryland and Connecticut. I bet you didn't know that.

Eau Gallie Speedway

Eau Gallie Speedway was a historic quarter-mile dirt oval race track in Melbourne, Florida, that operated from 1957 until 1977. Also known over the years as the Spinning Wheel Speedway, Brevard Speedway, and Melbourne Speedway, the property sat on a 20-acre plot along the west side of Wickham Road before closing and later being redeveloped into the Wickham Business Park.

Although closing October of 1977, before I moved to Florida, it was still visible in this 1994 Google Earth map. The speedway is in the lower left corner, just off Wickham Road. The golf course in the upper left is the Harbor City Golf Course, still open today. When I started playing the course in early 80s, most of the condos were not built yet. By 1994, most were completed and the last ones were started in the far upper left of the course.

In 2003, the track was still visible and all the condos were completed on the golf course.

In 2005, you can see that construction had begun over the speedway.

In 2009, no sign left of the racing track.

In 2025, the latest Google Earth map...

Again, on Facebook, there was a question about this old racecar picture. The answer was a racecar at the Eau Gallie Speedway.

Baby won't you Drive My Car?

About Title

"Drive My Car" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written primarily by Paul McCartney, with lyrical contributions from John Lennon. It was first released on the band's 1965 album Rubber Soul as the opening track. The song later appeared in North America on the Yesterday and Today collection, again to open the record, as the track had been dropped from the American version of Rubber Soul.

A woman tells the song's male narrator that she is going to be a famous movie star, and she offers him the opportunity to be her chauffeur, adding: "and maybe I'll love you". When he objects that his "prospects [are] good", she retorts, "Working for peanuts is all very fine/But I can show you a better time." When he agrees to her proposal, she admits, "I got no car and it's breakin' my heart/But I've found a driver and that's a start." According to McCartney, "'Drive my car' was an old blues euphemism for sex".