Fort Lauderdale News from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • Page 39

News Sun-Sentinel tin N-rnrlTl TVs t-1 4 Religion: self-help from Homosexuals Anonymous 8 Entertainment: Oak Ridge Boys' LP blends old, new Saturday, July 5, 1986 Section i wilvzMfvx Aa.CzW'. i f. i 'f A a vs. '---Am I. Stall phoio by JIM UHbbNVtowD Park ranger Martin Morse tells a group of visitors to Jonathan Dickinson State Park about the buildings at "Trapper" Nelson's home.

Expeditions Trapper's spirit captured at park Flk photo The battle flag of the Confederate States of America frequently flies with Old Glory in the South. Rebel flag no simple symbol By Sam Hodges Tto Orlaaoo Sntuwl One hundred and twenty-one years after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, the defeated Confederate States of America's best-known battle flag continues to fly. The familiar red flag with a blue diagonal cross flies over the State House of South Carolina, in the chambers of the Alabama House of Representatives and, on football Saturdays, in the stands of Vaught-Hemingway Stadium at the University of Mississippi.

Truck stops and roadside stands throughout the South, and in a surprising number of places outside the South, sell replicas of the flag on car tags, decals, hats, T-shirts, shot glasses and beach towels. Civil War hobbyists buy the battle flag (and other Confederate flags) to display at home or wave in battle re-enactments. Tom Hunger, owner of Winchester Sutler an emporium of Civil War goods in Winchester, estimates that 100,000 Confederate flags and replicas are sold annually in the United States. That number suggests the Confederate flag is among the United States' most enduring symbols. But what does it symbolize? "Its meaning is not simple," said Charles Wilson, historian and staff member of Ole Miss' Center for the Study of Southern Culture in Oxford, Miss.

"It's become a symbol of opposition to integration. It's also become a symbol of white ethnic pride, like country music. Sometimes the symbolism implies racism, sometimes not. But it would be hard for the flag to become a symbol of the biracial South." To William A. Black, who sports a Florida state license plate on the back of his truck and a Confederate flag license plate on the front, the Confederate flag symbolizes the South 's resistance to assimilation.

"To me it's more a geographical thing than a racial thing, though there are some racial connotations in it. I've spent all my time in the South and I've seen it nearly destroyed by the Yankee influx. To me the license plate says, 'Leave me the hell Controversy persists over the flag's use in public. In February, a black legislator tried to have the Confederate flag removed from the House chambers of the Alabama Capitol. "The Confederate flag offends me," said Rep.

Alvin Holmes. His resolution failed by a large majority. Holmes led a successful fight in the mid-1970s to change the order of flags atop the Alabama Capitol. The Confederate flag had been flying above both the U.S. and Alabama flags.

In March, a storm blew the Confederate flag from its staff above the South Carolina State House, but left intact the U.S. and South Carolina flags. "Everybody said it was the ghost of Gen. William T. Sherman that took it down," said Jacqueline Sharpe, a tour guide at the State House.

State Sen. Kay Patterson, a black and a Democrat, suggested publicly that the state not put the Confederate flag back up. The flag was put back up, but the South Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church passed a resolution earlier this month suggesting the flag be removed from the State House. The resolution provoked "a lot of heat" from rank and file Methodists, said Maryneal Jones, editor of the Methodists' South Carolina newspaper. In May, pressure by black politicians in Memphis, caused a Beale Street saloon owner to remove a Confederate flag from the saloon's wall.

Two white men protested by draping themselves in Confederate flags and walking up and down Beale. The flag in question never was adopted officially by the Confederate Congress. David Sansing, history professor at Ole Miss, Please see FLAG, 3D JONATHAN 1 STATE PARK ft I I fl' MRTIH 1 VA 1 1 CPWTY I 11 hum' I Ik 1 etcH -J S-f; COUNIV JUPITER PLACE: Jonathan Dickinson State Park, just north of Jupiter in Martin County. FEATURES: More than 10,000 acres of parkland, Including several miles of the Loxahat-chee River, the only National Wild and Scenic River in Florida. The park contains many wild animals, including alligators, turtles, bobcats and a nesting pair of bald eagles.

Visitors can take a cruise up the freshwater Loxahatchee River to the Trapper Nelson Interpretive Site, which is the Sufi graphic by DAVID PIERCE than 90Q acres of land and more than his fair share of legends. When he died his heirs sold his land to the park. "The Trapper, everyone thought he was a tough old boy, but he wasn't," says Bessie Du-Bois, who first met Nelson when he moved to Florida in 1931. "He liked people, unless they didn't pay their gambling debts or crossed him up in some way. Then he'd come after you." Visitors to the park today can still see what attracted Trapper to the area.

Recently the Loxahatchee River was granted privileged status as the state's only National Wild and Scenic River, a title that helps ensure against its exploitation. The Loxahatchee, which is Seminole for "River of Turtles," is one of the few freshwater rivers in the state. Near the Trapper Nelson Interpretive Site, where Trapper set up his camp and zoo more than 50 years ago, the wetlands are filled with the once-common sight of dark green cypress trees. Most of the cypress in Florida have died because salt water has invaded their freshwater rivers. At the south end of the park many of the cypress trees are turning brown and dying.

Rangers blame it on a dredging project in Jupiter Please see PARK, 3D By Robert Kohlman Stall Writer He stood 6 feet 4 inches in his bare feet, weighed more than 270 pounds and carried a 7-foot snake around his neck. He was a man of contradictions who read TAe Wall Street Journal every day and lived off wild animals. He moved to the Loxahatchee' wilderness to get away from civilization, but the most exciting day trip for Palm Beach socialites in the '40s was to take a trip up the river to slum it with the wild man and his animal zoo. His name was Vince Nelson and he was from Trenton, N.J. But everyone called him "Trapper" the wild man of the Loxahatchee River.

He is also the man responsible for saving a valuable piece of old Florida for posterity. "We owe the preservation of a lot of this park to Trapper Nelson," says Brad Melko, a ranger at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Martin County. "He basically preserved the entire left bank of the river for us. If he hadn't been here, it would probably all be developed today." Until Trapper died mysteriously in 1968, he lived and trapped on the Loxahatchee River. After 38 years on the river he amassed more preserved home of a hermit who lived along the river for more than 30 years and wrestled alligators for the amusement of tourists.

EASIEST ROUTE: Take Interstate 95 north until it ends, then get on U.S. 1. The park is on the west side of U.S. 1 about five miles north of Jupiter. Watch for a sign on the east side of the road.

EXPENSES: Admission to park Is $1 for the car and driver and 50 cents for each additional person. The Loxahatchee Queen cruise boat tour costs $7. Canoe rentals are $5 an hour for the first hour and $3 an hour after that. Camping fees are $10 per night, and cabin rentals are $42 per night for two people, subject to change. HOURS: 8 a.m.

to 6 p.m. or sundown daily. The concession stand is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Loxahatchee Queen runs at 10:45 a.m.

and 1 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday. The trip takes about two hours. For camping reservations call the park office at 546-2771. For cabin reservations call the concession stand at 746-1466.

Kennedy's fiance should fit right in1 to Camelot By Michael Gross The New York Timet dwin Arthur Schlossberg's gradua tion photograph does not appear in his Columbia College class of 1967 friend revealed that one reporter recently resorted to dressing as a waiter to proach Schlossberg's table in a restaurant. I Welcome to Camelot. i Schlossberg, whose resume runs eighty typed pages, should fit right in. While his company, Edwin Schlossberg is billed as a design firm specializing in and educational exhibits, its proprietor is also an author, painter, poet, philosopher, I gamesman, scientist, inventor and teacher. He has even created an art T-shirt that i changes color with the wearer's body tem-! perature the secret is liquid crystal for Willi Smith, the witty, streetwise fash-; ion designer.

Smith in turn is creating linen wedding outfits for Schlossberg, his: ushers and the best man, John F. Kennedy-' Jr. Schlossberg has been called both a Re-' naissance and a post-modern man. He would appreciate the tension between those descriptions. His public works reveal Please see SCHLOSSBERG, 3D yearbook.

The only evidence of his matriculation is in the back, in microscopic type, in the list of those not pictured. Schlossberg, 41, will never be so anonymous again, because on July 19 he will marry Caroline Kennedy, 28, President John F. Kennedy's only daughter. Invitations to the wedding, featuring pale-colored scenes of Cape Cod, are this summer's hottest ticket. The ceremony Schlossberg is Jewish and Kennedy Roman Catholic will be Catholic, according to a spokesman for the Kennedy family.

Schlossberg, who lives in New York City, does not give interviews. Nor will Schlossberg's friends and family speak about him for publication. But that hasn't stopped the scrutiny that comes to one marrying into America's version of a royal dynasty. A Associated Press Ray Recchi is on special assignment. His column will resume Caroline Kennedy is engaged to be married later this month to Edwin A.

Schlossberg, described as both a Renaissance man and a post-modern man. Inside today Dear Abby 2 Ask Dr. Ruth 2 Rina Taeschler 6 Country Music Ann Landers Religion 4 Movie Times 7 Comics Good Health 2 Television 6 Entertainment 8 Bridge 10.