I had a few tense hours last week, as Hurricane Matthew strafed the eastern Florida coastline. Certain areas got hit really hard, among them America’s oldest, most historic, and most charming city, Saint Augustine, Florida. Readers will recall that St. Augustine is home to the truly one-of-a-kind attraction that is WOLF’S MUSEUM OF MYSTERY, which is itself home to Eddie the werewolf bust from the original THE HOWLING as well as other werewolf memorabilia, and a veritable ton of other strange, weird, odd, bizarre, and curious collectibles from the world over. I eagerly sought word from my friends down at Wolf’s. At first they planned to stick it out and brave the storm, then decided to err on the side of caution and vacate the city. When they returned to the Museum, which is also their home, they found that, despite the heavy flooding that had struck the Historic Downtown District where the MOM is located, they had suffered NO DAMAGE!
The eye of the storm remained a few miles offshore, so the city was spared the worst of its winds. It and its citizenry were truly fortunate, truly blessed. Within just a few days Saint Augustine was back open for business as usual. (WOLF’S was open the very next day!) They lost some trees in the historic cemeteries and many businesses had some serious cleaning to do, but the nation’s oldest city is back, as good as new, and thankfully all those irreplaceable artifacts at WOLF’S and elsewhere are safe and dry. That’s good, since I hear Eddie doesn’t like water.
