Stu News and Photos

Wherever you live, you have stories about your town, stories that exemplify your local society.

This is one of those stories. We live in Los Angeles.

Every few weeks, Leslie and I take a drive over to the local botanic gardens and gently stroll the grounds, admiring the redwoods and palms and conifers and such. It's always a lovely time.

In the center of the gardens is a lake. We make sure to visit the lake whenever we go to the gardens, to say hi to the ducks and the herons and the water.

One such trip found us circumnavigating the lake, but what to our wandering eyes did appear but a house. We'd not seen it before, and assumed that we had just missed it during our previous visits to the lake.

I've blogged about it here, so take a minute and visit that page and look at the photo of the house.

Well, on our next trip to the gardens, we cruised the lake, and found the house gone. At first we looked all around, figuring that we were in the wrong spot. But every indication was that the house had been removed.

I remember the house being a little perfect, and that near the house, in the lake, were fake cypress trees. So when they were also missing, I figured they must have been a set for a tv show or film.

Later on, we walked up to the main office of the gardens and inquired about the house and the fake cypress trees. Turns out that they were filming one of our frequently watched shows, "Dexter." So we watched diligently to each new show. Finally, the other night, we saw the house and the fake cypress trees, which were set up to be a cabin in the middle of the Everglades. Leslie and I turned to each other and went, "Hey, there it is! That's our botanical gardens!"

So that's one of our Los Angeles stories.

Another time, I'll tell you about my short time with Charles Fleischer.