I kept thinking “Oh! Darling” — and not because my husband languished in a hammock while slurping a Bahama Mama rum cocktail.

Along pale pink sands, on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera, we were staying in the Potlatch Club cottage where music icon Paul McCartney and wife Linda honeymooned in March 1969. While here, the Beatles heartthrob jotted down lyrics to “Oh! Darling,” and “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” on Potlatch-logo stationary; both songs appeared on the Fab Four’s final album, “Abbey Road,” later that year.

A walk along the Potlatch Club’s beach is a remarkable, solitary experience on the island of Eleuthera. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

Believe me darlin’: This chic, renovated one-bedroom had been abandoned and buried by the smothering jungle for nearly 40 years. In fact, the entire original Potlatch Club, once a 1960s and ‘70s hideaway for elites and celebrities  — including Greta Garbo, Cliff Robertson and Richard Widmark — had been swallowed up by nature, looted, lashed by hurricane winds and long forgotten.

The grounds of the Potlatch Club include meandering paths and manicured lawns leading to aquamarine seas. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

That is, until Caribbean-born entrepreneurs Hans Febles and Bruce Loshusan spent almost eight years meticulously raising the decrepit Potlatch from the dead; 11 accommodations in whitewashed cottages debuted last summer on 12 gorgeously landscaped acres that feel like your own private oceanfront estate.

“We bought the property not knowing its history,” Febles said. And that’s a crazy story in itself.

Queen’s Bath is a striking collection of natural warm pools carved by crashing waves along the Atlantic side of Eleuthera. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

Eleuthera is a rugged, low-key, 110-mile-long, twig-thin island with crystalline aqua seas, no traffic lights, a strip dubbed “the narrowest place on Earth,” one two-lane potholed main road, and wondrous skylit caves shielding bats and spirits of shipwrecked Puritans. A major happening is Eleuthera’s annual pineapple festival, when contestants draped in 30-gallon trash bags frantically try to devour a strung pineapple as fast as they can. The island’s 100 or so largely empty, pristine beaches are gaspingly beautiful (and just a 40-minute flight from Miami). Tourists can snorkel and book fishing trips, however because it’s so relaxed, the island’s candid slogan is: “Eleuthera, it’s not for everyone.”

In 1967, a trio of moneyed New York socialites opened the Potlatch Club after building homes and cottages on what had been a 1923 pineapple plantation. They did so at the urging of a friend, Elizabeth Taylor (not the actress) who went to golf in Eleuthera and decided a plethora of posh pals needed a discreet tropical resort. The three Potlatch owners included two former debutantes and Junior Leaguers — Diana Adams, then married to a top-drawer tax attorney, and divorcee Marie Driggs, whose son, Tony, became Potlatch’s tennis pro on the cork-turf court. Joining them was Driggs’ partner, Elizabeth Fitzgerald, an outstanding pianist who studied the ivories in Paris.

The Potlatch was an invitation-only retreat with thatched tiki umbrellas poolside and rooms filled with classy European antiques such as an oak wainscot chair dated 1657. Since guests were “invited” many didn’t feel the need to pay anything.

Soon after Febles and Loshusan broke ground in 2016,  Driggs’ late son Tony shared the piecemeal heyday history and some visitor names with the new owners who had no clue. Among the VIPs: Prince Charles, Lord Mountbatten, Broadway legend Mary Martin, actor Raymond Burr, actress and Post Cereals heiress Dina Merrill. Even, he said, Ringo.

The Potlatch cottage where Paul McCartney and wife Linda honeymooned in 1969 has gotten a whole new chic look. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

“There’s not a lot of photographs or paperwork on who stayed because they wanted privacy,” said Febles, who lives on-site. “I did find a bill for Walter Cronkite and Merv Griffin.”

With draining funds, the socialites sold the furnished Potlatch Club in 1978 to a Canadian investor who never opened it as a hotel. Sometime in the ‘80s, the Potlatch plummeted into foreclosure and decades of ruin.

Then one day, Febles and Loshusan were driving with a real estate agent after viewing another possible hotel venue, when they glimpsed the barely visible clubhouse constructed in 1923 and part of the bygone Potlatch. The area was so overgrown, they had no idea the vast lot stretched to the beach. “There were trees coming up from what had been the pool,” Febles recalled. But in his mind, he foresaw his hotel goal: “Timeless elegance.”

“When it went bankrupt and was in probate for a couple years, locals used to go there and take whatever they wanted,” Febles said. Surprisingly, once the duo purchased the land, excited neighbors stopped by to give them Potlatch cups, napkins, brochures, and other items. “They felt like, finally, someone’s doing something here.”

One man offered to return the heavy piano he somehow moved from the shuttered Potlatch. The damaged piano had long been neglected in his garage and although unusable, the baby grand mahogany Bosendorfer graces the new Potlatch’s library. Prior co-owner Elizabeth Fitzgerald had often played it for guests.

In a reception area, an original restored cabinet now houses tasseled key chains from the earlier Potlatch Club. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

A dilapidated wood cabinet, rained on for decades, was discovered in the ramshackle premises. Now restored, it holds the original tasseled Potlatch room key chains, which Febles located in a stashed box with keys that had “Potlatch” misspelled. “I couldn’t try a key to see if it worked. There were no doors anywhere, everyone had taken them.”

The clubhouse still features its 1923 black-and-white checkered floor set in sand; a section had cratered into the ground but was repaired for Potlatch 2.0.

Eleuthera, with the rest of the Bahamas, remained a British colony until gaining independence in 1973. Which explains why the first Potlatch’s general manager wore dressy Scottish kilts (supposedly he was hired because of his finesse for playing backgammon and bridge). The current GM, Bhutan-born Kezang Dorji, is a gem who worked as a high-end butler for Keith Richards, Christie Brinkley, and Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, and exudes his homeland’s Gross National Happiness attitude. (Both Dorji and laid-back Febles are hands-on, even toting guests’ luggage to their quarters. In the mornings, you might spot shorts-clad Febles picking stray blades from the perfectly manicured green lawns. He’s often joined by two statuesque wild herons.)

Potlatch co-owner Hans Febles (right) and general manager Kezang Dorji sit near the original Potlatch’s motto: La Vita E Bella, which means “Life Is Beautiful” in Italian. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

Of the Bahamas’ 700 islands, Eleuthera ranked as the “pineapple capital” in the mid-19th century, shipping tons of the tangy fruit to the United States and England. After exports bottomed out, so did pineapple cultivation — there’s only about 15 farmers now. At Eleuthera’s recent 36th annual Pineapple Festival, fans of the prickly crop munched pineapple tarts, perused pineapple-themed paintings, and danced to boisterous bands in a park.

Sugarloaf pineapples, a special sweet variety, are grown on the family-owned Eleuthera Pineapple Farm. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

“This is where it all began, this is the place internationally where people bought pineapples from,” enthused Bekera Taylor, who owns a one-acre farm. Inside a festival booth, she sold Eleuthera’s special Sugarloaf variety (“they’re sugary sweet and shaped like a loaf of bread”), next to homemade pineapple ketchup, pineapple barbecue sauce, pineapple pepper jelly, and pineapple chips. She’s hoping to launch a pineapple winery.

Pineapple farmer Bekera Taylor sells her juicy harvest at the 36th annual Pineapple Festival in Gregory Town on the island of Eleuthera. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

Thanks to a stormy shipwreck, Eleuthera is also “the birthplace of the Bahamas.” In 1648, a group of English Puritans set sail from Bermuda to avoid religious persecution only to smack into Devil’s Backbone reef. They managed to get ashore, name their refuge “Eleuthera” from the Greek word for “free,” and take shelter in Preacher’s Cave where they carved Pulpit Rock for sermons. I had the willies in the cave, but then it’s also an ancient burial ground for the extinct Lucayan people; archeologists dug up a shaman’s remains, a beheaded skeleton and a 1,000-year-old tooth.

The Glass Window Bridge splits the Blight of Eleuthera waters (right) from the opposite Atlantic Ocean. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

Another must-see is the Glass Window Bridge, a 30-foot-wide natural rock formation (“the narrowest place on Earth”) topped by a manmade paved bridge (no glass). Visually striking, the calm, turquoise Bight of Eleuthera waters lie on one side; on the other the churning cobalt Atlantic.

Potlatch isn’t within walking distance of much, although the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve beckoned a block away. I fixated on medicinal flora and learned home-brewed tea from horse bush relives chest congestion, a bound thatch palm can “pull de heat out a de head,” according to a sign, and snakeroot cures intestinal worms. Also, from Potlatch, a 10-minute stroll on powdery sands brought us to funky beach bar Tippy’s; the men’s restroom door is labeled “Bob” and covered by Marley’s likeness.

An Eleuthera hangout for 20 years,Tippy’s beach bar has an unusual men’s restroom door. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

One balmy morning, about 45 miles from Potlatch, we hopped on a five-minute water taxi ride to tiny Harbour Island, known as the “Nantucket of the Bahamas” and luring privileged visitors and multi-million-dollar yachts. (Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce vacationed there.) The main mode of transportation — golf carts — puttered past brightly colored colonial-era homes erected by British Loyalists starting in the 1700s.

Adhering to a funereal tradition, mourners parade down a street on Harbour Island, across from Eleuthera. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

On a side street, a lively brass band paraded with a coffin containing a departed gent, as we popped into Vic-Hum Club, a 70-year-old landmark bar totally plastered with memorabilia. Co-owner Jay-Jay Percentie — an exuberant local councilman, justice of the peace and self-anointed Prince of Dunmore (the only town on Harbour Island) — proudly took the “world’s largest coconut” off a shelf.

Jay-Jay Percentie, co-owner of the Vic-Hum bar on Harbour Island, holds “the world’s largest coconut” that supposedly washed up on a nearby beach. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

“It’s got a diameter of 33 inches even though it’s shrunk over 40 years,” he boasted, holding out the monstrous, hefty, hard-shelled thing. “It washed up in 1983. Maybe it came from Indonesia. It sure traveled over the Atlantic Ocean to make it here.”

A mystery yes, but back at the Potlatch, there were more secrets to unravel. The word “potlatch” refers to a North American Indigenous ceremony during which possessions are given away to show wealth, fortuitous for the initial owners and freebie clientele. (The new hotel offers breakfast-inclusive rates from $659 — and yes, you must pay.)

To channel the past, I quietly sat in Potlatch’s library, surrounded by the long-lost piano, worn tennis rackets that Febles found stored, vintage photos of the early Potlatch, and its brochure stating “children under ten must be accompanied by a nurse.” On the wall hung a copy of Sir Paul’s handwritten lyrics to “Oh! Darling” on Potlatch notepaper. Febles said he acquired the duplicate from the Liverpool Beatles Museum that retains the original.

Houdini wasn’t around but this original deck of Potlatch cards disappeared from a shelf in the new Potlatch Club before mysteriously re-appearing days later. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

However, one prized relic is no longer on display. Months ago, a deck of old playing cards, inscribed “Potlatch Club” in gold letters, had been exhibited under a glass dome in the library. Suddenly, the deck vanished. Febles said guests had already checked out and weren’t suspects. Five days later, the card deck magically reappeared right beside the glass dome. Perhaps borrowed by Potlatch ghosts for a friendly game of bridge.

Where’s Amelia?

We’re still looking, though recent events seem to offer the possibility, the possibility I emphasize, that we may find out what happened to aviatrix Amelia Earhart, who, along with navigator Fred Noonan, vanished in their twin-engine Lockheed Model 10E Electra as they attempted to fly around the world.

Here’s a recent report from Travel Noire: “U.S. researchers have announced a new mission to locate Amelia Earhart’s lost plane. … The expedition … follows compelling satellite imagery that potentially shows parts of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E protruding from the sand on Nikumaroro, a remote island in Kiribati, approximately 1,000 miles from Fiji.”

We shall see. But this “news” has popped Earhart back into the news.

She vanished in 1937, 88 years ago if you’re counting, and few mysteries have been as durable, few people as eternally alluring as Earhart. You would be hard-pressed to find a contemporary comparison to match her.

She has an official agent and website. Hilary Swank played her in a movie. There have been many books. And there’s Amelia Earhart Elementary School at 1710 E. 93rd St. in the city’s Calumet Heights neighborhood.

Where’s Amelia?
(Viking/TNS)

Also an exciting new book, “The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage that Made an American Icon” by Laurie Gwen Shapiro. Set for formal publication on July 15, it has already created a buzz, with a lengthy excerpt in The New Yorker magazine and a number of favorable reviews. David Grann, the author of such bestsellers as “The Wager” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” says the book is “an exhilarating tale of the adventurous life of Amelia Earhart and the remarkable relationship that helped to forge her legend … stripping away the myths and revealing something far more profound and intricate and true.” Publishers Weekly calls it a “nuanced reprisal of Earhart’s life (that) certainly tarnishes her reputation, but thereby makes her saga all the more captivating.”

And makes the story of her husband all the more disgusting.

His name was George Palmer Putnam, who had published aviator Charles Lindbergh’s hugely successful life story before he met Earhart. On the prowl for another such novelty and hero, he glommed onto her, taken by her modest accomplishments but also her physical attractiveness and charisma.

He wooed her and he promoted her. He’s the one who gave her the “Lady Lindy” tag and further cemented their relationship by having her write her own book, tour the country in her own plane, give hundreds of interviews, embark on a lecture tour, serve as the “aviation editor” of Cosmopolitan magazine and endorse all sorts of products, including cigarettes.

Smart he was, shrewd too. And a master manipulator who left his own wife to marry Earhart. (And, unusually for the time, Earhart did not adopt Putnam’s last name). No question he pushed her but did he push her too far?

Read the book. But know that you will find a man about whom writer Gore Vidal, whose father was a partner with Putnam and Earhart in an aviation venture, said, “I never knew anyone who liked Putnam. It was quite interesting. Everybody who knew him disliked him. Some people disliked him and found him amusing and some people disliked him and found him unamusing.”

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Certainly, many of you know some basics of Earhart’s life and a few know of her local connections, even though she wasn’t here long.

Born and raised in Kansas in 1897, she and her family moved around a bit before coming here in 1914. Her father, Edwin, was a lawyer with a dangerous relationship with booze, and her mother, also named Amelia but called Amy, was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. So, in 1914, Amy and her two daughters (Amelia and Muriel) came to Chicago at the invitation of friends and lived in the Beverly neighborhood home of their friends. Amelia, soon to begin her senior year, found the chemistry lab at nearby Morgan Park High School looked “just like a kitchen sink.” So she traveled north to spend her senior year at the highly regarded Hyde Park High School, graduating as a member of the class of 1915.

She did little to distinguish herself — no activities noted in the yearbook — and then it was off to college. She worked as a social worker and got hooked on airplanes. She had her first flying lesson early in 1921 and, in six months, bought her first plane.

In 1928, she was asked to be a passenger with male aviators on a flight across the Atlantic Ocean, emphasis on passenger. Together with pilot Bill Stultz and co-pilot Louis Gordon, she flew in the airplane Friendship, acting as navigator on the flight. On June 18, after 20 hours of flying, they landed in Wales and she became the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air. Acclaim was fast and furious.

After lively visits to New York City and Boston, she came here and the celebrations and events were all but overwhelming. She visited Hyde Park High School, where a band played “Back in Your Own Back Yard”; spoke at the Union League Club and at Orchestra Hall; was cheered by large crowds as she was paraded through the Loop; heard about Mayor Thompson’s idea for a lakefront airport to be named Amelia Earhart Field.

Headlines blared: “Old Hyde Park School Friends Fete Girl Flyer.”

Earhart spoke: “I’ve always loved Chicago.”

Famous forever for being lost, there is no denying that she was an inspiration for self-determined feminists and everyday daredevils, but I now think of her also as shy and vulnerable, a victim of shrewd manipulation by a slick operator.

Doris Rich, author of “Amelia Earhart: A Biography,” published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1989, has said, “The one thing that she really feared was that nothing would happen. She had to have an important life, and that meant you had to have adventure.”

That she did, but at what cost?

rkogan@chicagotribune.com

By MARCIA DUNN

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The International Space Station’s first visitors from India, Poland and Hungary headed back to Earth on Monday, wrapping up a private mission and catching a ride home with SpaceX.

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Their capsule undocked from the orbiting lab and aimed for a splashdown the next morning in the Pacific off the Southern California coast.

The short, privately financed mission marked the first time in more than 40 years that India, Poland and Hungary saw one of their own rocket into orbit. The three astronauts were accompanied by America’s most experienced space flier, Peggy Whitson, who works for Axiom Space, which chartered the flight. They launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on June 25.

India’s Shubhanshu Shukla, Poland’s Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski and Hungary’s Tibor Kapu conducted dozens of experiments during their stay. They also fielded calls from their countries’ prime ministers as well as schoolchildren.

“We will spread the word in our countries that these things are within our reach. These things are possible even for smaller countries like ours,” Kapu said during Sunday’s farewell ceremony, which ended in an emotional group hug.

Shukla noted that “it’s truly a miracle” when humanity comes together for a common goal.

“The sky is no longer the limit. We can explore space,” added Uznanski-Wisniewski.

This image provided by NASA and Axiom Space shows a SpaceX capsule undocking from the International Space Station, Monday July 14, 2025, targeting a splashdown in the Pacific, carrying visiting crew Axiom Space’s Peggy Whitson, Hungary’s Tibor Kapu, India’s Shubhanshu Shukla and Poland’s Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski. (NASA via AP)

Uznanski-Wisniewski took special pride in the first pierogies in space. He took up the cabbage and mushroom-stuffed dumplings, which were freeze-dried in advance for easy cooking in zero gravity.

Their three countries shared the cost of the mission, paying more than $65 million apiece.

It was Axiom’s fourth station trip since 2022. The Houston company’s clientele includes the wealthy as well as countries seeking representation in space. NASA embraces commercial spaceflight, helping to set the stage for private space stations in the works by Axiom and others, as well as lunar landers.

This photo provided by Axiom Space shows the 11 astronauts aboard the International Space Station on Sunday July 13, 2025 sharing a group hug ahead of Monday’s planned departure of the private crew of four. (Axiom Space via AP)

The space station’s seven full-time residents remain behind in orbit, representing the U.S., Russia and Japan. Four of them will be replaced in a few weeks by a fresh crew launched for NASA by SpaceX.

“Safe journey home to the best planet in the solar system,” the space station’s Anne McClain radioed as the private crew departed.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By CORA LEWIS

NEW YORK (AP) — A “click-to-cancel” rule, which would have made it easier for consumers to end unwanted subscriptions, has been blocked by a federal appeals court days before it was set to go into effect. But there are ways to end those subscriptions and memberships, even if they take some work.

The rule would also have required companies to disclose when free trials and promotional offers would end and let customers cancel recurring subscriptions as easily as they started them. But even without the new federal guidance, here are some ways to stay on top of subscription and membership fees.

Use calendar reminders and regularly review your bills

Experts at the Consumer Federation of America recommend setting calendar reminders for whenever a free trial period ends, to alert yourself to cancel promotional offers before the real recurring costs kick in. The auto-enrollment process, in which the company does not remind the consumer via email that a trial is about to end and higher monthly payments will begin, was also at the heart of the FTC’s rule.

“No subscription business model should be structured to profit from a gauntlet-style cancellation process,” said Erin Witte, Director of Consumer Protection for the Consumer Federation of America, in a statement on the click-to-cancel rule.

Regularly reviewing your credit card and debit card bills can also help you keep track of any recurring charges — including price increases you may have missed or that you didn’t anticipate when trying out a new membership or subscription.

Know the terms and conditions of a given subscription

“Companies make it easy for consumers to click to sign up and easy for the companies to automatically withdraw funds from consumers’ accounts,” said Shennan Kavanagh, Director of Litigation at the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) in a statement on the FTC’s click-to-cancel rule. “People should not (have to) spend months trying to cancel unwanted subscriptions.”

Given the FTC’s vacated rule, though, companies may still legally require that customers cancel memberships or subscriptions by phone, even as they permit signing up, enrolling, and paying bills online. Consumer advocates say this places an extra burden of time and energy on the consumer to stop an unwanted recurring fee, but sometimes knowing the terms of the subscription and getting on the phone is worth the trouble.

There are some services that unenroll you

Apps like Rocket Money and services like Trim, which is accessed through a browser, can keep track of your recurring monthly fees and subscriptions, for free — or for a fee — and can help you catch new ones or even unsubscribe from some services.

For parents, especially, a service like Trim could help inform them that a child has started a new subscription, game or membership before the fees recur. And Rocket Money will actively work to end unwanted subscriptions for you, for a monthly price. If the company can’t successfully end or cancel the subscription or membership, it will give the customer the information needed to do so. Trim also provides this service, in its premium form, for an additional fee.

Resist deals when canceling

The FTC is currently moving forward with preparations for a trial involving Amazon’s Prime program, which accuses the retailer of enrolling consumers in its Prime program without their consent and making it difficult to cancel subscriptions.

Often, when a consumer tries to cancel a subscription for something like Prime, which offers free delivery and streaming video, the company will offer a month or more of the subscription at a promotional rate — half off, or at other, better-seeming values, to entice a customer to stay. Staying strong in the face of what may appear to be a good deal can help you stop recurring monthly fees before you forget to cancel them again.

Agreeing to yet another trial or promotional rate, which is another on-ramp to auto-enrollment, just continues the cycle, according to consumer advocates.

What would the FTC’s rule have done?

The FTC’s rule would have required businesses to obtain a customer’s consent before charging for memberships, auto-renewals and programs linked to free trials. The businesses would have also had to disclose when free trials and promotional offers would end.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said this week that the FTC made a procedural error by failing to come up with a preliminary regulatory analysis, which is required for rules whose annual impact on the U.S. economy is more than $100 million.

The FTC said that it did not have to come up with a preliminary regulatory analysis because it initially determined that the rule’s impact on the national economy would be less than $100 million. An administrative law judge decided that the economic impact would be more than the $100 million threshold, and the court decided to vacate the rule.

Former President Joe Biden’s administration had included the FTC’s proposal as part of its “Time is Money” initiative, which aimed to crack down on consumer-related hassles.

“The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.”