Ditch Fish
• David Sherman •

In years gone by, it was common practice for political candidates to hire a wagon with a band to head a parade through town. Bands being rather scarce at the time — even more so bands riding on wagons through the streets of a town — this would invariably draw a crowd. A crowd would follow until the bandwagon stopped, only to find that when the wagon stopped, the band stopped, and the polly-tickin’ began.

Most would listen, at least for a little while, if for no other reasons than curiosity and simple politeness — after all, the man had hired a band on a wagon! Some would stay longer. Nothing else to do. Maybe this guy would be better than the last one. They might even stay through the whole speech in the desperate hope that the band would play again. Some would stay to the bitter end, however many speeches that might entail, and usually just stared at the purdy wagon and that shiny-big-brass-tuba-horn. The curious, the bored, and the slack-jawed, these were the founding members of most modern political parties… and whoever collected the most of them WON! Is it any wonder, with such a system for choosing our leaders, that we bestride an empire whose influence spans the globe?

Note, I do not say “the founding fathers;” that would be an altogether different group. The people in that group were never even in the crowd, nor were they on the wagon. They were not even among those who simply watched the bandwagon go by their homes yet chose not to follow. Truth is, their homes are far away, in another part of town where such a coarse spectacle as a bandwagon would be neither appreciated nor allowed. They can barely hear the band from their homes… But they’re the ones who paid for it, as well as the shiny-big-brass-tuba-horn and the wondrous, purdy wagon on which they ride. They’re also the ones who picked the politician who’s giving the speeches they told him to give.

Here’s the scary part: We, the electorate, have not changed very much over the intervening years. Some of us will follow politics for a little while, just before elections. Hey, it’s a wagon with a band on top! Some of us listen for a long time. Maybe this man (or woman, now that those years have gone by) will be better than the last one. Sadly, the slack-jawed crowd is still in attendance. In fact, in recent years their numbers have exploded. Unfortunately, the largest group of all got no mention above. They are the ones who never even bothered to look out their windows, and that group comprised the overwhelming majority of the town! It still does!

Scarier still: The Founding Fathers (now very well capitalized, thank you very much!) have changed even less, save that their techniques have been somewhat refined over the years. For the most part, the wondrous wagon with the band on top has been replaced with TV ads.  For the lovers of music, there’s talk radio. And for the slack-jawed, you can even buy an entire alleged “News Network” (Fairness and Balance subject to negotiation). Once in while they even trot out a wagon, just to give things that “folksy” air. Of course the new wagon is much purdier than the old one, but this one is also plastered with links to websites, and the band has been replaced by a killer PA system and that shiny-big-brass-tuba-horn in now just somebody’s MP3 player.

Many of the new wagons also now have Bibles, lots of Bibles. I’m not sure why. If I held something to be as Holy as I believe many of these people hold their Bibles, I surely would not want it sullied in the dirty waters of politics. But that’s just me. Hey! What if the Bibles were just put there by The Founding Fathers as a way to lure in those to whom the Bibles are Holy? No, that’s going too far. No one could be so callously disrespectful of the sanctity of someone else’s Faith as to co-opt the words of their Holy Scripture, and thus through their duplicity, many of its followers, just for political gain. Could they?

I think I would check those Bibles for hooks — hooks that might be attached to pole held by one of those Founding Fathers just waiting to reel in another one. (More likely a paid flunky thereof, as Founding Fathers rarely do their own reeling anymore.) I guess the same might be said of their internet links, their radio, their TV, and all the rest of it as well, though I can’t imagine where one would set the hooks.

Lastly, and before anyone gets too enamored with the whole fishing analogy, let me clarify one thing: We, the electorate, are not viewed by The Founding Fathers of either party as sly barracudas or huge and powerful tuna or grouper. We are not fierce marlins ranging the deep open Sea. We are tilapia, and we live in a ditch. For the most part, we have been farm-raised, in very small ponds, on a strictly limited diet whose nutritional essence would make gray water vomit.

Sinclair Lewis, meet Upton Sinclair.

A Thousand Island Lullaby
• Dan Reiter •

It is always easy going and very pleasant with a light tail wind, and if you look behind you will see a v-shaped plume rippling over water grooved like elephant hide. The stand-up paddleboard is a biblical vessel — postured, princely, weightless; its glide is cosmic, with elements of the immortal, the Venetian serenade, and shades of Charon crossing the river Styx. It is the nearest you will ever get to walking on water, and by far the finest, most tranquil way to enjoy the beauty of our river.

When I was still quite young, my uncle, Doctor Truth, and I would launch our old canoe into alligator blackwaters in search of wonderment and adventure. We coasted along cracked and rust-dripped seawalls and through corrugated storm tunnels, imagining our paddles as interdimensional instruments capable of pushing the very sun through the sky. Had we stopped rowing, time itself might have frozen still, and so we called them ors (instead of oars) because, in our innocence, they represented to us a singular control over our collective destiny.

One shining morning, the good Doctor offered up this mental exercise: “Envision a world controlled by thought alone,” he told me, “where the future flows from your perception, like water from a hose. My dear lad, it would be a nearly impossible trick of quantum physics to distinguish this world from the real one.”

I was nine-years-old at the time, and his words flew high over my head, into the cloudless sky, without touching me. But he spoke them well enough, and somehow I was able to store their lilting melody in reserve. Today, drifting past the weed-thatched point into the warm, syrupy waters of the channel, I recalled them. Recalled them as I pushed out into the open shallows and the sun fell behind purple cloud, like a phoenix egg dropped onto a downy bedspread, to spray bright tangerine haze over the mangroves. The under-light was transcendental, and though I racked my brain for the correct words to describe it, the only phrase that came to mind was “City of Gold,” which did not do the picture justice at all.

A manatee bubbled up and rolled free about twenty feet ahead — gray, grizzled, its pelt like a mossy boulder, one heavy black fin slapping the water. The herd was lolling over the sandbar in twos and threes… Was it my imagination, or were they laughing? Drowsy, drunk from long, hot hours of mating, probably. I respectfully veered south and skirted the post-coital beasts.

What words best describe that feeling you get on a glassy morning, when you first paddle out into the ocean and the light is all slow and pooled on the faces of the waves so that they have that look of wet leather, and the whole of the world is rolling out before you? It is the same taste as afternoon on the Banana River, with the wind dying sweetly and the pinks and ambers melting from sky to cloud to water, and the manatees laughing at you from the beneath the molten, silver skin of the universe.

I was on the brink of some epiphany just then, but my thoughts were interrupted by two dorsal fins, oil-black against the City of Gold, cutting gentle lines toward me. They slid against the paint-splashed backdrop — dolphins, in all their mermaid grace and power — and surfaced with smiling eyes as they passed me by, headed north somewhere. A dolphin encounter is sometimes only a momentary soaring of the heart, an inspired breath, and then it is gone.

At last the searing orange disc dropped beneath the flame-rimmed clouds, into that sweet spot between sky and land, to set the river sparkling… Words are hopeless, somehow, to describe the dark, sensual outline of mangroves and the color of the under-lit mist behind. Was it peach? Saffron? Only Monet could say it properly, or Rick Piper, possibly. I aimed my board west, held the paddle slack, and drifted for a while. The sun freed itself from the blanket now, and after a while I had to turn my eyes away to blink at a distant fisherman with the blinding circle imprinted in my lids.

Near the tip of West Point stands a strange blonde castle, a tall, kinked and narrow house that lurches over the open water as if on stilts. I aimed now for this castle, with the sky growing darker and bluer in the east. Before the mouth of the Edwards Bay I circled back to take in the final gilt and roselight flourishes of the sunset, with the low clouds swirling in distant, smoky figurines on the reddening horizon. Again the words were insufficient — prairie sun, flaming horsemen, charcoal ghosts, bloody sky, Navajo moon — none of these could capture the essence of this sunset.

Paddling home now, the low sun like a comet’s head, its tail spread out over the water, sparkling and beaming with fire, I saw the clouds with such clarity, knew them in their seven-mile distance, could physically feel the sun bending onward, radiating over another City of Gold down the line, and I felt sure that science was wrong, that really the sun was tracing a glowing hoop around the earth, which was the center of all things.

And then the sunlight dripped into the mangroves, and I could look directly at it, and the words finally came to me. They were perfect… The thin-fingered clouds banding the sun with layers of color looked exactly like the old logo of the Comfort Inn hotels. Comfort Inn. It was uncanny.

Then it was gone for good and the world was diminished somehow, as if in the crisp blueness of dusk everything were lifted from a spell… The low, drifting clouds seemed so close now, tangible, as if I could lift a finger and touch the coolness inside… The river, pale silver, pink, powder blue like liquid mirrorglass, was no more dense than the air itself. Two ducks, stiff as wooden dolls, streaked overhead, also aiming north. Behind them, an airplane, gnat-tiny upon the white clouds. The distant western clouds, drained of color, looked like mangroves themselves.

I turned homeward; a flock of pelicans soared in the eastern sky, rose over ocean and muted canvas of low plum, lemonade, and high periwinkle, and climbed higher without a single flap of wings. I came into the lee waters of the bay with that familiar feeling of a session ended, of walking up the beach but still longing for more…

Now, among the fringed and burnt coconut palms (dead, all dead from the freeze), my thoughts grew darker… The day-to-day struggles crept back in, the tiny fights, the worries and pains and concessions of life on land, like some strange oil pumping into my mind. I had a mad revelation then, to turn back, to paddle into the night and the forever stars, but in my moment of hesitation the water before me frothed up… Manatees, spooked from their slumbers, churned up the shoal waters, blasting and throttling.

I cast a final glance westward, at the vanishing wisps of smoke and light, left there by some magician, and I paddled forward, into the violence.

In the gray, shallow dusk I saw my house, my backyard, the sad palm trees… I thought of my wife, my children, and finally of those words — “Comfort Inn.” The madness subsided, I pushed on, on through the thrashing of the manatees, into the safety of the deep cut, and finally, home, home, home.

Big Sis
• Rick La Claire •

It may interest my readership (Hi, Mom!) to know that I have an older sister. She is six years older, to be precise, and that had a lot of advantages when I was young. As a matter of fact, it still does.

When I was young, we had a built-in babysitter. She being related, we got away with murder. Especially since about age eight, when I was already as tall as she was. We’d tease her and disobey her — nothing serious really (after all, she was my sister) — but we would torment her to our hearts’ content, knowing full well that she would never rat us out to Mom and Dad. She just wasn’t like that. I hope my parents paid her well.

My sister was popular with the boys in high school and usually had a boyfriend. Now I don’t know what made her so popular in that department — in fact just thinking about it gives me the heebie-jeebies — but it afforded me a unique window on the dating process. How? Because we were there! Yep, you guessed it, my Mom and Dad would let my sister go anywhere with her gentleman callers (even the drive-in movies — a.k.a. “The Passion Pit”) just as long as her two little brothers could go too.

Consequently, I saw every Elvis movie ever made by age 11. My little brother has a joke about that: ”Hey, what’s your favorite Elvis movie?” Of course you’re stymied — they all stank. Then he’d interject with “I like the one where he sings a song, gets in a fight, and kisses a girl.” So now, whenever “Elvis Week” hits the idiot box, I insist we watch every movie up to the fulfillment of those three criteria: the song, the fight, and the kiss — not necessarily in that order. In some Elvis movies it only takes five minutes. In others, up to 15 minutes — which is an eternity when watching an Elvis movie.

As a kid, I always thought my sister would be a famous actress. She appeared in such high school classics as “Life With Father” and “The King and I.” In “The King…” she had a major role: Tuptim, the slave girl/concubine. I was in sixth grade at the time, and though I was no big fan of musicals, I was impressed. There should be some kind of an award for a performance like that.

Those were the days… And the coolest thing was the music. Even the Elvis music… My big sis loved her 45s, and I don’t mean guns. I don’t know how collectable those old records are, but she had ‘em all. No “Sun” releases mind you, but we bopped to all of Elvis’ early RCA stuff (the tunes with Scotty Moore and Bill Black) right up through the schmaltzy Jordanaires backup. “All Shook Up,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Don’t Be Cruel”… My baby brother and I played the grooves off that stuff. Here I was, maybe six or seven, getting exposed to the cutting edge of early rock n’ roll, all because I had the good fortune of having an older sister.

We cut our teeth on Dion and the Belmonts, the Rays, the Halos, the Orlons, Dee Dee Sharp, and Chubby Checker. Chubby Checker! First it was “The Twist” in 1960 (not to be confused with a 1962 spinoff by Joey Dee and the Starliters called “The Peppermint Twist” — “buppa doopa, buppa buppa doopa…”), then the Chubster comes back with “The Hucklebuck.” Not quite as big a seller, maybe because “hucklebuck” is urban slang for… uh… Well, if you don’t know what “hucklebucking” is, you’re probably better off. Ah, but then came “Let’s Twist Again Like We Did Last Summer.” What a concept! How come nobody else followed that idea? Your act would never die. I’d buy “Let’s Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida Again Like We Did Last Summer.” Wouldn’t you?

Of course it wasn’t all Elvis, Dion, and Chubby. My sister was a girl, and there was a lot of wimpy stuff in that collection too. Ricky Nelson (a slice of white bread — bleah); Pat Boone (a whole loaf of white bread — double bleah); the Beach Boys; lots of Paul Anka; the Four Seasons (you know, Frankie Valli may have walked like a man, but he shore didn’t sing like one).

But even among the wimpy stuff were some truly momentous cuts, namely “Dominique” by the Singing Nun. Remember that one? I challenge any man alive to sing more than the opening eight syllables. What the heck was that chick singing about? The tune’s in French, fer chrissakes! How’d that ever make it to the jukebox? And was the Singing Nun any relation to the Flying Nun? They have the same last name. And how come no Hollywood bigshot ever came up with the concept of the Flying Singing Nun? And why didn’t they release “Let’s ‘Dominique’ Again Like We Did Last Summer”? Missed opportunities, all. The poor Singing Nun, destined to be just another one-hit wonder.

And boy, are there a bunch of those in that pile. How about “Johnny Angel” by Shelly Fabares? Or “Bobby’s Girl” by Marcie Blane? Or “Johnny Jingo” by none other than the fabulous Hayley Mills? Ah, but the holy grail of all one-hit wonders just has to be “The Ballad of the Green Berets” by Sgt. Barry Sadler. That song has it all: vibrato vocals, a marching snare beat, trumpets, and a plea for all good men to “jump and die.” The first time I heard that song I rushed out to enlist. Sign me up, Uncle Sam! I want those silver wings on my chest! I didn’t get very far. I was only eight.

My big sis never did go to Hollywood. Nope. But she did go to college. She started at Elmira College and then transferred to Syracuse University, majoring in library science. I never understood the scientific angle, but I figured she was just doing it so she could reap the big bucks of being a librarian until her acting career took off. After all, she’d been Tuptim! No self-respecting Singing Nun fan would let a hefty credential like that go unflashed. But you know what? She actually made hay with that library thing. And last year, after several decades of deciphering Dewey Decimals, she retired.

She spent most of her working life in the D.C. area and I gotta give her credit: she did well. My brothers and I visited as often as we could and became familiar with Northern Virginia. When she announced that she and her husband would be retiring to the mountains of North Carolina, my baby brother and I decided we would make one last visit, for nostalgia’s sake.

This was last November, and when I boarded my flight in Melbourne it was sunny, 83 degrees, and I was in shorts and a t-shirt. In D.C. it was 40, raining, and threatening snow. I was underdressed indeed, and froze my butt waiting for my brother-in-law. But he was punctual, and shortly I was in that familiar house in Centerville. Soon the cocktails were flowing and she fetched that historic rack of vinyl and asked “Are you interested in any of these?”

Was I! My brother and I pounced on those 45s like Rush Limbaugh on a prescription pad. A veritable avalanche of childhood memories poured forth. Here we were again, eight and five years old, spinning the sacred discs on the old Montgomery Ward Monophonic (which we affectionately referred to as “The Chopper”). Remember record players? Remember taping a jackknife to the tone arm so the needle would track? Remember needles? But most of all, remember those great songs?

No, we weren’t playing the records (the Chopper died decades ago). We didn’t need to. One of us would seize a random platter from the rack and hold it up. Immediately we would launch into song: “A-well-a-bless-a mah soul, a-what’s a-wrong with me,” feigning the twist and literally grooving like the Pelvis himself, record after record, boring everyone else I’m sure, but having the time of our lives. (The booze may have helped, too.)

Anyway, two days later I was back in 83 and sunny, vaguely remembering that my sister said she’d “send them on.” Apparently their new mountain digs would not accommodate the old relics, and they could be mine if I desired. I presumed they would wind up in the garbage.

I still own and maintain a turntable. I peruse yard sales and am always game to buy old LPs. They’re cheap — usually a quarter or so — and I’ve found some great deals. Recently I even found Dark Side of the Moon in unplayed condition, replete with the poster and postcards, just a few doors down. I guess most folks don’t put the same stock I do in old vinyl. With the advent of the CD, I suppose most folks just can’t tolerate the hiss, pops, and skips. To me, those imperfections are the sound of my childhood, and I don’t mind a bit.

Then, nearly one month to the day after she said she’d “send them on,” the records arrived on my doorstep. As always, she was true to her word.

My wife and children groan when I break these things out, as do most of my friends. I like to brag that I can clear a room in two songs from this collection — that comes in handy when party guests linger too late — but I don’t play these things for them, I play them for me.

Everybody needs a big sister. Especially one with such a big heart. Thank you, Big Sis. Thank you very much!

Spirits of 1776
• Judy Forney •

… or Declaration of Interdependence … or All my Rowdy Friends are Gonna Sing Tonight

If you’ve studied animated television, then you realize I ripped off my title style from old episodes of “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.” That’s called freedom of speech, or maybe freedom of the press. … Or maybe my pilfering doesn’t even fall under any constitutional law or amendment. And that’s okay, because I was born in the good old US of A.

I can be ignorant of facts. And just like Squirrel and his buddy Moose who both foiled many a bomb explosion planned by the nefarious Boris and Natasha, I am a great American. (Nah, “Our Heroes” weren’t Canadian. That’s just propaganda put out by the Dudley Do-Right people). I know I’m true red, white, and blue because I listen to the radio. Seriously, if I were to call the Sean Hannity Show, Mr.Hannity would be able to tell just by the sound of my voice.

Also, if you’ve studied the Revolutionary War (like I just did for a painstaking 17 minutes on the internet), then you are aware that the colonists, though somewhat angry with the British tea taxes, were really pissed about being dinged with a surcharge on molasses, the Caribbean molasses New Englanders distilled into 90-proof rum. Now the tea thing has never made sense to me. I’d possibly understand if way back in the 1700s they’d blended specialty brews and the girls had gone out on harbor raids with the guys.

“Taxes on Lotus Blossom Green? Dash those Redcoats!”

“No worries. We men will hoist it over the ship’s side and into the bay!”

“But what about our oxidants that need anti-ing?”

“… Or our cellulite that needs smoothing?”

“Dang it all, ladies, we can’t put up with English oppression!”

“… But it is July. Short shorts season! We need our tea!”

Hmmm… See, it could have happened that way when you figure there’s not a lot we gals wouldn’t pay or do to un-wrinkle or de-bump. As a group, we very well may have waved white flags and happily learned to drive on the wrong side of the road.

Anyway, back to the rum. As I’ve pointed out, women of the past may have been willing to pay anything for the perfect cup of detox, but I’m pretty sure the men would have needed their choice of elixir to stay cheap and available. You might think that would have been because a guy needed a nip or two to convince his wife that real dudes wore ruffles…

“Benjamin! Why are you in my closet… again?”

“I just wanted to borrow the white organza. You know, the one with yards of lace… ”

Or you might imagine that donning those tight breeches required a flagon-o-courage before a man went strutting off to town meetings. Unless of course he happened to be Dan’l Boone. (Even as a 12-year-old girl I thought Fess Parker was hot.) But the real reason the rebels gathered to rabble over rum? Yep, that’s right: Life, liberty, and the pursuit of the perfect neighborhood bar.

Fast forward a few centuries. I sometimes dress out of my hubby’s closet. He, mostly, stays out of mine. But we, in league with a couple of compatriots, have mustered together to carry on were our forefathers left off. The four of us have been out fighting the good fight. And it’s not always been with a cup of tea. We’ve wandered into bars so big and boisterous that our conversations had to be shouted. We’ve cabbed it to faraway dives rumored to be “IT,” only to find the dives had already dove off the deep end. We’ve soldiered through unbearable conditions: awful music, horrid food, snail-paced service. And what’s worst of all? Just like what George Washington endured — paddling across nearly frozen rivers, trudging uphill in the snow, and then finally shouldering our weary way through a crowd to find nothing to do but order another round. No pool tables, no darts, and — YIKES! — no karaoke. I can report to you that it’s been a long, treacherous, and sometimes headachy journey. But it’s been worth it. Our quest has at last led us to the perfect place to party. We’ve found a haven where we can cue up, tee off, score a few bullseyes, and belt out a couple of rowdy tunes.

So come on down to the Pour House on South Patrick Drive. Join me, Moose, Boris, and Natasha in a drink, a game of eight-ball, and a song. As Gretchen Wilson sings:

“I work hard, I play harder. I’m a good time’n American daughter… ”

Yep, Mr. Hannity won’t need to tell you that, along with the frogs in our voices, you’re hearing patriotism.

Not that I’d want that guy in “my” bar. But hey, it’s still a free country.

Happy Fourth y’all!

Excerpts from the Diary of a Three-Year-Old Gourmet
• Dan Reiter •

April 21: The morning’s menu was uninspired: cold banana yogurt followed up by a single, overripe banana, sliced into 3/4″ medallions. Pancakes with sweet syrup would have added much-needed texture to the menu. Perhaps the addition of an amuse-bouche, a chocolate caramel truffle, or even a graham cracker would have loosened the palate before the banana course. My suggestion to this effect was snubbed by the chef. A plastic yellow spoon was thrust before me, and I was instructed to eat the yogurt quickly, as it was apparently time for school.

It is ridiculous to eat banana yogurt with a yellow spoon, of course. I refused it categorically, and informed the chef that there was a perfectly good green one in the drawer. She stiffened up, but retrieved it. I had the notion, then, that purple flatware might be better suited for the occasion, and told her as much. She seemed displeased, but brought out the purple spoon nonetheless. I thought better of it, traded it out for the green one, and the meal commenced.

The top skin of the yogurt was curdled, so I scooped it out and spread it carefully along the underside of the table. The banana medallions were too soft, so I left them. The overall presentation of the meal was shoddy, even shameful.

April 24: For my mid-morning snack, a bowl of Chilean blueberries — firm, cold, plump as grapes. To best appreciate the heady flavor of this delicacy, pack a number of fruit into the cheek and let sit for at least two minutes before breaking into the skin. This technique, known as the steep and squash, may slow the pace of conversation, but it is well worth the wait, as it never fails to produce the liveliest of spirits once the juice begins to flow down your shirt!

April 24: Tonight we dined at Café Margaux. Dinner commenced with baked Brie encrusted with macadamia and cashew nuts, and drizzled with an orange merlot sauce. I have a special affinity for cheese, but this was not cheese. It was a failed art project. My companions, perplexed at my disapproval, wondered how I could judge the dish without taking so much as a single bite. Such gentle people, who are not connoisseurs, are regularly mystified by my methods. As it was no time to try and illuminate the ignorant, I moved onto the bread without further explanation.

Like most French restaurants, Café Margaux does its bread right — warm, soft and white in the middle, with a workable, flaky crust. Unfortunately, I was served an inadequate portion. When I climbed atop the table to help myself to more, the basket was rudely pulled away from me and returned to the kitchen. (Note: the three essential elements to a good meal are: food, ambiance, and company. I am beginning to understand why so many gastronomes take their fine dining alone. Imagine… casting out the bread, when by all rights it should have been the Brie!)

The salad course I did not touch, as the chef committed the grave error of adding egg yolk to the mix. The fouled legumes were followed up by a plate of oak-smoked Norwegian salmon rosettes with caviar and traditional garnitures. The crackers were edible, but the rest was a colossal failure, completely unpalatable.

By now, I was sensing a lack of motivation on the part of the kitchen. My younger brother, who is sensitive to such things, had begun to toss various items to the floor — silverware, napkins, small plastic toys. Presently, he began to shriek. It seemed to me an overly dramatic response to the disastrous third course, but justified, so I joined in. I was promptly served a Lunchable — peanut butter and jelly — which I graciously accepted. I took special pleasure in smearing the excess jelly along the underskirt of the tablecloth.

The main course was a pear, Brie and walnut stuffed pork loin in a Bartlett and Poire William sauce. The sauce was tart, dark, sweet, and suitable for dipping caviar crackers into, but the meat was clearly an absolute tragedy, and did not require tasting.

The dessert, a crème brûlée, had all the proper elements, and bordered on perfection. Café Margaux falls into that particular category of restaurant that can botch the entrée, soup, and main dish, but somehow manage to elevate itself to two-star Michelin status when it comes time for dessert.

May 2: The newest fashion in certain foodie circles is the “art vegetable” plate. Here, raw carrots are peeled into strips, fanned across the plate, and sprinkled with raisins and honey. Broccoli is spread in a paste atop crostinis, served end to end with ranch dressing. Black beans are sculpted into the form of dogs, horses, flowers, etc. It seems to me the art vegetable movement is yet another attempt to revive an outmoded, failed idea with inventive presentation.

Last night I informed the chef that while the undiscriminating palate might be fooled by such base gimmicks, they were blatantly transparent and vulgar to me. I left the table without further word.

The next morning, the kitchen had the gall to bring out the same dish as the night before and serve it to me for breakfast, to catastrophic effect.

May 3: It seems the art vegetable movement has taken hold. Luckily, I have procured from a certain cabinet a bag of cheddar cheese Goldfish, which I relocated to a shoebox under my bed. I am inclined to suffer this current phase — which aims to threaten the very fabric of haute cuisine — in a protest of silence.

First Fish
• Rick LaClaire •

My father was not a fisherman. He wasn’t much for the outdoors, period. To him, being outside meant work, or chores, more exactly. He never shirked mowing, shoveling snow or patching the roof, but Dad preferred indoor pastimes like watching TV. He and my brothers were TV sports fans. Be it football, baseball, basketball or hockey, they had the yen. I never caught the habit for some reason. My wife thanks me. That does not mean my father and I never fished together.

As a child, like now, we had fantastic neighbors. Next door was Mr. Martin. He was older than Dad and an avid outdoorsman. He hiked the Adirondacks, mowed with a push mower (so’s not to scare the birds) and grew huge begonias. He knew every plant, bug, bird and critter by name in the North Woods, and I became his student very early on. Mr. Martin was always up to something interesting. Be it scouring the heavens with his massive telescope or feeding chickadees in the palm of his hand, the guy, to me, was a living field guide. The biggest favor Mr. Martin ever did though, was instilling in me a lifelong love of fishing.

By 1961, Pleasant Lake, by local standards, had been “fished-out years ago.” Despite being fronted by a sign claiming it was “The Home Of the Black Bass” (along with forty-one other lakes in New York) that “fished-out” prophecy rang true if it were trophies you were after. But there were many overlooked species in that pond, species willing to spend their existence putting a smile on the face of a kid. And it was in Pleasant Lake, guided by Mr.Martin, that I caught my first fish at the tender age of seven.

Whoever invented sunfish must have been a kid. Sunfish were made for kids. They require no skill to catch (they’ll hit a gob of baloney on a safety pin), put a bend in your rod, and treat you again in the frying pan. No one bothered much with sunnies in the Home Of the Black Bass and they were plentiful and fat.

The bluegill is the most abundant sunfish, and if not a bullhead catfish, the bluegill was nearly every Upstate kid’s first catch. My first catch was more special. Mine was a pumpkinseed sunfish, and a big one at that. I caught two more that day and one whopping yellow perch. My older brother and Dad were there too, and by day’s end we had a bucketful. I was hooked for life.

So what’s so special about catching your first fish? Let me put it this way: though it was almost fifty years ago and I have no photographs, I have captured that moment for life. I can see the color of the rowboat we rented, hear the squeak of the oars, and hear my father as he cautioned: “Don’t horse him.” Even more vivid are the feelings; the thrill and the pride. I relive that every time I catch a fish. That first fish stays with you long after the bones have hit the garbage can.

There were no bones that night, though. A 10-quart galvanized bucket may not be a luxury aquarium, but those fish made it home alive. I released them in a fishless creek back in the woods, in black water barely deep enough to cover their backs. I was going to create my very own fishing hole. At first light the next day, I returned to check on my stock. They all lay on the bank, pale and lifeless. I watched as a local dog picked up a dead sunny and ran off into the bushes. I was only seven and knew nothing of pH, dissolved oxygen or species-specific water temperatures. My solution? I’d just have to go fishing again.

As big an impact as my first fish had on me, I don’t believe everyone takes it the same way. My daughter caught her first fish at age four. At four, I believe you are bombarded with so much new information on a daily basis that the impact of a first fish might just get lost in the shuffle. To prevent that, we took pictures. One hung for two years on the fridge. Now it is safely ensconced in an album of other fishing pictures, which unfortunately was full by the time my son caught his first.

My daughter’s first fish was a whiting, caught in the surf at Spessard North. The sun was going down, everything had that late-day golden glow, and she was smiling ear to ear with a deeply bent rod dragging the foot-long beast across the sand. A moment in time…

In the late ’90s, we had a fantastic seagrass bed at the river-end of my street in Melbourne Beach. It’s gone now, but back then it was a hotspot for redfish, trout, jacks, ladyfish, snook — just about anything you wanted. My son’s first fish was a small trout or a ladyfish (I’m not sure), caught right there. The reason I’m not sure is because I have two pictures, both taken when he was three. In both pictures he is in my canoe, in the same shirt, wearing the same “Rugrats” life preserver. Most likely, it was the same trip. But by the look on his face, I think it was the ladyfish. A couple of years later he drew a picture of the occasion, entitled “Caching My First Fish.” Arrows point to “Me” and “Dad.” But alas, I cannot tell the species from the drawing. Obviously it was a pretty important occasion if he drew a picture of it.

Neither my son nor my daughter fish much on their own. But they’ll join Dad on the beach when he goes, and neither will pass up a plate of the fried winnings. It doesn’t bother me they were not bitten as badly by the fishing bug. I have the pictures. Those moments were just as much fun for me as them. Never deny you live vicariously through your children.

I was present when most of my nephews caught their first fish. Thank you, Mr. Bluegill. I’ve hooked tarpon that were five feet long, landed mahi dolphin that tipped the scales at forty pounds, lost a sailfish or two and even won the snapper pool on the Miss Canaveral, but for some reason I’ll still fish for sunnies. Throw a couple kids in the mix and it’s all the better. There’s nothing like seeing a young face light up when the bobber dances. The same goes for old faces, by the way.

It had been a long time since I had the pleasure of turning a youngster on to the joy of catching that first fish. My children and nephews are all past their wonder years by now and I simply have no more subjects to initiate. Or so I thought. Then we had visitors from Buffalo for Easter.

I met Keith in 1974 when I was a junior in college. He lived below me and I remember the moment vividly. As usual, my roomies and I were drinking, the night was warm and we crowded our tiny student-complex balcony singing and banging away on whatever instruments were at hand. “Instruments” in those days could be anything from a baritone sax to an empty whiskey bottle; I was on guitar. Suddenly this red-haired kid bounded upstairs with a banjo: “What kind of music do you play?”

“Music” was hardly the word. I meant to say “Jug Band” but blurted “Bluegrass”.

“May I join you?”

Well, Keith joined me for the next twelve years. Not only did he introduce me to Bluegrass, he also introduced me to things like stage presence, dynamics, tight vocals, and how to duck a beer bottle without missing a note. He was an usher at my wedding, and I an usher at his. He got me my first good-paying job, at a workbench right next to him. And even after decades of having not worked together, we’ve remained friends; brothers, as it were.

Keith and his wife Marilyn have visited several times over the years, and this April it was with their college-age daughter, Amy. While packing fishing gear for the beach I casually asked Amy if she’d ever caught a fish. I was more than surprised to hear “No”.

“Why, that’s child abuse,” I said half-seriously. Alright! I whispered internally. Another First Fish! I’d thought those days were behind me.

Spring came late this year. And to top it off, at the height of our holy Tourist Season, the Powers That Be decided to “re-nourish” our beach, rendering our access unfit for any piscatorial recreation. We chose Coconut Point, a few miles south, for Amy’s initiation.

Conditions were far from perfect. Heavy shore break, onshore winds and a ripping southbound current required a quarter pound of lead, and even that wouldn’t hold. But I was determined. I sectioned a clam and baited two hooks. Then “The Surfer” appeared.

This kid — obviously a tourist — was apparently trying to learn to bodyboard. He knew nothing of shore current, or bodyboarding for that matter, and kept drifting into my line of cast. Seasoned surfers have always been courteous to fishermen in my experience, and are usually aware of their surroundings. This kid… After a brush with my monofilament (“What was that?!”) he got the idea and cleared out.

Then came the calico crabs. Those bastards can strip a clam from your line without a tremor, and they were thick. But we finally caught a fish, and Amy scored her First. Just look at that smile.

Thank you, Mr. Bluegill.

Thank you, Mr. Bullhead.

And for Easter Sunday, thank you Mr. Whiting.

One more First Fish…

No Stinking Excuse
• Judy Forney •

I was out riding my bike the other day and came up on one of those flashing signs warning of imminent roadwork. I didn’t know if the City or County or whomever was going to tear up roads, lay new sewer pipe, or pave a cycling lane (Now hey… There’s a good idea!) because the blinking lights didn’t spell out any reasons for the work. Besides, the “why” wasn’t what got my attention. It was the “when.”

“Work begins June 1. Expect periodic lane closures.”

“Wow,” I thought to myself. “They sure are giving the citizenry plenty of notice. I mean, June? Hell, that’s eons from now!”

I pedaled past the sign. And that’s when it dawned on me.

“Like sands through the hourglass, so go the days of our lives…”

Dawned? No, wrong word. That’s when it crushed me like a 273-ton cement mixer.

“… sands through the hourglass…”

June is not an eon away. All the love bugs, bees, and even the giant spider in my sink (who was crawling up and then skating down the porcelain sides like an eight-legged Tony Hawk) should have clued me in that June was here. Again.

“…days of our lives…”

I braked. Hard.

“Stop. Stop. Stop already!” I said to no one in particular. “Somebody better flip the freaking ancient timekeeping mechanism back over!”

I gulped water, drops dribbling down my chin. “I’m not crazy,” I said, and smiled at some guy who had just come out of a shop and was strolling down the sidewalk. “Lots of people talk to themselves,” I added to his back as he crossed the road… well away from me.

Pushing off again, I couldn’t figure out how it had happened. Where in the world had the days, weeks, and months gone? Forget about granular time sifting slowly and gracefully through an hourglass. This past year had howled out from under my feet with some sort of Steinbeckian wind straight out of “Grapes of Wrath.” I mean seriously. Can you believe it’s nearly summertime again? Wasn’t it just June, like, a month ago? I gotta cry foul. My birthday is the 25, and I refuse to turn 51 till I’ve worn out the warranty on 50. And I’m not even close to having done that. Am I? But then again how do I know if I don’t know? Hmmm… A conundrum…

O.K. No panic. What I needed was my own little “lane closure.” A few minutes detour off the road to think. This had happened to me once before. I had an entire year go by without having a clue as to where it had disappeared.

But back then I had a solid excuse. It was the year the twins were born. Show me anyone who’s not hazy over the first year after giving birth to multiples and I’ll show you someone who is… I don’t know, a celebrity millionaire with three au pairs and a shrink on speed dial. Also, my husband and I have photographic proof from way back then of a year well… spent. Snapshots of newborn babies. Diapered little crawlers. Birthday cake-smeared smiles and curls. So I guess you could say that even though I’d entered a fuzzy year, I’d come out again focused and toting two of my three favorite Forney Boys. But what about this current 12-month span of time? What’s my explanation for being so unprepared for June 2010?

I turned and rode my bike back toward home. The road sign still blinked its bright message. On; off; on; off.

“Expect delays… “

And that’s when I realized the truth. I don’t need no stinking excuse! There’s an old joke… something about life throwing lemons and making lemonade. Well you know what? Sometimes hurled citrus is hurled citrus and a girl gets an eyeful of stinging pulp. All she can do is stumble out of range, rinse her peepers out, and try to find a little sugar to mix in with the tang. That’s what this has been from my last birthday to this upcoming one: the year of living sweet and sour.

I gained closeness with my younger sister, but lost my mom. I finished writing a novel, but new blank pages are terrifying me. I found the perfect neighborhood bar, but now have to sing karaoke with friends… badly. I got my empty nest back, but (don’t tell the earlier-hinted-at third of my three favorite Forney Boys), occasionally miss having company underfoot. And it seems to me that everything happened in one blurry blink of an eye. Seriously. No way does one blurry blink void the warranty on an entire year! … Right?

“Expect delays… “

Expect and accept them… then focus on moving along. Maybe that’s an important lesson to have learned this past year. But still, I refuse to claim 51.

How about “Happy 50-and-a-third Birthday” to me!

Dark Reflections
• David Sherman •

In the wee morning hours of Memorial Day weekend I sit on my balcony looking down on the lake below. Twin lines of golden fireflies mark the lights of the two piers spanning the water and their shimmering reflection. In beautiful contrast, or perhaps compliment, the scattered yard lights shine a brilliant white with a tinge of blue, like ice on fire. They too have their own reflections mixed among the more numerous gold. Even the streetlights, so often garish and harsh, are beautiful as they cast long swaths of light across the lake. By comparison, the unlit waters between the lights are as black as ink. The incessant tiny footprints of an onshore breeze gives the scene the illusion of motion, making the still waters of the lake appear to be those of a fast flowing river. Countless unseen frogs and cicadas try their level best to drown out the sound of the nearby sea. Their best is not good enough; I hear her still. I hear her always.

I imagine many of you in the days and months to come will find similar beauty in the sea, or the lagoon, or even your own backyards. But as you do as I imagine, I would ask that you also imagine as I do just how fragile such beauty truly is.  Imagine how quickly it could all be cast into ruin.

Perhaps this will help with the visualization: Imagine every single gas station in our barrier island towns turning on their pumps, locking the handles open, and then just dropping them to the ground to spew out into our soil and thence to our lagoon and the sea. Then imagine all the stations on Merritt Island and in the river edge communities of the mainland doing the same. Sick yet? Now imagine all the trucks sent to resupply those stations going instead into your neighborhoods and repeating the same sort of behavior in your own front yards — you know, where your children play. Pissed yet? All of that wouldn’t even be a drop in the bucket compared to what has been done in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hopefully, by the time you read this, the horrific tide of Paleozoic Plague will have been stemmed. I am not that hopeful, mainly because I remember another spill, over 30 years ago.

On June 3, 1979, the oil rig known as Ixtoc 1 experienced a “blowout,” which the ironically named “blowout preventer” completely failed to prevent. This was also in the Gulf, just off the northwestern coast of the Yucatán peninsula. The Mexican government was quick to respond… by putting the oil company itself in charge. (With government supervision, of course!) First they used a heavy cover called a “sombrero” to contain and pump off the spill. It failed. Also attempted was the blowing of mixed debris down into the well to staunch the flow. That failed. Then came burying it under successive layers of mud and concrete. That failed, too. The only thing that worked was the eventual completion of a relief well, and that wasn’t until March 23, 1980, 295 days after the initial disaster. The total estimate of that spill is 140 MILLION GALLONS!

I do hope this travesty of trial and error seems familiar to you all, because it is the exact same progression of desperation that has been laid out as BP’s game plan for our current debacle. What disgusts me, and I would think you as well, is that while the drilling technology has advanced since the days of Ixtoc 1, the cleanup technology doesn’t seem to have improved in the least. Also, the 1979 blowout occurred in just over 200 feet of water, whereas today’s fiasco is at a depth of over 5,000 feet. Apparently BP believes what was useless ignorance in the shallow end of the pool will become insightful logic if reapplied down by the drain at the deep end. Other countries, for this very reason, require that any wells dug in their territorial waters also have a relief well dug at the same time. Or, to put it another way, before the oil companies get to hit the “On” switch, they have to install an “Off” switch. Seems logical, unless the people defining your logic, the people you empower to supervise and regulate the oil industry actually work for the oil industry!

Back to my twisted imaginings, it seems some people might not even freak out when those trucks start pumping, just so long as it’s only on their neighbor’s yard and not on theirs. What they don’t understand is that it’s all their yard! It’s all our yard! This is our country, and Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are every bit as much a part of our yard as our own beloved Florida. I would even go so far as to say that that entire pretty blue ball orbiting three doors down from the sun is our yard, but some minds, and thus some imaginations, are like thin rubber bands, and I wouldn’t want to break them. If that happened, the whole attached brain might cease to function and the poor people so afflicted wouldn’t be able to do anything but mindlessly chant whatever short, simple phrases someone happened to spoon-feed them, like, say, “Drill, baby, drill!” Personally, I’m more partial to “Arraign, baby, arraign!” and “Incarcerate, baby, incarcerate!”

Note: At 140 million gallons, the Ixtoc 1 spill is the second largest in history. The number one spot — between 240 and 460 million gallons — goes to the intentional mass release of oil from Kuwaiti tankers and wellheads by Iraqi troops in 1991, as ordered by a tyrant too drunk on his own blood-bought power to care about the consequences. (Let’s see, what did we do to him?) Government estimates of the current spill range from 20.16 to 42 million gallons… thus far. That estimate will go up at a rate of between 15.12 and 31.5 million gallons a month. As for those of you who see this as just a matter of greed with no actual blood on anyone’s hands, the families and friends of 11 of our countrymen would disagree.

Lamp Lighter
• Judy Forney •

Grief is a wicked jester who, without bells jingling on his toes to warn of his approach, can creep up behind a girl to try and knock her flat.

I knew this May would bring the first Mother’s Day without my Mom — much like November brought Thanksgiving and December brought Christmas. But I can make plans to deal with holidays.

The first weeks of May bring both a flight out to see my sister in Denver and a visit with my BFF from Washington State, (who is coming out to repeat some of the nonsense we got into last year… Watch out, beachside!). We’ll probably shed a few tears together, but we’ll also find things to laugh about. Just like we did in November when my Dad, cooking for the first time, had to scribble down a “business plan” on one of his endless supply of yellow legal pads to make sure the meal timed out right. Or in December when my brother… baked pies?! See, it’s hard to stay tearful when you’re forking up “Mom’s” pecan pie and picturing your older, flour-dusted brother wielding a rolling pin.

No, it’s not the significant dates that do me in. It’s almost as if there are road signs for that. You know: “Visibility Reduced When Tears Are Present,” or “Memory Lane. No Easy Throughway.” But it’s not the jokester’s way to mark the trail. Like I said, the dude is evil. He’s sneaky. He delights in smacking me down when I least expect it. Like the other day when I was out and about and a pair of sandals in a store window caught my eye. Suddenly I was whisked years backwards to a Saturday shopping trip with Mom. Every store we walked into had shoes on clearance. We had to make, like, three trips back to the car to drop off packages before we finally gave in and went for donuts and sodas instead of deciding between any additional clogs or lace-ups. It was a ridiculous outing we often laughed about over the years. As a matter of fact, from that day I on, I’ve had an obsession with shoes (my hubby likes to pretend some of the boxes in our closet are empty. I guess a guy’s got to have dreams…).

The same creepy jester also adores reminding me, especially when I have news of the Forney Boys to share, that I can’t just pick up the phone and give Mom a call. But I’ve got something the little badass isn’t aware of: I’ve still got a connection with my mother. A signal. A light. And that’s what I hang on to.

Seriously. I understand that this is going to sound weird (yeah, I know. What else is new?), and I don’t know if it happens due to the grace of God or faulty FPL wiring, but when I’m blue, or lacking confidence, or worried about family, Mom switches a lamp on for me. Of course, I’m joking about the good folks at Florida Power. I’m sure Mom’s not communicating through them, (although I bet she’d get a kick outta driving one of those big ol’ crane trucks), but I’m not actually sure she’s hitting me up from heaven either. As you might guess from that, I wasn’t raised in a traditionally religious home. We read Bible stories from time to time, but we also listened to tales about Harry Houdini. Occasionally, we kids would spend a Sunday morning at church with my grandmother, but we also loved to play the “Clairvoyance Game” with our Mom. That’s why, as I wrote in an earlier column, we had both prayers and — because Mom loved a good monster story as much as the next person — talk of zombies at her funeral.

O.K., well maybe “non-traditional” barely covers it, and maybe you’re reading this and thinking, “Wow. Poor Judy. She’s completely nuts!”, but I’m really thankful for my upbringing because I know the flash of the lamp is from Mom. When I need a swift kick, she’s kicking. A cheer squad? She’s leading. A soothing? It’s her voice I’m reminded of. I believe now, more than I ever have before, that in the end there will be light and welcome. I still don’t know if I’ll find my self inside pearly gates, walking the streets of an alternate universe, or battling zombies. But wherever I find myself, it sure will be fun to hook up with Mom again… especially if we can go shoe shopping.

Happy day, all.

Now go hug your mothers!

Spanner in the Works
• Rick LaClaire •

I like to do things, especially when those things involve the outdoors. Fishing, hunting, hiking, canoeing — anything that brings me in contact Florida wildlife has always held an attraction for me. But wildlife is not my only attraction, I like “wild life” also. Dining, drinking, dancing… A good pub crawl has always been high on my list, and my wife and I still enjoy each other’s company on a night out, and have made it a weekly institution.

Things like that are good for a marriage, I think. Years ago, when attending a wedding reception, we were seated with a group of young couples we had never met. When during the course of conversation we revealed that we had been married for 30-some-odd years, the couple across from us inquired about our “secret.” In essence, “How do you keep things from getting boring?” Our response was simple and immediate: keep dating. They seemed puzzled at first: “You mean date other people?” “Of course not,” I replied. “Keep dating each other. Like you did when you first met.”

Melbourne Beach is no Key West. While I love my hometown dearly, I wouldn’t recommend it for a “night on the town.” We have the beach (which is all I need, really) and there are a of couple bars, even a four-star restaurant down by the pier, but after 16 years of Friday nights out, we’ve pretty much done it all several times over. Yeah, we filter up to Indialantic occasionally and sometimes cross the bridge for tapas and martinis, but after a while you begin to take the local nightlife for ho-hum granted.

You get used to things. I know how the ‘ritas taste at the Cantina and the O, and could name them blindfolded. Give me a plate of wings from Long Dogger’s and Meg’s and I’ll tell them apart. I know what song my favorite local band is going to open with and I know I’m not leaving the Red Shoe without hearing “Something” (by the Beatles, not James Taylor) on the piano. You know what to expect. You should be reveling in that — that luxury of experience — but no, you let yourself become bored.

The same with your job; each day’s like the day before. And your home; mow on Saturday, water on Wednesday, clean the bathrooms on Thursday, keep the pool topped off, feed the ‘maters… On and on… The same routine.

You begin to crave  change. You crave anything that might shake the starch out of your humdrum existence. A new job? A new car? A tattoo? A bellybutton ring? Anything! Anything to mix it up. And then… You get it.

A spanner in the works. Your legs knocked out from beneath you. A freight train through your living room. It comes out of nowhere, totally unexpected. And I got mine. It came at 3:30 on a Saturday morning. In the middle of a restless night’s sleep, after a night out on the town, I felt as if someone had driven a bayonet through my guts.

I couldn’t even stand. I was puking, running a fever, soaked in sweat, and in excruciating pain. I knew immediately that this was something serious. My poor date (my wife)… Just hours ago we were wining and dining contentedly at a place we’d been a hundred times, and now she was doing something totally new: calling an ambulance.

I am not going to get medical here. The details of my sudden illness have no bearing on the point of this article. Suffice it to read that I spent nine days in a hospital bed. That was also something totally new, a real starch-shaker.

The first days of my hospital stay are a blur. I was sick, and on very heavy pain medication. My wife came twice a day, sometimes with my son. I apologize for nodding off in the middle of things, looking so bad and complaining so much. I was drugged and sick. By Wednesday I was skipping pain shots and starting to respond to the treatment. That’s when things started to hit home.

Once the fog of dilaudid lifted, I realized I had a life, a job, and a family. What had just happened? A hole had been punched in that continuum. That’s exactly what it felt like. One minute you’re dining in an all-too-familiar restaurant by candlelight. Then, four days later, you’re coming out of an opioid haze in a hospital bed. Where did those days go? Into the hole…

I’m not a regular in hospitals. I generally try to avoid them. I eat right. I exercise.  I have drinks, but don’t drink to oblivion. I watch my blood pressure. I even take a fiber supplement! And I do it all because I don’t want to wind up in a hospital bed. Ah, but there’s one health factor that steps on all the rest: age. I described my malady to one of my customers and his response was “Been there, welcome to growing old.”

I used to like being older. I felt every line on my face, every scar was a story to be told. Once you’re in your 50s you’ve done a few things, been a few places. Your wealth of experience permeates every aspect of your purpose. You become expert at what you do, be it your job, being a parent, or fixing the toilet. Then you wake up in a hospital bed with four days missing from your life. Age is now my enemy.

Those last few days in the hospital I was little more than a grouch. The healthier I became, the more I began to worry. Customers weren’t paying to terms. Bills were due. Orders had been lost due to my lay up — and in times like these, I need all the work I can get. It’s hard doing collections from a hospital bed. Quotes, too. Suddenly I missed my old humdrum life. I couldn’t wait to get back to my boring work routine.

I was released on a Sunday. The first thing I wanted to do when I got home was work. Well, that wasn’t the first thing I wanted to do, but the kids were home, so I settled on work. I was told to take it easy. I was on oral meds now and had a restricted diet. I lasted about a half-hour in the workshop. I was still weak.

I did way too much my first week home. A doctor’s examination affirmed it that Thursday. I was not progressing and needed updated tests. I was also not to move forward on my diet. That killed any thought of “date night” that Friday. Our local ho-hum nightlife suddenly seemed very special.

Forty years ago, Joni Mitchell sang a song called “Big Yellow Taxi,”the upshot of which was “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” Yeah, it’s corny now, but it wasn’t back in 1970. The song lamented the proliferation of parking lots, and in the end, either the cops or a taxi take her boyfriend away. Everything changes, and it can happen in a heartbeat. One day you’re looking at trees, the next day it’s corralled Sonatas and Sentras. One day you’re in love, the next day she’s gone. One minute you’re eating stromboli and drinking merlot and four days later you wake up in a hospital bed. You really don’t know how good you have it till it’s taken away, and don’t blink, it can be quick and savage. Like having your legs kicked out from beneath you. A freight train through your living room. A spanner in the works…

The Hole in the Fog
• By David Sherman •

I have lived so long by the Sea that I can no longer even imagine not doing so. I would miss the quiet lullaby of the surf at night, the taste of the salt air, the added weight of that air on my skin, so heavy is it with the very Water of Life.

These things are such constants in our lives that we usually take them for granted. Those who are new to the area or just visiting may perceive them as that nagging noise at night, corrosion, and stifling humidity, but they don’t get it. They don’t understand the whole Mother Ocean thing, and so they don’t understand that our Mother sings us to sleep every night. We smell her perfume everywhere. We feel the touch of her kiss our cheek. Without these things in our life — without these things in my life — there would be a hole. The place where my Mother should be.

For me, this place by the Sea holds another allure, as the very same beach that has been a playground for so much of my life is also my favorite Church. Usually, I use it as such at night or at the Rising of the Sun. At such times, my Church grants me serenity. It grants me solace. It Heals my very Soul.  My Sun Rise and Moon Rise are more beautiful than any stained glass windows. The Stars overhead are more majestic than any frescoed ceiling, and the Patterns I see there remind me of a history just as long as any depicted in even Michelangelo’s masterwork. Through those Patterns I am joined to every man, woman, or child since the dawn of Humankind who has ever looked to the skies seeking serenity, or solace… or Healing.

The night of December 18th, 2009 was foggy. Not wispy little tendrils of atmospheric intrigue foggy, but rather an otherworldly, all-obscuring, total visual shutdown sort of foggy, easily equal to any of London’s best pea soup. It offered all the visual acuity of Ray Charles on a three-day bender, but I thought of it as the perfect mood lighting as I recalled a line from a verse that had gotten me through the pain of my first divorce: ”Let the clouds obscure the stars, and the grayness be as my mood…”

With all the “Mother” symbolism I attach to the Sea, it’s only fitting that I should go there speak to my own Mother, to speak to Mom, one last time. This was not that final, teary, sickbed farewell talk over the phone; that had taken place the day before. In the quiet hours of the night that followed, Mom had Gone Ahead. Rapt and wrapped in my shroud of fog, the song of the surf near at hand, I waited for the deluge of tears that I was certain would come. I have known loss before — my Father in ‘85, my first wife in ‘92 — both had left big, gaping wounds in my heart that had taken years to Heal. I always expected that Mom’s passing would be the greatest blow of all, so I stood there waiting for the waves of grief I had held at bay all day to finally wash over me. Ironic that I stood on a beach waiting for a wave that did not come… at least not the wave I expected. I anticipated pain and loss, sorrow and emptiness, a great, gaping hole in my heart; what I got was memories.

A woman who had loved sledding as a girl in Iowa, who when faced with no hills and little snow in Virginia for her children had used a ski rope and a ‘67 Thunderbird down a long driveway. The same woman leading child after child down that same drive on a pony in the stifling heat of a class picnic in June. The woman who filled my house with books, and when I had burned my way through them, always had time to stop at a bookstore for more. The Cub Scout den mother who sewed fringe down the legs of our pants and cut our hair in Mohawks, just like on Daniel Boone, for a whole weekend of Indian wars. The best “Good Cook” who ever lived — her baked beans were high art, her pork tenderloin sandwiches transcendent, her sugar cookies the stuff of dreams. She bought me paints and brushes, she paid for art lessons, she corrected my grammar. I love having Artist and Poet as aspects of myself; both were gifts from her. The memories seemed to go on forever, years of Love compressed into an hour by the Sea.

It is not easy to have spent much of your childhood as a bit of a favorite, only to spend far more of your adulthood out of favor. Trust me on this — there were many years in there when I wore “out of favor” like a martyr’s robe, but all the negatives seem meaningless now. This isn’t about math; it’s about Love, and unlike matters mathematical, when calculating the enduring aspects of Love, negatives have no value. All that has value, all that truly lasts, are the positives, and the list of the positives has no end. Somehow the negatives now seem dim, almost forgotten; they are irrelevant. Perhaps they always were.

I won’t say my Mother died, not because I’m afraid of the word, but because I do not believe it applies. When you move from one home to another, you don’t die, and that is all I believe she has done, all anyone ever does. She’s not gone; she’s just Gone Ahead. I had gone expecting a hole in my heart, but what I found was a place so filled with Love that there could never be a hole. Then I looked up. The fog that was so thick around me that I wouldn’t have seen another person approaching until they were twenty feet away, yet above me was a hole. Through that hole the stars shone through. Did my Church reach out to me through the fog of my Grief? In the center of that hole was Orion, the constellation I have felt most drawn to my whole life, Man at home and at ease in the Patterns of the Cosmos. Just as I was beginning to wonder if it was some sort of “sign,” a shooting star passed right through Orion’s belt.

I know the science behind meteors, but this wasn’t a science sort of night. I know others may have seen that same shooting star. For them it can be science. For me, it was Mom, and she was correcting my grammar yet again. I had been thinking in terms of a period, an end to the sentence. She was reminding me that what was needed was a comma. For where I had thought to have one last talk, I knew then that our conversations would go on as long as I live. Then they’ll continue face to face.

You might think, with Mother’s Day approaching, that I miss her even more, but for me to miss her, she would have to be gone, and that’s just not happening. I was, and have been, and still am well and truly Loved. As is she. And that shall ever endure.

Blessed Be.

Why You Should Kill Your TV
• Dan Reiter •

A long, long, long time ago, before television came into the world, people were so exceedingly bored with their lives and had so much free time on their hands that they wasted their days watching leaves flap about in the breeze, gawking at the ripples made by ducks on the river, or staring for hours on end while ants scrabbled in procession up oak branches.

People picked flowers, walked aimlessly in circles, started wars, built pyramids, established feudal states, tamed horses, invented various irrigation techniques, scratched themselves endlessly, whittled away at pieces of wood, and pretty much did whatever they could to combat the mind-numbing ennui of their existences. Often these pitiable ancestors of ours would become so weary and depressed with their lives that they would lie down in the grass and gaze up at the clouds, hallucinating them to be animals or clowns or boats or the misshapen profiles of certain elderly relatives. A depressing, monotonous life! We are fortunate they didn’t all kill themselves. (If they had, the television would never have been discovered.) On too many occasions these poor souls, while sprawled out miserably in the grass, would turn to one another and remark something to the effect of, “Don’t you just hate it that ‘Dancing with the Stars’ won’t come on for another five hundred years?”

So life groaned along, sadly and repetitively, for many a long generation. (They don’t call it “the Dark Ages” for nothing.) To compensate for the lack of television, people were forced into abiding the most humiliating forms of entertainment. All that time spent watching flowers bloom and clouds laze overhead led many a talented person (who might otherwise have spent their time more productively, like penning episodes of “Glee” or “Lost”) to the practice of literature, or worse still, poetry. What else could be done? Nights were lonely occasions, with nothing but oil lamps to light up their drab, TV-less abodes. Thankfully, the written language is quite dead, now.

According to Neilsen’s “Three Screen Report,” the average American can now comfortably claim to watch five hours of TV per day. This number seems to me quite conservative. Consider, for example, the 8:00 hour this past Wednesday. Running concurrently were “American Idol,” “America’s Next Top Model,” “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?”, “Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood,” “America’s Best Dance Crew,” and “Nurse Jackie,” to name but a few standouts. Assuming you wanted to catch the NBA game (Charlotte Bobcats at Orlando Magic) and were obliged to TiVo® these other programs, by the time you made it through your prime-time lineup you would already have accounted for seven hours of viewing pleasure, all of it must-see television! Remember, this is before the 11:00 News or the “Late Show.”  It is reasonable, therefore, to assume that Neilsen’s estimates are somewhat remiss.

Recently, while waiting in line for my morning coffee at Juice N’ Java café, I ran into an eccentric fellow. I say eccentric because his hair was wild and unbrushed, his shirt unbuttoned to the navel, and because he corralled me into a conversation, though I was clearly engaged on my iPhone and not interested in chatting. When he noticed I was watching Fox News, he was particularly keen to inform me that he didn’t subscribe to cable TV. My first thought was to reach into my pocket and give the poor wretch a dollar, but he quickly smiled and waved off my charity. It was then that he revealed to me a most scandalous thing.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “I wouldn’t take cable if they gave it to me for free!”

After an incredulous pause, I thought I gathered his meaning. “Ah! So it’s satellite, then.”

The stranger shook his head.

“Hulu?”

“No.”

I wrung my mind for further explanations. “Sidereel? Catchtv.com? Itunes On Demand?”

No, no, and again no. Apparently, this madman didn’t partake in any television viewing whatever. As this bizarre claim sunk into my caffeine-depleted brain, I brought my coffee over to the table, hopeful to take leave of the situation. But this curiosity had the gall to follow me, sit down beside me, and recount this story:

“It started as an experiment, you see. I used to watch TV as much as the next guy. I would come home from work, set myself down on the couch, grab the remote, and relax into it. One day — oh, it must have been ten years ago — a power outage blacked me out for the whole evening. I wandered outside… I remember it like yesterday… and I saw the most fantastic shooting star. Blue as a sapphire, just screaming across the sky! It was then that I had my revelation.”

At this time, the strange gentleman placed upon the table a small, black pamphlet, which he slid over to me. On the cover, in bold, capital letters, were the words: “WHY YOU SHOULD KILL YOUR TV.”

“Here. Take this home with you. Read it. Just imagine… if you devoted five hours a day, every day, to the practice of a skill you always wanted to learn, but never got around to…”

“Excuse me,” I said, pushing the pamphlet back his way. “It’s very interesting, but I’ve got to go to work.”

“Wait!” He grabbed my wrist then, and his blue eyes sparkled with such intensity that it was instantly clear to me he was clinically insane. “I became a Shaolin master in only three years,” he said softly. “Five hours a day… that’s five thousand hours of training.”

I tried to wrench my arm free, but his grip was uncommonly strong.

“The subsequent year, I wrote two novels. Both were published, and sold to mild acclaim.”

Sensing my distress, he let go. But he stood up with me.

“I learned French and Spanish the following year,” he said, following me to the door. “And Mandarin Chinese the next. Five hours a day… it’s another lifetime! I’ve read over two hundred novels this past year alone, and the Bible three times!”

He was working himself into a frenzy now. I opened the door and hurried outside, but somehow he slipped in front of me, and continued to rant at me as I strode across the parking lot.

“I’m an expert in biomechanics. And I sell photographs to the local newspaper. I learned to surf! I’m in the process of mastering the art of tantric sex. Listen, just take the pamphlet. While everyone else is watching ‘The Bachelorette,’ or decomposing in front of Trident gum commercials, you have the chance become the man you’ve always wanted to be!”

I finally reached my car. As I opened the door, this oddity hovered beside me, holding out his black pamphlet. The words on the cover looked sinister, exposed to the light of the sun. I glanced around, made sure there were witnesses, and held up my hand to decline the offer.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but your arguments lack currency. TV, a waste of time? Why not mention that the frenetic editing and continually changing perspective trigger ADD? Or that while the programs promote violence, they are steadily interrupted by commercials sponsoring sterility and consumerism? Or that the news channels propogate fear, helplessness, and the two-party system? Or that excessive channel-changing can lead to feelings of isolation and depression? Did you know that just five minutes of TV viewing reduces your alpha brainwaves to a state of near hypnosis?”

By the muted expression on his face, and the limp way he let the pamphlet fall to his side, I could see I had trumped him.

“If you had seen Craig Ferguson last night, you would know this,” I said, triumphantly buckling myself in. “You should check it out sometime — it’s a fantastic show.”

Abu Dhabi Adventure
By Tyler King

Never could I have imagined what I was getting myself into when I asked my friends to accompany them to Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.

It was way too cold for a Florida day and I was just finishing up the delivery of a boat from Fort Lauderdale to the west coast of the state. I had the weekend off and was looking forward to some R&R with my girlfriend and the dogs.

I decided to call my friend Troy to see if he needed a ride from the airport; I was hoping to hang out with he and his wife a bit before they departed for the Caribbean to meet up with the boat they work on, one I’d worked aboard two years prior. Troy informed me that his plans had changed and the crew was now hustling to get the boat ready for a trip to the United Arab Emirates. I wasn’t sure where the Emirates were or how to get there, but somehow I knew I’d be going.

My next three steps ranged from easy as kiss-my-hand, to as tough as extra-tight airport security. Secure a job on the boat — five-minute phone call. Quit my current job — ten-minute lecture on morality and responsibility. Explain to my girlfriend that I was leaving in less than 24 four hours and that I’d be gone for six weeks, and I’m going to WHERE? (Now that’s something I hope I never have to go through again.)

So off we went. Fresh wind and bright skies, and two weeks time and we were holed up in Gibraltar waiting for our next weather window. It had been an uneventful transatlantic voyage — whales were spotted, shoals of tuna were seen, unread books were finished. From Gibraltar we were bound for Malta for a top-up of fuel and produce and of course some extra cartons of cigarettes for the Egyptian pilots we would use transiting the Suez Canal (or “The Marlboro Canal.”)

The Suez Canal was completed in the ’50s — the 1850s. And Cleopatra contracted some of the work begun on it. Conveniently, Customs and Immigration in Egypt was backed up, so we got to sneak over to Giza to see the pyramids and visited Cairo to experience its famous bazaar. This is when the voyage got interesting.

In preparation for the next leg of the trip — the most pirate-infested waters in the world, the Gulf of Aden — we executed heightened security measures. The boat hired a special security agent from a private firm called the Millennium Group out of West Palm Beach. We put barbed wire on vulnerable areas of the boat. We doubled the amount of lookouts on deck, and we traveled in a convoy of similar cruising-speed vessels that was escorted by a slew of coalition warships that were never out of radar range. We’d been training and drilling for more than a week at this point, and felt we were ready for the “Transit Corridor.”

Statistics show that Somali pirates attack in broad daylight. They operate with a support vessel and approach with Panga-like skiffs with large tiller-controlled outboards. Their mode of operation usually involves coming out of the sun and boarding with large ladders or grappling hooks. If you can imagine trying to board a fast moving vessel that’s rocking and rolling via a rickety ladder, it can give you an idea of the stones and desperation these pirates have.

As we entered the designated “Corridor” everything seemed fine. Six- to 8-foot seas and 10- to 15-knot winds on the nose. Not a smooth ride, but in our favor, as many pirates are said to be fair-weather sailors. Not long after I was relieved from watch, the ship’s alarm sounded. I was in the shower, but had a good idea of what was going on. As quickly as I could, I reported to my station — main deck starboard-side lookout. Lo and behold, here was a 60- to 80-foot “mothership” with four small skiffs franticly buzzing around it two miles off the starboard beam.

Suddenly, the 16-foot seas and 60-knot sustained winds we battered through hiding 500 feet behind a tanker while hand-steering at the bottom of the Red Sea seemed like a treat. Once we determined that these guys were not out fishing, the captain sent the women on board to our designated safe room and alerted the nearby warships of our situation.

With our horns blaring and throttle pinned, we continued to beat into the swell. As we passed them, three of the four skiffs crossed our stern and attempted to gain on us from the direction the sun was setting. In between the swell, my shipmate told me he could see a skiff pop up periodically to reveal several heads looking quite intently at our boat before disappearing back in the trough. By now the Royal Navy had deployed a helicopter to cool things down. It took about five minutes before they were on the scene.

We never heard what happened once they got there. We do know that a warship arrived on the scene and later came back to cruise with us and give a salute. It was incredible to see a 400-plus foot vessel come over the horizon at 35 knots just to give us the thumbs-up. That was our only encounter for the rest of the trip. Thankfully we were prepared, and the world’s militaries are really trying to stop the chaos over there.

We made it to our destination: the Second Annual Abu Dhabi Boat Show. And Linda Lou looked as beautiful as ever. I’ve traveled all over the globe on that good ship — the St. Lawrence Sea Way, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, and then some — but nothing will compare to the 10,800 miles we did this winter. It took 46 days to get there and less than 24 hours to fly back.

And man is it nice to be back.

Things I Love About Cocoa Beach
By Dan Reiter

Here’s a simple writing exercise that could change your life.

Take a half-hour out of your day and find a peaceful place to sit with your computer or a pad of paper… a café will do nicely, a quiet picnic spot, even a kitchen table. Your office desk will suffice in a pinch. Sit down then, and write out a list of the things you love. Anything works — food, scenery, people, movies. Anything. Make the list true. Make it extensive. Stay on task for at least half an hour. An hour is preferable, if your wrist and wits allow. Don’t be discouraged if the going is slow. The first five to ten items will be the hardest to dig up. But if you’re a positive spirit, you will find the list beginning to flow out of you, like a hot-water faucet that has taken a few moments to warm. It is a silly thing to do, I know, but I promise you the experience will be illuminating, and possibly empowering. It is a sort of therapy I discovered completely by accident during a heartbreaking period in my life in my early twenties.

Give it a try.

As for this month’s column, I submit for your amusement a variation on this general theme. What follows is a list of things I love about Cocoa Beach, my hometown. Take it as a sort of jazz accompaniment to this five-minute lull in your day.

And by all means, please enjoy your drink.

Things I Love (About Cocoa Beach)

paper-thin yellow butterflies in spring

plumeria blossoms

papaya trees

Cedar Road oaks tangled in sunlight

brushed-glass skies over the ocean

cargo ships floating in mist

streaks of fire arcing over the Cape

time-delayed shuttle roars

paratrooper training days

the cresting waves at dawn

offshore sprays

chop surfing sessions

light north drifts

west winds

four-foot glass

eight-foot glass

six-foot high tide barrels

lake-like flatness and an inflatable raft

old, rusty sunglasses

two foot glass

flip flops

Quiet Flight

brunch at Simply Delicious

the baked brie at Heidi’s

knowing that everything will rust, eventually

the mysterious forces within the Glass Bank

peacocks perched atop car hoods

playgrounds in the sun

the mangroves at blue dusk

hunting redfish

casting for mullet

million-hued sunsets melting into the river

dolphin fins cutting through mercury

the shadows beneath the poinciana trees, summer

monarch butterflies, dancing upon milkweed

16streets.com

manatee huffs

dolphin sighs

trout plops

pelican dives

gull cries

anhinga curdles

anything on The Fat Snook’s menu

the local vibe at 13th Street

shouting “Kooks go home!” out your car window

long-haired boys

long-haired girls

the smell of an oncoming hurricane

when the wind comes to sweep everything away

when the wind calms again

when the wind smells of conifers

when the wind blows from the west (again)

Tony Sasso’s pig roasts

the Cocoa Beach cops (who don’t pull over the locals)

the locals

the street parties

the art scene

Mai-Tiki

Rick Piper

Henry Lund

Bruce Reynolds

the nestled serenity of the Beachside Guesthouses

lightly buttered fish at the Pompano Grill

the old peppered strawberries at Fischer’s

miles and miles of beachbreak — when it’s working

secret coves and deep spots — when it’s not

the magical spirit of Driftwood House

hundreds of white pelicans roosting in the river

cruising the Banana River on a stand-up paddleboard

exploring the Thousand Islands by canoe

a cruiser cycle ride on the beach, low tide

everything about September

bright cloudless winter days

Jazz nights at Heidi’s

seeing elderly couples holding hands, after all these years

Sunday morning roads, empty and clean

the sages who roam the aisles at Ace Hardware and hold the answers to life’s every problem

playing tennis at Ramp Road park

skateboarding down Brevard Avenue, mid-day, summer, after it has been re-paved

soul sessions at 6th Street

family-style longboarding at 11th street

high-tide hurricane swells, on the fish

the roast beef subs from Boardheads Deli

afternoon tea in the back yard

the multi-layered, bizarre history of the town

the Space Program

neon phosphoresence in the river at night

airborne schools of mullet

the syrupy smell of jasmine in bloom, once a year

yellow and pink hibiscus polka-dotting the road

the measured ease of Country Club Drive

high-drifting clouds, skirting the edge of the sun

distant purple rainclouds, strafing the western sky

double rainbows over the ocean

sighting a bald eagle

snowy egrets, their tails ruffling like ladies’ hats

the rhythmic shush of the waves, four blocks away, after dark

the starriest, articulate winter nights

huddling close

sharing a bottle of wine on the beach, night

kissing in the full light of the moon

watching a child’s fingertips pluck tiny penta flowers

the Norfolk pines

the hanging orchids

the skyline, low and organic, as seen from the ocean

the pizza at The Shark Pit, and the fish tank

Roy at Oceansports World

Tom Neilson shapes

O’Hare shapes

the sushi — if it’s fresh

the espresso martinis

the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame, and its inspirational exhibits

Sunseed Co-op

hovering through the aisles of Publix, on a slow day

scanning the new releases at Blockbuster, on a slow night

tequila sunrises at Coconut’s, on a very slow day

jogging the beach

swimming

falling asleep in the sand

cold beer on the beach

freedom, hope, and good sanitation

the “Locals Only” parking pass

“Old Guys Rule” bumper stickers

Longboard House bumper stickers

Salick bumper stickers

kids who sport retro-style ’70s hairdos

the skate park

Cocoa Beach High sports

the legacy of Kelly Slater

tiki huts

quaintness

kitsch

Roberto’s Little Havana, coffee and cuban melts

kite surfers launching airs

the nighttime view from the 520 bridge

watching it rain through a blurry window

the song, twitch and scamper of the squirrels

the lizards, both the small and monstrous

the hummingbirds, both rare and magical

the fact that we are on an island

the narrowness of the south end, two hundred feet from river to ocean

when the third sandbar breaks

when the second sandbar breaks

when any sandbar breaks, really

the sporadic 100-foot tall cabbage palm, swaying gently above it all

when an ocean-going dolphin looks you in the eye

manatee mating season

the slowness of summer

the flight of the great herons

white ibises, scratching themselves

moments of unimaginable beauty

passion flowers

SURPRISE!
By David Sherman

My college roommate in the mid 1980s had a younger brother who was a member of The Young Republicans.

I used to love to throw this line at him: ”So long as a single child has to cry himself to sleep at night, suffering for want of proper medical care in the richest country on the face of the earth, something is woefully wrong!” The effect on my Young Republican friend was nothing short of mind boggling; in that instant, an otherwise intelligent and articulate young collegian was reduced to a sputtering, frustrated mass of Does not compute! He looked to be just one twitch away from a full Linda Blair head spin! Ah, those silly college games!

The fact that I enjoyed tweaking him so should come as no surprise to anyone. After all, I have long identified myself as a “Tree-Hugging-Hippie-Liberal-Wackjob,” and proudly so. What will surprise many of you is this: that I am furious about the recently passed, so-called “Health Care Reform Bill.” Where I differ from most of those most virulent in their protests about this legislation is that I hate it because it does not go far enough! I can deal with a mandate to purchase heath insurance, I even expected it, but I fear such a mandate without a viable public option to offer an alternative to the “for-profit” insurance industry will prove a certain recipe for further rate abuse by an industry that already pretty much gets to write its own rules. Where I truly differ from most of my discontented, hardcore Right Wing counterparts is this: I don’t plan on threatening anybody.

Since the recent passage of what the Right has dubbed “ObamaCare,” at least ten House Democrats have received threats to their person, their lives, their families, and even, in some of the more fervent cases, their immortal souls, which apparently Republicans now have the power to damn to eternal hellfire! (Now that’s old school!)

Democrat Suzanne Kosmas, the U.S. Representative from New Smyrna Beach, whose district also includes portions of northern Brevard County, was one those threatened. The messages to her office, as well as to her family and her staff, says she, was that they should look to their personal safety. Apparently someone in New Smyrna is taking political tips from old Smyrna… say 1922.  (Look it up.) In Rochester, NY, a brick was thrown through the window of a county Democratic Party office. The note attached read: “Extremism in defense of Liberty is no vice!” In Niagara Falls, NY, another brick was hurled through the window of the offices of House Democrat Louise Slaughter. (Let’s hope that name’s not prophetic!) The worst, however, came in Charlottesville, VA, where someone cut a propane line leading to the house of House Democrat Tom Perriello’s brother. This, and the threatening letters received at the home as well, was the result of someone publishing the wrong address for the congressman online.

What concerns me even more is that after relating these incidents to several Republicans, just over half responded with, “Well, that’s what you get,” with many even going so far as, “Good! That’s what they deserve!” Only a handful so far have had any problem with such behavior, and only two have seemed to be in any way disturbed by such a turn in the practicing of politics in the United States. Granted, mine is a very limited sampling, and I would like to think that a broader cross-section of self-identified Republicans would yield a more civil array of responses. Still, attempts to sway a political viewpoint through threats or actual physical coercion are the sorts of things one would expect in a police state rather than a respected, once globally revered forerunner of modern Democracy. What I find ironic, in the saddest of extremes, is that those currently utilizing the tactics of a police state are the very ones who decry ObamaCare as the workings of a police state!

If they’re not the same people, they’re certainly in the same far-right political corner, and everyone else in the political ring should stand up and speak out against such behavior. I should think those in the rest of the Right side of that ring would want to speak the loudest, before the rabid zealots of your greatest extremes seize control of your entire political hemisphere, though such thoughts presuppose that it’s not already too late. It will surprise many that I hope such is the case.

I know several good people who are intelligent and rational… and also Republicans. They do not seem to have any problem being all three at the same time. I don’t think they’re bad people, though I do find them “sadly mispersuaded,” which is only fair, as I’m sure they think the same of me. I also know that vigilantism is neither a traditional nor widespread Grand Old Party requirement, though I do wish the current leadership of that party were a bit more outspoken in their denouncement of these threats. The history and honor of your own party should require it! Last surprise: this Damned Yankee named Sherman has a bit of a traditional fondness for the Party of Damned Yankees named Lincoln and Grant. It was also the lifelong party of Stan, my father. So if you won’t speak out for the GOP, speak out for Lincoln and Grant. Speak out for Stan!

If that’s not enough, speak out for the United States of America. Not the Rabid States of America into which some seem to want us to devolve, but the real United States of America, the one that truly is all the things we’d like to believe it could be. If not, we become the nation that strides across the world claiming to build civil democracies while refusing to insist on one at home — in short, a laughing stock. But again, I presuppose that it’s not too late. Sarcasm? Surprise! (I had one left over!)

Is It Just Me?
By Rick LaClaire

“Some folks never smile
Some folks do, some folks do
Others laugh through guile
That’s what some folks do”
– “Some Folks” by Stephen Foster (1826-1864)

It’s been said that I am opinionated. In my opinion, I am not.

But if I am, what’s wrong with that? I just like a good argument. There’s nothing as heady as a constant counterpoint embellished with a few unsubstantiated statistics. It sure keeps the conversation going (and if you add alcohol, it can get downright lively). Don’t we all, in our heart of hearts, just love to hear ourselves talk? Or is it just me?

Picture yourself married to a beautiful woman — your soulmate, the mother of your children — and you wish to show your appreciation by taking her to a four-star restaurant on your anniversary. Valet parking, cocktails on the terrace, a couple of bucks in the piano player’s snifter, and soon you are being seated. Others are being seated too, and at the table next to you is a young couple. She’s cute and young, and he — he — is wearing a ball cap. Indoors. At the table. Backwards. The hat, that is… Is it just me, or is that wrong? And would it be wrong if I asked him to remove it (“Out of respect for the ladies, sir”)? Ah, the quandaries of being opinionated. But of course, in my opinion, I am not opinionated. I’m just concerned for the young man. By wearing his hat backwards he is not taking advantage of its UV protection. And man, that candlelight… Just loaded with deadly UV rays…

Now everybody’s seen this: it’s election time. The roads are littered with “Vote For Me” signs (they’ve been out since August). It’s down to the wire now, and as you pull onto the causeway, heading back beachside after a hard day’s labor on the mainland, there he is. You recognize the face immediately — it’s at every street corner in the county. And he’s not alone. His wife, six kids (right down to the baby), and even the family dog are there to greet you, waving and smiling like you’re an old friend. It’s ninety degrees out, all you want to do is get home and fall into a cold bourbon, and this nitwit thinks he can grab your vote at the last minute just by being there. Waving. With a phony smile. For some reason he’s not even breaking a sweat. My reaction to this is always the same: I’m not voting for anyone who puts his family at risk during rush hour on a buzzing causeway. Does this tactic work? I’d like to see the statistics.

Is it just me, or do talking blobs of mucus make you want to put a pitchfork through your flat screen? You know what I’m talking about. See, it isn’t just me. I will never buy that particular brand of cough syrup because of those commercials.

Same with the gecko people. First it was the lizard, then cavemen, then stacks of money with eyes, and now a panoramic view of Charlie Daniels’ dentures as he savages a violin. Over and over and over… I don’t care how much they can save me on my car insurance, I hate those commercials so much I’m stickin’ with the rat bastard company that cancelled my homeowner’s policy just out of spite. I wonder if my health insurance covers reattaching my nose?

Is it just me, or was the world a better place before “The Colon Lady”? Yup, you guessed it, another product I shall never sample. My bowels could be jammed with half a metric ton of quick-set concrete and I would not grace that company with a single cent of my hard-earned pay. You think the Colon Lady has any friends? “Hey honey, let’s call up the Colon Lady and get bloated and constipated tonight!” Not likely… And what about her professional life? Think she might be typecast? I’ve got a feeling… once the Colon Lady, always the Colon Lady.

Now, I can hear you saying, “LaClaire, you watch way too much TV.” You know, actually, I don’t. I don’t need to. Commercial television is so ad-saturated these days that it only takes a half-hour to get the whole plan. I’ve counted over twelve commercials in a row sometimes. I don’t remember strings like that in years past. Is it just me? And what about those little pop-ups that keep appearing while you’re watching your show? It’s as if twelve commercials in a row every five minutes just isn’t enough. No, we have to ad-saturate you even during the program. Too bad if you’re closed-captioned or reading subtitles. I wonder who came up with that idea. I want to meet that person and engage him in conversation. And every time he opens his mouth, I’d like to loudly interrupt with “‘Mad Men’ on at ten!”

There. I did it. I went on for four paragraphs complaining about television. You know, things must be pretty good if you’ve got time to sit around and whine about something you can just turn off. Is it just me, or are we way too overloaded with information technology?

Remember pay phones? Try and find one now. I still use them, when I can. Why? Because I am The Last Person On the Planet Without A Cellphone. It probably won’t last long, because formerly, I was The Last Person On the Planet Without A Computer. And previously, I was The Last Person On the Planet To Buy A Leisure Suit.

So, there is a pattern. I guess I catch on late. Ask my wife and daughter, I was never a slave to fashion.

Remember fax machines? I was late with that, too. I paid a lot for that plain-paper dinosaur, and I thought I was the king of the information age. Imagine, being able to fax quotes instead of delivering them, right from your office! Receiving drawings and contracts the same day! The same hour! Yep, I was the king. That was 1994. Then came 1995. Suddenly every customer’s desk was decorated with a new purveyor of information: the PC. Took me three more years to catch up with that. I remember Al Gore — the guy who invented the computer — saying that one day every household in America would have a computer. I laughed at that, then. Then I laughed again as I bought one. Then another. Then one for the kid. Then another for the kid…

So I have a fax, several TVs, several radios, a computer, and two separate land lines. Is it just me, or isn’t that enough? Civilization can reach me in any corner of my personal space. So why do I need to be bothered further while I’m driving, fishing, boating, gardening, or mowing the lawn? My kids are addicted to their cellphones. And now they’re not content to even talk to one another. They have to “text.” It’s constant with them. In the car, at the bus stop, in the Mall, on the beach… Enough! Too much information! Is it just me?

Beach renourishment is ugly, wasteful and deadly to the beach biome. Is it just me? Is it just me, or does living in a neighborhood where all the houses have to be the same color defeat the purpose of home ownership altogether? Are low-rider pants the funniest trend since the forementioned leisure suit, or is it just me?

Opinionated? Me? Not in my opinion. It’s just me.

ANTS IN MY… PANTIES
By Judy Forney

As some of you out there know, I’m a sci-fi movie nut, especially if the story was filmed in black and white in the 1950s.

My husband and I have been collecting old retro flicks for years. The only thing that would make our showcase collection of DVDs, (yes, DVDs) more awesome would be if the films could be yanked from their plastic cases and rewound on old 8-mm reels. Then we could enjoy the action on screen in the way the filmmakers intended. Add Wavy Lays and a glass of Chardonnay to the entertainment and I’d be over the moons of Altair 4.

It’s one of the reasons I like living where we do in Florida. Satellite Beach is a strange and wondrous place. I mean, duh, it’s part of the Space Coast. Shuttles launch. Rockets blast off. Plus, around here we’ve got all kinds of weird creatures, like three-foot tall birds stalking fishermen on the beach and giant turtles swimming just off shore. Coming from eastern Washington State, it’s all rather otherworldly, and I love it.

Anyway, one of my all-time favorite science fiction titles is, “THEM.” It’s about a small New Mexico town that’s infested with huge, irradiated, man-noshing ants and the small police force that finds itself in an epic fight against the hideous creatures. And just like those poor desperate desert folks, I too recently had to battle back an attacking army of antennaed renegades.

It started in the far and barely civilized reaches of my bedroom on the dry, hot and barren landscape of my iron. A few days before the invasion, I’d almost used the object soon to spew forth doom, but then promptly thought of 352 million better ways to pass the time than pressing shirts. Seriously, who chooses ironing? And the board? Now really. Everyone realizes those things are best utilized as storage planks! I mean I don’t even know why the contraptions have springs that allow a person to fold them flat for storage. But back to the point of my story, this is a cautionary tale. If only I’d known then that in three days time…

It was mid-morning on the fateful day and I couldn’t put chores off any longer. I’d just plugged in my Rowenta when I spotted the invading ant scouts. They scurried across the temperature control, and down the front of the heating plate. Looking closer, I saw that the water reservoir was crawling with critters and that two lines of wiggling troops had already begun their creep, creep, creep across my counter. Oh my gosh! The first battalion had reached their objective: my Flintstones vitamins!

I grabbed the bottle, swiped members of the family Formicidae to the floor, and then peeked inside. The contents wriggled and crawled with little black bodies but, thank heaven, they hadn’t turned into super bugs yet. I’d caught the marauders in time. I mean, they could have morphed into — as the blurb on the back of the DVD box says — “A horde so horrifying no word could describe: THEM.”

I know, I know. In the old movie the mutants munched their way through a vat of underground uranium or some such radioactive agent that caused their metamorphosis, but my vitamins are Flintstones Complete — pediatricians’ number-one choice and packed with nutrients. There’s also a picture of Fred on the front. Who knows? Maybe the ants figured that after crawling inside they’d be able to answer that age-old debate: “Who’s hotter, Wilma or Betty?” Not quite the argument it’d be over Ginger vs. Mary Ann, but I don’t think any of the castaways ever lent their images to supplements.

And speaking of hot… or the better word might be warm, or maybe temperate.. so, speaking of temperate, the second offensive repelled from the counter’s cliff and then, on solid footing again, marched towards my not-everyday-underwear drawer. My “fancy pants,” you might say. I’ve also got… umm… “bath” oils in there. I was horrified. Really, a girl can launder satin and silk, but she certainly doesn’t want pests in her Kama Sutra products… well, beside the one she’s married to.

“Man, you little monsters better not be running ’round in my good things!” I hollered, yanking the drawer from its slide.

Shouting seemed to startle the bugs. Troops disassembled and began to wander aimlessly. Luckily I’d been in time to avert disaster! Relieved, I sat the drawer down out of reach of the army and surveyed the battlefield. I swear I could hear insects crooning up at me, as if in apology, in little Cyndi Lauper-like voices, “Ants just want to have f-u u-n.” The crafty devils were trying to trick me into some kind of truce! I ran for my vacuum.

Like I said before, this is a strange place, and I love the Space Coast. Antennae and all. But in choosing to live the Florida lifestyle there’s one thing everyone should remember: forget about watching the sky. Keep an eye on your small appliances instead.

Trust me. You don’t want an ant invasion. Especially in your panty drawer.

Caught Between a Goon Spoon and a Jet Ski
L. Paul Mann

• Okay, I am too old and out of shape to take on the role of enforcer, but I feigned the position while trying to get in a relaxing surf on a recent sunny weekend at Rincon.

I was thwarted in my attempt to repeat the pleasant surf I’d had the day before. Instead, I am embarrassed to admit that the veins stood up on my neck as I ranted and raved until I felt myself nearing heart-attack stage.

The first offender was a jet skier going back and forth across the beach break on top of Rincon Point at the indicator, surfing and jumping waves. I screamed in vain at him as he came closer to the lineup, the onshore west winds blowing a steady stench of 2-stroke fuel across the entire beach. As far as I know, jet skis were banned from Rincon over a dozen years ago.

If that weren’t bad enough, my rage became uncontrollable as a guy on a goon spoon paddled up the point and began riding waves at the indicator. (The goon spoon is the name I’ve coined for Laird Hamilton’s reintroduction of the ancient standup paddleboard.) Laird popularized this old contraption a while ago at Little Dume near Malibu. Born out of his boredom from being stuck in an area with small waves while he pursued a living in Hollywood, he experimented with this traditional precursor to surfing. The goon spoon soon caught on like wildfire with the Hollywood set that never learned to surf and found it an easy way to sneak into the sport without any real skills. Soon there were as many as six or eight of these dinosaurs on the outer point of Little Dume on a sunny day. What had once been a consistently rippable wave had become ruined with these oversized dinosaurs crowding the line up.

So as I sat at the indicator with diesel fumes permeating the area, my blood was already boiling as the guy on the goon spoon paddled towards me. As he approached I asked him, “What are you thinking?” “This is Rincon,” I explained, and if he wanted to ride this dangerous device he should go up to the beach break or down to Mondos, well away from regular board surfers. He indicated that he was living at Rincon and I was the only one unnerved by his presence. A short time later I caught a wave, and as I came up on the rivermouth, he lay struggling in the water with his paddle, his 14-foot long board laying across the lineup. Having no where to go, I ran straight into him and proceeded to scream at him until red in the face for dinging my board.

Nobody wants to be the bad guy, and the old enforcers have faded away in a new world of lawsuits and crowded chaotic conditions. But the old enforcers were not necessarily about being selfish or greedy. We all want the same thing when we’re surfing: as many uninterrupted waves as we can get. What the old school had in mind was a set of rules based on respect. If someone screwed up, they were challenged for not showing respect.

I learned my lesson when I first went off to college in Hawaii. The first time I surfed Velzyland on a good day, I caught a great wave and a young Hawaiian tried to drop in on me. I pushed the front of his board and he went over the falls as I tucked into a fat little barrel. When I paddled back out, there was a crowd of locals waiting for me. They circled me as the young surfer came up and proceeded to slam his board into my face. I had two black eyes for a month, but I paddled back out the next day, at the same spot, and nobody ever bothered me again. I had learned my lesson of respect for the locals and I never gave them another reason to confront me.

Goon spoons are just another sport, and like tow surfing, they’re fine if they’re ridden away from a crowd of regular surfers. They are, however, disrespectful and dangerous to anyone in a normal surf lineup. It is impossible to control these rhinoceros-sized boards during a wipeout and they are literally life threatening to nearby surfers.

I think it’s time for a new generation of locals to take on the role of water patrol enforcers and ensure our safety so we can all have more fun in the water.

St. Patrick’s Battalion
By: Mickey Z

During the buildup to the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), score of immigrant Irishmen joined the army for $7 a month. “The U.S. anti-immigrant press of the time caricatured the Irish with simian features, portraying them as unintelligent and drunk and charging that they were seditiously loyal to the pope,” Anne-Marie O’Connor wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 1997. “But cheap Irish labor was welcome. Irish maids became as familiar as Latin American nannies are today.”

Harsh treatment did not end after the Irishmen enlisted in the armed forces. “Anglo soldiers often harassed them, beat them up,” said Robert ryan Miller, author of “Shamrock and Sword.”

President James Polk incited hostilities by sending U.S. troops into disputed territory and many of those Irish soldiers who found themselves heading west to fight a war of conquest were Catholic.

“They resented the treatment of Catholic priests and nuns by the invading Protestants,” explained Rodolfo Acuña, author of “Occupied America.”

“This is a story about assimilation,” historian Peter F. Stevens added. “A lot of these guys deserted because of the anti-Catholic, anti-foreigner movement.”

One such deserter was John Riley, an Irishman from Galway who swam across the Rio Grande after asking permission to go to Mass. “As the U.S. Army marched through Mexico’s northern deserts, others followed, and Riley became captain of a 200-member rogue column in the Mexican army,” explained O’Connor.” At San Luis Potosi, convent nuns presented them with a stitched banner that foreshadowed their eventual romanticization.

A wartime newspaper correspondent from New Orleans described the banner as made of “green silk, and on one side is a harp, surmounted by the Mexican coat of arms, with a scroll on which is painted, ‘Libertad para la República Mexicana.’ Underneath the harp is the motto ‘Erin go Bragh’ (Ireland Forever). On the other side is a painting… made to represent St. Patrick, in his left hand a key and in his right a crook or staff resting upon a serpent.”

The group was unofficially known as the “Irish Volunteers” but Mexicans often referred to the redheaded and ruddy-complexioned men as the “Red Guards.” Formally, the unit was called the “San Patricio Company,” a title that evolved into the more familiar “St. Patrick’s Battalion.” In five major battles, the San Patricios earned a reputation for bravery that peaked on August 20, 1847 at Churubusco where, over the course of three hours, 60 percent of the San Patricios were killed or captured by a numerically superior American army. One of the prisoners was Brevet Major John Riley.

“At their court-martial,” O’Connor stated, “most San Patricios said they had been forced to desert by the Mexicans, or had too much to drink.”

“They needed an excuse. They couldn’t say ‘I hated the United States,’ so they said they weren’t responsible,” said Miller. In some cases — including Riley’s — this defense was effective. While 50 San Patricios were sentenced to death, five others were pardoned and 15 others received a reduced sentence. Riley himself was given 50 lashes and was hot-iron branded with a two-inch letter “D” for deserter. The San Patricios who faced the gallows were hanged in their Mexican uniforms and buried in graves dug by Riley and the other branded prisoners.

The war was over and in the name of historical cleansing, the legend of the St. Patrick’s Battalion was essentially forgotten north of the border (except for the San Patricios column that marches in the San Francisco St. Patrick’s Day parade each year). The same cannot be said for Mexico where there is a even a San Patricios public school.

Former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo called the desertions “an act of conscience” and said the men of St. Patrick’s Battalion “listened to he voice of justice, dignity and honor, and joined Mexican patriots who faced an aggression that lacked any justification.”

Excerpted from the book “50 Revolutions You’re Not Supposed To Know” by Mickey Z., courtesy of The Disinformation Company http://www.disinfo.com

It is January as I write this. Presently, Florida is suffering the longest cold snap ever. Usually, a cold snap is just that: a quick chill. Not so, this winter of 2010. I have counted six mornings now with readings in the 20s and 30s, with more on the way. We’re actually having a winter in central Florida, something most of us came here to escape.

I’m not equipped for this. My old mackinaw has long ago been given to the moths. I used my winter gloves to hold live blue crabs while I halved them — they were no good after that. My wool watch cap sat on the dashboard of my truck for a week last winter and the sun disintegrated it. And long pants? I have one pair, not counting dress slacks, and they’re presently stained from a certain hunting experience I shall soon relate. Let’s face it, my wardrobe is Florida, not Maine.

Not so in my snowbound youth. Deep snow, freezing temperatures, and school and business closures were part of life in Upstate New York. We planned on it. But occasionally we received more than we planned. Occasionally, even for the most seasoned, you needed a little help. That was when we relied on the kindness of others; the loyalty of good friends and neighbors.

Like that winter in ‘62 when it snowed so deep the plows couldn’t get out. The milkman too, apparently. Three neighbors with a toboggan took grocery orders and trudged miles through deep snow, “so the babies could get their milk.” My mother says it’s just what neighbors did back then. I call it “The splendor of action.”

I’ve been helped by a lot of people over the years, many times by strangers. But after all the fear we’ve had pumped into us over the last ten years, it’s easy to become mistrustful. We figure everyone is working some kind of “angle” to steal our money, our job, our seat on a plane, or even our identity. Every once in a while we have to be reminded that there are a lot of good-hearted people out there. And so it happened to us…

We heard shots in the distance. Other hunters were up this road. We’d seen tire tracks on the way in. My truck was mired so completely that nothing could drive around us. We were blocking them. I left a sign on the windshield.

No shovel, no crowbar, not even a rope — but, lo and behold, I had a Sharpie, and a map on which to write. The Sharpie was a mite fine, so I doubled the lettering:

STUCK went for help

I pinned it beneath a windshield wiper. Thinking back, I suppose the note was a bit tautological.

Other than ammo, the only items of any value in the truck were the rifles, so we decided to carry them. It was a few miles to the ranger station and we had no idea how long it would take. I remembered seeing blasted-out cars and trucks in the forests and fields of my youth and wondered if that wasn’t how they got there: some pissed-off hunter. My heart was in my bowels when we took those first steps out. If and when we returned, would my vehicle be intact?

Any notion that this would be easy was dashed at the first bend in the road. This was a previous bog, one we’d had problems negotiating on the way in.

“Well, it looks like we broke in our boots,” I said as the black water lapped at our knees. “I’m no longer afraid to get these guys wet.” My son agreed.

Conditions worsened as we continued. How did we get back here? How stupid of me… We soon approached a pool that appeared too deep to wade. I remembered water on the hood. A wide circumvention of the hole was undertaken. This was through tussock-type vegetation in a foot or so of standing water. Beneath were rotten logs, unseen and slippery under the black sheen. This was the perfect environment in which to break an ankle. At one point my son said he saw something slither away. I told him it was his imagination and to keep going, but my eyes were all for cottonmouths after that. Eventually, we were back on the track and new pools appeared; forgotten pools I had laughed and splashed my way through previously. They were fun no more. What had I been thinking?

“At least it’s a nice day,” I said aloud. It was true. It was mid-afternoon. The sun was shining. No breeze and about 60 degrees — a great day to go hunting. But instead, we were slip-sliding on submerged timber with numb feet, sweating the fate of my abandoned vehicle.

After a half-hour of slogging we looked back. “I can still see the truck,” the boy said. Yes, there it was, a disappointing white speck in the mud. Even though our pace was brisk, we were literally treading water.

By the time the guns were becoming heavy, the terrain dried out. Soon we spotted swirling buzzards. Ordinarily that’s an ominous sign. We knew what it meant.

“There’s the gut pile,” I commented. We were getting close. Rutted sand gave way to a hard washboard road and finally, after a little more than an hour’s trudge, we approached the ranger’s station. We were thirsty, beat, and our feet were cold and wet.

The ranger took one look at us and said: “Looks like you got stuck.” He said it so nonchalantly that the next line didn’t sink in right away: “I can’t help you.” I suppose I expected to hear that, then he went on: “But somebody will. Give it a few minutes.”

We needed a few minutes. We sat on the edge of the porch and I opened a water bottle I brought. My son took off his boots. I guess I thought the ranger would make a phone call or something. Maybe he knew of some secret towing service out here. We sure couldn’t find one. A few minutes went by. Still no action on his part. He was shooting the breeze with some campers. I stood and milled a bit, hoping to get his attention. No response. Maybe I needed to say something.

Then, through the gate appeared a hulking red SUV. Dogs barked from within. The driver greeted the ranger like a old friend. The ranger nodded to me, then asked the driver: “Think you can help these boys out?” It was just that simple.

Their names were Tom and Tom, a father and son, and they were out for an afternoon of wingshooting with their dogs. As we four glided effortlessly over the sodden roads, I apologized profusely for intruding on their hunt. I offered money for their trouble and I think that slightly offended them. “This won’t take long,” the elder Tom said. Tom the younger added, “We’ve all been there.”

Then, far ahead, there it was, a little white speck in the mud. “That your truck?”

“Yes,” I replied. We were slipping and splashing; the road was worsening. “How’d you ever get that thing in here?” young Tom asked. I wanted to say something like “Good sense is finite; idiocy has unlimited mileage,” but only managed “I don’t know.”

The tow strap was applied three times that day. Once in the initial mire, twice more in pockets we had roiled up with our traffic. Their vehicle was made for this element, ours wasn’t. The dogs were silent and patient, as was my son. We emerged on the main loop road covered in mud. My thanks were profuse. It had only taken a half hour. I asked Tom and Tom their last name and they declined — perhaps they sensed I wanted to send them a gift of some kind. They wanted neither publicity nor remuneration. “Pay it forward,” was the elder’s wage, and when I see the chance, I shall.

Hunters are not fishermen. Yes, you can be both, but they are different mindsets. In fishing, you can release your catch and then knock back a beer. Hunting is serious; there’s no such thing as kill and release, and alcohol is strictly verboten. Fishermen gab and joke while they cast. Hunters observe strict silence and pride themselves on their lack of presence. Fishermen brag and lie. Hunters don’t bother; theirs is a sad satisfaction, the knowledge that death begets life, and that “This ain’t no party/This ain’t no disco/This ain’t no foolin’ around.”

The ranger summed it up on our mud-streaked way out: “Hunters do things like this for people. They’re always willing to help.” So do many fishermen, I might add, but then there’s the guy that sees you catch a fish and plows right up next to you. Or the guy who leaves his catfish to die on the beach (ouch!). Or the fish hog who catches twice as many blues as he wants or needs and leaves them to rot in the public garbage can at the end of your street. To this day, I have never met an inconsiderate hunter.

So I thank you, Tom and Tom, for proliferating my faith in good people. And thanks to another Tom, my son, for being so mature and uncomplaining, for helping with all his strength and sharing his technology.

Three Toms, demonstrating the splendor of action.

(To read Part One – click here: http://thebeachsideresident.com/2010/02/this-happened-to-us-part-i/)

February 20, 2010

The Honorable Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

My name is Dan Reiter and I live in Cocoa Beach, Florida. We have a charming little town here, rich in history, culture, and scenery, but poor in most everything else. Once –- a half century ago –- the Mercury and Apollo missions launched from these sands to stir the hopes and dreams of the world. For a shining instant, we stood at the edge of human imagination, gazing out into a future bright and unknown. Sadly, those days have long since passed.

At the very heart of our town stands a building known as “The Glass Bank.” It is a curiosity of mid-century modern architecture with I.M. Pei-style curvatures and ranks of windows on all sides. It is a lonely monolith in the center of the city, towering high over the cabbage palms and low-lying roofs surrounding it. In its time, the top floor of the Glass Bank was home to Ramon’s Rainbow Room, where luminaries such as Gus Grissom, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Walter Cronkite sipped cocktails over the moonlit stillness of the Banana River.

In recent years, the Glass Bank, like Cocoa Beach itself, has fallen into disrepair. Hurricane Frances took out many of the windows, which remain boarded up to this day. The commercial tenants folded up shop long ago, skipped town, and the place has been abandoned now for over six years. The absentee owner of the building has allowed the façade to rot, and a thin layer of black mold festers over what stucco remains between the windows. In places, the raw steel bones of the structure show through gaping holes. This cracked and ragged edifice has become, unconsciously, the symbol of our city’s decimated property values. One look at this slouching giant is to see in material form the toll the recent recession has taken on all of us.

Our City Commissioners have tried to take measures to remedy the eyesore. Maximum fines and penalties have been levied upon the owner, who continues to amass a glut of code violations. Legal avenues have been explored as well, to no avail. Apparently, eminent domain can only be invoked when the values of the fines surpass the appraised value of the building. I am told this will come to pass in the summer of 2061, should the current pace continue. I spoke at length with the city superintendent about this issue, along with the mayor, two of our state senators, the clerk of the county court, and the proprietors of three local surf shops. The general consensus is that the best and cleanest resolution to the problem of the Glass Bank would be to bomb it into oblivion.

Therefore, I write to you now humbly requesting the use of an idle V-2 missile. If a V-2 is unavailable, similar tactical ballistic weaponry would be acceptable. If no missiles are readily obtainable for this purpose, I hope that you might allow me to propose another, less costly, alternative.

The current owner of the Glass Bank has stated that he would part with the historical building for a price of $5 million. Two years ago, the City of Cocoa Beach considered purchasing it for their city offices, fire department, and police headquarters. Contractors were called in to estimate the cost of repairs. They deemed that an additional $2 million would have to be spent to get the thing back to respectable shape. The total price tag of $7 million was only slightly out of range of the city’s budget. However, instead of trying to drum up the remaining $6.7 million, the deal was inexplicably shelved.

I would propose the following:

A Federal grant be issued to the City of Cocoa Beach to purchase and restore the historic Glass Bank building.

Green construction methods will be used in the reconstruction. Rooftop flora, solar windows, renewable materials, and the leading Florida green technologies will be implemented, and the process held up as an example to all builders as to what can be accomplished in the coming age of environmental responsibility.

The City of Cocoa Beach, upon completing the construction of the building, will relocate its own offices to the first floor, and issue 20-year leases for the remainder of the units. A focus on green construction methods, space exploration, and alternative energy research would be promoted in the selection of tenants, who would occupy the space free of charge.

The boon to the local economy would be tremendous. As you know, the Space Coast has staggered under the weight of the housing crash; massive layoffs at Boeing, United Space Alliance, Northrop Grumman, ATK, and even NASA continue to cripple our workforce. With the purchase of the Glass Bank, engineering and construction jobs would be created immediately. Vibrant and educated labor personnel will be employed and remain within our community. Surrounding businesses will thrive. Our downtown area will be revitalized. The tourism industry would benefit. Brevard county, and all of Central Florida, will stand up and take notice of the building. Here, in the form of a single, remarkable structure, we have the opportunity for instant, tangible results in a land full of skeptics. And all this, for less than 1% of the cost of the high-speed rail! Think of the far-reaching implications. The restored Glass Bank will stand as an iconic symbol for a green future and a fresh, rejuvenated space program. Once again, our little seaside village has the opportunity to ignite the imaginations and hopes of Florida.

I am enclosing with this letter two photos of the Glass Bank. The first shows it as it appeared in the 1960s, during the apex of the Apollo missions. The second depicts the structure in its current state of decay.

I hope you will consider this unique proposition. The people of Cocoa Beach await your decision with the highest of hopes.

With deepest regards,
Dan Reiter

Enclosures (2)

* Note to the locals: this letter failed to mention the fact that the top two floors of the Glass Bank are currently occupied by an eccentric recluse, a man by the name of Frank Wolfe, who refuses to part with his property, and who has blocked in all the windows of his pied-a-terre. Ironically enough, Wolfe once served as city attorney during the “flush times” of the early ’60s. This trifling fact was either too unseemly, or else too unimportant to bother the President with — the reader is free to decide which.

Many years ago I read the great biographical work “Murrow: His Life and Times,” by A. M. Sperber. Since that time I have owned six copies — each had to be replaced because I kept giving them to journalism majors. Most of these students were specifically hoping for careers in broadcast journalism, and it was my hope that learning more about one of the first, and still the finest, broadcast journalists ever, might inspire them to focus their careers on the pursuit of the Truth rather than the Buck. Then someone turns on FOX News, and I wonder if there are enough books in the world.

Farce News, FIX News, FOX Noise, Vexed Views, Uncle Rupert’s Babbling Menagerie… I don’t care what you call it, just so long as you don’t call it broadcast journalism. Journalists are supposed to report the news, not fabricate it, yet every day that is what they do on FAUX News. Over 30% of Americans still believe Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks of 9/11. Why? It was never proven, in fact it has been fully disproven, but FOX News said it enough that they still believe it. Let’s just look at a few of their other greatest hits:

WMD’s in Iraq: Ran all the Bush White House photos long after they had been debunked. See, this is a satellite photo of a portable sarin gas lab. (No, that’s just a truck!) See, this aluminum tubing is for rockets to carry sarin gas or a dirty-bomb. (No, that’s for a chain link fence!) These papers show that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger. (No, the seals are wrong, the dates are wrong, and four of those people were dead or out of office at the time!)

Katrina: Without a doubt the worst failure of emergency infrastructure since Pompeii, yet they ran stories on how low it was for “the Liberal Media” to capitalize on pain and suffering by criticizing the Bush administration’s response. (Ted Williams has a faster response time, and he’s a frozen head in a jar!) They also ran stories on how the real blame lay with the Democrat Governor and the Democrat Mayor. (Granted, both idiots, but that doesn’t give Brownie’s FEMA a pass.)

Abu Ghraib: This one blew my mind. Do you know who the villain was there? The U.S. Soldier whose broke the story! Not only the villain, but called “traitorous” because her actions would inflame the enemy! I’ve got some non-FOX News for you: It inflamed ME! We used to be the good guys, or at least that’s what we told ourselves and our children. Now we’re one of those countries that tortures prisoners? Which brings us to…

Guantanamo: We hide prisoners away, many of them on the barest of evidence, and deny them any trial. Many of these are also Americans, locked up on suspicion alone, and denied their rights as citizens under the U.S. Constitution! And again we torture! FOX News gives us Jack Bauer stories and jokes about waterboarding. (We tried Japanese prison guards after WWII for waterboarding and shot them — for torture!)

Valerie Plame: An operative of the CIA is publicly outed during a time of war. FOX News trivializes the whole matter, calling her a “secretary.” Did it ever occur that every cover name she used, every fake office or company, every front of any sort associated with her travels were also now compromised, as were any other people also using those same fronts. That’s not just one agent, that’s dozens! Dozens of U.S. Intelligence operatives betrayed during a time of war as political payback? You don’t get a few years for that like Scooter Libby; you get a firing squad. (Mr. Cheney!)

Death Panels: I could go on for hours on the lies spouted on FOX during the Obama campaign, but my favorite is this one: The proposed Health Care Reform bill allows for end of life counseling, something proposed three years ago as a Medicare covered need by a Republican, which would include covering the costs of preparing living wills and durable power of attorney. A lobbyist for the healthcare industry calls it a “Death Panel.” Hell, even Sarah Palin can remember that! FOX News is still repeating — or I should say misreporting — that!

Sarah Palin: Since I just mentioned the Bumbling Bimbo from You Betcha, let’s wrap up with her. This is a woman everyone knew was unqualified for the office of Vice President. The woman thought Africa was a country! They had to explain to her that North Korea and South Korea were actually two separate countries rather than the top and bottom parts of one! How does an allegedly “fair and balanced” news channel handle the subject? They LOVE her! Anyone else who dared to suggest that Bimby wasn’t the sharpest spoon in the knife drawer… well, they’re just part of the Evil Left-Wing Media. The truly mind-numbing part of this one is that after her failed election bid, after recent books have only served to underscore the depths of her ignorance on all matters political, historical, and geographical, FOX News hires her! As (this would be funny, if it weren’t so sad) a POLITICAL COMMENTATOR!

There might be a young Murrow out there somewhere, but he’s damned sure not showing up on FOX News. Right down the line this company has spouted whatever distortions, half-truths, and outright lies the Bush administration fed them, and now they’re continuing the same effort for all Far Right-Wing Conservatives. They are the true American “Pravda,” and just as it was ironic that the name of the propaganda arm of the U.S.S.R. meant “Truth,” so it is now ironic that FOX News hails itself as “Fair and Balanced.”

They’ve never been fair, most of them are imbalanced, and that transparent party line tripe is NOT news. If their bi-polar buffoon Glans Beck wants something to cry about, how about this:

I miss my country. The one that didn’t TORTURE! And if their pet zealot, Pat Robertson, really wants to know who made a deal with the devil, maybe he should look closer to home. In numerology, there are three letters in the English alphabet that have a value of “6.” They would be the 6th letter, the 15th letter, and the 24th letter. That’s right, F-O-X equals 6-6-6!

Who’s made the deal with the devil now, Mr. Robertson?

At age eleven I was given a gift which lasted ten years, a subscription to Outdoor Life magazine. Within were a wealth of stellar outdoor writers:  Ray Bergman, Byron Dalrymple, Joe Brooks, Jack O’Conner, Stu Apte… I only wish I could be among their number. Their stories were more than entertainment, they were inspiration.

Wintertime was a house-bound time in Northern New York, but that monthly arrival of global bloodsport transported me to lands warm and unknown: Florida for tarpon on a fly, Africa for Cape Buffalo, and Mexico for bass. And in the heat of summer, just the opposite. Alaska for caribou… Grizzly in the high mountains…

Even the ads were enjoyable. In the back were page after page of hunting and fishing lodges, listed by state and province. Replete with photos of the bag, these little thumbnails of exotica were the stuff of outdoor dreams. Ah, but the coolest thing about Outdoor Life was a full-page comic strip called “This Happened To Me!”

I love comics. Always have, still do. I started with Popeye and Donald Duck. Then came serious DC stuff like Superman and Batman. It finally culminated with the Marvel brand; super-sophisticated art starring Captain America, Sergeant Fury (and his Howling Commandos), The Fantastic Four and Daredevil. Anything drawn, anything with word balloons and visual onomatopoeia like BAM and BUDDA-BUDDA-BUDDA and KA-BLOOEY — that stuff just drew me in. And so it was with “This Happened To Me!”

Trampled by hippos! Elephants amok! Snakebit! Quicksand! You name it, it happened to somebody, and there were the cartoons to prove it. Hey, if they made a comic about it, it must be true. They solicited entries and I tried many times. In my long and not-so-illustrious career as an outdoorsman I’ve certainly had a few scrapes. But somehow, squashing a toad barefoot or digging redworms out of day-old cow pies didn’t rate. Comparatively, my outdoor life was tamer than the outdoor lives of others. That was, until last week…

It is December as I write this; hunting season. As my readership (hi, Mom!) may recall, my teenage son and I began hunting together last year. On six glorious occasions we invaded select local Wildlife Management Areas, finally returning victorious. In other words, we shot one squirrel. Three times. And we ate it. And it was good.

We had a lot of rain this fall. Not like Tropical Storm Fay last year, but it came late and stayed long. The ranger at the gate put it aptly: “It’s wet back there. But you’ll find that out.” So we were warned, but figured the savvy we’d earned the previous season gave us license to ford any quagmire these boonies could pitch. Boy, were we wrong. We were not twenty minutes into this season’s first foray and found ourselves hopelessly ensnared in a veritable tar pit, deep in the boondocks, miles from any form of salvation.

How could this happen? I drive a truck and I know these backroads. We drove them weekly last season. Always got through. And what about all those years in Buffalo, Rochester, and Watertown when I drove in slush and slop and never got stuck — and that was in those dinosaur V-8 Lead Sleds with bald tires and three inches of clearance! I drive a truck fer chrissakes! Well, I soon learned my “truck” was little more than a glorified golf cart when “it’s wet back there.”

It was my fault. We’d had a couple of “wows” in some big puddles and I was feeling pretty invincible. A bit of a sideslip, some black water over the hood, mud on the mirror… We’re hunters, kid, nothing can keep us from the killing fields. Then, whump. We bottomed out. Hard.

Reverse, that’s what you do. It always worked in snow. Rock it out. Reverse, drive, reverse, drive… Rock it out.

Or dig it in.

I dug it in. Ba-a-a-ad…

We pushed for awhile, entirely in vain. I crammed sticks under the tires to gain traction. That didn’t work. My son, brave soul, even began to dig with his bare hands. No gain. The vehicle’s frame was resting on the mound between the tracks, wheels spinning. Well, one wheel anyway… It was then I realized “rear wheel drive” means “one wheel drive.” While the passenger side spun madly, the driver’s side was still. I also noticed water swirling around a stick I had planted. This water was moving; we were mired in a creek or spring of sorts. Meanwhile, the black goo was seeping into the cab and truck bed.

The boy produced his cell phone and attempted to reach the ranger station. Surely, ours was not a unique situation. Hunters must get stuck back here every season, right? The ranger would know whom to contact. After dialing the numbers on the map and on my license, enduring several long holds and line switches, it was not to be. Those numbers are unlisted.

“The Yellow Pages,” my boy said. “I’ve got the the Yellow Pages on my phone, I think.”

I’ve never been a fan of cellphones. I find them a nuisance. But standing in that cold black water, looking around and seeing no sign of humanity except for a sinking Ford Ranger, I was beginning to appreciate them. “Look up towing services,” I said.

He stabbed the device with his fingers a few times, tilted it, stabbed again, sighed and said “Not enough bars.”

“But you just made a call.”

“I can call,” he qualified, “but I can’t seem to get the Yellow Pages.”

My mind swirled. Why did Superman only exist in the comics? Boy, could we use him now. Even Batman would be a blessing, and he didn’t have any superpowers. Okay, no Superman, no Batman, no ranger, no Yellow Pages… Who ya gonna call?

“Hi, honey. Guess where we are?” I tried to sound cheerful.

“Guess where I am?” She replied.

“I asked you first… Okay, we’re stuck. We’re stuck way out in the boonies and we need some phone numbers from the Yellow Pages. I mean, like, we’re REALLY stuck. We need a tow.”

“Well I’m at the mall. There are no telephone books here.”

“Oh yes there are! There has to be a phone booth.”

“Phone booths went out with Superman,” she stated. Then I heard a phrase we would hear several times that day: “I can’t help you.”

I can’t help you. The four loneliest words in the English language.

The cab floor was now covered with mud and it was creeping farther into the bed. Ammo, cooler, jackets and guns were now at risk. I was worried about the guns most; mud is definitely a no-no with them. I opened the hatch and pulled them out. They were still in their cases, and I laid them on a patch of high ground. The ammo would be okay; it was in a waterproof box. The cooler, likewise. Our jackets, well, they would need laundering. As a last whim I also rescued a roll of toilet paper — you never knew when that might come in handy. I could feel something boiling within my guts already.

“Dad! I found the Yellow Pages!” Yes! Thank you, Alexander Graham Cell… “Dad! What city?”

I then remembered that many years ago I made a set of signs for a towing company. Why not them? “Hey, try Acme Towing.” Of course Acme Towing is not the real name, but you’ll soon realize no towing company needs the endorsement I’m about to give.

“Dad! Here they are. Talk to ‘em.” A sweet Southern voice greeted me. I felt relieved. “Do you guys work out in the boondocks?” I began.

“Lordy, I didn’t know there were any boondocks left! We work anywhere, sugar.”

“Well, uh, we need a tow. Bad. We’re out at the wildlife management area. Road Two. When you pull in, the ranger will give you a map.”

The upshot was $75 and mileage. I had a credit card, and as I watched my truck slowly sinking in the mire, money was no object. “Forty minutes,” she said at last. What a relief. It was all that easy.

“We’ve got forty minutes,” I told my son. “Let’s load up and see if we can find some squirrels.”

Guns and ammo were uncased. “Don’t go far. We don’t want to miss our tow.” Not to worry. Scarcely were we loaded when the cellphone rang. “It’s them, Dad.” I took the phone.

“Ah’m so sorry. I can’t help you. Our boys don’t go out there. We sold our four-wheeler years ago.”

“What? You said — ”

“And we tried Joe’s — he’s got one. But he don’t go out there neither, sugar. He just don’t want to. I can’t help you. Sorry…” Click. Suddenly that toilet paper was looking mighty important.

“We have to walk, Dad.”

My boy was right. But even if we did make it to the ranger station (which could take who knows how long) could he help us? Would we be taking a long, wet walk for nothing? Did I just lose my truck? Oh Superman, where are you?

Learn the answers to these and many other of life’s questions in “This Happened To Us!” Part II.

Marriage

It happened one idyllic afternoon, over six Valentine’s Days ago.

The sunset flooded in through the church windows and shed a dreamlike, coral pink glow over our clasped hands. We recited our vows and donned the rings. I was 26. She, 21.

At the reception, a friend of my father’s approached us on the dance floor and said, rather unwittingly, “Cherish it, my boy. This will be the happiest moment of your life!” I thanked him for his gracious words and twirled away to dance with more optimistic folk. I hoped what the old codger said wasn’t true; after all, marriage wasn’t the end of the journey, but the beginning… right?

We glided through a sea of friends and loved ones, and though most were smiling and joyous, I detected a tinge of remorse in some of the older couples’ faces. Was it possible that poor devil was onto something? I took care to etch the evening permanently to memory just in case — the sumptuous ballroom with its high, inlaid ceilings, the tables adorned with hydrangea and sweet-smelling lily of the valley, my bright-eyed bride, a delicacy of silk and embroidered satin in my arms… The music, the spread, the wine, our happy hearts… Truly the old man must be mistaken — marriage was nothing less than a blessing from the heavens! This ecstasy was bound to last forever, and only be enriched with each passing day!

This buoyancy, this hopeful confidence, is common among freshly-married brides and grooms. Not a one of them expects the glow to fade, to dim away, and eventually disappear. Sadly, 50% of all marriages in the United States end in divorce. The other half, I suppose, end in death. It is hard to say which is worse, divorce or death — only that a bad divorce is commonly acknowledged to be worse than a good death. Why then, given equal chance of success and failure, do intrepid lovers flip the coin at such alarming rates? What misconceptions draw so many into doomed marriages? And — more importantly — what can we do to avoid them?

“You only know what happiness is once you’re married, but then it’s too late.”  — Peter Sellers

Maybe unreasonable expectations are to blame. Just talk to a young girl about weddings. At the very mention of the word she will tremble with excitement, stricken with visions of satin gowns, ladies-in-waiting, her tall, handsome prince, roses clambering up a stone wall, and the castle guard standing at attention. Bluebirds and sparrows will flutter about her head, eagerly offering up white ribbons. Hers is a dream of happily-ever-after, preened and cultivated since early girlhood. No matter that the fantasy is unattainable. She wants it all the more.

A young man’s expectations of marriage might be markedly less picturesque, yet he will crow on about “defying the odds,” or how “love will conquer all things.” He, too, has fostered an illusion, a thinly-applied plaster over his emotional attachment to her legs, her breasts, and the gentle curve of her neck.

The very young see marriage as an opportunity to better themselves — a noble endeavor — and yet in some way they have been fooled. They fail to understand certain implications of the pact.

Why do we marry, really? The covenant is as old as civilization itself. It has been around at least since our first recorded history, when the code of Hammurabi dictated marriage laws to the people of ancient Mesopotamia. (Infractions often resulted in one party or another being cast into the river.) Over the centuries, humans have used matrimony to promote stability, to propagate the species in an orderly fashion. Logic tells us that the coupling of one male to one female assures no one be left out of the child bearing equation. But is marriage a man-made construct, or does it run deeper than human society?

Poets, philosophers, and biologists have long extolled species like swans, wolves, ducks, and prarie voles, who mate for life. The scientific term for this phenomenon is called “pair-bonding.” Some theorize that marriage, like pair-bonding, is an innate instinct in the animal kingdom. This view has recently been called into doubt, however, by certain scholarly types. Anthropologists David Barash and Judith Lipton, in their 2001 book “The Myth of Monogamy” prove that cheating — or “extra-marital copulations,” as they phrase it — runs rampant even among pair-bonded animals. Their findings seem to conclude that holding a single sexual partner for life is not only a difficult task, but an unnatural one, especially for (get this) the more dominant males of the species.

While Tiger Woods may take comfort in these scientific findings, I for one, cannot abide them. I say, when we start looking to beasts for marriage counseling, we may as well go ahead and try out eating our young, or bathing ourselves in our own feces. No, I do not see marriage as a struggle against our own nature. Rather, I view at it as an elevation of it. Yes, we all have animal instincts. Undeniable, physical instincts. But why not rise above them… mold our perceptions to our will, exalt our own mates over the rest, glory in their imperfections… and tarnish forever the allure of extra-marital copulations?

“Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.” — Oscar Wilde

I’m sorry if I’m beginning to sound religious. Well, I suppose I do believe that marriage is divine. A holy, life-altering, magnetic force. A miracle that draws two souls together, and holds them fast as a single flesh.

“Every creature seeks its perfection in another.” — Martin Luther.

And yet, I have known men who loved each other just as profoundly as any man and woman. I have seen such couples pair-bonded for long years, and I have come to believe that they, too, are married. I have looked upon these heathens and somehow I did not recoil, nor once fear for the safety of my children. Why? Doubtless, I figured, looking into the eyes of these rapturous deviants, my two-year-old daughter understood their relationship better than I could ever explain it to her. Who am I, anyway, to try and account for God and his sundry works?

I leave you as a Valentine’s gift five well-trodden phrases which have served me well over the past six years, and which I hope can help at least one couple stay together, thus tipping the scales in our favor. Please, use them liberally, and be sure to say them with intention.

“Let’s open a bottle.”

“Date night.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll do the dishes.”

“I appreciate you.”

And finally, the most important phrase of all… and you simply cannot overuse this one:

“Yes, dear.”

SAND SIBLINGS

I’ve got a couple of girlfriends, one local and one back in Washington State, who each have a teenage son and daughter who at times… uhm… squabble.

Recently I was chatting on line with the west coast girl. She’d HAD IT with her younger brother. She’d typed and sent me a list of “The Idiot’s” most recent transgressions.

“You guys,” I clicked back, “need to try mixing a little brotherly/sisterly love in with the hate.”

While I waited for my response to fly through cyberspace, I realized I was repeating myself and that I’d said nearly the same thing to my Floridian friend’s kids, too. I guess maybe it had turned into kind of a running joke. At least I’m pretty sure the kids thought I was crazy when they heard me say it. “Love my, (insert brother or sister here)?!? Eeewww!”

“Yeah well,” a new message dinged across my screen, “you don’t know what it’s like. Your brother is nice!”

True. She knows the guy because we all lived in the same town out west. He’s a mild-mannered, helpful, devoted single father. What’s not to like? Now.

“Sure,” I typed, “but I didn’t always think so. Let me tell you a story about how it used to go down between us back in the day…”

I always planned attacks carefully, and tonight would be no different. I snuck in, dropped to my knees, and slid the paper plate under the bed. The sandwich crusts on the plate were gooey with peanut butter and jelly. When mom found the mess, and she would… oh boy, watch out! Crumbs attract ants, and Mom hated ants in the basement. Yep, this would bring big trouble down on the head of my enemy!

Twenty minutes later, just out of the shower, and brushing tangles from my wet hair, I walked across the hallway to my bedroom. Opening the door, I smelled them. Gym socks tucked in among my stuffed animals. Dirty, grass-stained, eye-wateringly stinky gym socks. Oh, how I hated my nemesis — my brother!

Two days later, our family piled into the station wagon headed off on vacation. Of course, the big jerkface and I ended up squished together in the middle seat. As we turned out of the driveway he shoved hard against my shoulder. I gave him the evil eye. He yelled at me to stop looking at him. I asked him to please stop breathing. Mom handed out cookies. I bit into mine then tap, tap, tapped chocolate crumbs into his lap. He returned the favor. I accused him, loudly, of pretending his cookies were cigarettes. Mom reached across the seat and squeezed my knee. My knee! I glared at my brother, folded arms across my chest, and hoped I could sleep the rest of the drive away.

I felt the familiar ess-ing curve of the road and opened my eyes. The miles of Western Washington State’s tall evergreens had bowed to scraggly, wind-battered beach pines. We were nearly there! My brother and I bumped elbows, grinned at one another, and began talking at once.

“As soon as we get to there…”

“…We should check the fort.”

“I was going to say we should hit the waves, but yeah, I guess we could check on the fort first.”

Last summer we’d gathered driftwood for one entire day, and had built the best fort ever between the two biggest dunes on the beach.

After arriving at the cabin, we ran toward the dunes, climbing to the top of the biggest one. Our fort was nowhere to be found, but we had five long days ahead of us to build another one. We slid back down the dune, coating our skin in rough grains.

“Hey, look,” I pointed to my legs, “sand’s like ‘Shake and Bake’ for people.”

We thought that was so funny we collapsed. Then we raced to the water. My brother hit the water seconds before me, his holler at the cold echoed by mine. The first waist-high wave knocked our breath away, but when it came back, it came back laughing.

Every day we were up at dawn till after dark. We listened in on seashells and chased crabs down their holes. Built castles and watched them wash away. There were smoky campfires, hot dogs crunchy with sand, and marshmallows, burnt to perfection.

Five very short days later we piled back into the station wagon. As we pulled away from the cabin, Mom and Dad shared the joke they did every year.

“It’s a shame we can’t bottle ocean air and pump these two full of it year round.”

“Yeah, keeping the ‘sand’ in siblings might keep the rivalry out.”

I rolled my eyes and then closed them. I hated to leave the beach behind. I thought back on the trip. Boy, we’d had a blast! “Sand siblings,” huh? Well, I guessed that was O.K. But just wait till we got home and my beach buddy found what I’d left tucked in his dresser drawer. Five days of vacation couldn’t have done it much good. I grinned and peeked out from under one eyelid.

“Stop looking at me!” my brother yelled and shoved, hard against my shoulder.

The big jerkface…

I was told you can’t grow them from seed. Oh, sure, they’ll sprout, but they won’t make it. And forget about fruit. These plants are inbred, crossbred and grafted; the trees are sterile if grown from their own seed. No sex organs… No breath of life… No grapefruit.

Well, it sure is ugly.

Three of the best years of my life were spent living next to a grapefruit grove. It was my first beachside residence and it was 20 years ago. Things were mighty different then. For one thing, the era of “house-flippers” and sub-prime mortgages had yet to emerge; property was actually affordable. What that meant was that your neighbor was probably on the same economic level as you. Maybe even a little lower… And that made them easier to communicate with. And a lot more friendly…

Another curious thing about those days was that a working citrus grove existed at all, beachside. As a matter of fact, that very piece of land today is now a community park, replete with ball fields. Yeah, soccer may be fun (I never thought so), but I miss the old grove.

The people who worked there, lived there. They didn’t drive Mercedes-Benzes or Beemers. They worked the land. I came to know them, their children and their dogs, and found them a pleasant diversion from the suit-and-tie types I dealt with in my workday. My friendships with the citrus folk had many perks, and one of the best was free fruit.

The grove was under contract with a Japanese concern. The fruit was of such high quality that I was told they sold for two or three dollars apiece in Japan. When that pink juice was dripping off your chin, you couldn’t help but agree. And as long as I didn’t complain about things — the noises, their pets, the smell of diesel and pesticide — I was welcome to the excess fruit. There was plenty of excess.

It seemed we had grapefruit year round. About the time the winter crop would run out, another crop, “June-blooms” they called them, would arrive. They were homely things, bell-shaped, crusty and thick-skinned; less desirable commercially, but with all the flavor and juice of the prize-winning “pancakes” the Japanese preferred. June-blooms were yours for the taking. We took many.

There were also specimen plants in the grove. One of the workers had a short row of white grapefruit. I prefer whites to pinks, probably because that’s all there was when I was a kid. If there were any pinks in Watertown, New York in those winters of the ‘50s and ‘60s, they must have been a nickel more a pound, because my Mom didn’t buy ‘em. White was all we ever had then. And I’ll tell you, that tart, squirt’n’yer-eye freshness was mighty welcome that time of year. It was a taste of Florida when all around seemed Alaska.

As we settled into beachside residency, my friend Ken bought a house on the mainland. The lot was small and the backyard was home to the largest grapefruit tree I have ever seen. It shaded nearly the whole property. It dropped fruit like rain, and — by golly — they were whites, the best I’d tasted. Aah, the memories they evoked. Dark winter mornings with icicles outside the windows… A schmaltzy mother-of-toilet-seat breakfast table with chrome pipes for legs… Captain Kangaroo on the Zenith… And an avocado plastic bowl with a hemisphere of subtropical heaven staring business-end up at you.

So I saved the seeds from one of Ken’s grapefruit and put them in a 35mm film can. Remember those? Anyway, I forgot about it. The seeds, that is.

Some weeks later we left the grove and moved into the only house I will ever own. While unpacking, I found a 35mm film can buried in a box of kitchen knick-knacks. Wondering what was inside, I picked up the can and shook it. No sound. I popped the lid and was greeted by the sight of what appeared to be spaghetti, solidly nestled in white fuzz. I dumped the contents on a paper plate. There, assuming the shape of the can from which they came, was a collection of sprouts, slightly mold-blown, but still viable.

One of the reasons I bought actual property was for the opportunity to grow things. I was raised by like-minded parents, and to me, “the miracle of the seed” is the closest link I have to any belief in a Higher Power. If you seek proof of a god, go plant some seeds. I crammed the sprouts in a small soil-filled earthen pot and again forgot them.

The dang things took. I was reminded the following New Year’s Day. We were throwing a party, and I made it an opportunity to show off my first homegrown batch of Florida tomatoes.

“What’s this?” a guest asked, pointing to the tiny potted plants.

“Oh, wow,” I answered. “Grapefruit, I think.”

“From seed? That never works.”

But there they were, two baby trees, side by side. I started keeping track of them then. Other than cabbage palms, these were the first trees I had ever grown from seed. My yard’s loaded with cabbage palms, by the way.

So my ugly grapefruit tree isn’t really a tree — it’s two trees. I never had the heart to separate them. I was advised to, just as I was advised to graft them to something called “sour orange” stock. They’re just too good together. The trunk of one fairly engulfs the trunk of the other, gnarling it somewhat and certainly not enhancing the appearance, but jeez, the two are one. No, I couldn’t separate them.

After twelve years, it pushed forth its first blooms. By now it was part of the yard, shielding my back porch from the searing western sun. We were surprised and didn’t believe it at first. We were told this “just wouldn’t happen.” But soon, we were the proud parents of a dozen baby grapefruits, all on only one of the two trees.

One by one, I watched each fruit shrivel and fall. By December that year, there was only one grapefruit left on the tree. It seemed firmly attached though, and of supermarket size. After a cold snap, I figured it was ripe for picking. I called my wife at work.

“Do you mind if I eat it for lunch?” Although the fridge was full of store-bought grapefruit, this one was special, and I wanted her permission.

“You grew it, you eat it.” Either she was being extremely generous, or extremely cautious. Funny, it was very similar to the reaction I get whenever I bring home wild game.

Anyway, I did eat that grapefruit. And, unexpectedly, it was pink. And juicy. And sweet. I ate it “Florida-style.” That is, I cut it into latitudinal slices — grapefruit “cookies,” as it were — snipped the rind, spread the flesh and gobbled the triangles off the bone. That’s the best way to eat the stuff in my opinion; fast and wasteless. Then I licked the plate. Boy, was it good.

From seeds that would sprout but never grow, a tree that was never to be, blooms that would never appear, came a fruit that was delicious. Yeah, only one; and no, it was not white, but against all odds nonetheless.

Last year the tree did not flower, but this spring it bloomed spectacularly. It is December as I write this, and I can truthfully say both trunks are loaded with fruit, some in my yard and some in my neighbor’s. Why is the fruit on my neighbor’s side so much bigger? Ah well, that’s the way it always is, isn’t it? We just had a cold snap and this morning I sampled a baseball-sized specimen from my side of the fence. The rind was bright yellow, the flesh frighteningly pink. Very juicy when I cut it, but alas, I shall not lie. Edible, but a mite bitter.

But there are many more green ones on the tree, and much larger ones, too. I’ll have to keep sampling. You know, I’ve never trimmed this thing. Never fertilized it either. Never even watered it, for that matter. Maybe a little TLC would put forth a tastier crop. We’ll see.

For now, it’s something for nothing.

And what about sports celebrities who rack up incredibly high scores… even in their spare time? Wow! Well, recently I’d been noticing all the stories about folks having trouble with their homeowner associations or condo management companies. The reports I’d seen or read had ranged from the silly to the sad, but just like I’ve never uncovered a million-dollar thrift find or stood twelfth in line to “play a little golf,” the stories I’d heard hadn’t had much to do with me. That is until I received the following letter…

XYZ Property Management, Inc.

Tenant,

This letter serves as notice that you are in violation of code 3375, section B, part 5: Sanitation Nuisance/Danger. The specifics of your violation will be explained on page 2 of this document. Be advised that this is an evictable offense…

Evictable! Wait. What? I keep a pretty tide home. Even my collection of robots get a regular dust up and sponge down, whether they need it or not. There was a glass of wine out on my kitchen counter, but I was in the process of drinking it. I mean, it’s not like there was a column of ants marching up the stem or a film of suicidal no-see-ums floating on the surface. I continued reading…

The specific Sanitation Nuisance/Danger violation you are being charged with is: SHOES LEFT ON FRONT PORCH. Violation cited by inspector EFG.

Please use the form on page 3 of this document to explain reason for violation, and detail steps you will take to rectify the situation. Be advised that a phone call will not be considered a legal response. We must receive your response, in writing, within ten days…

I took a swallow of chardonnay and looked around my family room for hidden cameras. This had to be a joke right? Besides I don’t have a front porch. Our door opens out onto a common area. I do have a deck off the back, but we don’t live on the ground floor, so the inspector would have had to come in and through my house to spy anything out there. What the…? Then I remembered.

A few days before receiving the letter, my husband and I had gone out walking on the beach and had been caught in a rainstorm. I had left a pair of sandals beside the front door to dry off for a couple of hours. Clearly I had been caught in violation of code 3375, Section B, Part 5! Of course, being guilty of the charge, I sat down immediately and wrote my response.

Hello, XYZ Property Management, Inc.,

When I received your letter my first thought was, “Wow! I’ve got a front porch? How in the world did I miss that?!.” Of course I soon realized the shoes were out on your “catwalk’”… as in “We’re going to be performing maintenance on our catwalk.” How disappointing. Sigh.

Oh well, be assured the offending beach sandals have been removed and severely punished. And you were right to send the letter. Thank you!

Seriously, imagine if it had been a pair of high-heeled pumps standing around out there like a couple of little ladies-of-the-evening on a corner! That could have really messed with inspector EFG’s sensibilities! No worries though. I’ve spoken to all of my shoes and they’ve promised to stay off the cat porch/front walk deal. Of course I’m not sure I can trust the above-mentioned heels. They do have a tendency to dance off on their own and get into trouble. I may have to lock them up.

On another note, while we’re exchanging friendly and courteous correspondence, could you let me know when you guys might be able to get our elevator working consistently? Seems it’s down more than it’s up, and as I’m sure you know, being tool-wielding maintenance types, that those particular conveyances work best when they go both ways. (I have a friend who insists we’d all swing both ways if we’d just let go, but I guess that’s a conversation for another time). Anyway, if you could let me know, like maybe in about ten days or so, (oh, and in writing, if that’s convenient), that’d be great. I mean, I don’t mind taking the stairs, but my high-heeled vamp-it-up pumps hate it!

In the meantime, I hope you have time to get down to the beach and enjoy life. I know that always helps me chill out and clear my head.

Thanks again for writing.

Hearing from you was such fun!

So far, the management company has not written back.

I’m disappointed that they don’t take me as seriously as I took them. And I’m getting a bit concerned. I’ve heard grumblings from the shoe cellblock. I’m very much afraid there is a breakout being planned, and as every one knows, once delinquents run, they run amok!

“Thanks, Matt.”

From up on the dock she handed down a cardboard box full of bottles and snacks, her wide-brimmed straw hat shading her saltwater-tanned face. “I made some sandwiches, one for you, too. Fresh sliced turkey with lettuce on wheat. Got a little jug of rum, too.”

“Dang, Mrs. Thomas, you sure know how to fish in style!” I said with a smile. “It sure is a nice morning. Those snook should be hungry with that full moon comin’ up. Outgoing tide will start soon, should be perfect.”

“I hope so. Paul’s caught a few before but I never have. We usually just fish the reefs for snapper in our boat, but that’s too easy.”

“I’ll do my best to put ya on them today, Mrs. Thomas.”

“That’s what we’re paying you for,” she said with a wink.

“Speaking of Paul, where is Mr. Thomas?” I asked.

“Oh, he’s on his way. He woke up grumpy because we ran out of coffee, so he rode up to the store to pick up a pound. He’ll be here any minute.”

While Mrs. Thomas dangled her feet over the water’s edge, I readied the boat for our departure. I checked on the pinfish in the baitwell that I’d caught the night before. With a rod and light line tied to a small hook, I’d stayed up late drinking beer and used pieces of shrimp to catch two dozen of the palm-sized baitfish. Their bright pink and yellow fins were outstretched as they swam vigorously around the tank, which meant they were lively and would make good bait.

“Ahoy!” Mr. Thomas shouted from the gravel walkway that led from the marina to the dock. His coffee must have kicked in because he was half running, his fishing rod and oversized tackle box rattling with every bound.

“Morning Mr. T,” I said. “You ready to fish?”

“You bet. We better hurry up and get out there while it’s still cool. I’d like a shot at one of those big tarpon Pat McToobs hooked last week down off the south reef.” Mrs. Thomas shot a menacing glance at her husband. “Honey,” she said with wide eyes. “I want to catch a snook.”

“Ah shoot, we can catch all the snook we want over off the jetty. That’s fool’s fishing.”

“Well how come you’ve never taken me there to catch one?” she rebutted.

“C’mon now, you don’t want to sit there and soak bait with all the rest of them lead slingers, do you? Let’s get us a great big tarpon on fly, how ‘bout that?”

“Whatever you’d like to do, darling,” she said, rolling her eyes and gazing out at the calm, green lagoon. “Hey, we ain’t gonna catch a thing sitting here at the dock,” I chimed in. I choked the old Mercury and started her. I let her idle for a few minutes then tossed the ropes up onto the dock and we were off. Mrs. Thomas took a seat on the cooler while Mr. Thomas stumbled around the deck of the flats boat trying to stow his unusually long 10-weight fly rod, its bright orange line tangling around his ankles as he stuffed it beneath the gunnel.

As the skiff skipped across the water toward the mouth of the inlet, I had to shout over the loud engine to talk to Mr. Thomas. “I think we’ve got a great tide for snook fishing, you sure you don’t want to try it?” I yelled. “All that bait flushing out of the river should have the big ones feeding.” “No,” he shouted back. “Tarpon. Think we could find them outside the inlet?”

“It’s a long shot,” I told him. “They normally school up at night during these bright moons and they usually don’t feed during the day. But it’s up to you. I can probably find them.” “Yes, I want a tarpon,” he said. “That’s what we’re doing.” Then he belched and tossed his plastic water bottle into the lagoon.

I cringed and shook my head. Since he was my first-ever client and I was working for him, I followed orders. I ran the skiff down the channel and out the inlet. The ocean was calm, the emerald green surface sparkling in the morning glare. Pelicans dove on schools of mullet as the little baitfish rushed out along the jetties. I could see snook fishermen with their rods bowed up with heavy fish hooked up. Mrs. Thomas noticed the action, too. She looked at her husband, who was messing with his assortment of flamboyant flies, and rolled her eyes again.

As we came to a reef I knew held tarpon at certain times, I pulled back the throttle and stood up to look around. I noticed a tern flying up ahead and beneath them a school of mackerel thrashed on the surface, preying on small, shiny baitfish. “Tie on a little streamer,” I told Mr. Thomas. “There’s some mackerel over there. Use a little piece of wire on the leader or they’ll cut you right off with those teeth.”

“I’ve got a long shank Clouser minnow that will kill ‘em,” he said. “Don’t need no wire.”

“They’re pretty big,” I said. “You might need that extra protection.”

“Just watch,” he said.

I motored quietly up to the feeding fish. When we got in range, Mr. Thomas began casting into the school, whipping his fly rod back and forth through the air. His fly landed right in the middle of the frenzy and he was instantly setting the hook on a fish.”

“Got one!” he shouted proudly. The fish sped off, but the line immediately went slack. “Ah, shit. The bastard cut me off. Musta been a big one.” Mrs. Thomas grinned. “That reminded me of the time you lost that big white marlin off Green Turtle Cay, honey.” she snickered. Mr. Thomas sat down and rolled his eyes at his wife’s comment.

“I’m telling you, try the wire leader,” I told him. “I’ve got some made up in my bag right here.” “Enough of these lousy mackerel, I’m out here for a tarpon,” he said. For over an hour we zigzagged back and forth across the stretch of reef, my eyes peeled for a tarpon I knew probably wasn’t there. The Thomas’s sat down and made a rum cocktail. As the sun rose higher, finding a fish felt futile. They were probably out deep, I thought, waiting for their midnight feeding.

“I’ve got an idea. Let’s run back into the river, head up the backwater creek. I know a spot where the tarpon will eat mid-day. They’re not as big as the beach-run fish, but occasionally I’ve gotten nice ones.”

“Whatever you say,” said the rum-buzzed Mr. Thomas. “You’re the captain.”

Twenty minutes later we were cruising up the creek, its brown tannic water a stark contrast to the bright green sea we left behind. I stood on the poling platform with the push pole in hand, moving the boat along like a gondolier.

“Is that a tarpon?” Mrs. Thomas chirped from her seat on the cooler. “Over there, I saw a fin.” I looked where she pointed and sure enough, a big silver tarpon rolled lazily on the surface. We watched again as the fish came back and sucked down a small crab that was kicking its little legs for dear life on the surface. “Yep, get ready to cast, Paul,” I said sternly. “He’s hungry.”

“I can see that, Captain,” he muttered. Then, realizing he’d have to take my advice for once, he asked nicely, “What fly should I tie on?” I fished around in my tackle box for a crab-imitation and handed it to him. “Here, this will work. It’s called a ‘Brown’s crab’. Once you whip it out there, let it sit still and sink. It wobbles down like a crab swimming to the bottom.”

He tied it on quickly and hopped up onto the front deck, ready to cast. I poled the skiff closer to where the fish was and once again the tarpon rose up, its fin trailing on the surface. “There he is! Cast!”

Mr. Thomas made a flawless cast and the crab landed a few feet in front of the swimming fish. The fly slowly sank into the brown water and sure enough, the tarpon followed it down and inhaled it. “Set up on him! You got him!” I shouted. He reared back on the rod and it bent over like a noodle. The line tightened and the tarpon shot forward and leaped out of the water, rattling its red gills. Its long, silver body seemed to hang in midair before plunging back down with a splash.

“Dip the rod when he jumps!”

“I know, I know!” Mr. Thomas snapped.

The tarpon made a long run, all the way to the mouth of the creek. Mrs. Thomas took pictures while her husband hung on for dear life and cursed about his expensive reel’s drag mechanism. “What a piece of crap,” he said. “My first fish on this reel and already the gears are grinding.” “Hey, at least you’ve still got the fish on!” I said from the back of the boat. “We’ve got to chase him around this corner.”

I poled faster to keep up with the massive tarpon, easily over a hundred pounds and a good six feet long. It took us out of the creek and along a mangrove shoreline, still pulling strong and not tiring from the fight. The push pole kept sticking in the soft, muddy bottom and I struggled to keep the boat moving along.

Ahead of us, a clump of short mangroves grew out of the sea grass and Mr. Thomas’s line was dragging across the stalks. My feeling of hope for a successful first-day guiding was drained as the tarpon chafed the line against the mangroves with every powerful stroke of his tail. “Watch out, he’s gonna break you off on those ‘groves,” I told him.

“If we land this fish, I want to kill it,” he said. “I’ll mount it at our yacht club, that’ll show Al Spencer who’s boss.” As if it heard the comment, the tarpon turned and ran headlong into a narrow cut in the mangroves and just stopped. I knew that particular spot didn’t go back very far, so the tarpon must have reached a dead end.

“Stay here,” I told the Thomas’s.

I jumped in the neck-high water and made my way into the shallow mangroves. I followed the orange fly line into the trees, far enough back that my boat and clients were out of sight. Pressing further into the tangle of mangroves, the line came to an end and I found the fish. It was lying on its side, pumping its gills and breathing heavily.

I looked into the tarpon’s big, black eyes and thought about how noble the fish really was. I pictured it out at night, feeding in the brisk current under a full moon, riding the crest of a wave through the inlet, making its way back into the blackwater creek — all only to run afoul of an egocentric fisherman like Mr. Thomas and end up on some prissy clubhouse wall.

I grabbed its lower jaw and pulled the bulky fish back and forth to run water over its gills, taking my time to revive it. It cast a long shadow over the sandy bottom. Slowly it came back to life, its tail swaying and getting stronger every second. Its shiny, metallic scales reflected a swirling, dreamy light onto my chest. I looked into its eyes once more, twisted the hook out from the corner of its jaw and set it free, pushing it out and watching it swim away, back to deeper water. I stood there, dripping wet, hanging onto the moment. Then I walked out of the mangroves, back to the boat to tell Mr. Thomas that his fish had got away.

Just the other day, I was out on the river on my stand-up paddleboard, skirting the periphery of the Thousand Islands, soaking up the last, honey-coated days of summer. I cruised along the warm, glassy waters in the lee of the mangroves — hovering, really, like a blissed-out gondolier — scarcely conscious of my body. It was one of those weightless moments when all seems right in the world, all things perfect and silent and harmonious.

The sunset spread out before me in jeweled ribbons of color — the clouds something out of a Monet painting — and me, lost in the beauty of it all. It was as if the whole river were holding its breath, carrying me to the brink of some fantastic, life-changing revelation… Suddenly, the water in front of my board heaved — a flash of gray — and then, a fin rose up, sliced through the calm, and made a hard line for me.

My board lurched, and I was tossed skyward, like a mullet flicked up by a dolphin. As I tumbled through the air, I glimpsed the algae-coated surface of a manatee’s hump below me, a violent white frothing in the water, and then, at close range, the blunt clamshell of the beast’s tail. This was the last thing I saw before I lost consciousness.

Luckily, I landed on my board. When I awoke, drifting on my back in the dusk, I realized I had been swept south, to the southern tip of Merritt Island, where the paper-mache dragon once lurched its ragged neck over the lagoon. Cool sideways rain was strafing my face. I knee-paddled to shore, retreived my cell phone from my dry-bag, and called my wife. It was a freak accident, I explained. I had been attacked by a manatee… could she pick me up? Yes, I was serious. A manatee, I said. That’s right, attacked.

My brush with death shook me up, and I couldn’t sleep all that night. For some reason, I felt myself drawn back to the river, like Ishmael, in search of this killer beast. Before I boldly took to sea, however, I would need to arm myself with more information about the manatee. Was it possible that my knowledge of the creatures had been predicated on myth and hearsay? Were they not slothful, somehow fragile, peace-loving herbivores? I dove into the internet, demanding answers.

In regards to swimming speed, I found this: manatees are known to travel anywhere from 1 to 2 miles per hour. Reputable scientific studies have not verified it, but when fleeing predators, some claim a manatee may reach speeds up to 15 mph. In one isolated incident, a fisherman in the British Honduras purported to witness a manatee swimming at a speed of 30 mph, though this assertion has been called into question.

There has never been a documented manatee attack. As proof, I encourage you to Google “manatee attack.” You will find links to punk bands, Facebook pages, and blog sites — but nothing newsworthy.

The more I investigated, the greater the gulf between my research and my encounter became. In all of recorded history, I could find no incidences of death by manatee. None. I began to doubt my own experience. Was it possible something else had assaulted me?

After an exhausting, six-minute investigation, I finally came upon a promising article. Only weeks ago, a story had broken in Madeira Beach: Russ Sittlow, a 78-year-old man, had videotaped a 30-foot monster in the canal behind his home. Authorities claimed the alleged monster was a manatee, but Sittlow vehemently disagreed, saying he had seen manatees, knew manatees, had watched them loll around these canals for over fifty years. “Normandy Nessie,” as he called her, was no manatee. A snake, maybe, or some kind of serpent, he offered.

Was it possible I had been attacked by Nessie, or one of her kind? There was only one way to find out. I bought another paddle, tied it to my wrist, and set out carefully into the river. I quickly came across a herd of grazing manatees.

At rest, these animals seemed harmless enough, like large river rocks, or half-sunken beach balls, but as I approached, I realized that even in the shallow water, they could move with suprising speed. After two sweeps around the pack, both times eliciting a furious storm of whitewater, one of the beasts turned its snout toward me, submerged, and with two impressive thrusts of its tail, launched me again into the air. This time, I was ready. I held onto my paddle, assumed a more favorable landing position, and successfully avoided head trauma this time.

As I paddled back in, wide-eyed and drenched, my neighbor called out to ask what had happened. When I told him, he laughed, and told me that his 12-foot catamaran had been flipped by these same manatees some months ago.

Was it possible Wikipedia had its facts wrong? Maybe manatees were really violent, hostile creatures. No… it was useless to doubt Wikipedia. More likely I had stumbled upon an pack of rogue manatees. Potentially, even, a new breed. I proceeded to the next logical step in my Google research; I punched in the term “manatee evolution.”

Accordingly: manatees are highly adaptive, intelligent animals, descendants of the elephant, or aardvark, or the hyrax (which is something like a gopher). Like the dolphin and whale, they made the move from land to water long ago. Scientists do not understand how, but they have an amazing ability to survive hurricanes. Some theorize that they find shelter, or else use their body structure to their advantage during the storms. The manatee has no natural predators, and for 60 million years they have thrived in these waters, until the recent introduction of motor boats, which has abruptly brought them to the verge of extinction.

Boats were really only introduced into these waterways en masse in the past fifty years. Doesn’t it makes sense, then, that a sort of weeding out process might have occurred? A premium suddenly placed on awareness, speed, and the ability to avoid an outboard motor? Perhaps we are seeing a “next generation” manatee — Florida Manatee 2.0 — built stronger, faster… and more deadly.

I longed to get back out in the water, to study these animals in greater detail. My mind raced. I would take a trip to Madeira Beach, meet with Mr. Sittlow, and fit my board with a waterproof video camera. This trend needed to be documented, analyzed… publicized for the greater good of mankind. When my wife caught wind of my intentions, however, she pointed out the potentially negative effects on my health, and demanded I give the wretched beasts a wide berth. I pleaded with her, but as always, her logic won out. What choice did I have? I was forced to watch from a distance.

I suppose I should end with a warning: Never approach a sleeping manatee, and for God’s sake, steer clear of manatee orgies. Do not take these animals lightly… they are not your father’s sea cows.

I’m sure very few of us are sad to see the end of 2009. The bad certainly outweighed the good this year.

I usually rate my annual experience with two indicators: weddings and funerals. 2008 was a busy year, with two funerals and three weddings. 2007 was an even count: one wedding and one funeral. 2009? No weddings and no funerals — a blasé year if ever there was one.

I can’t say I enjoy funerals, but I certainly love weddings. I love everything about them. Getting dressed up, witnessing a milestone then throwing away your inhibitions by getting sloshing drunk and doing the Chicken Dance… It’s like a show, dinner, drinks and dancing — all on someone else’s tab! Now that’s a night out.

Funerals are similar, but certainly more somber. You get dressed up, witness a milestone, then go somewhere and cry in your beer. I’ve actually been to weddings that were less fun than funerals, and I’ve been to funerals where I knew more people than at weddings, but generally, funerals are pretty much a downer. It’s a nice contrast, weddings and funerals, like dill pickles and maple sugar. You need the sour to balance the sweet.

It reminds me of a game we played as kids called “Cows and Graveyards.” When traveling anywhere in upstate New York, one was very likely to encounter dairy farms. The deal was to pick one side of the car and count all the cows you saw. When you came to a graveyard, the slate was erased and you started over. At the end of the trip, the remainder of the cows was your score. Silly? Yes, and slightly stupid, but the trip went faster. Weddings and funerals do the same. With each one, I’m reminded of how fast life is flying by.

Well, 2009 didn’t fly by. Witness, once again: no weddings and no funerals. But man, a whole bunch of people sure did die this year. Some were a real surprise, but many were slow and inevitable. Farrah Fawcett and Pat Swayze come to mind on the slow scale. Michael Jackson in the surprise category. But there were others, no less important though certainly less glamorous, that we may have overlooked.

The first person I’d like to eulogize was not a person at all. It was our cat, Crystal, at age 16, of congestive heart failure. Crystal led a colorful career, in cat terms, and was at times both loved and reviled. A highly talented napper, she ran free and wild in our yard (between naps) and not a single lizard on my property had a complete tail in her 15 years of residence. Birds too were on her menu, and that attests to her hunting prowess. It is also believed she had many lovers, to a point where some referred to her (in veterinary terms) as a “loose pussy.” She had many nicknames, most of which are unprintable, though some are inscribed upon her grave marker, located by the back fence.

I’m sure very few of you remember Vic Mizzy. Well, you should. He wrote the two greatest TV theme songs ever: “Green Acres” and “The Addams Family.” I haven’t seen either show in decades but I can still belt out the themes note for note. As TV songwriters go, Mizzy was amazing. His combination of melodic hooks and clever, catchy lyrics has never been surpassed. Do they give awards for stuff like that? If they don’t, they ought to. He was 93 when he died this fall.

Does anybody out there remember a guy named Robert S. McNamara? Well, he died in July. When I think back to those dark days of Vietnam, for some reason that name evokes a slow nagging nausea. “McNamara’s War,” it was dubbed, and he spent a lot of time living it down, eventually inspiring a book and documentary called “The Fog Of War.” My generation hated the man, and now I can’t remember why. As far as I know, he didn’t start the war, he was chosen to manage it. Sometimes we heap too much on a man. Also 93, he died in his sleep.

Anybody remember Captain Lou Albano? His claim to fame was his wacko showmanship. In fact, I think he invented some of the very popular body-piercing fashions we’re being subjected to today. He was a pro-wrestler, a garish self-promoter and managed the career of one Cyndi Lauper. For those of you who don’t know, Cyndi Lauper was Madonna’s twin sister. Or, one did the voice-overs for the other… Or, one was the other one’s mother… Or something. Anyway, Captain Lou died in October. If you’re a fan of pro wrestling — and there are many of you — it’s probably because of Mr. Albano. He elevated professional wrestling from cult status to the mainstream.

Who has never heard of Les Paul? He invented two things of grave importance to anyone who enjoys popular music: the solid body electric guitar and multi-track recording. Actually, he can’t take sole credit for the electric guitar, nor can he take sole credit for the guitar he lent his name to, the Gibson Les Paul. But without that gizmo, rock n’ roll would have no teeth. Every guitarist at one time or another yearns for a Les Paul. Personally, I don’t like them. I find them too heavy. And you know what? I don’t really care for Mr. Paul’s recordings either; they’re tedious and overcomplicated, in my opinion. But without the Les Paul guitar, Led Zeppelin would not have had its Led, Peter Frampton would have never “come alive,” and Jethro Tull would have been just another artsy flute band. Les Paul died in August.

Speaking of August, was this the longest, hottest summer ever? Nothing makes a year drag more slowly than uncomfortable, monotonous weather. Usually, by October, we’ve had at least a whiff of relief. That “whiff” this past fall lasted about a day. It is November as I write this, and it’s still hot out. Gaggin’ hot… And it started early — we had 100-degree days in June. But the fishing was good. Long, hot summer/good fishing… Why am I complaining?

No one needs to be reminded how bad a business year it’s been. Is this a surprise? For over a year we’ve had the major media beating us over the head with how bad things are. Even if you had a good year, you wouldn’t want to admit it for fear you’d be shouted down like some kind of braggart or liar. There are glaring causes for this so-called recession — economic “bubbles,” the exportation of all our manufacturing, fast and loose credit — but our buddies giving us the news sure haven’t helped anything. It’s like they wanted this to happen for lack of any other news. If you call a dog “bad” long enough, it’ll be a bad dog. If you tell someone they’re ugly enough times, they’ll become ugly. No wonder nobody wants to spend any money. No wonder no one wants to hire. They don’t dare; things are too uncertain. Why? Because the media keeps telling us they are.

Sure, there are signs that things are not right. I’ve seen several of my customers fold. The 32-hour workweek has become the norm, locally. Some have had wage cuts. But it’s happened before. And the last time (the late ’70s-early ’80s) you actually had to appear, stand in line, and sign to pick up your benefits. Now it’s all done online. And in the old days, the bennies ran out after six months. Now, well, they haven’t run out yet. The Feds keep extending them. To paraphrase Will Rogers: we’re the first generation to go to the poorhouse in a Hummer with a laptop, an iPod, and a cell phone.

I certainly didn’t have a great year with my business. After 22 years though, I’m used to it. These things happen; economies rise and fall. I thank God I’m self-employed. I have no one to blame but myself. I always have work to do. I may not always get paid for my work, but at least I’ve got work. Work = Purpose. To have a purpose: that’s the best wages on the planet.

We certainly had our share of household disasters this year. Boy, can that put a drag on things. Two weeks without water in April… (You can read all about that in the summer issues of The Resident.) Did I mention the smoking dishwasher? Not steam, mind you, but smoke. I got to teach my son how to wash dishes the old-fashioned way. That’s like teaching a cat to swim. At the tune of a mere $100, we finally had it serviced. I was quite unbusy that day, and chatted with the repairman as he worked. I learned a couple of things. First, appliance repairmen charge by the hour. Second, that includes time spent chatting. Third, I’m in the wrong business.

Wet spots on the ceiling.. A smoking icemaker… Intermittent A/C in a very hot summer… A failed tomato crop… Okay, okay, let’s quit dwelling on the negative. Surely some good things happened this year. Like… Um… Uh… The fishing! Yeah! The fishing was good this year.