“You look like a beach bum!” John Tatum exclaimed when he saw me in the lobby of Hunter, McClean, Exley & Dunn, Savannah’s largest and most prestigious law firm.
“Thanks,” I said catching the compliment in typical beach bum fashion.
I suppose that I do. My hair is longer than it’s been in while and I have to slick it back giving me the Don Henley “Boys of Summer” look. I’m also pretty tanned for winter because my house blocks winds from the west so the beloved back deck always me to sit there. A black tee shirt, jeans and tennis shoes with no socks complete the ensemble.
He was wearing a suit of course. Everybody there was wearing a suit. When did women get suits? I mean I understand pant suits (my Mom blazed that trail) but these ladies wore guy suits…with a tie?
I threw up a little.
So we went to the corporate office conference room where I used to wear suits and we talked. Have you ever noticed that when you go to lawyer’s offices it is rarely, if ever, for good news? Typically it’s bad. I told John several months ago that I would never have another meeting at his office because they had all been bad news meetings.
But…I’ve been a full time beach bum for months now and that changes your perception on most everything. I didn’t mind being there. I was on my terms. He had no idea why we were meeting. I was laid back and causal which are requirements to be a beach bum.
Riding the elevator up to the corporate office conference room he told me that he is going to Jamaica soon and that he’d never been.
“You’ll love it,” I told him. Bob Marley is a rite of passage for beach bums.
We talked for an hour and then it was time for the elevator ride down. “You know Micheal,” he said in parting, “I’ve got a couple of cases to finish then I’m taking a Sabbatical. I learned that from you.”
“Damn,” I thought to myself. “I wish that I’d learned that from me.” Then we hugged and I went my way and he went his.
Except after court he’s heading to Jamaica. And I’m not though there is always the possibility that I could head to court. I was jealous.
Jack Boylston was my next door neighbor when I moved to Tybee Island all of those years ago. One day he asked if I wanted to play soft ball for the “Bums”.
“Just for fun,” he explained, “we don’t take anything serious.”
The first game Batman and Jim Green showed up wearing ski masks. It was June and a hundred degrees outside. The “Bums” bench had coolers of beer and cheerleaders. Batman and Jim Green fainted in the second inning while playing first and second base…kind of at the same time. This was my introduction.
Then it became a quest.
Then there was this parade.
So I’ve done a lot of stuff in life. I’ve been around the world (well, not Asia though Bill Berry … not the former drummer for R.E.M. but the other one …keeps trying to talk me into it). I’ve busted through glass ceilings, danced on grand stages, made out in cemeteries, written books and had Rev. Charles Stanley tell me to “Shut up” in front of several thousand people.
But none of that compares to being a beach bum. It is …causal in the holist sense of the word. Worship involves the sun in ways that churches never consider. Community takes on deeper meanings. We wear our beliefs on our shoulders…which are tanned. We look good. We laugh a lot. Music is everywhere.
My phone rings. Bare feet glide across tile floors to answer it. The sliding glass doors are open and the breeze from the ocean is brisk. Fran’s thousand shades of green dance in delight. I grab the phone and walk onto the beloved back deck which is bathed in sunshine.
“What up?” I say.
After a moment of silence this woman with a nice voice tries to convince me to come to a resort that I’d been to several years ago. She suddenly stops in mid-sentence.
“Are those birds singing?” she asks.
I listen. Multiple choirs of birds are all competing to see who can sing the loudest.
“They are,” I reply.
Another moment of silence before she says, “I hate you.”
I smile and hang up.
I love me. And I love …here.
