A Knack for the Just the Right Time

"Travis McGee's still in Cedar Key. That's what ol' John MacDonald says."

I wish Travis was still there.

John MacDonald too.

But John died and took Travis with him and damn I miss him.

On a cold day flipping through the sales outside of Hawley Cook Book Sellers in Louisville, Travis reached up and grabs me.

I'd been in Louisville, Kentucky for 8 cold years, attending Seminary, graduating twice, inexplicably leading a Church that became famous and becoming a minor celebrity.

I hated it.

My son Jeremy and I hung out at the city's premier bookstore, hiding from everything anyone wanted which was, of course, every single thing.

He was a toddler and I'd leave him sitting on the floor in the Science Fiction section and meander around for hours finding other worlds to live in so I could get through the one holding me down.

Longing for salt air, Ocean breezes, weather that never turns cold, waves crashing on the shore, Seafood, girls in bikinis Dolphins ... I was depressed in the confines of institutional religion, pious friends, an unhappy marriage, living on the edge of poverty ... all with no end in sight.

Then a blue covered, five volume collection of novels caught my eye and standing on the sidewalk with a bitter wind blowing I shuffled my feet to stay warm and met Travis.

A "salvage consultant", his residence is "The Busted Flush", a Houseboat won in a poker game, in slip 18 at the Bahia Mar Marina in Fort Lauderdale, Travis lives a life where the rules are bent way, way ... WAY ... over but never broken.

I buy it, retrieve Jeremy and start reading the 21 novels John MacDonald wrote about Travis McGee.

By the time I finish, my feet are in the sand, Pelicans dive in the Ocean, my skin is reddish bronze, I don't have a job, the marriage is ending, my kids play in the surf and I'm happier than I've ever been.

By now I can't bring myself to read the 21st and last Travis McGee novel and wait until April of 1990 ... three years later for my last encounter with the man who helped bring me here.

A lot's happened in the ensuing years and today I find my feet shuffling again as I long for other things.

Then Monty Park's bring up Travis McGee the other day having no idea we're mutual friends and I grab my copy of "The Lonely Silver Rain" on a rainy day on island and smile as Sarah, the girls and I get ready for the next adventure.

Travis always had a knack for showing up at just the right time.