Key Wasted

Had I found Key West earlier in life, I'd still be there.

Living next door to Joey Finch.

But then I never would have met Sarah.

It makes one stop and ponder ...

Regardless, today Sarah and I are heading to Key West today to see Joey Finch and Bill and it just doesn't get any frigging better.

It all works out in the end.

I should be writing but I'm rubbing Sarah's firm tan leg, having just spent the free drink tickets John Branigin gave us, watching the water get lighter and lighter out of the plane's window.

Burning the last of our miles, this flight costs us $10 each.

Savannah to Atlanta to Key West.

No wonder the airline industry is messed up!

Fly north to fly south?

I have to ask Angela Barras Brackett about this.

She runs the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport (an oxymoron if there ever was one!).

It doesn't matter, Angie's doing the best she can.

Actually I had little to do with the purpose or planning of this trip.

Well, except I told Joey we'd be back soon.

This is Sarah's trip

She signed up to run races ... knows I love Key West, Ernest Hemingway and Joey Finch so she signed up and we're on our way.

There's no real point to this story, other than what I've already said.

So ... in conclusion ... have a really good weekend!

And if Angela gets the international part of the Savannah/Hilton Head Airport actually meaningful ... come join us!

Turning Down God's Gifts

"You're going somewhere again? Didn't you just get back?"

Standing beside him paying the bill at Tybee Animal Care, I shrug my shoulders and reply, "Well I suppose I could put if off but I may die before I ever got to go. It would be a shame to be dead and never have seen Ireland."

Then Sarah's 7 year old Cassidy comes home claiming her teacher wants to know why we travel so much?

"Where do they get all of this money?"

Having no idea Cass answers, "My Mom doesn't do anything. My step dad's a writer."

The poor child really is clueless sometimes.

"Do you think he'll come speak to the 1st grade about what it's like to be a writer?" she asks Cass who asks me.

I have no idea how to respond ... because I have absolutely no idea what I would say to a class room of 1st graders ... I imagine "Children's Time" in Church with all of the precious kids come down front to sit at the feet of the minister ... who really is just trying to manipulate them to say something funny so the service won't be as boring as the sermon.

First off, unless you're John Grisham, writers don't make any money.

We're like musicians ... we do it for the love of creating and sharing.

That's not to say I think anybody should put off experiencing life and there's no better way to enjoy living than travel.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

So says Mark Twain and I believe him.

I believe it's best to take whatever you've got and see the world now!

Keep going to the places you love, regardless of the cost.

The worst that can happen is you run out of money in a place you love or die before you ever get a chance to spend it actually visiting your dreams.

I've got lots of memories saved up to savor in the Nursing Home if that ever happens.

In the meantime, to Hell with the money, it's time to experience Ireland.

After all, that's why God made it and it's sinful to turn down gifts from God.

Disney World People

There are four types of people who go to Disney World.

There are the perpetually happy. They smile, talk, and are already planning how they plan on returning to the park tomorrow. They wear Mickey Mouse ears and Donald Duck hats, know the lay out of the place by heart and love the food. They have priority parking, pockets full of fast passes and look forward to helping people who are lost by sharing their incredible knowledge.

There are the lost ones. They wander around with an unfolded map wondering which way to go. They wear the aforementioned ears and hats as they circle Fantasyland having no clue they're doing so.

When they actually get in line they have no idea what they're waiting for.

"Is this the line for Splash Mountain?" a couple asks after waiting half-an-hour.

"No," yells someone with a Fast pass sprinking by, "but you'll love Dumbo."

There are the permanently pissed. They storm around the park, yelling and dragging their crying children to the next ride. Standing in line, wives fight with husbands and kids beg for money for more ice cream, cotton candy, or a leg of a beast that they rip the meat off of with their mouths.

Finally, there is a new breed of Disney goers. The techologically advanced. They have no idea they're standing in line as they stare at their phones. They're texting, watching Youtube videos, taking pictures and uploading them to Facebook. Disney is saving a fortune on the light bill because it turns off the lights at Space Mountain though the place remains eerily lit by the glow of a thousand tiny screens.

I watch them standing in long lines for things I really have no interest in doing. I never thought I'd be in this place again having sworn it off years ago. I'd done my time. Yet here I am with Sarah and the girls.

The joy is watching them do it all for the first time. They "ooh" and "ahh", scream on the rides, and are oblivious to the crowds. For moments the kid in me rises up and laughs as they scream "Weee" flying in a boat high above London chasing Peter Pan and Wendy.

And there are these moments when it seems that no one else is there at all.

Coastal Confessions

I’ll start with the first confession.

We are not on the coast.

We’re in Orlando.

That’s a lie and therefore another confession.

There will be many.

We’re actually in Kissimmee, not by the beach but at a pool.

We’re having a good time when a security guard in a blue suit with a badge storms passed followed by some squinty looking “I-work-behind-the-desk-authority-figure”. They appear pissed!

Beside us are these four sixty something women in bathing suits, drinking beers and talking. I can’t understand a damn thing they’re saying but luckily Sarah speaks extreme “Northern” dialects and translates for me.

“So I stopped cooking for him. That got his sorry ass out,” one said sipping on a beer.

“And that got him out?” said another silver haired lady. “I thought that would have made him stay.”

“Bitch,” the first lady said.

While this was happening, Sarah’s youngest child Cassidy is drowning in the pool so she jumps in to save her.

I’d miss it because I’m riveted by the conversation and the security guard confrontation at the insistence of the man wearing dark glasses, black socks and a pocket protector full of pens and notes. It made me think of Jerry Rainy.

“Is that a beer?” the security guard demands.

“What in the hell else would it be?” she shoots back taking a slug.

“You can’t have it here,” he tells her. “Home owner rules.”

Now I never saw the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the dropping of the first nuclear bomb, a tsunami or Rush Limbaugh in person but I imagine it was like this.

Four sixty something year old women from New York, now in Orlando, Florida, wearing bathing suits and drinking beer while talking about getting rid of their Ex’s … EXPLODED!!

Now I learned cussing while taking Hebrew in Seminary like everybody else but let me tell you something. These ladies were spectacular! Sarah had to translate many of the unknown Northern cuss words but let me tell you something … damn these ladies were good!

The security guard has no gun so he runs. Jerry Rainy had shot all of his ink so he flees too.

The women grab their cooler and chase them.

Laughing, I see that Cassidy is wet but otherwise alright. Sarah seems a bit upset though I have no idea why.

I take another sip of wine from the Styrofoam and felt bad.

It gets me thinking about Confession. I’ve done a lot of bad things … broken tons of rules … apparently almost let Cassidy drown.

I should confess my sins.

THANK GOD I’m Southern Baptist!!!

You don’t have to confess shit as a Southern Baptist Christian!

I try to explain it to Sarah but she doesn’t seem to care.

So I keep my mouth shut and sip my wine.

I love religion.   

Making reality out of fantasy

"Daniel Boone was a man, yes a big man! With an eye like an Eagle and as tall as a mountain was he!"

So goes the Disney version of the great American Frontiersman. I grew up on it and loved singing the television theme song, wearing a Coonskin cap (though Daniel never did) and fighting Indians in the woods of Port Wentworth, Georgia.

I also watched Walt Disney's "Wonderful World of Color" which showed his cartoons and the first images I ever saw of Disneyland.

I've always liked Walt Disney. He created a lot of stuff and made reality out of fantasy. Not a lot of people can do that. Most do it the other way around which is why the world is so screwed up.

Not Walt. He never let politics, religion, bankers or other skeptics get in his way. "If you can dream it, you can do it!"

He's hard not to like.

Plus he left behind the practical embodiment of his dreams. Disneyland and the larger Disney World are the world playgrounds and I'm going there today.

I took my kids. Years later I took Carlos and Verna from St. Martin and witnessed adults as children. Today it is Sarah and the girls first exposure to reality made out of fantasy. They will be able to touch it, taste it, and associate with Princesses or Pirates. They can scream in glee or in horror, ride with ghosts and boat through a wild jungle, listen to Presidents or coast through outer space.

It will be fun.

For the next couple of days then I'll do my best to be a kid again and enjoy it with them. I'll also celebrate the memories of my kids trips to Fantasyland and I'll never forget the look on Verna's face when she tumbled over the falls at Splash Mountain.

It will be hard to not enjoy all of the joys of fantasy where everything is always true and then it will be back to reality again.

Or not!

The Naked Truth

"There are no prostitutes on Tybee Island," the City Councilman said authoritatively.

"There have been reports of them," the Mayor replied.

"Well, there ain't none here," the Councilman said matter of factly.

The rest of the members of the Council shifted in their swivel wooden chairs or pretended to be reading the report in front of them.

"How do you know," the Mayor finally asked.

The Councilman leaned forward before he answered. "They'd starve," he said and sat back.

The audience murmured while the other members of the Council shook their heads at the old man with the white beard wearing painters pains and a plaid shirt. He took a long draw from the Styrofoam cup he held.

"Why would they starve?"


Shaking his head from side to side as in disbelief of the stupidity of the question, he put the large Styrofoam cup down and spit out the obvious answer.

"Cause you can it free on this island! Ain't nobody have to pay for it! Prostitutes would go broke and starve to death. There ain't none here."

Amidst laughter and shock, most everyone agreed with the assessment and the Mayor moved to the next item on the agenda.

This actually happened on Tybee in the not so distant past. I may not have gotten the words exactly right but it's a pretty accurate description of what took place.

Of course things like that don't happen anymore. The island takes itself far too serious these days. Besides the current City Council spends all of its time trying to fire the City Manager, buying more Stop signs and developing strategies to eliminate parking spaces.

I keep meaning to write a sequel to Running with the Dolphins but am laying low these days. Everyone on the island lays low now lest we find ourselves in the same position as the City Manager.

Besides I'm busy helping Johnny O get the "The Naked Politician Bill" passed. Any meeting of politicians would have to occur in the nude and begin with a group hug. Starting at the Tybee City Council and all the way to Saxby Chamblis' office in the U.S. Senate, any meeting would start with the naked truth.

Whatever they do in Executive Session is up to them but they sure as hell better not violate the sunshine laws which lets the rest of us watch!

And as far as I know, there still are no Prostitutes on the island.

Are you really where you want to be?

Finishing up lunch, the two of them launched into conversation about the health of their friends. The rest of us politely sat and listened draining the last of the sweet tea, dregs of wine and gulp of beer.

They will turn 70 soon and both still work full time. One is firmly entrenched as the patriarch of a family business where there is no retirement plan so he keeps working like he always has.

The other declared bankruptcy last year and has found new work as an independent assessor. Life is spent behind the wheel of his gas economic tiny car, driving across three different counties to get as many assessments done as possible in the course of a day. He is paid per assessment.

"Did you hear about Johnny?" one asked.

"No. What?"

"The cancer came back. They give three or four years."

"That's what they told Harry and he only lasted two months."

"Well, at least he's got a chance to get more things done. Better than Ray who keeps sliding in and out of Hospice."

It grew quiet for a moment and then one slapped the other saying with a laugh, "I told you we should have bought the damn yacht and sailed away. Now we're too damn old."

And that's how lunch ended as we followed one another outside to find our cars and drive in the different directions of our lives. My mind kept replaying their conversation as I made my way.

They kept meaning to buy that yacht and sail away but things kept getting in the way. There's always money to be made of course and family obligations are ever demanding. Baby always needs a new pair of shoes even though she moved to another city years ago. Times are always tough but one day soon the chance to sail away is going to come ... its just not today.

Then you wake up and you're old. Friends are dying. Managing your own health means the blood pressure is never at the right level. Aches and pains mount, everything takes longer than before and nothing's as fun as it used to be. Opportunities came but it never seemed the time was right to take them. The money's never quite right. Then things happen and all of the chances are gone.

"I told you we should have bought the damn yacht and sailed away!"

Life ... "is for each of us a series of crucial, precious and unrepeatable moments that are seeking to lead us somewhere," explains Frederick Buechner.

The question is where?

You're where you're at.

Is it where you really want to be?

As I drove I crossed the Thunderbolt Bridge and glanced down at the marina where boats to be sailed waited empty in their slips. The river meandered through the marsh towards the sea. The sun was bright, the winds lite and the waters calm.

It's a perfect day for sailing.

I found myself whispering a prayer.

"Hey God! Please touch everybody that feels like they've missed the boat. Tell them that it's never too late. Give the courage to change and the serenity to understand they'll disappoint somebody regardless of what they do. Grant the wisdom to know there's just this one life and if they don't sail away now, they never will."

A Dreary Holiness

A melancholy Monday has rain falling on the table outside adding a punctuation mark to a most dreary day. The plan was to skirt this as much as possible and flee to warm weather, sunny skies and calm seas. For half the time it worked but the travel ran out before the month did. Dreariness is forecast for today and tomorrow so I'm settling in.

The list of things to do is long and each item has a short time line. Crunch time has arrived for many of the things we've been working towards. I'm restless to see them come to fruition. It's been a long time since I've been so focused on one thing.

Over the weekend we were in St. Augustine where the Carnival of Friends were celebrating the birth of one of our own. We talked of how subdued we've all become. Over the past few years we were all managing major and sometimes terrible transitions ... some were wanted while a few of us were just trying to survive.

Through it all though, we've had one another.

Others have come and gone and we toasted them and missed their presence. More than that we celebrated the fact that we're still here as the closest of friends.

We didn't speak of the future and we didn't dwell much on the past. We simply appreciated that we were together again.

We laughed between bouts of quiet reflection. There was an unspoken acceptance of everything we've been though and we freely admitted that we love each other.

This warms my heart on a dreary Monday with so much to do.

Sometimes there's nothing more to say because you grasp the holiness of such times.

The Dotted Lines of Life

“Be good and you will be lonesome.”

So wrote Mark Twain in the inscription to “Following the Equator” which chronicles a trip he made around the world on a steam ship. There’s a photograph of him, white droopy mustache  cigar clinched between his teeth, wearing a full suit and a straw hat. His feet are propped on the railing and he’s staring out to sea.

It’s a great book where America’s humorist of the time takes readers around the world at a time when few made it outside of their town’s limits. His stories introduce men and women who are much different from us … yet at the same time they’re not.

I’ve always liked the inscription and find myself in a contemplative mood this morning. Sitting on the Lido deck of this ship, the calm blue water of the ocean rushes past as I sip coffee.

Tonight at dinner, I’ll swap email addresses with new friends and tomorrow they’ll be new Facebook friends.

When I finished High School, there was no clear cut plan. My mother willed me to go to college so I went. By the time I finished I had a degree, a son and a wife though I still had no clear cut plan.

So I went to Seminary, obtained more degrees, had a daughter, found myself working as a Professional Christian, touched success for the first time and watched it come tumbling down.

A vague notion called me home to the sea. I returned to Tybee, had another daughter, established a career, was published, traveled the world, got divorced and remarried and then watched that all crumble too.

Some think I’m adrift in the sea of life and it certainly may seem that way. There is little conventionality to me. I haven’t followed the dotted lines of life …grow up, find a job, start a family, save for retirement, enjoy it all at the end. There is a certain security that comes from living life this way but I’m not certain its part of any Divine Plan.

Are their Divine Plans anyway?

I think God created life but leaves it up to our parents to give it to us, either planned or otherwise. Then it’s up to us to figure out what to do with it. Some follow the dotted lines plotted out by those before us while others are continuously reborn.

I’m being reborn … again. At this stage, I don’t even have dotted lines to follow. That’s how far out there I am!

Sure, it’s scary sometimes but as I look back over my life I’ve always done things differently. Why should I change now?

Besides, I’m not lonesome!

And a lot wonder how good I am.

Beautiful Bay

Christopher Columbus sailed saw it and proclaimed it “Porto Bello,” …beautiful bay.

And it is.

Rain forests tumble down a mountain into the calm Caribbean Sea. The town is littered with three forts built by the Spanish to protect Central American Silver shipping for Europe. Sir Francis Drake, the pirate, is buried in a lead coffin in the waters. Sailboats from around the world are moored in the Bay content to stay a while. Cantinas are more plentiful than churches.

Jimmy Buffett is singing in my head.

There’s a cowboy in the jungle and he looks so out of place

With his shrimp skin boots and his cheap cheroots and his skin as white as paste

Heading south to Paraguay where the Gauchos sing and shout

Now he’s stuck in Porto Bello since the money all ran out

I like Porto Bello and tell Sarah that I wouldn’t mind staying. Later I learn that it rains eight months out of the year in Panama and the thought loses its luster though the dream doesn’t. I’ve got an expatriate’s heart and the soul is definitely Caribbean. At 56 I still dream of cashing it all in and finding that one particular harbor.

Of course, in my case though, the money ran out a long time ago.

And I live on an island that most would die to call home.

I am happy on Tybee Island with the smell of the marsh, choirs of mussels, egrets and pods of Dolphins. The seafood on the island is better than any I’ve found anywhere else in the world. Sunrises erupt from the sea and sunsets linger over the marsh.

Still, my wandering toes are always itching. I’ve made it to Central America twice now in the past year and I can’t wait to come back. St. Martin is forever calling. The little latitudes are the best ones.

Some may say I look a gift horse in the mouth but I don’t.

I have this incredible gift of life to make with what I will and I’m doing my damn best to squeeze as many of the things I want in to it as possible before I die. Besides, I’ve been criticized enough in life to not worry about it much anymore.

Besides, next week the Carnival of Friends are gathering in St. Augustine, another Spanish town littered with a fort, to celebrate the birth of one of its own. There’s just too much to do and so little time left.

I may as well get busy!

The Costa Rican Pedicure Patrol

The last thing I ever expected to do in Limon, Costa Rica was get a pedicure. But there I sat in a wicker chair with my bare feet in the lap of a lovely Caribbean Princess.

It’s alright.

Sarah was sitting in a wicker chair next to me getting one too. We were in a Market that was selling the usual tourists crap made in China but stamped Costa Rica. It’s almost Jodee Sadowsky’s birthday so we were shopping when we stumbled upon eighteen different women giving Pedicures.

Jodee’s birthday would have to wait. We couldn’t resist.

If you’ve ever been to Limon, Costa Rica then you know there’s not much there. Oh, they have an abundance of broken sidewalks; trash in the streets and fruit stands piled high. There’s also a Burger King and a Pizza Hut but both were empty. I immediately liked it and told Sarah it beat the hell out of Cozumel, Mexico (which we really didn’t go to anyway).

 

The first thing we do when we hit a new place is check out the Grocery Store. We wandered past sidewalk meat markets, fish markets and, I swear to God, an open air Pig market with two skinned Pig heads for sale … complete with eyes! I assumed the flies were free with every purchase at each of these establishments.

The Grocery Store was about the size of The Tybee Market back home and boy was it packed! Over a hundred people were standing, and yelling, four deep at the meat counter. In addition to screaming at the two masked people behind the counter, customers were screaming at each other. They were also passing money, baskets and at least one child. Everyone had received a number but they were buying and selling them to get to the front of the line.

Sarah and I were fortunate enough to visit on the day the Chicken Boat arrived. Behind the counter were stacked cases of fresh chickens and they were going fast! People were buying twenty chickens at a time!

I like to experience a culture when I visit so I got in line. Of course I looked completely out of place wearing my faded and ripped UGA baseball cap, Kevin’s Irish Pub tee shirt from Key West and black running shorts. Everyone else had dressed up nice for Chicken boat day.

All those chickens made us hungry so we left to search for lunch and found a tiny bistro with white table cloths, open windows with views of the sea, fans and cold Pilsner beer. It was hot and we were hungry so we had a three hour lunch. We were the only Americans and, other than a table fill of German kids, everyone else seemed local.

“I’ll have the Chicken Gordon Blue,” Sarah told the waiter.

“Who the hell is Gordon Blue?” I asked.

The waiter explained in broken English that it is chicken stuffed with ham and cheese. There was nothing French about it!

I ordered shrimps and rice along with another Pilsner and lunch was on.

Afterwards we were sleepy and making our way back to the docks where we discovered the Costa Rican Pedicure Patrol and let me tell you something: THIS IS WHAT I’M FRIGGING TALKING ABOUT! You don’t get this in the United States! … unless you’re elected to Congress!

It was so nice, so romantic, quite exotic and pleasing that as soon as we got back to our cabin I looked at Sarah with great anticipation.

“Don’t say anything for twenty minutes,” she said and fell fast asleep on the bed.

That was two hours ago.

I’m almost finished reading War and Peace.

But our toes look nice.

We never did get Jodee anything but I’m wondering how to sneak the Costa Rican Pedicure Patrol on to the boat.

Mutiny at Sea

What does a Pirate wear to a Captain’s Dinner?

It’s been bothering me all day.

Just because a Captain has a uniform doesn’t mean everybody else on the F-ing ship should have to put on long pants!

It makes me understand mutiny.

Of course I took several classes in mutiny in Seminary so I am an expert.

I can hear a lot of you asking, “What? They teach mutiny in Seminary?”

The answer is, of course they do.

It all started when God decided to separate the heavens from the earth, followed by the land from the water. What actually happened is the land was sick of being wet. At the time its occupation was being the bottom of the ocean which is not the best job in the universe so the land quit and formed Continents which is an ancestor of the Confederacy which of course eventually led to Congress. 

Everything’s a circle because Congress is as close as you can get to the slime sucking, bottom dwelling dark muck.

There’s also Jonah and the whale. Most have it backwards believing Jonah built a fire in the belly of the whale giving him heartburn until the behemoth threw up a man and his puppets who were, of course, Congressmen. 

In fact the opposite is true. Whales swore off politics in Biblical times beginning in Nineveh. Before there were Congressmen, there were a people run by Conan the Rotarian, who believed you could solve the problems of the world through weekly lunch meetings.

The Rotarian people made the mistake of serving a seafood buffet one Monday at 11:45 in a Hyatt Regency and all hell broke loose. The seafood wasn’t dead and included Killer Whale which held a raffle before eating the Rotarians, though a couple escaped and hold meetings to this day.

Pus everybody’s got it wrong about Sodom and Gomorrah, the Twin Cities of excessive partying. Back in Biblical times most everyone was a sinner because the Ten Commandments hadn’t been invented yet. They needed a place for an annual convention so they chose Sodom. The event proved so popular they had to expand to Gomorrah.

It got too big so God invented the Ten Commandments and brought an end to the perks, parties, prostitutes, and broken promises all happening in one place at the same time. Except … again … a few escaped though they broke off into two different factions and still meet to this day in Congress and … the Southern Baptist Convention.

This brings me back to mutiny and the Captain.

I don’t have any problems with a man who likes to play dress up. I’m not into it but if it makes him happy then fine. Just don’t go sticking my legs in long pants to make him feel better.

So I’ve spent the entire day utilizing the things I learned in Seminary, the times I spent in Congress and speaking before Rotary Clubs organizing a mutiny and let me tell you something.

As far as I can see right now, I don’t see one single person wearing pants.