Did I ever mention how much I liked pastels. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York I tend to spend more time in the galleries of watercolors and oils by the Dutch Masters and Turner. There’s not a great deal of high art using pastel colors. The exception at the MET is an Cobalt Blue Rhinoceros (Cobalt Blue is a pastel color to me. If any of my readers happen to have a Master’s of Art or is an artist themselves, I’m not in any mood to argue. Don’t ruin a good story with facts.)
But I digress.
When setting up a household in Florida one must, repeat must utilize the pastels in every room and on every wall. The large tricycles are pastel colored as are a few golf carts. The pool lining is blue. Overhead, the sky is often blue. I made attempts to purchase a light blue pair of ear plugs to prevent swimmers ear. I had to settle with a dark blue, much to my dismay.
For my money, Aquamarine is the only color to add to your list. I can often be found sitting in my blue beach chair in our kitchen and sitting quietly admiring the tea kettle (Aquamarine) and our wall clock (Aquamarine). In the interest of Full Disclosure, the clock was purchased at Zabar’s in New York City, a tiny fact I can live with. The only snag in this set up is that I have to get up and move the chair every time Mariam goes into the bedroom or bathroom. But its a small inconvenience. Sometimes I bring my Blog Idea Book (which is brown and can be seen in the photo below).
Outside the wind has picked up. The blue sky has turned pink. I’m told Hurricane Season is just around the corner.
Right now, I’m happy staring at the hands of our Zabars clock. If I get tired of this, I’ll find something useful to occupy my time until dinner is ready.
I’ll go into our lanai and sit in the comfy beige and flowered overstuffed chair and get back to picking the bar code sticker off the blade of my wife’s spackle blade.
[Recent snow storm near Owego, NY. Photo courtesy of my friend Mark Mendelson]
[Author’s note: I would like to dedicate this humble blog to my friends and loved ones who, through no fault of their own, were caught up in a Late-Spring Snowstorm. No wonder many of my classmates from high school moved to the south or mid-south after graduation. After a winter in Fort Myers, Florida, I totally get it.] Now the blog:
All Things Must Pass–A George Harrison album name.
[A palm frond. Down and out at winter’s end. Photo is mine]
We are taking our late afternoon walk down Cuarto Lane. One must wait until after 6:30 pm for such a stroll. Otherwise, it’s so barking hot the sun will melt your polyester toupee, it’ll bleach your already grey hair and sear your retina unless your wearing Ray Bans. I’m not wearing Ray Bans. I’m wearing cheap Walgreen’s sunglasses. I can feel the plastic rims get soft. That’s why 6:30 is our cut-off time.
But I digress.
On our walk yesterday I snapped a photo of a palm frond, on the grass, beside the Lane waiting to be picked up by the Resort maintenance crew. I saw it as a symbol of a season’s completion. Just like the leaves in Autumn in the mountains of the Adirondacks or all of New England. The frond spoke to me. It was lamenting the fact that it was done with contributing any and all Oxygen to the atmosphere. No more photosynthesis, it said. I stopped to answer back but my wife, Mariam tugged at my arm.
“Don’t! The neighbors are watching.”
But I got the point. All things must pass, even palm fronds. And even Snowbirds like us. Soon we leave this little bit of paradise and go north. Back to our home on Rainbow Lake and the very real possibility of a freak mid-June snowstorm. Think I’m kidding? We once sat at the bar of Lake Placid’s Mirror Lake Inn. It was May 31, my birthday, and we were have a quick glass of wine before a lovely steak dinner at the Adirondack Steak & Seafood. I spun around in my bar stool to look out at Mirror Lake, but it was snowing…no, it was blizzarding. I saw the fronds as a metaphor for our eventual departure. But, there’s more:
This blog is about travel, migration and departing. Here is something of interest:
[A Bar-tailed godwit (L. lapponica. Photo: Google search]
The bird shown above happens to hold the record for longest migratory flight yet discovered. The Godwit has been found to have the ability to fly 6,800 miles without any layovers. (Think of it as Jet Blue with feathers). Now, I don’t know what impresses you, my reader, but 6,800 miles is one badass flight. In doing the research necessary to bring you this post I also found out that some long-term migratory birds can do awesome things on their journey. One species has the ability to eat, fly, sleep and mate while on the wing. My brain short circuits when I think of humans doing these sorts of things. Myself? I can barely drive along a country road for a country mile while eating a cheeseburger.
Well, so much for the avians. Time to discuss Cockle shells.
[This is a Cockle shell. I found it and a zillion others on the beach this very afternoon. Photo is mine]
The Cockle shells litter the edges of the beach…where the waves wash up and then back into the sea. Whole shells, bits of shells…shells of all kinds are found in the sands of Sanibel Island. I find pleasure in picking one from the knee deep water and holding it for the iPhone camera. But, like everything else along a shoreline, the waves and currents are constantly moving the shells along only to replace them with newer ones. If I were to stand at the exact same spot on the exact same beach at the exact same time next year, I will reach into the sand beneath my feet and find another Cockle shell…exactly like the one I found today. I’m not sure what the point is about all this, but it does remind one of moving along, going away, traveling and replacing one environment (the beach) with another (the Adirondack lake shores). Some of my readers will say:
“A place in the Adirondacks? You have waterfront? Kayaks? Canoes? A screened-in porch? A quiet place in the playground of New York State? And you’re not satisfied? Are you playing with a full hand?” The truth is that I enjoy the Adirondacks very much, but not like I used to. As a little boy I played in sands of many of the most popular beaches in the ‘dacks. But I’m not a boy. I’m not a healthy fit young teenager who would climb any peak at the mere suggestion of doing it. Two of my three brothers were Adirondack oriented men. Both are no longer with us. I have found that around every bend in a trail, every curve in the road and every paddle stroke I make to round an island, I see the ghosts of my brothers. I’m tired of seeing ghosts, both figurative and real.
I love the night sky and the Adirondack air is fairly free of light pollution. The stars tumble out in numbers that are not humanly countable. I’ve slept on mountain peaks and counted the stars. I gave up after reaching 3,000 points of light. But our house is surrounded by trees and my patch of sky above our house can be covered with one open hand.
I want to see for miles while standing at sea level.
Which brings us to Yankees. Sorry, but this is not about the Bronx Bombers. This is about snowbirds who flock to Florida for the winter. I’m one of them. A yankee? In one sense, that is the definition of anyone living north of the Mason-Dixon Line. But what about my one-time sailing partner here in Fort Myers? He was from Toronto. Well he’s a yankee too, by my definition.
I’m lonely and I’m restless. How many years do I have left to see the world? Only a seer can answer that kind of question.
[This not my car. Mine is cobalt blue. Photo: Google search]
So take heed, take heed of the western wind
Take heed of the stormy weather
And yes, there’s something you can send back to me
Spring and summer were still weeks away, although summer seems to permanently exist here in Florida. But still…
I was sitting in the lanai making notes on developing and writing and publishing a blog about music and the importance of Connie Francis. We had just been to the beach and my head was full of Beach Boy songs. I asked Alexa to play a few more when we returned home. But, I knew there was more to summer and sand music then Brian Wilson & Company. Out of the blue it came to me. I stopped making notes and picked up my iPhone and went straight to Spotify. There they were. I downloaded (or is it uploaded?) several songs by Connie Francis. I sat back and played Where The Boys Are. Her sweet alto voice rising and falling stopped me in my tracks. This was the music of my youth, those halcyon days of bikes, pools and buzzing cicadas.
Where the boys are, where the boys are, someone waits for me…♫
I look around me. I’m fourteen again. My towel is damp from three hours in the pool. I sit on the steps of my childhood home and talk to my neighbor Craig:
“What do you wanna do today?”
“I dunno, what do you want to do?”
“Beats me, what do you want to do?” Our days were carefree and full of Beach Boys, Tommy Sands, Neil Sedaka and Connie Francis.
In the crowd of a million people, I’ll find my valentine…♫
[Our helpmate Alexa]
Our thoughts turned to the movies: “Let’s go to the movie tonight,” Craig would suggest. “They’re showing “Beach Blanket Bingo”. This was just after “How To Stuff a Wild Bikini” ran for two weeks. Before that the marquee read: “Dr. Goldfoot” (I’m not making this up.). The next feature was slated to be “Muscle Beach Party”. One could get a shoe full of sand just watching these classics. Many starred Frankie Avalon or Tommy Kirk and, of course Annette Funicello. All the guys around our age, and I suspect a few fathers just adored Annette as a star of the Mickey Mouse Club. And its no wonder. Annette had the biggest…..head of black hair than any other Mousketeer.
And then I’ll climb to the highest steeple and tell the world he’s mine. ♫
Later in life, sad things befell Connie and Annette. It saddens me.
Thank you two ladies for some of the best music of my teenage years.
Now, sitting in the Florida warmth, the ceiling fan whirring above my head, I can feel a bit of the exuberance of youth. Even though I’ve come to fully accept the limitations of age, the pains, the aches, the regrets and the triumphs, I can still appreciate the songs written for the Young At Heart.
But that’s another story for another time. And besides, perhaps inside my worn body beats the heart of a hopeful young boy.
I knew the man’s story. I had read his many blogs but the campfire was the place where he untied his cachet of stories. There would be no campfires in Florida, not this time of year. Instead, I would have to find shade beneath a palmetto palm to study his photograph. I stretched the screen of my iPhone. Yes, it was him. I compared the picture to the one he sent me seven years ago. It was the same lighthouse over and behind his right shoulder. The mask and snorkel were the very same. His bracelet was different. The cheap ones he was inclined to buy had been replaced many times over. His pale shoulders were the same, no sign of a slouch. His beard seemed a tiny bit grayer as did his hair.
We all had been caught in the great Pandemic but he seemed to be emerging from its shell like a newborn chick. A new wrinkle? Sad eyes? I couldn’t get a good look because of the snorkel but I suspect they were present on his face. After all, it had been seven years since he stood chest deep in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Some things change with terrifying speed. Some things never change Some things change so subtly that it’s hard to see the years.
I knew him well enough to see the partial smile on his lips. He was happy, happy for the first time in years. At least seven years anyway.
He failed to notice me behind the palm observing him. He thought he had sent the photograph to someone distant friend but I was usually physically closer to him than he knew. I noticed his head turn toward the twenty-something in a toxic pink bikini. Ha, I thought, he still remembers some of the important things in life. I saw him turn to his wife as she handed him the bottle of ice water. He smiled in his contentment. He looked westward toward the horizon and stared for many minutes.
He rises and walks to the water’s edge.
He thought himself Poseiden, but he was really just an old man standing on the shore.
It was a bright autumn day. The cirrocumulus and stratocumulus were fighting a war to dominate the sky. The altocumulus and mammatus clouds stood out of the way in the western sky. It wouldn’t rain that day. I entered the Mall, full of anticipation. I loved Malls, all the stores would be bustling and the popcorn near the anchor store, J. C. Penney would have a line that stretched as far as the CVS outlet. After the great doors swung shut behind me, I knew I was home. I headed to the central part of the Mall passing the Pearle Vision Center and found myself at the video game kiosk. There were several older men sitting in vinyl couches waiting for their wives to finish their attempts to stuff there size 10 foot into a size 6 pump at the nearby Shoes Shoes Shoes outlet. I was not into video games at the time. That was for the teens, I thought. I was 31. It would be another few years before I bought Game Boy XIII. No, I was a reader and to prove it I headed to the bookstore (most people today wouldn’t believe it but bookstores were once quite common). These days it’s harder to find a real bookstore than finding a virgin in Passaic. I made a right turn and began my stroll to the Books R Us store. I passed a Florscheim shoe store, an American Eagle, an Eddie Bauer, a Ben & Jerry’s and a nail salon. I needed to sneeze so I paused at the Victoria Secrets shop. I lingered. I couldn’t take my eyes off the mannequin who was wearing a G-String and a purple push-up bra. I was transfixed. The mannequin looked just like Twiggy.
Across the ’street’ a family had stopped.
“Honey, hold onto the kids. There’s a pervert over there,” said Vic, the husband.
“Where? asked the wife, Lucy.
“In front of the Victoria Secrets store,” replied Vic.
“What are you talking about? said Lucy. ”Are you forgetting about the time I found you right where he is standing. I had to use three Kleenex’s to wipe the drool from your chin.”
Nevertheless, they gathered their family closer. Muffy, three years old was in a stroller. Brittany, five already had pierced ears. A Mickey Mouse stud sparkled in the bright flourescent light. Angus was seven and was wearing a Black Sabbath tee shirt. The nine year old was D’Artanan (he wasn’t Vic’s child. He was the result of an affair Lucy had with her Classics professor, who was her advisor when she was studying for her Masters degree in Relative Absolutism at the University of South Trenton). Vic never knew the truth. He never questioned the distinct Asian features of D’Artanan. Bucky, the oldest child was twelve. Vic and Lucy never saw much of Bucky at home. He would lock himself in his bedroom with his ’comic books’ which he kept under his mattress. Lucy once found a copy of the third edition of Playboy. She sold it on eBay years later.
The family moved slowly past me and then sped off to the nearest Burger Boy resturant. A Mickey Mouse stud fell from Brittany’s left ear lobe. I walked over and picked it up. It was pretty cool looking. I happened to be outside the Spa Salon. Maybe it’s time I got my left ear pierced, I thought. I decided I wasn’t ready. I wouldn’t get pierced until years later when everyone, including my grandfather got his septum pierced.
But I digress.
I continued my walk to the bookstore. At the next intersection I paused. There was a table and a large white cardboard sheet. A sign, taped to the table, read ”TAKE THE PEPSI CHALLENGE”. I had seen the TV commercials showing the same set up. I boldly walked to the young couple who stood behind the table.
“I’d like to take the challenge,” I said.
“Great,” said the man.
“Awesome,” said the woman. They went behind the cardboard partition and returned with two sytrofoam cups, both filled with a cola like liquid. I took cup A and sipped. I sipped again. Then I was given cup B. I drank the whole thing.
“So?”, said the woman.
“Which one is the Pepsi?”, said the man.
I was ready. ”Cup B was the Pepsi,” I said.
The couple looked at each other. ”Okaaaay”, said the woman. ”Thank you so much.”
They poured the remaining sodas into a bucket.
“Was I right?”, I asked.
The man moved close to me, invading my personal space. He took my collar in his left hand and jerked me closer.
“No! You were wrong, you loser. Now get out of my sight before I box your ears”. I smelled Tequila on his breath.
I was sweating now. Lamely, I said: ”Wa…Want to settle things out side behind the dumpsters?”
“Dumpsters? What dumpsters?”, he said, angrilly.
“Over there,” I said as I broke free and ran all the way to Ruby Tuesdays. I ordered a shot of Johnny Walker Red and a pint of Genesee. I was much calmer as I made my way back to my car. I couldn’t find it at first. There must have been three thousand cars facing me. I spotted the orange ’68 Buick.
I would find something else to do that night. “Deep Throat” was playing at the local ’art movie’ house.
patrickjegan 