Greetings From The Fountain Of Youth

A classic postcard from The Sunshine State.  Like many a banana republic, Florida is a great place to visit.  This from March 29, 1989. – JDW

The Crow’s Nest.  3 p.m.  Friday.  Winter gone.  I’m sitting on the deck overlooking Marker 3 on the Intracoastal Waterway.  It’s 83 degrees and I’m slathering Fred Meyer Hawaiian Blend Dark Tanning Lotion – a proprietary concoction of exotic extracts from tropical fruits, nuts and flora (I like that.  “Exotic extracts” from Freddie’s.) – all over my body.  At least the exposed parts.  The sun is toasting down and the sea is a crystalline turquoise.

So, essentially, from where I sit, the world is bright and golden.  Wish you were here.

An aside.  Four 75-year-old ladies just pulled in, and this cute one with a nice figure pops up, “Now, this, this isn’t so bad, is it?”

Unasked really, I respond anyway.  “It’ll do.”  The quartet of gay geriatrics find a table.  The rhetorical conversationalist positions herself in the sun and begins to metamorphose into a turtle astride a log on a summer’s noon.

I look at her and hold up my bottle of moisturizer.  “You wouldn’t want to get a wrinkle,” I noted.

She laughed youthfully.  “Honey, one more, and no one’s gonna notice.”  She laughed again.

There are thirteen pelicans sitting on the breakwater.  Whenever I visit Florida, I feel like I’m at a zoo in a botanical garden.  I can’t begin to describe the flowers.  But I’ve seen porpoises, flying mullet, vultures, an egret who comes to the house when Mom plays Broadway tunes from the ’50s on her organ, a snapping turtle who identified himself, herons, skinks, iguanas.  Alligators.  That’s just this trip.

Oh, and Mom made me go to this hot, dusty ranch, the winter home of The Original Colonel Otto Hermann’s Royal Lippizan Stallions of Austria show.  Dancing horses.  Many dancing horses looked exactly the same.  Lasted a long, long time.

At least she let me skip Morey Amsterdam’s comedic stylings at the clubhouse last night.

Why is it that older people have to get there wherever so early?  We got to the Colonel’s one hour before the show started and I was forced to listen to loud oompah oompah music the whole time.  Young people are mostly late and the older set are mostly early.  At least that’s been my observation.

What is my theory?, you ask.  Knew you would.

I think the elderly are worried they’ll miss the action and I think the young people feel they ARE the action.

Punctuality might be a good measure of aging.

4:30 p.m.  I’ve moved inland to the Oyster Bar at Fisherman’s Wharf on Bennett’s Creek.

The waitress has on a Bad Dog tee-shirt, which says WORKING IS FOR DOGS WHO DON’T SURF.

Of course, I see the word “surf” as metaphorical.  I am, after all, on spring break.

Here’s some observations about the Florida I’ve seen.  Uncle Earl, I’ve gotta start with him.  God, how I love this man.  He’s a funny guy.  They told him last August – almost eight months ago – he had two or three months to live, a concept which displeased him.

So, he gets through with his latest chemo Tuesday and flies down here Thursday.

The doctor told him to stay out of the sun.  Well, you couldn’t get him out of the sun with a professional-quality nuclear taser.

“What do I care?”, Uncle Earl asks incredulously.  Yet without doubt.  As he takes his shirt off and repositions the chaise lounge away from the shade.

Here’s a true actual fact.  The typical Floridian is a white 37-year-old married woman who moved here from up north.  Frankly, I think she is lying about her age.  The average citizen in this retirement community is pushing seventy.  Everybody’s hair is gray, white, grey, silver or light blue.  Some orange.  All the cars are those same colors.  Except for the orange.

Apparently, retirees are stopped at the border and issued either a Mercury Grand Marquis or a Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham.  Four doors, maybe two cylinders.  Which would explain the top speed of 30 mph in the left lane.  The blinker light, that’s anybody’s guess.

And they all dress alike.  Plaid Bermuda shorts, polyester polo shirts, Hush Puppies, ventilated baseball caps, and white knee-high socks with stripes.

The men, too.

You can imagine my concern when this sign greeted me: YOUR ATTIRE IS SUBJECT TO OUR APPROVAL.

As usual, I was out of uniform.

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