She Did It On Porpoise!

One might think that seeing a porpoise, dolphin, flipper, zoom fish, whatever, even on this island, is a rare event. Ha!  We see a dozen every day.  Plus, I often see one or two babies leaping out of the water by their mother’s side (they look more like fish than porpoises, dolphins, flippers, zoom fish, whatever).  There are some scenes Michelle and I never tire of, however, as per the photo she snapped Saturday on Lemon Bay (left).

The 90-year-old rudder who fell in the store last week and broke his hip and wrist and who somehow managed to drive back home and who thereupon had to remain sitting in his hot car in his hotter garage for the next one, two, three days because he could not open the car door with his broken wrist and who survived by eating a pound cake and who had nothing to drink and who was saved only when a neighbor saw his hand waving feebly from the window and all of which I noted in a recent blog (“Full-Time Mom,” 5.9.13), well . . . that old fellow finally clocked out.  

What can one say?  Many folks at that age are no more capable of caring for themselves than little children.  So befuddled and frail and crazed are they that it is a major mystery how they even find their way to their own restroom each day much less to the grocery store and back each week.  Some don’t need full-time care, just a near, dear and clear mind who will keep an eye out to prevent them from walking into canals, strolling the streets naked at noon or dying by degrees in an oven for three days with zero water. 

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Serial Ponds—The more your blogger investigates the bigger your blogger's curiosity grows for this strange phenomena, this odd attraction, this weird fascination that Florida fossils have for Florida canals.  Latest bizarre twist to this magnetic mystery seems now to be crazy old coots and Florida ponds.  Just the other day up at some miserable swamp clearing, an addled 79-year-old wheel chair-bound double amputee felt compelled to roll up and park beside—what else?—a pond.  I guess the same people who weren’t looking out for the old fellow in the garage above also weren’t looking out for this old fellow either.

Somehow, of course—and God only knows how—the wheelchair “slipped” and the occupant tumbled into the water.  Now, considering that all it takes for hungry gators to come swimming like speed boats is a slight disturbance on the water—Michelle saw three small gators just yesterday busting their butts at a pond in Port Charlotte when someone tossed in a mere stick—it must be counted as a minor modern miracle that two men stumbled upon the scene and rescued the helpless blighter before the gators had a chance to suppa down.

But really?  One might expect a few deaths yearly when old and young alike topple from kayaks into white water rapids, or one might expect a few drownings when others are canoeing or swimming in deep, swift rivers. But here?  The murky, mossy messes here are so still and shallow that it would seem that only the most clumsy and determined idiot could possibly drown in a Florida creek, canal or pond.  But lordy, lordy, lordy, how they do, how they do. 

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Happy Murder’s Day—Apparently, Mother’s Day was a total bust up at Lakeland last week.  Bill Pennnypacker got all boozed up, then decided to vent a bit about his crummy childhood by working over his ma.  After slugging her in the face for a bit, the son pulled out a pistol and shot her in the shoulder, for sport.  Some how mom managed to find her own gat and then opened up herself.  Sonny’s aim was not so hot; mom’s aim was on the spot.  Bill is now 64 for ever.  And as for his 86-year-old mom?  Nancy is now recovering at a local hospital.  Guess blood ain’t so thick after all.

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Death By High Rise—I feel sorry for these poor, desperate mopes whose lives have become such an unbearable burden that they choose to end it.  I have heard that New Hampshire in spring is number one for suicide states since, just when the calendar tells these people that spring and sun have arrived, back comes the cold, gray reality of their existence with more winter weather.  Florida must be number two on that suicide list.  People flock down here to “turn their life around” but, for most, the same old baggage soon shows up--drugs, debt, booze, criminal record. 

Last Saturday night, some depressed, despondent, dejected, demoralized, and above all, determined gentleman jumped from the sixteenth floor of a Jacksonville hotel. When he hit (at something like a hundred MPH) he hit a car in the valet parking lot.  And so, not only do we have someone self-killing themselves, but we also have someone’s car destroyed, we have an evening when all who stumble upon the grisly scene feel totally flushed, and we certainly have some very shaken souls among those tasked with cleaning up all the blood, guts and bones. The sincere pity I feel for the deceased is assuaged by his selfishness in not considering what his very public death would do to we who are witnesses. To those of you standing on that ledge right now, or those of you waiting for that next freight train, or those of you looking at that loaded smoke wagon on the night stand, a request:  Do it, if you must, but please, for God’s sake, please do not drag the rest of us into it.  If you decide that you want off this whirling blue ball, please DO NOT leave a giant bloody mess for the rest of us to clean up.

If the day ever comes, I vow to humanity that I will find some extremely isolated area and do myself there; a place where my rotting carcass might at least give sustenance to other life forms and zero people will have to clean me up.  Promise. 

 

Rockem Sockem

I once had a good friend. His name shall remain anonymous but for convenience sake, let's call him Barry Brach. 

Barry was an ex-con.  At age seventeen he had been sent off to the state slammer for sending someone to the promised land.  Manslaughter.  He killed someone in a fight. Barry did several years hard time at a time before the American penal system had embarked on the kinder, gentler, hug-a-thug approach to corrections.  Like war, Barry never talked about it much and I never asked.  I first met Barry at a bar where several of my hoodlum friends and myself used to warm up before setting off on our wild weekend forays.  Barry was alone and simply walked up to me and asked if I wanted to arm wrestle for a beer.  Since he seemed somewhat on the slim side and I was pretty good at the sport, I agreed.  To my surprise, I quickly lost.

Barry and I became good friends.  We had personalities that went well together.  We did the normal things that twenty-year-old idiots do, like shoot pool, play tennis, frequent pubs, chase chesticles, and do as little labor as possible.  Although Barry was slim, he was a natural athlete and at 6' 2" he excelled at any sport he played.  But Barry also had some kind of macho hang-up.  I call it a little man's complex.  At every opportunity he tried to impress upon me how tough he was.  We were once at an upscale club with a few other characters.  After two or three beers, Barry suddenly, and for no apparent reason, threw a bottle against the brick wall.  The shattering sound, of course, drew the immediate attention of a bouncer.  With one swing, Barry knocked him out cold.  This, in turn, summoned forth the spirits of four more bouncers and for longer than one might imagine the unequal contest continued.  Since Barry was acting like a maniac, none of those with him, including myself, felt obliged to get involved.  At length, Barry was overwhelmed, dragged kicking and punching back to the office, placed in a straight-jacket by the police, then hauled away to jail.

On another occasion, we were shooting eight ball at a bar in the boondocks.  It was a quiet Saturday afternoon in rural America.  A fellow came in, a bit drunk, I thought, and loudly asked the old bartender if he knew who had stolen the side mirror off his car.  By his looks and actions, it was obvious that the man suspected us of the deed.

"What do you mean coming in here saying we stole your mirror?" said Barry as he stopped the game to confront the man.  "We been in here for an hour.  What the hell would we want with your mirror?"

"I'm not saying you did or you didn't," the man stared back.  "I'm just saying if the shoe fits, wear it."

That reply, thought witty, was not a wise one.  Hardly had the last word left the man's mouth than he was on his back, unconscious.  Judging by the little tavern owner, a former carnival worker named Sporty, one might have imagined World War III had just broken out.  Throwing his hands in the air, he ran around the pool table several times, exclaiming over and over in a nerve-cracked voice, "No sir, no sir, none of that in here. . . . You take it right outside. . . . Oh my, no! No sir, no sir, none of that stuff in my place."

Barry also thought that he was a lady's man.  He had dark hair and a small mustache and he imagined that his face was a dead ringer for Clark Gable (actually, I thought he looked more like Jack Palance).  Whenever Barry met a girl that seemed promising, he always shot her that sly, Gablesque smile with raised brow which he thought was sexy and irresistible (I don't remember even one female falling for it).  Barry also loved mirrors.  Seldom could he pass his reflection without stopping to stare, shifting his profile from one side to the next, combing his hair, then flashing that "charming" Gable smile.  And whenever anyone showed up with a camera, Barry was always first in line.

I was at his parent's home once.  Barry wanted to show me a painting that he had done while in prison, or the "joint," as he called it.  The subject was a ragged old man in prayer.  Actually, the painting was very good.  But I couldn't help but marvel at the home itself.  While Barry, along with an older brother and a younger sister, were hedonists and pagans, the parents were Christian crackpots.  The couple had an unsettled, far away look in their eyes and apparently they prayed morning, noon and night, nonstop.  There were framed prints of Jesus on the walls, lambs and doves on the shelves, praying hands that lit up, crosses that glowed in the dark, Last Supper place mats on the table, and other assorted talismans intended, I suppose, to win over God on the one hand and keep the devil at bay on the other.  My impression was that the couple had earlier lived a life steeped in sin and wickedness and had only recently seen the light.  Obviously, they were trying to make up the lost ground with blinding speed. Whatever the cause and effect, the Brach home was a dysfunctional den of crazy fanatics and party beasts.
 
I lost track of Barry after I got married and moved away.  I do remember running into him once or twice in the next few years and learning that he had caught his new bride in bed with  someone other than himself.  My old friend must have been mellowing and maturing quite a bit at that point since the Barry Brach I once knew would have severely killed or mortally murdered the cuckolder on the spot for such an outrage, rather than walking out the door forever, as he in fact did.

Δράμα

Speaking of Kalamata. . . .

As mentioned a few blogs back, my first wife, Maurine, and I lived in southern Greece for awhile. One day soon after moving there, we were standing around the Kalamata bus plaza waiting to catch a ride back to our home which was four miles down the coastal highway. Of all the many policemen in this city of thirty-some-thousand, one in particular had already caught our attention. We called him "Barney," which was short, of course, for Deputy Fife. We had noticed that not only did this fellow physically resemble his namesake, but he also had some similar mannerisms.

Barney loved the power he wielded as a cop; it was written all over his face. He stood around a lot, like the other policemen, striking noble poses, looking important, arms behind his back, very straight, mirror sun glasses, hairline mustache. Except for a ridiculously large hat that was twice the size of his pea head, he looked quite dapper in his gray uniform and polished shoes.  But as I said, Barney was totally aware of his lofty status and every move and step he took was the move and step of an important man. Even the drags on his cigarette were measured and dramatic.

Well, anyway, lofty and important as his position may have been, Barney's paycheck was not commensurate and so he was forced to moonlight as a ticket-taker on the regional bus line. For some strange reason, every bus in Greece needs two men-–a captain, or driver, and a lieutenant, or ticket-taker. On the day in question, while Maurine and I stood under the shade of a nearby kiosk munching sesame seed sticks, we noticed that there was a commotion at the rear of one of the buses. Some ragged country bumpkin, a short, stocky fellow whose elevator clearly didn't go all the way to the top, was trying to get on the bus with a small bath tub. Other passengers carry sacks, packages-–even baskets of baby chicks-–on board, but nothing so large and cumbersome as a wash tub. Barney was blocking the rear bus door. Without a word he just looked at the tub and slowly shook his head. Regulations were regulations. With gestures, the tub bearer made motions toward the trunk of the bus; surely there was room? But again, with pursed lips, Barney just shook his head. Thereupon, a great theatrical display for mercy ensued.

You could see by the ragamuffin's frantic actions that departure time was nigh. You could also clearly see the poor fellow's mind grinding away as it turned over the options:

1) Get on the bus for home and leave the cherished tub sitting in the plaza, or

2) Stay with the tub and live forever in Kalamata a homeless, if scrubbed, vagabond.
 

Again the man implored with pleading arms. But no. Sensing the fool's helplessness only made Barney more impervious to his pleas. He just stood there by the door in all his stiff majesty, smoking his cigarette, looking here, there, anywhere but at the contemptible buffoon before him. At this point, the tub man completely broke down.
 

Sobbing loudly one moment, walking wildly around his tub while pulling his hair the next, pausing for a moment to kneel and thrust his praying hands up to Barney for pity, the groveling hind went through the whole drill. But if possible, Barney seemed more remote than ever. Scanning the distant mountains, sniffing the air for some imagined fragrance, Barney then took a deep drag off his cigarette, casually looked at the butt, then flicked an ash. Again, he only shook his head.
 

Of course, with mouths agape, all the peasants were by now gathered around, savoring the free show. Maurine and I were not a little amazed ourselves. It seemed to me that after a few minutes, Barney might have found something more to do, like take tickets or put packages in the trunk. But not today. A crawling dog was at his mercy and the job could wait.
 

Finally, after five or six minutes of crying and praying, it occurred to the frantic tub man that something more might be done inside the station. So, off he dashed through the crowd. In a minute he returned. And with him came the station master. And just like that, and with a loud laugh and big smile for Barney, the fellow promptly got on the bus . . . with the tub!
 

The crowd, though mindful that Barney was a cop, could not contain its laughter. From where we stood, I didn't see anything visible on Barney's face but it was a safe bet that his stomach was churning. I'm also sure that at some point in time, Deputy Fife found a way to get even with this fool who went over his head and made a laughingstock of him.

Fun With Fibs

The following article appeared in yesterday’s Englewood (Florida) Sun. . . .

Manasota Key (AP)—Local resident, Michael Goodrich of Manasota Key, awoke to a big surprise Monday morning, to put it mildly.

“I was having my first cup of coffee when I glanced out the patio door and saw it,” said Goodrich.

What Goodrich saw was a twenty-foot Burmese Python coiled in a palm tree above his back yard.

“I knew these things were down in the Glades,” said Goodrich, still visibly shaken by his encounter, “but I never imagined I would have one of them in my own back yard. First lizards and geckos in the house. Now this. What a place!”

“When we first arrived on the scene we spoke with Mr. Goodrich inside the home,” said Jason Lambert of the Charlotte County fire/rescue unit responding to the 911 call. “As you might imagine, he was pretty shook up. We noticed that Mr. Goodrich was drinking heavily from a large liquor bottle and his face was very pale, very ashy. His hands were shaking badly too and he was also talking sorta like ‘in tongues,’ you know, something like those religious sects do; just mumbling strange sounds, not really words. I guess he was in a total state of shock.”

For years Burmese Pythons have been spotted throughout South Florida, but never has this large invasive species been discovered so far north as Manasota Key.

“I guess the things have learned that they can swim across Lemon Bay and take root here on the island,” said Goodrich. “That pretty much does it for me and Florida. I’m out of here!”

Goodrich’s wife agrees.

“If we wanted to live around these huge monsters we would have moved to Burma,” said Michelle Goodrich. “I have an 11-year-old Boston Terrier that would be just a snack to one of these big things. We just can’t take a chance. Unlike Mike, I don’t mind snakes much.  But this thing is off the charts.”

The python was removed by professional trappers later that morning. Authorities are still discussing what to do with the animal.

(The above article is not true . . . yet. If such a nightmarish visitor swims Lemon Bay and takes up lodging on this island, however, as it is perfectly capable of, the above tale will be true. Should that happen, Michelle and I will be ever so outta here.)

Ipso Facto

Has anyone else out there—and I am speaking to men only—has anyone else out there put on a pair of freshly laundered pants or shorts and found . . .

that they fit so perfectly that you either choose not to put on a belt or simply forget to?  Then, half an hour later, when they finally get stretched out, you find that nothing on earth short of a tightly cinched belt can keep these pant/shorts from falling down over your bare butt?  Well, such an event happened to me at Walmart today.  Yep, when I left home I thought, “Ha, no need for a belt me . . . these shorts fit perfect.”  Lo!  As soon as I exited the car in the parking lot—BOING--I knew.  Instead of driving back six miles to get a belt, I determined to suck it up.  And so, as I slipped around Walmart with one of those friggen defective shopping carts that pulls hard left and makes a major malfunction noise like it has a flat tire, I tried holding my shorts up w/o anyone noticing. Mostly, I was successful; the slow pace of shopping for food allowed me to discretely keep a hand on a belt loop and still push the fuggin noisy cart.   

It was the trudge back to the car, however, that was awful.  In addition to fighting the stupid shopping cart full of food across what seemed like miles of blazing hot asphalt, the shorts acted as if they would fall down over my butt with every effing step.  Whatever, I must have looked right at home among the geeks, freaks, sneaks, cheats, carnies, big screen TV boosters, and meth scab pickers at Wally World, for none noticed, thank god.

Moral: If the aliens and sub-humans at Walmart start staring, you probably best just go home and gas yourself.

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Rant Therapy

“It’s time to speak out.  We old folks from the Depression and World War II generations are appalled.  What used to be the sins in life are now considered ‘rights.’  The morals and viciousness in today’s society are worsening at a rapid pace.  It’s time to speak out to our so-called leaders.”    ----Lillian Murray, Rotonda West

Ha!  Glad the old lady above got all that off her chest.  I’m sure this rant to the editor from a flimsy Florida fish wrap in a small, backswamp community will speed all the way up the chain of command to those in charge and that someone will get right to the bottom of old Lillian’s concern.  And if that doesn’t work, then maybe if Lillian just keeps voting Republican for another hundred years all these problems will just go—POOF!—and disappear.  Fact is, while Lillian and her “Depression and World War II generations” were fast asleep, the weasel got in the hen coop and stole the eggs.  Lillian and most other Americans didn’t get it then--and I doubt if they even get it now--but this ain’t their country no mo.  While they were snoring soundly, the First World that was once America was handed over with a pretty blue bow to the Third World.  That’s the reality.  What Lillian and other slow-thinking snail groaners—young and old--see now is not a war still being waged for the “morals” of the U.S. but an occupation being hammered down and locked up by our worst enemies.  We lost.  They won.  That is it.  We may as well either get cozy with the new reality or hop the next train out of town. 

“It’s time to speak out. . . .”  That’s funny . . . and sad.  Sorry, Lillian, you are a wee bit late on that one . . . a mere fifty years too late.  Not sure what exactly it was that raised you from your slumber but now that you gave us all a good jest, please just go back to sleep and trouble the world no more with your “It’s time to speak out. . . .”  

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Scales of Justice--And then there is would-be fugitive, Bryan Zuniga (let’s call him BZ, or maybe “Buzz,” for short).  Seems Buzz was just minding his beeswax the other day, driving without a license, driving erratically down the street, driving like an idiot, driving on the left side, driving on the right side, driving in the center side.  This sort of “driving” is exactly the kind of driving that draws the attention of blue lights.  So. . . .

When the cops pulled him over, Buzz panicked and made a break for it.  Forget the car, forget the future, forget the fact that he was looking at a mere ticket, at worst; nope, Buzz just had to do the impulsive, erratic, rabbit-like thing and try to escape.  Funny thing.  After bursting his way through one of those vinyl fences so common down here, Buzz did escape.  Had this been normal street cops chasing him, Buzz would have been run down in seconds; but these particular law dogs this day were gravitationally challenged  lard lads from the county doughnut department and these ample-bellied  badge boys never, in all recorded history, have ever yet won a foot pursuit with anything, and so they didn’t even try to run down a slim twenty-year-old.

Well, turns out that a few hours later these same sloth-footed cops, as was their wont, checked the local hospital on a hunch.  Bingo.  They found Buzz in bed bandaged butt and banjo.  Seems our fugitive, in his panic to escape, tried hiding near a water treatment plant and before he knew it he was “fighting for his life” with an eight foot alligator.  From the sound of his injuries, Buzz is lucky to still be alive.  Bites all over his bod, tip to toe.  When he gets out of the hospital Buzzaroo will have quite a tale to tell his cellmates at the county hoosegow. 

Moral: Never run from Florida cops.  If da man don’t getcha, da nature will.