Mindful of the oldsters and drunks we share this narrow slice of sand with, our bikes are lit up like eighteen-wheelers. Indeed, little kids stop, stand, stare, and gawk in awe as we pass while our red and white strobes blink and our wheels spin like fire.
“Where’d ya get ‘em?” yelled some child last night from a sidewalk.
“Wal-Mart!” Michelle yelled back.
Funny. As we passed by last night with our lights blazing we noted that our three tiki bars in the “village” were dead, dead, dead. At one of these places some boozed-up bozo was mercilessly massacring a rock classic on a karioke and I felt like shooting the wretch to spare the ear drums of a handful of customers. Last week, all three places were going full tilt in riotous ribaldry, packed to the rafters. Now, nada. This morning, as I write this blog, the beach at Blind Pass is idle, nothing, desolate, vacant. It’s as if some giant finger flipped a great switch somewhere, a switch that reads “Stay Here” and “Go There.”
With an impulse seemingly as strong as any caribou herd or flock of geese, our human brethren and sistern, with one mind, have taken wing for their native northlands. Just like that! One day the roads were jammed, the beaches crowded and the bars bursting; next day, poof! Empty, gone. I see that some of these north-bound migrants have been greeted by pretty chilly weather up yonder in Yankee Land, but go they would, go they did, and go we glad.
One who will not be making the annual migration this year, or at least, not in the time frame he imagined, was some 69-year old local gent. The other day, all wild and stupid, he went beer bonkers with his car and mowed down a line of his neighbor’s mailboxes. The difference between this sot and the other old drivers I have mentioned lately is that this one definitely knew the difference between the brake and the accelerator. He was simply drunk and angry. And those mailboxes were going down! Another who may never make the migration was a local 88-year-old lady. When some POS scam man called the other day to separate the woman from her dough, the old gal was wise to the con and refused to be sucked in. Not willing to leave well enough alone, the old gal’s know-it-all daughter thereupon took over the phone to get in her licks and then, oh my, IT WAS SHE who was soon swindled out of her mother’s money. This incident backs my thesis that before a person can be an “old fool,” they must first be a young fool.
Maybe because I am one of the few residents on this island still capable of catching and beating the bejeezus out of most teens, I did not have the least problem with our horde of spring breakers this year, like some seniors apparently did. The following is a letter to our local fish-wrap on what sounds like the end of Our American Way of Life, as we know it:
Editor:
There were some who yelled obscenities, some who screamed as they drove by, one who tried to spit on us, some who simply raised the radio volume to sonic boom level while others chose to throw something at us from the car. Were we walking through the ghetto of a Third World country? No!
These are only some of the disgusting events that happened during the last few months right here on Beach Road on Manasota Key. We are some of the hundreds of “less young” residents and visitors who frequent the sidewalks of this road daily in search of exercise. These are not isolated incidences, but frequent insults hurled randomly at walkers and joggers by some of our emotionally challenged teenagers.
There’s not much difference between losers, misfits or half-wits, maybe a point or two in IQ, but who’s counting when you’re dealing in double digits? These simpletons seem to get their jollies directing these acts toward some of the very ones who fought to give them the freedom to voice their opinion, even if it is unintelligible.
George Rose
Englewood, Florida
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Pistols of the Day
