Fences...

Zealotry presents an ugly face, regardless of which side of the fence it comes from. Self-labeling makes it even more restrictive. If you call yourself a liberal or conservative, Baptist or Shinto, you've already limited your ability to be open to case by case independent thought. We allow ourselves to step inside a box and say "This is who I am" rather than do the heavy lifting of looking at an issue from all sides and sources, to make the decision that we then believe to be the best. It's too easy to simply follow whatever our club, political party or religion dictates.

“I'm comfortably settled into my Lazy Boy, got my Big Gulp and my wide screen TV, don't make me actually think for myself.”

This abdication of independent thinking, (and personal responsibility), is all too frequently the basis for blind conflict in politics, religion, and most human interaction. We draw false courage and justify our actions in mob mentality. It becomes an assumptive prejudice that cuts both ways and hobbles every step we take, mistakenly believing them to be going forward.

RIP Greg...

We had The Allman Brothers “Eat A Peach” CD cranked up to “Wow” on our pilgrimage down to Hulls this afternoon. Not because Greg just died, we didn’t find that out until we got back home. But last week we caught one of the excellent interviews Dan Rather has been doing on Axis TV. Greg Allman was the subject and it inspired us to revisit one of my favorite albums on which we can still hear Duane’s inspired musical signature.

The gorgeous weather, not too hot, not too humid, a few scattered cotton ball clouds stuck to a fresh palette of deep blue, made the 55-minute drive down to Ormond Beach almost obligatory. Most of the drive is through Tomoka State Park, a tunnel of old oaks, intertwining their fingers protectively over the road, limbs heavy with Spanish Moss.

It’s worth the drive just to roll though that green tunnel. Hulls is always spot on too. They run their own boats and only serve fresh from the water, fish and seafood, offering excellent Southern cooking from hushpuppies to collards to a variety of chowders. I had the blackened Yellowtail.

We make it a point to stop by the Hull's retail store before we head back. Today we brought home live soft shell crabs. “Do you want me to clean them for you?” I told her no, I’ll do it myself. They have a few more hours to live that way. Nothing can be fresher.

On the return trip I sang along with Greg, and Dickie Betts too, pointing out to Carla the sound of Duane’s slide, running his glass encased finger up and down the neck of his lover. Greg moaned the blues as only he can do. Could do.

His death was the first thing we found out about when we got home, and went online. He was my age, 69 and certainly we shared an experience in the march through that incredible time of change and celebration that marked the late 1960’s and 1970’s. I first saw the man in 1969 when he played at my college, before he and Duane called themselves The Allman Brothers Band. That little school was only a few towns East of the legendary Mussel Shoals Sound Studios. He and his brother cut us a break, and stopped by.

Now Carla is off to work, I’m happily sated and left to wallow on my own, grateful for the memorable afternoon, always special regardless of how often we repeat it.

This thing with Greg may take me a bit to digest, though. RIP, Brother, I don’t know if I feel worse for you, or for myself.

Perspective...

A few minutes ago, I was on my knees, clenching both fists against the ripping pain in my chest, choking up blood and hovering near death over a bed of urine soaked cardboard. The cancer had almost won. At age 89, it was amazing that I had survived that long. Being homeless, disabled, and sick, I shared a moldy back alley with an overflowing dumpster that was like me, oozing decay and long forgotten.

I just wanted to die, to finally end the misery that my life had always been.

That’s when I saw her, a mirage. Walking, gliding really, coming down the alley toward me. A pre-death hallucination of some kind.

Stopping at my feet, she simply looked down and said: “I’m your fairy Godmother. I’ll grant you any wish you want.”

Knowing it couldn’t be real, I played along, as it briefly took my mind off the pain. “OK, I want to be young and healthy again. Make me sober too with an education and a good job. Give me real friends and a wife and family that love me. I want a house in Florida, I hear it’s warm there. I’m so tired of being cold.”

My fairy Godmother replied: “I’ll grand your wish and give you all of those things. But life isn’t perfect so I’m only turning back the clock 20 years and many of your friends will actually be on Facebook.”

“You make me 69 again and I’ll be happy forever, but Facebook, what the hell is that?” I asked.

“You’ll figure it out. “She replied. “And you’ll have no memory of your current life.”

Incredulous, I croaked back: “My current life? I’m dying! My life always sucked. Never married, no kids, drunk, sick, poor. I don’t want to remember any of this!”

“You won’t” She said. “And just in case you’re hungry, I’m going to seat you at a beautiful marsh-side table at a popular seafood restaurant where you’ll be sitting with your wife. I’ll give you a wallet full of cash and credit cards. Order anything you like!”

With a slight smile of skepticism and lost in the dream she had painted, I closed my eyes for just a second and…

BAM! I just got my wish!

Sitting on the deck with Carla, deciding what to order, I couldn’t help but think about what a lucky guy I am. It felt like there was something I was supposed to remember, but frankly, everything was too perfect for me to worry about it.

Turning toward Carla I said: “Lean into me and let’s take a selfie. I’m going to post it on Facebook...”

As I double checked my wallet, I realized that I had more cash than I remembered, and lots of credit cards if we wanted to use them instead.

I told Carla: "Order whatever you like, Honey. We're in good shape." 

Carla got the fried shrimp, I went with the oysters. 

For a split second I thought I caught the scent of garbage, maybe the restaurant's dumpster, but it was gone in an instant with the breeze that blew fresh and salty off the marsh.

Oh................Mygod! Amazing!

I’m being pushed to the edge and may be forced to break out the arsenal. In interviews afterward, my neighbors can say that I seemed like such a nice man, quiet, but always polite. Their quotes can run under headlines that shout:

“Local Man Goes Berserk, Couldn’t Take it Anymore”

Here’s my problem. On local Facebook sites that encourage people to post reviews of restaurants, or pretty much anything in town, posters don’t seem to understand that “amazing” tells me absolutely nothing. Please stop using that word by itself! When you tell me that your meal was “amazing”, I wonder: compared to what? Maybe you have only eaten Big Macs from McDonalds for your entire life and just found out that decent food is available in real restaurants? Maybe you are a special case and have lived your entire life eating nothing other than Hamster nuggets before entering an actual restaurant for the first time?

You tell me that last night’s sunset was “amazing”. Why? Because it provided a background for multiple alien ships landing at the end of your block? Amazing because even though you expected it to be red in color, it was bright green and looked like a giant picture of your Uncle’s Dentures?

How about taking “amazing” one step farther. “My meal was amazing! The scampi was extra buttery, loaded with fresh, local shrimp, cooked perfectly, heaped onto my favorite, angel hair pasta, al dante, with just the right touch garlic, and white wine!”

OK, now I’m listening.

Last week, a person posted their intention to move into town in another month or so. They were looking for recommendations for good Realtors. More than 135 people responded. Half of those replies said (Bill Jones or whatever the name was) is amazing! I thought “Oh God, here we go again” Why is he amazing? Because he has the world’s largest goiter on his neck and needs to push it in front of him in a baby stroller? Because you’ve never had a Realtor pick you up in an 18-wheel tanker truck marked “Caution, Contents Highly Corrosive” just to drive around neighborhoods and look at houses?

Please tell me why the Realtor was amazing. Can you give me a hint?

OK, you get the point. I’ll stop beating a dead horse…and move on to one more rant.

Would it be possible to make the expression “Oh……….mygod!” simply illegal? Please know that when you drop your mouth open upon seeing whatever it is that is causing you such awe, and you throw out the “OH” part, the longer you wait in silence before you drop the “mygod!” ending, that you are not building the suspense for dramatic effect. We all know how that phrase ends.

In my case, the longer you draw it out, the more likely it is that I’m going to intentionally drive over you with my car. Over and over.

Oh…………………………………………………….mygod!

The Curse of the Romanovs...

Most guys will understand this and be able to identify with it to some degree. I doubt that many women will.

I was an avid student of martial arts in my late twenties and early thirties. Tae Kwon do and Jiu-Jitsu. One of my housemates back then, a Gung fu guy, used to play fight with me quite frequently. We would run around the lake that our place backed up to, barefoot, in full gi, in the middle of the night. Stopping at the town center to fight with sticks, the concussions of them hitting each other sounded like gunshots bouncing off of the commercial buildings surrounding us. That probably got a few people out of bed to peek out of their windows, trying to make sense of it as they looked out at  two escapees from a bad Chinese martial arts movie, fighting furiously at 3AM.

All my adult life I’ve been involved with some form of physical training, distance running, circuit training, free weights, a gym rat since college. So when Mixed Martial Arts and the UFC came along in the early 1990’s, I became a huge fan and developed a stronger practical knowledge of “how” to fight, even if I no longer trained in fighting specifically. I’ve always been confident in my own ability to defend myself.  That confidence only increased when I started collecting and carrying tactical fighting knives more than 20 years ago.

But the fitness regimen gets harder to stick with as I get older, and the other side of that coin has always been my extreme love for ganja, beer, and good food. It’s a balancing act that is increasingly hard to balance.

I started working-out less frequently and began to get soft, physically and mentally. My confidence took a nose dive as I felt less like a man walking through life with strength and self-confidence, as I always had in the past.

A nasty knee injury two years ago, and the discovery that I have a genetic propensity for blood clots that had conspired to kill me, combined to put a severe crimp in my style.

I knew that I simply had to work harder at being fit. These days, the knee is rehabbed, and I’m back in the gym. The blood clots are easily controlled with thinners, and I feel pretty damn good for a guy turning 70.

But a guy has to know his limitations, right? Even if I was pushed to the wall, I can no longer afford to defend myself. I can’t fight back. With the blood thinners, I’m like a hemophiliac Romanov, a bleeder. My blood wont clot so I have to be extra careful to never give it reason to see the light of day. It needs to stay inside me. Besides, if I fall, I may break a hip and be put in a home and have to eat unsalted soft food for the rest of my days, rocking in my chair and making gurgling sounds. Not good.

But here’s the key. The main defensive and offensive weapon we all have is our brain. Know how to avoid trouble and get out of it if it ambushes you. Use your head, and I don’t mean with a head butt.

Recently though, I was elated to find this statute on the books in this great state of Florida. I now carry multiple copies to hand out to any attacker before they attack. They may want to think twice before I hurt their fist with my nose.

A Florida Statute:
ASSAULT; BATTERY; CULPABLE NEGLIGENCE

784.08 Assault or battery on persons 65 years of age or older; reclassification of offenses; minimum sentence.—

(1) A person who is convicted of an aggravated assault or aggravated battery upon a person 65 years of age or older shall be sentenced to a minimum term of imprisonment of 3 years and fined not more than $10,000 and shall also be ordered by the sentencing judge to make restitution to the victim of such offense and to perform up to 500 hours of community service work. Restitution and community service work shall be in addition to any fine or sentence which may be imposed and shall not be in lieu thereof.

And even more good news? It doesn’t matter if the attacker knows if you are over 65 or not.

This opens a whole new world of geriatric possibilities for me. When I’m feeling foggy, I may just wade into a restaurant crowd and start calling guys that look at me funny, nasty names. “Hey you, semen breath! Yea, you with the dog-faced girl. I’m talking to you!”

Then I stick the Florida statute promising a 3-year minimum sentence if they lay a hand on me into their breast pocket and walk away.

I just hope none of them are concealed carry types. If it were me, I would just go ahead and shoot the asshole in the back, statute or no statute.

But if an assault does happen, after the attacker serves his three years, he will still have to “make restitution to the victim of such offense”. Me!

My plan is to make him come to my house every day for a year and in front of my family and invited guests, get down on the floor, make pig sounds, and say: “Iggie Wiggie, I’m a Piggie!”

I believe in handling such things with maturity and class.

Rant and Rave...

RANT and RAVE! Saltwater Cowboys…

Like most things in life, there are good things and not so good things to see. Certainly the setting, on the deck looking over the marshes while the sun was going down last night was as beautiful as anything you can think of. It was a perfect time to be right there, sitting outside.

Our service was good. The waiter attentive and pleasant. But as is true with about 90% of the restaurants we go to, the food really should be better, especially in such an awesome spot.

I can’t fault them for having frozen soft shell crabs, the season for live soft shells hasn’t quite started, but when it does, they should offer them fresh. But the crawfish were frozen too and since we just bought live crawfish from a truck parked on 207 last week, I know they are available. Previously frozen crawfish are rubbery and tasteless. 

The salad was delicious but had been cut too long before it was served. The edges of the lettuce where it had been sliced were starting to turn brown. A decent kitchen should be able to chop a fresh salad in no time, or at least have sufficient turn over if it is made in batches, so it doesn’t sit too long.

They were out of oyster stew because, according to our waiter, they had run out of the “base” with which to make it. I’m thinking: “You don’t have milk and butter?” I know they had oysters because I had a dozen locals on the half shell. I love the locals most of all, so fresh and briny! I was thinking that I should go into the kitchen and show them how to make a great oyster stew in just minutes, but I didn’t want to leave the place in handcuffs with a police escort.

Carla said that her “Shrimp Dondanville” was delicious. It looked like it too. They use local shrimp, good for them! Boo for any local place that serves farmed shrimp. Surprisingly, many do.

A cold Stella, the breeze off the marsh. So good…

But then my pork chop that was on special came out. Despite the grill marks, it was raw. I sent it back and told them to take it off the bill as we had to get going, but whoever is in charge of their kitchen should know better.

A manager came out and apologized for the chop. She told me that it would be taken off the bill as if she was doing me a favor. Of course it should, it was raw, not even very warm. I told her my other concerns and complimented the good things but she seemed to have drifted off even though she was still standing right there.

Sometimes I probably care too much about making food the best it can be. Not everybody does.

So our bottom line is the same with Saltwater Cowboys as it is with many of the local spots we visit. If we like the ambiance, (and really, none are better than Saltwater Cowboys on a Spring night), we know what is a sure bet to order and what may be a toss-up. We go out a lot.

We’ll be back. Next time I’ll order shrimp, oysters, or maybe crawfish if they are fresh. A cold beer and a seat on the deck…a little slice of heaven.

So there you go, a rant and a rave, much like life itself…