March to Florida, part 2

Greetings From Florida

March 18

Hello, everyone.

Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day, so I’ll tell you what little I remember of it.

After I signed off on Friday night, I walked a block to the beach. You can get far enough from the floodlights in people’s backyards to see the stars. I found the Big Dipper, North Star, Orion’s belt, and two bright ones to the right of it. I have no idea what they are. Maybe the space station or UFOs. They were the brightest things over the beach, except for the floodlights.

I picked up my bike from Beach Bums on Pine Ave. Saturday morning and went to the Rod & Reel Pier for biscuits and gravy. They put me at a table on the end of the porch, so all I could see outside was Tampa Bay. It was very entertaining to sit and watch the landscape move. The water was shades of green.

See what I mean? You had to be there.

I’d send the photo of that, but it’s semi-boring. The view of water is one of those things you have to be there to enjoy. The pelicans were somewhere else. There was only one on the pier and he looked like he was getting ready to take a nap. He was curled up on the edge of the pier like a ball of feathers with a beak.

The Anna Maria museum consists of a house that was built on City Pier in 1920 and fell into the bay in 1926. Somebody pulled it out and set it up on Pine Avenue. There is a native Florida landscape around it, so of course Harry had to go read all the little signs.

The trees are fantastic. Mangroves and myrtles, cabbage palms and saw palmettos (I told you I read the little signs) and other things that look very exotic to a New Jerseyan. Some look like they might eat you if you misbehave.

The City Pier had live Irish music at the bar. A man with a guitar and a lady with an amplified violin. They did Tura-Lura-Lura and I’m looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover, which I guess could stand in for a shamrock, but the hit was rollicking Gospel song about “raising a building for my Lord, a Holy Ghost building. “ Maybe that gives you an idea of the rhythm. A couple came dancing out of the bar doing a neat two-step routine across the deck past the fishing poles and then back.

We went to Beanie’s in Ruskin, over on the mainland for the corned beef and cabbage special. It was hands-down the best corned beef I have tasted. They serve vinegar, tabasco, and mustard on the side. It was like comfort food. If the hot sauce didn’t bring tears to the eye, nostalgia would.

We met Beanie, who is growing his pony tail for his 40th high school reunion, which is coming up soon. Seems he was the only hippie in the class of 72 down here.

The bar had a house brand, Beanie’s red, which was very good.

We stopped on the highway to see the eagles. They have been nesting in that tree for several years now, and never fail to draw sightseers. Last time I saw them, the adults were out and I could see the head of a eaglet sticking up out of the nest. This time there was an adult perched near the nest.

Bradenton has a strip of bars and had that street blocked off for a festival yesterday. There were all kinds of craft brew taps, and far more than I had stamina for. There was a black lager, but the high point for me was discovering that Sierra Nevada makes a barley wine. It’s so strong, about 10 percent, that they serve it in a short glass.

We stopped somewhere else, too. I am positive that we did. I got to bed somehow, and I know this because I woke up there.

I am taking care of myself, watching what I eat. I had a fruit cup for breakfast to balance the biscuits and gravy, for instance. I am only drinking good, high-quality beer to keep my heart healthy.

It’s Sunday morning. I am going out in the kayak soon.

Joanna, March 18

The two bright ones are planets. Jupiter and Mars. Remember “Age of Aquarius,” Hippie boy?

When Jupiter aligns with the Mars then peace shall guide the planets.

I may not remember the lyric correctly. Anyway, something like that.

Happy kayaking.

Peter, March 18

Somehow I just knew you would have a good time on St. Paddy's Day. Glad you enjoyed yourself. Cool eagle photo.

Jack, March 18

Thanks for the warning about barley wine.  Reminds me of when some Brit introduced me to Guinness saying it was little more than liquid black bread.

I’ve Been to Florida and Seen the Elephant

March 18

Another busy day in paradise.

I started the day by paddling into Tampa Bay. It’s slow traveling, but it’s really unusual to see the world, or at least a little part of it, from about three feet above water level.

The bay is so clear that it looks a foot deep, when it’s closer to four or six. I was able to look for manta rays, sharks, dolphins, and lost Spanish gold, but struck out on all counts this morning

When I was moving through the bayou, I almost missed spotting a couple of blue herons. They’re rail thin when you seen them head on. One was perched on top of a boat launch and looked like part of the lumber.

After the boat ride, I spent a few minutes watching geckos climb the palm trees, and then we went to watch the parade. It has to rank right up there with Montclair on the Fourth of July. It lasted about half an hour, so it’s shorter than Montclair’s but there were pipers, a couple of high school bands (at least one of which may been called the Pirates), Shriners on tiny cars, a pirate ship, and the Pittsburgh Pirates mascot. In addition to all the pirate impersonators, there was a bright green St. Patrick throwing beads to the spectators. The hit of the parade and its distinguishing feature, besides the abundance of pirates, was a live elephant, just a little smaller than the one that tried to kill me in Thailand.

We had joined friends of Bob and Jamy at their house on the parade route. They were Ed and Nancy. More than a dozen people were in the front yard, including Evelyn, a retired snowbird well into her 70s. She is terrific. I met her last year at a bar in town called Bortell’s, where she was downing shots of whiskey with water chasers.

I was feeling a little rocky from last night and bobbing like a cork on the swells in the bay didn’t help. So I had some sweets that Jamy made, a kabob with vegetables and salami, and an apple-flavored Jell-O shot. I don’t know what did it—the alcohol, the sugar, or the artichoke in the kebab, but I was feeling better after that.

The parade is the brainchild of a local restaurant owner, Sean Murphy, and was co-sponsored by the Pittsburgh Pirates players organization. According to the one of the local papers, a lot of the team members stay on Anna Maria Island during spring training.

We had run into another friend, Anita, at one of last night’s many bars and she had invited us to watch the parade from her yard, about three blocks from Ed and Nancy’s.

We stopped there next. We had some of the food, and while we were putting that away, most of the parade cars and floats started coming back down the street. Later, two men walked the elephant back. It was like having flashbacks. Some people on floats were still throwing beads.

Jamy introduced me to “our lucky Penny.” Penny is 92 and, until a couple of years ago, used to mow people’s lawns for a living. She had to give that up, and now Anita, who is not a relative, watches over her to see that she is fed, gets her meds, and so on.

Traffic was heavy on the main drags, so Jamy led the way by back streets to the next stop, a bar called Island Time where she wanted to hear a highly recommended trio, the Ted Stevens Band. Very tight and very retro: “Runaround Sue,” “It’s All Over Now,” “Runaway.” They had all kinds of people up and dancing. One or two couples may have been under 50. Short selection of taps here: Amber Bock, which is a palatable Anheuser-Busch product, and Shocktop.

There was a kid behind the bar who had jammed the stapler and couldn’t fix it. Bob helped him out.

A few minutes later, he is on stage taking some kind of instructions from the drummer. The kid was a ringer. He might not be able to fix a stapler, but he tore through a long drum break on “Secret Agent Man.” He was using his sticks on the wall, woodwork, and a metal Budweiser sign before he was through.

After the performance, he ducked upstairs, where the kitchen and the storage are, for a couple of six-packs to restock the bar.

It’s almost eleven. My hot dog at Anita’s house was a long time ago. I have to get something into my stomach. I’ll narrow my choices by looking for something that goes with beer. Of course, I have yet to find anything that doesn’t go with beer.

What the In-House Astronomer Says

Beatrice, March 19

Harry, Alan says if they were indeed “The brightest things in the heavens,” they were Jupiter and Venus.