I'd Rather Be At The Table, Than On The Table

 “Sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bar eats you.” Daniel Boone You can’t blame this one on me, even Daniel spelled em like he seen em.

Armed with that little piece, of what can only be described as Redneck wisdom we decided to take a trip to the Everglades on Memorial Day.  Our intended destination was Cooperstown Airboat Tours. I could hardly believe it was only twelve miles from our home in Miami. There is something unsettling about a city of 5.5 million and a swamp with over a million alligators and over three hundred thousand Pythons, sharing the same zip code. Like me, you probably imagined that, that only happened in Africa, Asia or South America. We were wrong.

Mama Elena, my mother-in-law was to accompany us on the trip. In her late seventies, her only fear was the sunshine we’d encounter. As we pulled from our driveway, Mary Carmen started the song and dance, necessary to pry the information needed from the dreaded GPS.

She placed the address into it, it asked the following question.

Why?

She tried again, it asked.

Where?

On the third try, it asked.

Why would you want to?

Don’t you hate a GPS with an attitude, I do, and there are two things I’m not interested in when heading out into a swamp full of critters higher on the food chain than I am. I want a nice, polite GPS, and more importantly an extremely well behaved boat. I don’t want to be goin off into what amounts to, the largest side salad in the world with a boat that was born and raised up north.

We arrived without the help of the GPS, wait, let’s give this dude a southern name. We arrived without the help of, Gomer Pointing South, and soon piled onto a big fat airboat. For those of you who don’t know what an airboat is, it’s an airplane in drag as a boat. It skims rapidly across the water and is only a thin piece of metal which separates you from being who you are or being a T bone with a Ceasar salad.

I imagine it was invented by a country boy who found a crashed airplane while hunting in the swamp, because we know a country boy can make anything out of bailing wire and duct tape. Adding a mangles airplane to his repertoire is like adding gravy to potatoes. There would have been no one there to claim the plane as they would have already been on the wrong end of a candle light dinner. Crashing your plane and ending up as supper on the same day just don’t sound fun.

Once upon a time, a Japanese Redneck, with a hangover knocked over a Suzuki motorcycle on the assembly line. To cover his mistake, he added two extra tires and the Suzuki automobile was born. Same thing with the airboat, it’s simply astounding what a redneck can do, with a boat, a twisted up airplane and a few cases of beer. Bill Clinton was president. Need I say more?

Soon we sat in the boat and stared into the eerie eyes of a Gator. It appeared glad we had arrived. The salad was already prepared; all the gator needed was for one of us, to fall in. Mama wasn’t too concerned, after all she would only be a rib eye steak, Mary Carmen would only be prime rib, but me, I’m a whole rump roast, complete with potatoes and carrots. Everyone knew I was the preferred meal and were properly relieved or terrified by that information.

We did survive and made it back. We then sat down to lunch at the Cooperstown restaurant. What did we have? You guessed it, gator stew and frog legs. Okay I must admit it, if no one had told me, I’d have thought the frog legs were the legs of malnourished chickens. Contrary to popular belief the gator tasted nothing like chicken, but was more akin to redneck lobster.

Maybe I should start a restaurant chain named Gator Gumps, on the sign would be a gator with a piece of grass in its mouth, he’d be wearing a straw hat and overalls while drinking a beer. He’d be cooking on a grill made from a piano, a satellite dish and a 1976 Pinto.

I sat there eating gator stew and being quite pleased with my place at the table.  I couldn’t help but wonder if it had come down in the gators favor, would I have tasted like chicken? Sometimes you eat the gator, sometimes the gator eats you. Sometimes the boat’s a boat, sometimes it’s a plane and other times it’s both and dances to, It’s raining men, by The Weather Girls.

Thanks to all the Veterans out there, America would not be what it is without you.

Capt'n Kenny

Capt’n Kenny

Kennesaw

Who hasn’t dreamed of being a Pirate? Did you know that Pirates were government sanctioned? That’s right they were called Privateers, and were hired to pillage and plunder other countries during war. When the war ended, they were essentially laid off. Of course, there were no government programs such as unemployment at the time, so they became Pirates. They then commenced to pillage and plunder on their own; hanging was the Pirates primary retirement plan.

Imagine a Pirate standing in line at the unemployment office.

“What is your employment history?”

“Well, I plunder, pillage, scare folks and generally say YARRRRGGGG a bunch.”

“It would appear you have few qualifications. About the only thing, I think you would be good at is being a politician.”

“YARRRGGGGG.”

Jimmy Buffett wrote one of the best songs ever written. A Pirate looks at forty. The cannons don’t thunder, and there’s nothing to plunder, I’m an over forty victim of fate. Arriving too late, arriving too late.

Well imagine my surprise to find out he was wrong. As most of you know, I try to keep a job as my writing doesn’t understand it’s supposed to support me, instead of my supporting it. This week I was hired as a first mate on a Pirate ship. The job requires that I do the typical first mate stuff. Cast off a line or two, help passengers on and off the ship, entertain the children, admire the mothers and try to keep the daddies from annoying either. I’ll need to point out notable attractions around Biscayne Bay and tell a few tall tales, I can certainly do that.

I must act and talk like a Pirate. Are you kidding me, I do that now, well if I’ve had a few beers or simply woke up in one of my strange moods. At the interview, I found out, I must dress like one too. Wait, how much do I have to pay to do all this? What, they pay me? I swear I’d do it for crackers.

I almost missed my calling. I get to dress funny, talk funny and in general act the fool. I been doing that all my life and on one has paid me to do it, so far. Who knew there was a job out there which required one to be a lunatic? I’m over qualified, remember I’m from Milledgeville, Georgia, affectionately named asylum city, I can’t fail.

Now for a little update on Miami. If you think you want it, someone is selling it on the sidewalk or in the median at red lights. You can buy tacos, burritos, quesadillas, rotisserie chicken, only here they call it pollo a la brasa, and it’s plumb yummy. There are newspapers, gym memberships and we must not forget drinks of all kinds. You can buy tickets to everything, give to a hundred charities, buy phone cards, and I imagine you could arrange a date pretty easily. There are no corners left for the homeless to use for panhandling. A bum better be pretty quick on his feet if he wants to survive here.

I bought a five buck hotdog from a vendor yesterday. I ordered it with mustard, catsup and onions. The vendor looked at me like I was speaking another language, which I actually was. What I got was a bun covered with pink sauce, whatever that is, cheese, bacon, onions and potato chips. I never found a hot dog, and I looked, but it was delicious.

I have seen four bicycles frames chained to bus stops. How can you strip a bicycle in broad daylight on a busy city street? Apparently it can be done. Imagine getting off the bus after a hard day at work to find a bicycle skeleton. The bicycle then becomes a lot like my writing. I’m carrying it instead of it carrying me. If you have a prosthetic leg, you better learn to dance with it. It’s harder to steal a moving target. Cyclists here know better than stop at red lights; instead they circle slowly until the light turns green. Twice I’ve returned home to find my drawers gone. I can’t imagine how someone stole them, or more importantly, why they would want to.

If you don’t learn to move quickly here, you will be perpetually in the right lane, you may lose a bunch of drawers or false teeth and bicycle parts don’t have a chance. I’ve managed to keep anyone from stealing my birthday, but of course, no one steals something you don’t want. The other day someone stole the taste out of my mouth, wait, I’m sorry I was eating at a soul food restaurant in Jersey.

Unwad your panties; I’m just poking fun at Miami. Miami has no more or less problems than any city its size, but it wraps them in such beautiful packaging. “The weather is here, wish you were.” Jimmy Buffett.

How to Survive in Miami and Other Foreign Countries

Kennesaw

I bet I have heard, welcome to Miami a thousand times this week. While a few were sincere, most were uttered sarcastically just after my expressing sticker shock over some extraordinarily high prices. We tried to rent an apartment before we got here, but many of the ads online seemed too good to be true. There were houses and apartments with everything you might want and need. Only problem, they all belonged to little old missionary ladies who only drove them on Sundays, before they were sent to Africa. “Just give me a credit card number to pay the $2000 bucks and you can move in.” I was born in Georgia, but not in Slingblade, Georgia.

So we decided to wait until we got here. To rent an apartment, you need a cosigner, great references and at least that same $2000 bucks. There are at least five middle men, sorry or women, who are all getting their piece of your pie. Every one of them is located at least forty blocks apart, and you must visit each one. Forty blocks of slow moving mind boggling traffic, I might add. When you finally make it through the process, you are taken to a one bedroom apartment that cost a $1000 bucks a month. The mailbox is beautiful, and it’s a good thing because it’s bigger than the apartment which just happens to come with it.

Everyone seems to be from another country or at least from a different ethnic background. They all have their own ideas, based on that background of where the best food can be found. So far they are all right. The food in Miami is unbelievable.

The traffic is crazy, you best have a loud horn and be ready to use it. You must also be prepared for others to blow at you for obeying traffic laws. The person behind you blowing the horn seems not to care that you are stopped at a red-light and behind several others who can’t move. Yesterday Ellie Mae and I made evasive maneuvers as a tractor trailer blasted its horns behind us. I was dismayed, Mary Carmen was frightened, and Ellie Mae was miffed. What passed us was a 1978 Pinto. It was three different colors, was missing a fender and had air horns attached to the roof.

The fast lane on I 95 means exactly that. You better have a car capable of doing over 80, or you best stay out of it. Moving from the fast lane is akin to landing a 747, the slow lane is like the fast lane during rush hour in Atlanta. You know that sound the tires make as a plane comes in to land?  Yeah you must come down from supersonic speed and move over into the next lane. You must try not to get run over by the faster cars behind you or the slower cars beside you. All the while you must be blowing the horn, performing sigh language and running through the American Sailors dictionary, end to end.  As you do all this, Ellie Mae is reminding you, she is just an old hoopty and Mary Carmen is chastising you for using colorful language, in Spanish.

I don’t care if you speak Spanish or not, you know when you’ve done something wrong. I learned quickly the two most important words any man needs to know. Si Bebe, which is the Spanish equivalent to yes dear, if you’re married, you better know these words. More importantly, you best be able to say them like you mean them. They say to learn a language quickly, you must be immersed in the culture, I am.

As with all large cities there are inherent dangers, but here they have a few extras not found in Atlanta. They have 20 foot Pythons and 11 foot Alligators, both of which are higher on the food chain than six foot country boys. Haven’t met any and hope not to, both make mugging attractive.

We did find a place, we are sharing a house with a delightful Cuban couple. They hardly speak English, but so what, I’ve been told I have the same problem. A properly placed look can convey you are using the wrong fork at dinner. A few Spanish words can convey you are in trouble for using colorful English words. The proper inflection can convey hospitality and warmth from those around you, even when they are in another language.

All jokes aside, I’m loving Miami, the food and weather are great. The bugs are organized, in the union and carry business cards so you’ll know who bit you, but they don’t eat much. The beaches and sunrises are spectacular. What more could a country boy want?

Oh yeah, go Heat, it appears there will be plenty opposing teams to make fun of here.  

  

Heming’s Way

Kennesaw

Before you start writing that nasty letter, let me say. I do not now, nor have I ever professed to possess the talent of Earnest Hemingway’s pinky toe.

Some of us are meant to live nice, quiet, safe lives, and some of us aren’t. The trick is to know which category you fit into and to become comfortable with that knowledge. At least I said that.

This week has been a frenzy of activity at our house. The first thing I did was go into the closet and remove the shoe box containing my worldly possessions. With my stuff packed, I helped Mary Carmen pack hers. Her stuff meaning two walk in closets, two storage facilities, our extra bedroom and a friend’s garage.

Got to love her, she decided she would use this opportunity to cull a few things. Now that all is said and done, it’s clear she has. She downsized from 200 pairs of shoes to a scant 199 pairs. She said she cut her 24 hair brushes down to 20, but I found two stashed in a box of corn flakes and fear she has secretly stashed the others somewhere in the truck. I witnessed her give away six pairs of jeans; they are the only things I’m sure will not make the trip.

I believe, like Hemingway, a writer must be a person of adventure. Therefore, when adventure shakes you out of bed, you best fix a cup of coffee and step out the door behind it. Opportunities have arisen which will allow me to spend as long as it takes to write a couple book on the Keys and in South Florida.

By the time, this story hits the papers, Kennesaw, Mary Carmen, Ellie Mae and 199 pairs of mentally disturbed shoes will have already traveled the coastal highway from Jacksonville to Miami. I’ll have already taken a few hundred pictures and tasted some fresh oranges. I’ll already be in search of Jimmy Buffett’s attitude, Earnest Hemingway’s inspiration and the perfect thong bikini.

I will have already accomplished one of my lifelong goals, becoming the whitest man to ever walk the beaches of South Florida. I may make the Guinness Book of World Records. If you see a troubling story about a whale washed up on South Beach, don’t be alarmed, that’ll be me.

What am I going to make fun of in Florida? Older people are always fun, but older people who deny their Minnesotan heritage scare me. The population of Dade County is over seventy percent Latino; making fun of them might not be politically correct. Beside I’d need to understand them to make fun of them. Good thing I’m traveling with a personal translator. I’ll spend lots of time asking, “What did he say, what da hell and dooooooo what?”

So I will travel for a time in Heming’s way. I will haunt the places where he did play. I will steer by the light he called his own. From the lighthouse, that always pointed him home. I will search for the words that might change the world. I will hear the wind sing as the sails unfurl. I will wonder at the words Earnest gleaned from the breeze. I will walk for a time, in his footsteps as I please. In the end, I may not change the world, perhaps it will change me. But imagine through that change, all that I might see. I will weather the storms and political pitfalls too. Then I will write about them and send stories home to you. My birth, a mere sliver of fate, meaning nothing in the thread of time. My path, a twisted turning thing, erratic, but still it’s mine. My end a question, for I know not the place or day. When I arrive, there will be no doubt I was always on my way. I am not a tree, nor will I be. I am more like the oats that grow along the sea. I will not set roots and will not accept life by degrees. But rather spread by wind and tide slowly across the Keys. Earnest changed our hearts, our minds and our world, while searching for a friend. So I will follow Heming’s way, searching for a better end.

How long will we stay in South Florida? Until I get tired of fresh oranges. Until I get tired of thong bikinis, hopefully not going to happen. Maybe until the little bugs suck out all my blood, I’ve heard the bugs down there have organized into military units. Until the sun fries the two brain cells I have, it won’t take much.

Stay tuned, the adventure continues, pictures and stories are coming your way.

I’d rather crash into eternity than slip slowly into obscurity. Kennesaw Taylor

You can’t burn out if you’re not on fire. Jim Morrison