Deck the palms

Just because this is Florida, the drive to decorate for Christmas isn’t melted by soaring temperatures.

There’s no question that one beloved local couple, who own a large realty firm, take the cake for their decorating—an entire garden bathroom decked out like an animatronic Macy’s window display, a flotilla of wreath luminaries in the pool, even real donkeys in a real stable.

And there are former northerners who take the tongue-in-cheek minimalist prize.

But there’s one guy, at 170 Salem Ave. in Port Charlotte, whose displays might not be the biggest, the costliest, the most eye-popping or circuit-breaking. Still, for sheer man hours; deadpan, grumpy humor; and pure love of the holidays, Mark A. Romiza’s got my vote.

A former chef from Massachusetts, with a Boston accent as broad as a bahn, he’s a Facebook friend whose decorating travails, captured in video and photos, I’ve been following all season.  Mostly to hear him say, “Santa Kloss.”

Even though he has a bum leg that makes every movement painful, he says he “just loves decorating.” Another Facebook friend posted “For you, Mark A. Romiza” with a cartoon that read, “If it doesn’t move decorate it.”

He starts ramping up at Halloween, when all his mom’s decorations come out of storage. In his own growly way, he writes, "Total of ZERO kids. Glad I don't do this for them. It's in honor of my mom, and myself. Just about all my holiday decorations were hers. She loved every holiday. I guess that's where I get it from. Now on to Thanksgiving." 

But it’s Christmas where he really shines. As soon as the Thanksgiving dishes are done and all of his bountiful Thanksgiving baked goods are handed out to the neighbors, the Christmas project of the year begins.

This year it involved building and painting a plywood chimney, from which he planned to drape a cloth Santa, falling off the roof. Mark’s lucky that he didn’t, in the process.

The chimney is done!

Every phase of getting the chimney up on the roof and Santa visible by night proved difficult and side-splitting. In the end, after four trips to the roof, he was calling Santa “the fat bastard” and cursing himself, his girlfriend, and probably the cat.  All in the spirit of the holidays, of course.

That's it! I'm done!

As if that weren’t enough, there was the train set for the inside of the house.

"Santa came out alright but still needs a different light. It's over. I'll upgrade next year. So now it's the damn train track--have two sets turning into one track, been at it for two hours, track has to be perfectly lined up. But since it's different sets, the tracks are not working with me. So instead of swearing and tossing it outsisde, I'll just sit and relax and go back to it tomorrow. Also putting a little tuna fish on the last car (it's the only food my cat eats). And when she gets close, sound bells, then start train and stop and go for some entertainment."

The long-suffering girlfriend makes an appearance toward the end of the next video--rolling their own cigarettes, no doubt to save up for next month's electric bill.

The final outcome!

In the end, Mark concludes: "No matter what I do it turns into a full-blown project, but in the end it usually works out no matter what happens in between. I also don't want to fall off the roof. Did that years ago when I was painting the old roof and backed into the electric pipe that goes into the house. All's I felt was BAM! I dropped like a rock onto the roof and rolled off. I actually ran over myself once with a golf cart."

Clark Griswold in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation has nothing on Mark Romiza.

Ellen: You set standards that no family activity can live up to.

Clark: When have I ever done that?

What's next?

Trayfuls of Christmas cookies for all the neighbors. Of course they had to include Santas.

The Thanksgiving we didn't eat

It wasn't for any of the reasons you might be guessing--we spent our day feeding the homeless, we were penniless, we were dieting, we were stuck in an airport, we were making a "statement," we just skipped it.

Nope.

Seven years ago--long before we hit Florida and became saner--we decided (oh, okay, Bill decided) that it would be fun to cater Thanksgiving dinner, without a license, for a family we didn't know, who had posted an ad on Craigslist. 

There’s so much wrong with this concept that I won’t even start.

We had, I think, been watching way too much Food Network and figured: We can do that!

A young husband had posted an ad.  Seems that Mike had tired of doing all the cooking and serving every Thanksgiving, and never getting to relax and enjoy the day. He and his wife, a lawyer, had a nice, upscale home in the New Hampshire suburbs, two kids, and a family of 25 who descended on them every year. The only caveats were that his dad was lactose intolerant and Aunt Susan was going to bring her famous desserts.

We agreed, and the planning began.

Bill was in heaven! He started digging up recipes weeks in advance.  

We printed out a menu for the family's approval, to put at everyone's place at the table. Every bit of it but the rolls was from scratch. It looked like this, decked out with fall leaves, ears of corn, and fancy fonts:

APPETIZERS
Crudités
Roasted red pepper & sun-dried tomato dipping sauce
Basil aioli dipping sauce
Mixed greens with Parmesan vinaigrette
Crab bisque or Cioppino
Dinner rolls
Southern dill-cheese bread

THANKSGIVING DINNER
Roast turkey
Fresh whole-cranberry sauce
Portobello mushroom gravy (one with and one without mushrooms)
Traditional sage dressing
Cornbread dressing
Garlic mashed potatoes
Southwest-style chipotle smashed sweet potatoes
Green bean casserole with panko-breaded onion topping
Oven-roasted stuffed onions
Oven-roasted carrots, squash, broccoli, & asparagus

Champagne sorbet (to cleanse the palate)

DESSERT
Italian love cake, a rich ricotta delight
Granny Smith apple pie with caramel drizzle
Mike's own pumpkin pie
Aunt Susan's lemon cake
Aunt Susan's chocolate cake

The young family was delighted! Never before had they seen such a menu, let alone at their very own house for Thanksgiving, with caterers doing the service and cleanup!

We had no friggin’ idea what we'd gotten ourselves into.

I spent the week before Thanksgiving nagging Bill to make sure he had everything organized. I made spreadsheets, timetables, strategies. He borrowed chafing dishes, pans, and crock pots from the American Legion and every friend we had.

The shopping alone took two hours and cost over $200.

We spent 17 hours chopping, preparing, and precooking. The dog and cat ran around crazy. Friends came to watch for a while and left, shaking their heads. I never worked so hard in my life. We drank heavily. We came close to blows.

Then, on Thanksgiving morning, bleary eyed and hung over, we loaded it all, most of it fully cooked, into every available inch of my compact car and hit the road, praying that nothing would slide leeward and spill all over everything else.

You know how your house smells on Thanksgiving? My car smelled like that for weeks afterward.

We pulled up and started unloading, carrying everything upstairs from the garage to their kitchen. 

Mike helped, though he had clearly had wine glass in hand for quite some time.

Some of the guests were already there, curious about us and already getting under foot.

Anyway, we got all the stuff piled up on counters, in an alien kitchen with, of all things, gas burners, God help us.

Mike's wife seemed to have no recollection of where any of her pots and pans were kept. (Why should she, being a lawyer and all?) 

Children ran about, shrieking. 

It looked like a very bad Food Network Challenge that wouldn't end well, and the worst part was, we were in it.

Somehow, we managed to get everything sorted out and warming up. We laid out the appetizers to keep the milling throng at bay. 

One old lady asked, "What's low sodium here?" Instead of laughing in her face, I calmly consulted the sheaf of recipes we'd printed out for just such a situation. Well, nothing was really low sodium, but I fibbed to her that one of the dips and one of the soups weren't too, too bad.  (Thank God there were no vegans in the house.)  

Everyone was seated at a couple of makeshift tables in the dining room, and it wasn't a buffet.  So we began serving soups and plates of food to order.

It was wild.  I almost lost it when one woman darted into the kitchen to tell me her husband needed a napkin. I very nearly said, "Let him get his own flippin' napkin, lady! We've got a dinner to put on here!" 

I restrained myself.

It all worked, somehow perfectly. Everyone raved and applauded. 

The aunts got tiddly on the champagne sorbet. The wife angsted about whether the children should have any. I figured there was no danger, since the kids were so high on sugar anyway that a little alcohol could only help.

My favorite person of the whole day was a large adolescent lad who kept exclaiming, "This is the best food I've ever had!"

My second favorite person of the whole day was a five-year-old boy who insisted on helping clean up.

Did I mention that we signed up for cleanup, too? 

Picture a five-course dinner for 30, one small dishwasher, a tiny sink, a wife who has no idea where her storage containers are nor, once found, where their matching lids might be, and two exhausted chef-waiters-turned-dishwashers.

At one point, I wasn't none too neat about how I shoved leftovers into the fridge. Lidless containers, bulging with moist ingredients and covered only in plastic wrap, teetered atop other lidless containers in the same condition. 

I just didn’t care any more.

At the end of the day, we made all of $150 profit. Mike was very good to us, considering we underestimated how much the whole thing would cost.

Of course they kept all the leftovers, and the help got none, because the family had paid for it all.

The next year, Mike begged us to come back and do it all over again.

We did not.

Every Thanksgiving since has seemed like a breeze in comparison.

Island colors

About 2 percent of Port Charlotte’s population of nearly a thousand souls is of Caribbean origin. 

The area has four Caribbean restaurants serving up curry goat, oxtail, jubilee, callaloo, saltfish, and ackee. 

One needn’t even set foot in Jamaica to hear a variety of lilting voices and see splashes of color as riotous as its flag’s. And we don't have goats and stray dogs wandering into the road.

Within the space of 2 square miles, for instance, are three remarkable examples.

~~~~~

Jamaican women younger than 60 walk like priestesses, their heads, sometimes turbaned, balanced high upon straight spines, as if carrying baskets of mangoes.  They seem to march to a dignified internal reggae parade.

There’s one such woman in the neighborhood, an unfailingly cheerful young lady. 

“It’s a beautiful day! Yes!” she’ll sing out as she passes.

Daily, she walks her dogs—one, a wayward, lunging pit bull, the other a lazy cur—as if marching in such a parade, dogs attached to one outflung arm, poop bag to the other.

Her brightly patterned skirts swirl around her ankles. Her dark hair is adorned with hanging dreadlocks the color of dried earth.  One morning, she appeared to be wearing a stuffed cat atop her head, its paws and tail bobbing merrily as she strode along.

On closer examination, it was a new patch of dreadlocks that she’d thought to weave overnight.

I wonder what she must do for a living.

Hairdressing?

~~~~~

One island family has two middle-school children, whom I see walking to the bus stop.

They are even more polite and pleasant than other local children. Part of the reason might be a strict upbringing. Their father sometimes shadows them to the bus stop in a vast white Cadillac and sits there grimly until the bus arrives.

Christ. Middle school is hard enough.

One day, the girl was cradling a small shoebox in her arms. I figured it was goodies for her class.  But she opened the box and showed me what she explained was her egg.  It was, indeed, a hard-boiled egg, painted with a little face, swaddled in kerchiefs. She and all of her classmates had been protecting one all week, to learn what infant care was like.

She appeared ready to pitch it in the street at that point.

Her brother, even more pleasant than she is, once shocked a neighboring mom.

She was treating her sons to Dairy Queen and asked what he would like.

“I don't know. I’ve never had Dairy Queen!” he replied.

“The poor child!” she told me. “His father is so strict. Imagine! Never had Dairy Queen. I got him an Oreo Cookies Blizzard, and you’d think I gave him a million bucks.”

~~~~~

Jamaican women older than 60 tend to shuffle about in small bands, usually heading to church, as one. Sometimes they travel door to door, carrying umbrellas against the sun and handing out religious tracts--which, if one reads them carefully, warn of intellectuals, Catholics, and other evils.

This tends to make a smart Catholic person a bit twitchy, but never mind. They seem like perfectly sweet old ladies.

Such a group--also unfailingly cheerful and dressed in clashing patterned skirts and blouses--lives together in what I call “the Pepto-Bismol House.” Not because of their need to dose themselves with it, though that might be a consideration in the islands. Rather, because of its appalling color, somewhere between Pepto and black raspberry ice cream.

I assume there are no men living there. None would stand for that paint job, and they would’ve been outlived anyway.

I wonder what their quiet next-door neighbor makes of this. His house is impeccably white, with crisp black shutters and a white Buddha out front.

On the other hand, giving directions to his place must be easy. Next to the Pepto-Bismol House. With a Buddha. You can’t miss it.

Calling Elmer Fudd

If you’ve noticed more bunnies in your yard this spring and summer, you’re not alone. Powt Chawlotte is ovewwun with wascawy wabbits. Where’s Elmer Fudd when you need him?

We're in a Beatrix Potter storyland, herds of bunnies hopping about where there were none a year ago. I know the family of four living under our hibiscus bush so intimately that I’ve named them Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter. Our dogs now ignore them, considering them slow-moving lawn ornaments. I may sew them little outfits. God knows, they freeze for long enough that I’d have no trouble dressing them.

Why so many rabbits this year?

Here’s what we know: They are Eastern cottontails, because of their telltale white tails. We also know that they breed like, um, rabbits—year round, with each female bearing as many as 50 kittens (baby bunnies) annually. Their survival rate this year has apparently been mind-boggling.

Rehabilitation specialist Amy Rhoads, at Peace River Wildlife Center in Punta Gorda, theorized that, because the food supply is unchanged, the level of predation in our area must be down. More bobcats hit by cars, fewer hawks, less breeding among feral cats, that sort of thing. She suggested I call Florida Fish and Wildlife, who immediately forwarded me to an emergency field agent because they thought I said, “More rabid.”  

“No, no. More rabbits. Bunny rabbits,” I explained.

“Oh, we don’t handle rabbits.”

“But they’re wildlife,” I reasoned.

That went nowhere. “You want the Florida Department of Agriculture,” the agent suggested.

The lady at FDA sympathized, but said things could be worse. We could have bears ravaging our garbage cans, like she does.  She recommended the local Extension Service.

Charlotte County Extension Service horticulturist Tom Becker said that he and Director Ralph Mitchell had been discussing the bunny situation that very day, before setting out a trial bed of caladium—luckily for them, not a bunny delicacy. Tom’s hypothesis on the matter: The early growth of underbrush this spring, in combination with lower levels of predation, has protected more young bunnies. But he was intrigued enough to ask where we live and pass the information along to the master biologist.

Meanwhile, I guess we can live with them. They don’t eat much. And they’re cute.

Delusional

The apt name of this local tub perfectly captures the psyche of your average Southwest Florida boat owner.

The Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte chambers of commerce trumpet the area's virtues as a boater's paradise. They figure that, if you tell people this, they will come. And they have, thanks in part to a numbingly harsh northern winter.

Even if you aren't a boater to begin with, after settling on the banks of the Peace or Myakka rivers, Charlotte Harbor, or one of many local man-made canals, you feel obliged to become one.

This is how we became the proud owners of our own delusional craft. We optimistically planned to christen her The Whim-Sea, and she has lived up to her name. Her motor, among other features, is completely dysfunctional, and she graces our yard as a large lawn ornament that costs us an annual registration fee.

New boat owners always look like this ... at first

All this calls to mind a memorable voyage with our friends Bobby and Gilda.

Ever since I'd known Gilda, she'd been complaining about Bobby's boat--which cost nearly as much as their home--just sitting in the driveway, unlaunched and eating up insurance and registration money. It had apparently been two years since the Whiskey River had seen blue water.

One week, something snapped in Bobby. Maybe it was Gilda’s spending three days cramped up like a pretzel cleaning the boat's interior and waxing the exterior until you could see your face in it. Maybe it was the New Year coming. Maybe it was their anniversary, for which he had promised to jump in their icy swimming pool but just couldn’t bring himself to.  Maybe it was the guy who pulled up in a Mercedes and said Bobby would never be able to sell that thing. 

He decided it was time to take the Whiskey River out on the harbor.

As soon as Bill caught wind of this, he was like a kid. When we were invited on the Whiskey River's maiden voyage on Charlotte Harbor, he could hardly contain himself. 

I, in turn, began to worry about details like how I was going to get aboard. The boat on its trailer seemed nearly the height of their house.  While it was in the yard, the only way to get up there was on a rickety ladder, and I just couldn’t make it past rung 4. I'm none too confident about my body's ability to clamber up ladders and heave itself aboard boats, so I fought a tailspin of panic. I did deep breathing, visualized myself swinging aboard like a monkey, saw myself on the high seas, face into the wind. What could go wrong?

The deal, because Bobby wasn’t yet familiar with the harbor, was to have neighbors Joe and Marianne go along. Joe knows the harbor; Marianne is (as we would discover) a font of advice and good in a crisis; neither one drinks; Bobby does; and Joe could drive most of the time while Bobby had an ongoing series of beers.

By the time we were ready to roll, I had somehow wrestled down my fear of boat clambering, hopped aboard like an old salt, explored the burnished interior, and felt on top of the world. I had achieved the perfect delusional state for Florida boating.

When hitched up, the 29-foot craft towered over Bobby's SUV and loomed behind us as we lumbered the 2½ miles to the boat launch, with Marianne and Joe bringing up the rear. Bobby backed the boat onto the ramp and started slowly putting her into the water. What a moment!

Once in the water, we had a first hint that something was amiss. How would we snug her up to the dock so we could get aboard? Who had a rope? (I remained optimistically unconcerned. We would find a rope, and we would get aboard.) Indeed, someone produced a rope. It was a short rope, but it sufficed.

Then we were in the water, and we were off! Bobby began backing her out, and we seemed to be making progress. Then Marianne calmly pointed out that we were churning up some mud; a huge amount of mud, actually; the whole friggin’ harbor, in fact. So, four of us scrambled belowdecks and perched as far forward in the boat as we could, to lift the rear off the bottom.The blower alarm shrieked like a banshee the whole time, to alert us that fumes weren't being cleared from the cabin very well; reports came down from above that we didn’t seem able to move forward.

I remained optimistically delusional.

Soon, we were completely afloat, no longer stirring up the harbor floor, the alarm stopped, and we were actually moving frontways. All was well. Gilda and I broke out the bottle of Merlot she'd brought for the occasion, poured ourselves plastic cups, and toasted the launch.

At that very moment, Bobby gunned the engine. Red wine slopped all over Gilda's spotless cabin table, we scrambled for paper towels to sop it up, and, unfazed, we prepared to toast again. Now Bobby backed off suddenly and gunned her forward again. She lurched like a spooked horse. Red wine exploded all over me, the newly cleaned upholstery, and my body. I looked like a shark bite victim. But no matter.

We motored onward at the highest speed I’d ever traveled on the sea. The wake was a thing of beauty, like the flowing tail of a high-spirited white stallion.

We fished for a little over an hour. Gilda climbed up on the bow to fish. Bill sat way on the back, so that he might discreetly eliminate his beers one at a time. Thanks to the Merlot, Gilda and I both got a chance to christen the bucket in the head and toss it over the side. (“It’s like pissing on a roller coaster!” Gilda yelled.) There was much good conversation, and none of us caught a thing. I felt two “tug-tugs,” and Gilda let out two whoops because she felt the same thing--probably my line. But, hey, it isn’t about the catch, it’s about the company and the adventure of it all.

At last it was time to go home, and we started rocketing back. The sun was setting as we approached Charlotte Harbor, so we ducked into the hold to keep warm. The blower alarm had begun shrieking again because of fumes in the cabin. Still happy as a clam, I figured that, if you can smell it, you’re okay. Carbon monoxide is the odorless killer, right? When we could stand it no longer, we went topside, which might have saved our lives.

Several times as we headed back, the engine stopped entirely and we looked at one another, debating how far we felt able to swim. Yet the engine always started again.

I remained optimistic …until we got back to the dock. Two inches away from where it could easily be hooked up to the hitch, the Whiskey River gave up the goat and could go no more. I didn’t know that human beings could move a boat that large, but apparently they can, because we were able to haul it back to where Bobby could hitch it up again.

I continued to be optimistic, delighted about the whole day … right up until the moment when Bobby’s SUV let out the most godawful screech I've ever heard from a vehicle. Are the wheels spinning? What is that dragging, grinding noise? Turns out the drive shaft had snapped like a twig.

Marianne sprang into action, commanding everyone to clear out of the way, get the whole rig into a space, and leave a note to cover the boat and SUV’s imminent overnight stay in the parking lot. We all rode back to the neighborhood in Joe’s truck and went our separate, stunned ways.

Later, Bill told me that he'd gone in search of the 60-odd life jackets that Bobby had said were on board, but couldn’t find them. And Gilda allowed as how that soft spot in the cabin floor was real wet, for some reason.

I thought it might be a while before the Whiskey River went to sea again, and even longer before we went to sea on it.  But we are all so deeply delusional that we did. Bill went out on one occasion when Bobby had neither map, nor depth finder, nor GPS on board and got lost on the Gulf. On another occasion--even with GPS, maps, and depth finder in place--we went aground five times before returning to dock.

At least we found the life jackets.

Portrait of a bartender

Dan Bernal has no shame.

The guy has played a chubby Chippendale, donned a fuzzy yellow chick hat, squeezed into a thong, tended bar with a cardboard box over his head, and Photoshopped his face onto countless bikini-clad models. If his wife, Amanda, didn’t tell him when he’s gone too far, he’d crash the next Sports Illustrated Swimsuit shoot.

This one-man variety show might simply be creating over-the-top promotion for Port Charlotte’s PaddyWagon Irish Pub, where he is managing partner. Or it might all be an outlet for a frustrated standup comedian. “When it comes to entertaining people, it’s true. I have no shame!” Dan laughs.

Ten years ago, Dan needed a second job, to support his wife’s return to school. He knew what he wanted to do, because he’d fallen in love with Sarasota’s Linksters Tap Rooms, all designed as comfortable, well-run neighborhood hangouts.

And he idolized the bartenders, masters of their craft, equal parts shrink, mediator, chaplain, mind reader, juggler, mnemonist, and comic. “They were a big influence on me. The second time I walked in, Ian knew my name and what I drank.  That really makes you feel noticed, like you’re good enough to remember.  And Wayne had one of those great personalities that draws people in.” 

Dan knew that entry level in the restaurant business is dishwasher, but that those with bartending ambitions have to start as barbacks. A barback does everything except make drinks—wash glassware; stock the bar with ice, garnishes, and supplies; sweep up broken glass; and anticipate the bartender’s every need. It’s sweaty, unglamorous work, but perfect for learning to be a bartender who can anticipate the patron’s every need.

In Dan’s day job in customer service, he had to phone people who had problems. This, too, was a perfect bartender-training program. “I’d been cursed up one side and down the other—which gave me a lot of patience for what I do now.”

With the help of a middle-school buddy who was a barback, Dan landed a job with the Linksters organization, at the original Mr. Big’s in Sarasota, the first bar the company purchased before opening dozens of Linksters Tap Rooms and PaddyWagons.

He became one of the few Linksters barbacks who was allowed to make a drink.  Soon, he started bartending on the Saturday day shift.   

“I was concerned, because the day shift is typically a woman’s area. Day drinkers would rather see a pretty girl behind the bar than a chubby 28-year-old from Detroit. But, given my personality, I won them over with banter and sports talk. I wore some pretty interesting outfits, too.” I don't know, but that just might have been when Ugliest Shot Girl made her first guest appearance in short shorts and a makeshift tank top.

Multiple personalities are part of this bartender’s art. By day, Dan is Mr. Mom, caring for his daughters, Isabella and Sydnee, at home in North Port.  By night, he is Dano, portraying a cast of kooky characters at a bar.

“I’ve always had a goofy, crazy personality. It’s fun to be behind the bar, having conversations and getting to know interesting people. And I get to do this for a living!” 

Dano and his bartending sidekick, Shannon Scarpello, at the PaddyWagon

Putting on the dog

Dogs sprawl beneath barstools on the Laishley Crab House deck. They help themselves to water bowls placed outside dog-mindful downtown shops. Theycruise Punta Gorda Harborwalk in strollers. They're wheeled about in Lowe’s shopping carts, like small poobahs borne on litters. Venice boasts a renowned dog beach, Brohard Paw Park.  Camp Bow Wow in Port Charlotte requires an interview, tryout, and completion of a daunting three-page Camper Application. It’s like getting your kid into a Beverly Hills nursery school, for Chrissake.

No doubt about it, the Southwest Florida Gulf Coast can claim the most dog-friendly venues in America.

They’ve got nothing on Ophelia’s Pasta House in Nokomis.

Before you even step in the door, there's a lighthearted list of rules for Ophelia’s dog-friendly patio and dining room. 

They offer a tableful of free treats, beds on which shaggy patrons may recline like Roman bacchantes, and walls arrayed with poker-playing, birthday-boy, barfly, and chef dogs, all  rendered in colorful detail by local painter Ingeborg Angeli.  A laminated Canine Cuisine menu features six entrees, as well as kibble for the purist who eschews table scraps. Bring a dog and you’ll be treated like visiting dignitaries. The dogless eat pretty well in their dining area, too.

Even unaccompanied humans may dine on Ophelia’s dog patio. 

Paula and Gary Skorb of Rutland, MA, enjoy breakfast at Ophelia’s Pasta House.

Some say that Ophelia’s lovably loopy co-owner, Nancy Champlin, likes dogs better than people, but that’s not completely true. She doesn’t play favorites. Her former life in western Massachusetts was devoted to human caregiving, as a primary-grades teacher who also trained student teachers.  

Nancy likes to tell stories, including one about a unit on “community helpers.” She asked the class, “How many of you have a relative who’s a community helper?”

One little boy raised his hand and cried, “I do!  My dad.  But he’s dead now.”

“What did he do before he died?”

The boy gurgled dramatically and fell on the floor in response.

Pulling your leg or not, Nancy still loves storytelling. She has her own informal standup routine at the restaurant, moving from table to table telling the more-or-less-clean “joke of the night.”

But the footloose Jim Champlin was always the one who wanted to run restaurants. While studying to teach the deaf, Nancy met Jim in a bar, and her life changed abruptly. He owned Champlin’s, an established seafood market/restaurant on the grey-shingled waterfront of Narragansett, RI. Nancy worked there for six years, breathing in the salt air and loving life--until Jim sold out and started Althea’s in downtown Venice.  Homebody Nancy, who never wanted to budge after settling somewhere, made herself comfy in Venice. Then, five years later, it happened again. They sold Althea’s and moved back to launch The Sunflower, right up the road from Champlin’s.

One day, Nancy asked, “Where’s Jim? We need some lobsters,” only to learn that he’d hopped in his sailboat and taken off for Florida again--this time, to open Ophelia’s Pasta House.

“Well, that’s Jim,” Nancy sighs.  “I love Rhode Island, so I stayed there running The Sunflower, while he was starting Ophelia’s.”

About her grandson’s lemonade stand Nancy wisecracks, “I’ll have to clue him in about this restaurant business!”

But whatever career she pursues, Nancy herself is a “community helper.”

When she heard that Hooves Paws ‘n Claws Animal Sanctuary in Bradenton needed more space, to house hundreds of rescued dogs and cats, along with horses, donkeys, birds, and a pig, she began holding benefits auctioning off donated salon gift cards, golf packages, pet supplies, and groomer and vet certificates. 

Nancy isn’t averse to matchmaking either. She’s tickled to have introduced one middle-aged couple, who fell madly in love at Ophelia’s. “We haven’t even had an argument yet,” the pair giggles, after a month together.

Best of the Blotter

Police blotters up north were entertaining enough, but the best they had to offer was material such as: "Woman drives into ditch because of bee in car" or "Neighbors complain of Arabs working at 7-11."  (Police response to the latter: "We know.")

But Florida police blotters deserve a blog all their own. I will try to contain myself and limit it to an occasional "Best of the Blotter" post.


Woman ate dog treats and left without paying for them
NAPLES--Deputies say a North Naples woman drank Red Bull and ate dog treats at Walmart and then left without paying for them.

Reports show that she was shopping in the school supply aisle of the store at about 7:15 p.m.

Employees watched her open several items in the aisle and place them inside a binder which she placed inside her purse. She then chose two Red Bull energy drinks, spilling one on the floor before consuming a second one.

Then employees say she grabbed a bag of rawhide dog treats off a shelf, opened the package, and began eating the rawhide chips. She placed the bag back on the shelf but kept a few in her purse.

When questioned by deputies, she said, "I was just putting together the binder for my granddaughter."

[Editor's note: Naples is a wildly well-to-do community, where residents no doubt lack sufficient dog treats for themselves.]

Baby pulls cocaine from woman's shirt during traffic stop
DAYTONA BEACH--Deputies say an 11-month-old boy pulled a baggie full of cocaine from inside the shirt of a woman during a traffic stop near Daytona Beach.

A K-9 unit arrived to check the car and deputies asked the occupants to step outside with the baby. No drugs were found inside the car, but as the deputy handed a driver's license to Candyce Harden, the baby reached inside her shirt and pulled out the baggie.

It's unclear who the baby belongs to.

[Editor's note: Given their bad luck, no one wants to claim the kid.]


Suspect nabbed during chase; snoring gave him away
PENSACOLA--Officials say a Florida man suspected of stealing a car took off on foot from a traffic stop and briefly eluded deputies while he grabbed a nap under a nearby trailer.

The Pensacola News Journal reports that deputies followed the sound of 37-year-old Kevin Lee Barbour's snoring--described as a "snorting wild boar"--to discover him Sunday night in Santa Rose County.

[Editor's note: Perps' falling asleep in mid-chase happens more often in Florida than in any other state of the Union.]

Blizzard envy

Throughout the past weekend, weather reports couldn't contain their excitement. The Boston area would get hit by another Storm of the Century, a new Blizzard of '78.  With snowflakes beginning to spin through the air in downtown Boston, workers prepared to leave early, toting their laptops home for a snow day to follow.

It's easy to get all nostalgic about the days when you watched the snow line creep up the outside of your first-story windows, had to shoulder open the front door because there was a drift against it, and cleared a bathroom area for the dog.  He was at first stymied by snow deeper than his shoulders, but then remembered how to dolphin through it and race, all crazy-dog, in big circles until he was exhausted.

As long as you didn't have to deliver the newspaper or staff an ER, a Snow Day felt as if you were getting away with something, working at home or not working at all. For a few short hours, you made popcorn, baked cookies, fired up the wood stove, watched movies, played games, and acted like a kid who didn't have to do homework for a night.

At least until the power went out or you realized this stuff had to be shoveled and you were the only grownups in the house. And shoveling became a priority as soon as the plow went down the street, blocking your driveway with a containing wall that promised to turn concrete sometime soon.

Gary and Paula Skorb's driveway in Rutland, MA, says it all.

Our good friend Karen Mercer never minded tramping through two feet of snow, from her place up a brambly hill, through a vacant lot, to our place, because it was good exercise. Besides, there was a bottle of wine and a good meal at the other end. Crashing on the couch instead of tramping home was always an option.

She still likes to tramp through two feet of snow, from her place to downtown Exeter, New Hampshire, for a pomegranate martini at 11 Water Street's downstairs bar overlooking the frozen Exeter River.

And there's still an illicit thrill in the words snow day, even all the way from Florida.

"How many inches?" you ask greedily, hoping for the most.

Remainders

... a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too ... 

     "Very well, then!" cried the woman. "Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose? ... Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it.  ... I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it.  We knew pretty well that we were helping ourselves, before we met here, I believe. It's no sin.  Open the bundle, Joe." ...

     "What do you call this? ... Bed-curtains? ... You don't mean to say you took them down, rings and all, with him lying there?" said Joe.

     "Yes I do," replied the woman. "Why not?"

     "You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, "and you'll certainly do it."

                               --Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, Stave Four

In a Florida neighborhood, a vast mound of belongings on the side of the road usually means eviction--a sad enough circumstance.

Very rarely, it means that someone has died, which is crushingly sad. This happened on our street, where a pile of belongings began slowly accumulating in front of the house on the corner. There, a brother had been caring for his cancer-stricken sister, who had occupied two rooms of the house and, her son said, had filled them as only an eBay addict and hoarder can do.

Day after day, new objects and mysteries were brought out to join the growing mass on the curb.

A file cabinet, its drawers fastened shut with duct tape as if to protect its contents; a perfectly serviceable chest of drawers with brass handles; endless black garbage bags stuffed with clothing; a spangled black dress-up purse; wooden shelving; a New York Daily News Michael Jackson memorial issue, along with thirty years of other newspapers deemed worthy of preservation; empty boxes of Quaker chocolate-chip granola bars; a Santa doll, bottoms up, atop the heap; the mingled odor of floral dryer sheets and Vicks VapoRub; old prescription bottles; three TV monitors and an Xbox, for passing the time away; tassled decorative cushions in Oriental-carpet fabric; rolls of stained red-shag carpeting; a mattress or two, in equally poor repair; copies of For Love of the Game and How to Make Money with Gold Coins; somehow, a full-size refrigerator; a single-size headboard with a mirror that must have overseen the last days of this woman's life. A lone ceramic angel stood guard at the head of the line of trash, wielding an empty candlestick.

Who's the worse for the loss of all this? All of it meant something to its owner and, if only for that reason, deserves peace and respect.

But whenever there is a heap of stuff like this, it becomes clear to human scavengers that someone means for it to be gone, and quickly put out of sight. They soon appear, to remove, first, items that contain salable metal, silver or copper; next, usable furniture; then, goods of progressively lesser value.  Until rain and wind finish the job by eroding the rest, and the remaining pile is scooped up by the county or Waste Management.

In a chilling moment reminiscent of the ragpickers' scene from A Christmas Carol, a pair of large women pull up in their sedan to sort through what is left of this other woman's life, as her dogs bark impotently inside the house. One of the women sits down in the midst of the heap, the better to appraise its contents. The other bends double like a migrant worker, picking and discarding, for over an hour. Even a package of Peeps that must have been decades old disappears into their trunk. I was tempted to remark in passing, "She died of ebola, you know," if only to see them shriek and scatter like startled vultures.

I wasn't bold enough.

Reentry

I have had a snowbird experience.

Usually this phenomenon takes place over the roughly three months of a Florida summer, but in my case it happened over the three fall months during which we were traveling through Europe, Thailand, and Bali, in a great, post-retirement blowout of a trip.

Returning from the delights of Prague and Amsterdam, the ice-blue weirdness of Iceland, and the disco-ball mania of Kuta, Bali, and Pattaya Beach, Thailand, to the Gulf Coast of Florida is both culture shock and comfort.

When we first pulled into the driveway, our yard looked somehow diminished, like a childhood home that isn't as grand or as spacious as you'd remembered. (A week later, it has improved a great deal.)

I have forgotten the names of every other neighbor, but not of their dogs. I have to ask their neighbors what their names are, lest I be shamed. "Oh, that's okay," they tell me. "They've probably forgotten yours by now and think you're just a snowbird."

Really, though, not a lot changes during three months in Port Charlotte.

Any "For Sale" signs that have come down have been replaced by others sprouting up on different properties.

One barn of a place around the corner--a concrete edifice with its interior still one vast hall undivided by rooms--is under such painfully slow construction that its owners accomplish only one perceptible change per year.  Last year, it was windows. This year, instead of a large board, there is an honest-to-God double door. It is held in place by what look like giant black staples. Perhaps real hinges will appear next year.

Half the neighbors wave "how are ya" as if I haven't been gone. Others accost me with, "We didn't know what happened to you! We didn't see you any more!"  Then, more darkly, "And you never do know, do you?"

"No, you never do!" I reply. "And by the way, has anybody died or become critically impaired since we've been gone?"

Others had more faith. "We thought you were probably okay because your articles were still showing up in the paper."

Little did they know. I could have been taken into white slavery in Denpasar. I had banked a dozen articles to fill the deadlines when I was gone, and no one would have been the wiser.

And a few things exhibit shocking change when you are gone that long.

A dozen new restaurants have opened their doors--which may well be closed by this time next year.

Shorn of the dense shrubbery that had always hid it from view, one house has become so unrecognizable that I thought it had been torn down and replaced, whole. It seems bigger and farther forward on its lot without all those bushes pushing it into the background. They say that its ceiling is caving in and its floors have rotted. And suddenly it stands exposed to view like an embarrassed elderly hospital patient whose johnny won't fasten.

The dogs' old nemesis, a fat grey squirrel, still taunts them by climbing atop the pool cage and frisking his tail. But now he has gone too far and peed down on their heads as they barked.

"Roly, I can't believe he did that!"

"No, Doxie, it's true. This is his stinky squirrel piss all right."

Many neighbors no longer wave when they pass me in their cars. They are no doubt new and don't know me yet, but they will before long.