taxidermy

Yesterday after my "walk", for about two hours outside on the balcony - this condo has three balconies, the one off our br looks out on the point where US98 and 30A meet, about a mile west of Philips Inlet Bridge, across 98 under the water tower at a strip mall that has a couple of nice restaurants, and across 30A at Shades, where I've gotten a seafood platter for six dollars extra converted to all oysters and lose the fish and shrimp - I sat in the budding but coolish springtime and watched the cars go by. 

And realized that all I needed to be fully retired is one of those tall porch chairs and set it close to the balcony rail where I can wave at cars. We were here all winter long and traffic was light, but now, spring break season, traffic is a steady flow and enough cars to make waving a new vocation. Linda will have to bring my breakfast and lunch out here though, so no drivers get their feelings hurt that I wasn't out there to wave. In fact, it just occurs that I can wear a black clergy shirt and white collar and make it more than a wave, a blessing. For a love offering, even an absolution.

So then, well practiced and professional at it, vocational, after we get back to 7H, which looks like some time in the next millennium if I hold my breath, I can set up my chair in front of the old bank at the corner where Beck meets 10th, and go on from there. There will be a space on the back of my chair where sponsors can advertise. After I'm gone, Linda can work out something with a taxidermist to keep it going indefinitely as a source of extra income. 

Today is Thursday: our tentative plan is drive into PC for errands, check the mail, and maybe lunch at CTG in StAndrews, which is fast becoming a restaurant mecca. When I was growing up in StAndrews, it was a real place with fishermen, a post office, a gas station instead of Thai restaurant, a barber shop, a hardware store, and an ice plant and fishhouses. Mom's Cafe was in the building where Tan Fannies recently came down, and Matties Tavern across where Hunt's is now. Where the Shrimp Boat was a sandy beach with swarms of fidler crabs, a place for boys to run and play while out of sight of their father and still on lookout for fish market patrons. Oh, a drug store, and Kelley (We Doze But Never Close) Supermarket late on the scene. The old StAndrew's Railway Station (but which was long out of operation when I came along). An era that proved the old ways were best.

All that I could see from my den at 7H. And from the livingroom, Davis Point.

T