DeSoto Parade

Following the morning and early afternoon at the car show, I ended the first day of my 63rd year by taking my folding chair and decamping from the Chevy dealer and moving my flag to 9th Avenue West in Bradenton for the De Soto Grand Parade. And grand it was, for one hour and forty five minutes of marching bands, dignitaries in convertibles (some from as far away as a sister city in Spain), emergency vehicles, boats, blatant commercial ploys ("sure, if you give me beads, I'll tell you I have a Sprint phone"), a motorized outhouse, and the cry of "beads, give us beads" from the assembled multitudes on both sides of the street. Now, I'm not so sure of this fascination with beads, and various pirate "crewes" marching alongside or riding high above the street in parade floats of various shapes - often ships, but too many variations to describe here.

There was a real estate float with a large inflated balloon, and behind that logo adorned balloon an actual hot air balloon "basket" where the pilot would periodically hit the gas and blast a fifteen foot flame into the night air. There was the Rough Riders float, with a group from Tampa commemorating Teddy Roosevelt's famous charge - however I do believe he was not throwing beads to the Spanish army in Cuba. They did have cool "uniforms" however. There were literally hundreds of pirate ladies in tight clothing with impressive decolletage. Men dressed as Hernando DeSoto adorned many a float, but the music was hard to reconcile with the period of his discovery of Florida. If he had come ashore blasting high amperage disco, the native Indians would have moved north to Georgia immediately. Maybe this "theme" explains the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Tampa, however.

Now, there is a similar parade in the Tampa area, called the Gasparilla, and it's even bigger I'm told, with more floats, more skimpily dressed pirate wenches, and tons more beads. And of course, then there's Mardi Gras celebrated everywhere, with even more plastic beads. I did not see any obvious signs of debauchery, although some wag in the crowd was heard to yell at the Hooters waitresses "show us your tips".

They say that Rome was destroyed by the masses demanding bread and circuses. Here we are, neighboring the Circus City of Sarasota, and the crowd could only get small packets of McDonald's animal crackers (another corporate float) and plastic beads. How far we have fallen. As for DeSoto, Chrysler stopped making HIS namesake in 1960. I didn't see a single one of them in the parade.

The Car Show

The day after my birthday broke with sunny skies and warm breezes, and I had plans for the day that would take me to the local Chevrolet dealership for the "All Chevy Show". Our car club, the Gulf Coast Corvettes, in cooperation with the dealership, holds an annual event to raise money for charity. We also have fun awarding trophies, eating burgers and hot dogs, and just swapping stories about our cars. Our club, based in Bradenton, saw cars from other clubs as well. The Sarasota based club, Skyway Corvettes, sent several participants, and I recall one winner driving down from Tampa, where no fewer than six Corvette clubs are known to exist.

We had over 100 Chevrolet cars and trucks dating from the 1940's to the newest models, and several classes of trophies. While six dozen registered, several dozen more came for the fun, but did not pay a fee to have their cars judged. There was one guy who showed up in a Buick (apparently did not understand the concept of "All Chevy Show"), but after about half an hour of being ignored, he got in his huge boat of a car and left. The judging of the cars was done by the local Volkswagen club, and our Corvette club reciprocates in judging their show - keeps the issue of "favorites" out of the equation. I entered my car, but had no expectation of winning anything. My car is a "daily driver" and I hadn't even spent that much time "detailing" it with q-tips and toothbrushes, just washed it and vacuumed the carpets. I may be anal, but not THAT anal, and my $20 entry fee was going to a good cause - "In Stride" (Equine Assisted Therapy), a charity that uses horses to help children with various ills. Horsepower - it's not just for Corvettes anymore.

We'll have totals at our next club meeting, but preliminaries indicated over a thousand dollars was raised. People bought tickets for the 50/50 raffle by stretching the roll of tickets around the circumference of their cars. An interesting system, but I think the winner only bought a few chances.

There was, of course, a DJ playing a lot of car tunes from the 1960's and 70's, and other folks promoting car shows coming up on the calendar in the future. Only one accident - a lady (on her cell phone) driving a Honda lightly tapped the rear end of a 1975 Corvette as he was slowing to turn into the lot. That brought out a lady bear from the Florida Highway Patrol to take the accident report - but even tapping a Corvette lightly merited getting the report. The cost of a new Corvette in 1975 was about $7,500 base price - you have to wonder what it'll cost to replace the mechanical and body parts of that 1974 mandated "5 mph rear bumper". The trooper was driving a Crown Victoria, but we welcomed her Ford onto the lot to aid a fellow Corvette guy.

A local restaurant from Longboat Key (my island) provided food to the Anna Maria Island cub scout pack, and they sold hamburgers for $3.00, hot dogs for $2.00 and potato chips for .50 cents. I had my water bottle, so didn't need a drink (could refill it from the water fountain inside the building, after all) but purchased a tasty hot dog around noon - when the show was nearing its close, and hamburgers were going for half price, I finished sating my appetite.

"Baseball, hot dogs, apply pie and Chevrolet" was a favorite jingle used in advertising, and it depicted an All-American day. Other adventures awaited me that evening, featuring a parade and more hot dogs. But that's for another blog entry, to follow.

Window On My World

This is where the blog originates, my window on the world here in Florida. You are looking east-southeast, best I can figure. Now, you'll have to accept my word for it, but I can actually see the water of the Inter-Coastal Waterway from this seat, and it was from these windows that I took an "after the fact" shot of the recent space shuttle launch. Were I really ambitious, and had a very long ladder, I probably could see a whole lot more, as these buildings in the picture are well over 40 feet tall - lots of steps inside, but the high ceilings and 17 windows bring in lots of light. The live oak tree in the picture is even taller than the buildings. To say the least, I like it here, and I enjoy my "six months and a day" residency that equates to no state income tax. This is now my sixth year of being a Florida resident, having left after my term of Mayor ended in Missouri, and I retired from my job. I've kept myself busy in my retirement (read my blog)

Ostensibly a second bedroom in our Florida condo, I've pretty much taken this over as an "office". Having worked so many of my adult years, it's hard to give up the concept of having or even needing an office space. We do have a futon in the room, which Millie the Beagle and I share, and from where I routinely fall asleep watching the ten o'clock shows on television. The windows are open this time of year, and the breezes are excellent and obviate the need to run the air conditioning. These windows are closed in July and August, but there are indeed gulf breezes coming off the water, one half mile to my west.

Next week will be my birthday, and I'm pondering what I want. I've been truly blessed and can't say there are "needs" and the wants I might have are really foolish and too expensive. I might go look for a newer camera - the digital I used to take this has only 6 megapixel capacity, and somewhere along the line I've managed to put a small spot on the lens which seems to defy my efforts to remove - so I guess I'm off to the camera shop for expert help and I'll probably walk in with one and come out with two cameras. Hopefully, my next photos will come out without blemish, either with a professionally cleaned lens or a new camera. We'll see what develops.

The Shuttle Launch

A week or so ago, I was up early and for the first and probably last time in my lifetime, I saw a night shuttle launch from my window on the west coast of Florida. STS 131 was the last scheduled night launch before the space shuttle program ended, and I was watching on television and also on my computer. Since one was time delayed, I got to see the lift-off twice. Little did I realize I'd see it in real time, but there it was outside my top floor window.......a very bright rocket plume to the east-northeast, rising steadily on a column of flame.

Naturally, I didn't think to grab my camera as I was frankly spellbound at the majesty - we're talking over a hundred miles distance at least. I did have the presence of mind afterward to snap this shot of the contrail left in the sky as dawn broke over the east coast of Florida. The winds aloft had dissipated the straight line of progress of the exhaust trail, but I was lucky to catch the morning sun turning the white into coral color downrange from the Cape Kennedy launch pad.

Hopefully, the 2010 elections will change the Congress somewhat and renew interest in keeping this magnificent shuttle flying. Paying the Russians to transport our astronauts in their "Spam in a Can" space capsules makes no sense, but of course a lot of what this current administration does makes no sense. I guess its just another fallout of the steady decline of America and its leadership, on the planet as well as above it. Keep in mind, the shuttle is not that old compared to some flight systems. The B-52 is still flying, and it first flew in the 1950's. The DC-3 (C-47 military version) was developed in the middle 1930's, and still safely transports people and freight in the undeveloped nations of the world. Old is relative.........or maybe it's just my upcoming 63rd birthday next week that makes me feel obsolescence is a state of mind, as long as the body cooperates. May our shuttle fleet never be put to rest before we have a decent replacement, and it isn't a Soyuz capsule.

Easy Rider

We have a great little library on the island, where one can find some nice beach reading, and it's only four-and-a-half miles distant by bicycle. This is what passes for exercise in my retirement years, and has only resulted in one ticket - they cited me for male prostitution because they said I was "pedaling my ass around the island". OK, bad joke, but I'm very popular with the widow women who staff our library, and I've often been solicited to become a volunteer because they "need men who can change a light bulb". Now, that of course could lead to a number of light bulb jokes, but I'll refrain.

When we moved down here in early 2004, we had one car for two drivers - this was not working well, but soon after I inherited my father-in-law's "cruiser" bicycle, complete with coaster brake and one speed. By 2005, my dear wife had purchased for me a used 7-speed from the local bike rental shop. In 2006, I reciprocated and bought her one of her own, so we then had one car and two bicycles. Those are the bikes pictured above.

Things got better by 2007, when we were able to purchase a third car, so we could leave a vehicle in Florida, and another at our northern condo. A third vehicle became the "traveling car" and meant we'd never be without two cars in either location.

Now that we had cars, we rediscovered the joy of
riding places. A nine mile round-trip to the library also meant exercise - something we both sorely need. On our island, which is ten miles long, we have extra wide sidewalks where casual bike riders co-exist with walkers and roller blade skaters. Our town has a 15 mph "sidewalk" speed limit and a requirement for a bell on everybody's bike. The more serious, thin tire crowd, with multiple gears and spandex uniforms, rides in marked lanes on the main drag (which is also a state highway which connects three islands). There is only one downside to the mandatory bell ringing when coming up behind a walker, jogger, roller blade wearer, or somebody truly slower on a three wheeled bicycle - more than half the island is deaf. Oh well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and if they do hear you, they're just as likely to jump the wrong way.

So, we ride on, ever cautious to avoid people pulling out of driveways without looking. If you have a pulse in Florida, you can get a drivers license - we have a 90 year old fellow church members who tells us her 93 year old spouse is "a great driver". Don't look for him at Talladega or Dayton however. This past month, my wife got a new basket - the old one wouldn't hold small stuff inside. I put a red cooler in mine (perfect fit), so we can use that insulated bag to keep milk and frozen food cool . That's a good thing, because in addition to the library, our local Publix super market, CVS drugstore, three banks, post office and Town Hall are in the "town center". And with gas prices for 93 octane now pushing $3.10 a gallon, the Corvette gets to stay in the garage. Who knows, I might even lose a little weight and end up healthier this year.