A thing of beauty, something sad

It was a bittersweet week, as I lost a good friend from my youth, and at age 63 I was honored to be a pallbearer for a younger man who clearly was taken too soon. My friend Michael and I shared many crazy adventures during the time I was in Europe and he was maintaining a marginal GPA to remain at Indiana University. Those several weeks will live in my memory forever, but were shared this past week with others at his wake. We had met before college, where a group from high school would play touch football in his large side yard, and our group included many who were added and subtracted from a core group. In 1969 I was stationed in Germany, and he would fly over with two others and we'd meet up and drive through the low countries and into France where his little sister was abroad. Well, actually, you'd never get away with calling her a broad, but that's another story.

Anyway, Mike was to suffer an aneurysm which is, I suppose, at least better than a lingering and suffering type of death. But he was gone, and that was the sad part. He wasn't going to be there for his two children, he wasn't going to be there for his friends, and there was a void created that cannot be filled.

So this was a week that started with sadness, and needed a counterpoint. What can one do when contemplating the awful realities of life (and death), but to find beauty in nature. Hence, the swan. Yes, if there is anything in nature that evokes beauty and grace, it would be this bird. I am blessed to live where there are three pairs of mated swans, and every day Ripley and I see at least two birds, often four. They mate for life, and where there is one, you'll find another. Michael never mated for life, but had two very nice offspring, and having lost a common father we can only hope they now will be closer and watch over each other even more than in the past. Like me, they now have only warm memories of a loved one.

Michael, Rest In Peace - knowing you left a mark that cannot be erased.

No, Caitlin - he won't fit in your suitcase

My daughter came to visit last week, along with our son-in-law. They both flew down from Missouri, and Matt would drive home with a high school friend who was moving back to St. Louis from Venice, Florida. Now, one has to only look at the weather channel to realize that is probably a dumb move, but then Caitlin isn't ready to leave her many friends up north. If I want to get them down here, I guess I have to find her husband a job at the golf course. And that might just work. Caitlin will be easy, she's a great little banker, and speaks Spanish as well - Florida can use a bi-lingual "chica".

Caitlin had never seen the new house, nor the new dog. She liked the house, but she loved Ripley. Ripper, as usual, is quick to bond with anybody who will rub his belly or pet his head and he did his usual trick of jumping into their laps, and giving them the full "what a good boy am I" routine.

He really is a great dog, and gets along with all people and most dogs - except that bearded Collie around the corner, and those two yappy little Pit Yorkies across the street in the more upscale neighborhood. Ripley even has a girlfriend, Bonnie, a West Highland Terrier, and he enjoys going on walks with her all the time.

As much as Ripley loves all people, especially those who love dogs, he is MY dog, and nobody will sneak him off in either a rental truck headed north, or a suitcase carried aboard an airplane. My kids understand the pecking order around here, and Beagles always come first, wife second, children last. I was a beagle dog in my last life, and I hope to come back again as a beagle dog. No equivocation, no debate. Beagle dogs rule!

But, nice try Caitlin - if you move down here where your brother already lives, you can have unlimited hugs and kisses from Ripley, my wonderful buddy. Till then, you'll just have to make do with your own dogs, JoJo and Toby. They're OK terriers, but at the risk of repeating myself (and after having five before Ripley), Beagles Rule! If you want a beagle of your own, may I recommend Southeast Beagle Rescue or Tampa Bay Beagle Rescue. Lots of great dogs looking for "fur-ever homes". Google those names, or a beagle rescue near you - great dogs await adoption, and while I've got mine, it might be time for you to get yours too.

Ripley meets his match

It just was not going to be a fair fight - Ripley watered the golf course, and the golf course struck back. If you've ever heard the phrase "trying to drink from a fire hose", think about this poor little dog who for weeks has been watering trees and bushes along the first tee, fairway and green. He never realized the course could shoot back. Wet dog is not a wonderful smell, especially when it comes from slightly saline irrigation well water.

By the way, those homes in the background are where we live, so every morning we get up and "walk a hound, lose a pound" around 6:45 to 7:00 AM. Ripley has a good friend named Bernard who works at the Tennis Gardens, and Rip looks forward to seeing him and all his little dog friends out doing "their business" as well at that hour.

Sort of ironic......on an island full of successful retirees, the only people doing business anymore are the dogs.

Cambury has it all......except the Wilds

Our last block party in Missouri was captured on film using a small digital camera I had not used recently, so when I found it buried in a drawer, I looked to find images not downloaded to my computer.

Well, to correct that omission I've decided to write a short blog entry about this Labor Day event, where my wife and I were presented with two shirts - one in blue, the other in pink, with the matching message. Those shirts are worn with fondness, although some confusion here on the island as to "what's a Cambury?". Cambury was where we spent our northern "snow bird" time from 2006 to this past October. We had downsized from a four bedroom, two story, suburban single family home into a very nice, but somewhat smaller condominium. Cambury was the name of the development, which began in 2002, but has never been completed.

Complete or not, it was a nice area, isolated from most of the City of Wildwood, yet in the "town center" as shown on a zoning map. We purchased an "interior" unit, meaning that we had neighbors on both sides, and heat loss only through the roof. We were two doors, and a landscaping berm, from the BP station convenience store, and further removed (by a busy highway) from the Phillips 66 station and convenience store. The Phillips station had a roast beef fast food facility, the BP was where I'd go out in the mornings with our dog Millie and buy my wife the paper. It was also where, when stranded at the bottom of a rear entry garage driveway, we'd be close to necessities when both cars couldn't get up that hill with rear wheel drive.

We would routinely gather, as a neighborhood, for all major holidays and share food and fun. At Christmas time, there was a progressive dinner, where five or six homes would be open for 30 minutes each, as we ate our way up and down the block. Memorial day, Fourth of July and Labor Day were always outside events. We no longer have that home (or those bills), but we do miss those folks. We intend to go north to visit Caitlin and Matt around her birthday, and hopefully put in a guest appearance at the Fourth of July picnic. It'll be a time of good "Cheers, where everybody knows your name" and no explanations will be necessary about the shirts.

Citizens On Patrol

This is a daytime shot of one of our local police vehicles. I've never been in the back seat, but I can tell you the front seat gets tight, sharing space with the computer mounted amidships. It's a close fit, but thankfully our local force still has Crown Victoria Fords, which ride a whole lot better than what are today offered as replacements.

So, what am I doing riding in a police car - I'm not a cop, and not even a cop wannabee, although with my "radio voice" I suppose I could make one sonorous dispatcher. It really is a simple answer - if you want to REALLY know what goes on in your town or city, do a ride-along with the local police. As Mayor of Wildwood, Missouri, I did this often, and Wildwood was a big place - 67 square miles, 32,800 citizens, two major state highways, and too many cul-de-sacs to impede cross circulation of emergency vehicles. Longboat Key is quite different, with only ten linear miles, no wider than one mile across at the "wide spot in the road", and perhaps only 6,000 active residents year round. But it has a state highway, and bad guys do drive that road.

I've done two ride-a-longs now, with "Cap'n Steve", a fellow Kiwanis member and commander of the night shift. He is also an instructor, and I feel like a rookie when riding along and observing, as the guy is always in teaching mode. The last time we were out, we responded to an ambulance call (got there first, naturally), and chased down a failure to stop and speeding suspect, who was driving a vehicle with one of those paint jobs that turns different colors in sunlight and darkness.

The computer was telling us the car was gold, but at night it looked like deep purple. It was also a Chevy SUV frame with Cadillac Escalade insignia, and those expensive "gangsta" wheels - in short, downright suspicious as hell looking at midnight on an island full of sleeping elderly retirees. After properly dealing with the actual infractions, and in essence releasing the motorist having had him sign for the ticket (reminding him the signature was not an admission of guilt, only a promise to appear), Steve innocently asked the driver "would you mind my looking at your vehicle?". Now, what could the guy say without looking even more suspicious? By now we had the help of a neighboring island police officer, and a second car from our island present to watch the driver and his friend. I watched our guy look from stem to stern in that vehicle, which quite frankly was a wreck inside, with missing upholstery and more "hidey holes" for contraband than I could count. I'm sure in the one mile pursuit to catch the guy, he had numerous opportunities to drop evidence into the slipstream, or through the floorboards and into the water as we pursued them off the island over a steel grated surface bridge.

Yes, the vehicles have changed, but folks are still playing cops and robbers, but the "swag" is no longer cash or jewels, but drugs. We found nothing, but it was once again a teaching experience. I figure two or three more of these nighttime adventures, and I can write a book.

The first thing you learn is what NOT to write about - because as much as our local residents feel safe in their beds, there is a criminal element out there, and a thin blue line standing up to defend against it. We often fail to appreciate those guys, but without them and their vigilance, our island wouldn't be the great place it is today. I salute you, Captain Steve, and the many you've trained to be our first line of defense against those who would harm us.

Shortridge, in the land of milk and honey

Thought I'd write something about my alma mater, as I looked through pictures that might help tell a story on a rainy Sunday morning with both wife and dog fast asleep. Either that, or get dressed and wake the dog to take him out, so a blog entry seemed a better way to start the day.

That's my old high school, which is the same school that graduated a literary luminary named Kurt Vonnegut and a U.S. Senator named Dick Lugar. My mother and father went there as well, though not nearly as famous as those first two names.

I graduated from here in 1965, one of the final years of prominence for this old school, before it went through the usual decline of neighborhoods, suburban flight, and ultimate school board politics. Today, it has experienced a "re-birth" as a school for law and social justice, oh so politically correct, but at least once again holding the minds of young teens captive while sneaking knowledge past the ear-buds of their I-pods, during a lull in the cacophony of what passes today for music.

Back in the day, it was THE academic high school of the IPS (Indianapolis Public Schools) system, and had more National Merit Scholars than any other high school. It was also located at 34th and Meridian - aptly named as this street separated east and west sides of town, 3.4 miles from the north-south demarcation line of Washington Street. Indianapolis was laid out by L'enfant, the same fellow who designed Washington, D.C., using a grid square system where things made sense. But urban populations often move outward, and take with them the various social ills that lead to school decline, like unwed motherhood, single parenthood, and far less focus on graduation rates where parents who never graduated have little skin in the game to insist their kids do graduate. By the 1970's, Shortridge had been eclipsed by schools outside the Center Township of the city. Another neat concept - nine equal townships, sort of a Hollywood Squares board, where each Township would have its own high school, and they'd all have Central in their name. By the middle 70's, the school had devolved from academics to a combination of technical school and ultimately detention bin for contentious seventh and eight graders moving from one system to another (often with bars). It would take over forty years to go to hell and back, but hopefully it has been restored to former glory in its new incantation.

Anyway, back to the story - the class of 1965 was a good class, and while I was part of it, I was never "in" the dominant social whirl. In fact, I was not in athletics, the French club (I took it, but not seriously by my grades), not part of student government, etc. If anybody knew me to be associated with anything, it would have been the Stage Crew. I ran both the sound board and the carbon-arc spotlights for three years, during student performances such as Jr. Vaudeville and the various school theater presentations. In fact, I believe I was only able to pass Algebra because I signed up for the section being taught by the stage crew sponsor. He passed me so I could be the damn fool willing to stand next to those two carbon rods burning brightly and very hot in that little room at the top of the auditorium. We're talking 220 volts of power, arcing between two rods generating several hundred degrees of heat, in front of a shiny mirror and through several lenses - OSHA was not strong in those days, and we high school types were not union. I cringe when I think of the danger today.

Other extra curricular activities included a radio station, WIAN FM. Interestingly enough, I never participated in the student radio station, though I certainly knew my way around an audio board and microphone. In high school, my most dramatic lines were "test....test, can you hear me, test....testing". I did have a crush on a gal in Jr. Vaudeville, but gave up without trying when I heard she was involved in the National Thespian Society..........I was a confused youth, to say the least.

Oh well, forty five years later I ran into her when our class of 65 invited the class of 66 and 67 to join us. She's got a PhD now - never would have worked out, as my GPA in high school was nothing to write home about. I liked to think I made the upper half of the class possible. The school is once again open to smart kids, but our glass wasn't all that bad, back in the day. The new high school has a mock courtroom, where there will be recognition of honored members of the classes of 65, 66 and 67 who went on into the law and became judges - one a Kentucky Supreme Court Justice. I must have learned something while there, but had I really studied..........I could have been a contender.