For no reason, I took the train up to Boca Raton, with my famous Jamus bicycle. This would have been the next weekend trip for me in the series I was doing 21 months ago when I was interrupted. That might have been providence since from what I could find, there is nothing in Boca Raton. The station must be miles from any beachfront or tourist-friendly digs.
I found the “El Rio Trail” and followed it southward for several miles, finally spotting a busy intersection on the eastern horizon. I pedaled over there and found a Dunkin Donuts, then asked for directions to anything interesting. The staff conferred for ten minutes, then finally agreed there wasn’t anything.I biked a mile further toward the Atlantic and found both Dixie Hwy and Federal Hwy, but other than a couple of strip malls, there was nothing to see. I took the river trail back and stopped for two hours at the Pro Bass Shop. That’s the standard wait between trains. They had a hot dog grill going on, so I curled up with my next Mary Higgins Clark novel, “The Anastasia Syndrome”.
This book is another example of her later style, although I was again overwhelmed by the number of characters. I don’t meet 16 people a year who I remember and Clark had that many by page 100. Her novels were the only mysteries available last time I was at the book exchange. It is hard to tell if she is joking but she does tend to waste a lot of space making sure women give solid reasons for their wardrobe choices before they go out. She gets truly tedious on that theme.
Yet she holds my interest and I can often get halfway through before spotting the perp. Another weak ingredient is Clark’s constant motif that her aging characters always behave like teenagers with a crush. In this case, a 54 year old politician and a 46 year old historian have the hots. Sure, it is nice when romance is there, but after you hit 30, it doesn’t exist in isolation as it once did. Clark also has an aversion to people being single.
It is just as well I gave Jag the time off, as his father died last week from a lingering illness. Jag has not called, so I’ll wait to tell him we have a paying New Year’s Eve gig. Finally, after all those years hoping, this time we play. It will be at Jimbos, but a gig is a gig. I never met his dad so I’ll stand out of the way.
The dude who took two weeks to haggle me down on the Taurus never showed up. He wanted that car so bad and then disappeared. I have the local scooter shop waiting for me to come up with some cash, but unless the Taurus is sold, I am on the bicycle. I am paying nothing here until I get a complete explanation from Wallace what is going on. I have the money, but it stays put, simple as that.
I contacted Anna about a couple of lawyer referrals concerning my delayed passport application. I’ve met another gal without a birth certificate having the same trouble. I have a hospital birth record, no birth certificate was issued until 2000 and that has given me headaches with the passport department. No other departments, just that one. Must be some homeland security issue, I’d say.
Again, I found myself under the Coleman lantern with a coffee and a book. There is an association somewhere. My recollection of the farm is crystal clear, right up to the day my father sold it for $80,000 and never gave me a single cent. I’ve pursued the idea that maybe I’m a victim of nimble advertising and recall that I did live in a bush tent one summer working the forestry crews in Montana. We had Colemans, but nobody read. They worked us like dogs and we slept every possible quiet moment. Work with me here, why would I enjoy reading more by gaslight?
I’m not rejecting any theory. I know the light contains more natural sunlight yellow than tungsten. The lamp gives off a slight aroma of baked enamel. It also radiates heat if you are close enough. It’s bugging me, why if I lived in New York City, I supposed I’d run to a shrink. No, the connection is much shallower than where I’m looking.
[Author’s note: I see a few people wonder why my father would give me money from the farm. I can answer that. Um, maybe because he promised, and based on the strength of that promise, I made plans that could not be reversed? I worked there for years on the pledge he would put me through university. I was too young to understand he was two-faced about that. He tricked me into the work and never intended to pay me. This is the basis of the tale that my family feasted on potatoes at $25 per pound.
So, you never heard that story--but you are about to. One summer break while you were at the riding academy, I was forced to plant potatoes because the ones from the store cost “ten cents a pound”. When I say forced, I mean forced, under threat of brutal punishment, so I planted those potatoes when I was eight. I have no idea why but for some reason the ones I planted came back with a bumper yield. That meant forever after, every summer, I got stuck planting, hoeing, weeding and digging every year, although the miracle never repeated. Oh, yes, I continually heard about it, how I'd "lost me touch again". I was damn lucky I didn’t get slapped for that, too.
One evening years later, I was taking an upgrade course evening school and the lecture involved historical accounting evaluations and inflation. What if my father had been required to pay me what my time was worth? Stay with me, for what price would I have stopped what I was doing and VOLUNTARILY gone to grow potatoes? What would be the cost of those potatoes had they NOT been grown by what was essentially slave labor? This is where one
That's expressed in 2010 dollars. And the accounting is accurate, and hell yes, at that time, yes, I would have gone to pick potatoes for that kind of money. Until I had $10,000 in the bank and then I'd quit and move to Texas.]
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