I misjudged the distance here by 38 miles and arrived after dark. Here is the view from the condo, showing the boat we did not go night fishing on. You see, JP didn’t show. This put a damper on my entire birthday party and the whole weekend. This will get mentioned often in the next few days.This is my first visit to Key Colony. JP and I have toured most of the islands by bicycle in the past five years, though more on the islands to the north which are more touristy and less developed as exclusive communities. Sadly, this does not equate to lots of things to do. On Marathon itself, nightlife is confined almost exclusively to dining and drinking. The plan was this to be a special weekend, the last big party of my era for me, and JP was nowhere to be found. That is extremely disappointing because he knows how long we’d planned this celebration.
Now, I sits here wondering what to do. I’m at the Key Colony grill. The band is setting up behind me, JP left the downstairs door open for me, and I hope this band is loud, loud, loud. It was just over 50 years ago I stomped my foot down and told my parents I was going to take piano lessons no matter what they said. In the end, I took about five years of lessons and three years of theory. I still rely on that to this day to get it right, but none of those years taught me what I wanted—to play in a band. That, I had to figure out on my own. But I did, and quite successfully, too.
Reflecting on the thirteen years I’ve been in Florida, eight of them since my heart attack, I can’t say it was the best I could have done with the time. No doubt I”ll be reflecting on all kinds of things this weekend. I consider this to be the final day that I am “not old”, therefore tomorrow I will be officially old. Hey, I didn’t say I got mature, just that I got old, and it took long enough, too. Starting December 1, my years of austerity are over. That’s part of the reflecting I’m doing.
It is still okay to dream, and my goal was not to claw to the top. It was to avoid working my entire youth away to pay the bills, which is a fearsome reality for 99% of people in my situation. Forty years of drudgery at a dead-end job isn’t my idea of a fulfilling life. But I’d say I succeeded fairly well enough. Some might say I gave up too soon, but by 20, I knew I never stood a chance. So why plunge into debt for a lifetime of mediocrity when you can achieve mediocrity equally well through laziness. And I know a dozen people who will tell you I'm lazy.
Besides, my thinking is that my odds of hitting the big time are just as good if not better than the schmeeb who “played by the rules”. Sure, he’s got the wife and kids, but I’ll wager it is actually an ex-wife and some tattooed delinquents who call him by his first name. God must love that kind of man.
So here I sits at the club, wondering if JP will walk in. He’ll drive past all three clubs until he sees the sidecar. It has been twenty years since I’ve seen a full band in a street pub. The group here tonight is remarkably good. Wish I’d brought a good videocam. The bassist has the same philosophy I do. He was much better than me with the jazz runs and scales. Then again, I don’t play that kind of music. His upper-fret noodling was par excellent. And I don’t even like old Doors. Here is the best picture of the band from my el-cheapo camera.
But it is getting late and I can’t stick around much longer. It was dark the last hour I was on the road, a dangerous undertaking on a motorcycle (but there was no traffic). Actually, it is safer to drive a two-lane than a four-lane on a motorcycle. Anyway, I opened up the throttle and chewed up an entire tank of gas getting here. My sense of direction gets thrown in the Keys, which is mostly an east-west road but I keep thinking I’m driving south.In the end, no JP and I gave up, causing consternation because he would never miss my birthday party. According to Alaine, he was talking about it all day and left the restaurant exactly at 2:30 PM as we planned weeks ago. But it is pushing midnight and the plans are thrown out of kilter even if he shows up now. Once a year I can eat what I want, so I ordered a pizza. Then I found a good book on oceanography and stayed at the condo. Some birthday party.
The condo is nicely appointed, but it is in the middle of Deadsville. I like it, the kind of place you only see neighbors if you are walking your dog. I’d noticed there is a playhouse here and thought I’d go see some live theater. But, get this, the Marathon people refuse to print the address on any ads or on the Internet. I finally found it by asking around the shopping center. (Damn, America, you stupid.) Turns out the play doesn’t open until the 23rd. The ads didn’t mention that, either.
Trivia. The next Twinkie you see may be the last. The company filed for bankruptcy when unable to reach wage cut agreements with 18,500 employees. So the employees will take a 100% wage cut and the factory owners will re-appear under a new logo in a year or so, totally non-union with minimum wage jobs. Hey, the entire time I was in a union, I went to night school to prepare for the time when there would be no union. I ate Twinkies once in my life and they will not be missed.
So, another birthday down the drain. Unless JP went night fishing because I was 90 minutes late (turns out he never left Miami), the only fun part has been the sidecar trip and the band. The bassist says the talent ratio in the Keys is unparalleled. He must be right. Keeping a four piece group together is no picnic, though being on an island probably helps keep the guitar players in check.
