Maryland, My Maryland (You want Preakness music, don’t you?)
Thou wilt not cower in the dust,
Maryland, my Maryland!
Thy beaming sword will never rust,
Maryland, my Maryland!
Remember Carroll’s sacred trust,
Remember Howard’s warlike thrust,
And all they slumberers with the just,
Maryland! My Maryland!
We’re embarrassed to say that we remember neither Carroll’s sacred trust nor Howard’s warlike thrust, but we’re always glad to be introduced to a new word (slumberers). The verse they play at the Preakness—to the tune of ‘O Christmas Tree’ for the unenlightened—is the third of nine. It’s probably performed these days by the Naval Academy Glee Club or some such outfit, but we used to like it when the Baltimore Colts Marching Band stomped out there and played it years after the actual Colts moved to Indianapolis. How often do you see the band outlasting the football team?
Handicapping The Preakness
Well, everything seems to be falling Animal Kingdom’s way. He drew the eleven hole, keeping him out of traffic, the horse who finished a good second in the Kentucky Derby (Nehro) isn’t competing in this one and no new major contenders have showed up to take on the challenge. Nonetheless, we’re looking for somebody else to win the Preakness. For bettors, Animal Kingdom’s morning-line odds of 2-1 are probably too low and Dialed In’s 9-2 is pretty appealing. Mucho Macho Man, the only Florida-bred with a real chance (the other entry is Flashpoint at 20-1) is at 6-1 after finishing third in the Derby. Shackleford, who carried his speed further than some expected in Louisville, is a tempting 12-1.
Norm!
Siobhan, Allen and I went to Norm’s dinner party last Sunday in the Majestic Oaks subdivision in Ocala. Norm has a very nice place, filled with objets d’art, and he will regale you with information as to who is getting each piece upon his demise. Norm has his own chef (and the chef even has an assistant, thank you very much) and a personal companion, whatever that is. Norm is 93 years old and he still drives himself to the gym a couple times a week where he pretends to work out. And Norm has a message for you:
“Tell your friends I’m going on a cruise,” he advises, “and I’m looking for a lady companion to share the cabin. What the heck, same price for two as for one. And tell them there doesn’t have to be any sex.”
He didn’t say there couldn’t be any.
Blog Woes
Last week, some of you did not get your little blog in timely fashion due to some unknown failings in the world of our provider, Blogspot. The odd thing is that 75% of you got the column the same as normal and the rest didn’t get it until hours later or even the next day. Some people in Florida got it, some did not…same for California. We’ve been doing this for almost a year now, hard as that is to believe, and this is the first time the problem has cropped up, so, hopefully, it’s no worse than an annual episode. Even so, it makes Irana very cranky.
Training News
Elf worked a quarter in 24, out in 38 in her second true work Saturday. Her next work will probably be at Calder in ten days to two weeks. Prior to her effort, a promising colt from a different barn worked three furlongs in 37, so the galloping-out time of 38 looks pretty good. Juno had her last two-minute-lick, going in 29 flat, and Wilson, in his first, went in 29.1. Wilson is so big he looks like he is just loping along casually, but the watch doesn’t lie.
Cosmic Song goes six furlongs in the seventh race at Calder Saturday. Keep your fingers crossed.
Who Knew?
Well, none of our alleged friends signed up for their 6000 boxes of cookies (you can always tell who your real friends are when cookie sales enter the picture) so we had to resort to Plan B and track down a venture capitalist, which isn’t as easy as you think. We finally found a guy in Arizona named Omar, who actually called us back and talked to Siobhan for twenty of his busy minutes, dispensing friendly and helpful advice even though his firm couldn’t help us. Seems they only invest in companies needing ten to one-hundred-million dollars because they “don’t have time to manage a lot of small companies.” Well, pardon me! Who knew we were such pikers? Anyway, Siobhan told him she would be back in touch next year when she is further along with her fabulous Anti-Matter Machine. He sounded interested.
Motoring In Florida—The Western Provinces
A lot of people who come to Florida sort of ignore the area to our left know as the Panhandle. We can’t imagine why. If you’re looking for beaches, the seashore around Destin is as nice as any in the world. “Ho ho,” you say, “surely you jest, Bill!” Au contraire, mon ami! I’ve been around. I’ve been to Acapulco. I’ve been to Puerto Vallarta. I’ve been to exotic Jamaica. I’ve been to Salisbury Beach. And Destin is way better. Well, the beach is, anyway. Stay away from Jamaica entirely, by the way.
The first significant city in the Panhandle, heading West, is the state capitol, Tallahassee. In the little propaganda book the local chamber of commerce puts out, the description of the town starts out, “Tallahassee, like Rome, was built on Seven Hills….” Yeah, and there the similarity comes crashing to a halt. Primarily because Tallahassee, unlike Rome, is very, shall we say, sleepy. I know, because I lived there for two years. It seemed like a decade. I will concede, though, that Tallahassee is very pretty. They have more azaleas, redbuds and dogwoods there than Jesus has in Heaven. The Plantations north of town on the Thomasville Road are worth a look and the FSU campus is a little gem even though it is filled with vile Seminoles. Things pick up when the legislature is in town for its annual two months of bribe-taking and enactment of amusement-park legislation threatening the very existence of the state. Some people call the Panhandle “South Alabama,” and that is a pretty good description of the inclinations of the populace. But I’m probably prejudiced because I was always battling with some nasty element when I published the Charlatan there. The Catholic Women’s Club was eternally up in arms and the cops were always in an arresting frenzy. If you walked through town with a three day growth of beard and your shirt untucked, you were subject to questioning, if not worse. I had to hitchhike around Tallahassee now and then and they didn’t like hitchhikers, either (yeah, I know, nobody likes hitchhikers now but this was in the old days when hitchhikers were nice). I have to admit, though, that I did get a great ride from Tallahassee half-way to my printer’s in Albany, Georgia, in a pig truck. And no, I didn’t have to sit in the back. But all things considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.
Never Visit Marianna
Further down US 90 is the small town of Marianna. I only stopped there once to stay at a motel overnight. Clusters of rednecks gather in the early evening in the town square to discuss fundamentalist religions and hog prices. Paranoid about outside troublemakers and rabble-rousers (there being plenty of rabble to rouse), Marianna employed a glut of police officers who meandered around town casting a jaundiced eye at anything that moved. One of them accused me of taking a newspaper from a metal newsbox without paying for it.
“How do you think I got the box open?” I asked him.
“Don’t you be smartin’ off with me!” he told me. I had to give him another nickel.
Or Pensacola, Either
Pensacola, at the Alabama border, might be the most reactionary city in the country, although The Villages, south of Ocala, is catching up quick. Filled with Superpatriots and Navy personnel, teeming with Tea-Partiers of the most extreme persuasions, this is a place to be avoided at all costs. If you have to choose between visiting Hell or Pensacola, choose Hell.
Fort Walton Beach To Panama City
This area is why you visit the Panhandle. The beaches, glistening white with sand dunes, are unrivalled. Driving down US 98, you can actually see the Gulf for long stretches. Grayton Beach, not far from Fort Walton, was been named best beach in the country by several publications which traffic in such things. The area is not overly crowded and motel prices are reasonable. Further east, Panama City provides more varied—if tackier—entertainment. If miniature golf fascinates you, and why wouldn’t it, Panama City provides some of the grandest courses in the universe, filled with giant dinosaurs and other schlock guaranteed to leave the kiddies in paroxysms of ecstasy. Also, there is no junk food you can name that is unavailable in Panama City. Chocolate-covered corndogs? We got ‘em! Eels fried in chitlin’s? How many you like? Also, the beaches are still good, though now more crowded. Might be a good idea to abstain during Spring Break, though, as every redneck college kid who can’t afford a flight to Cancun or Cozumel will be dropping in to contest their peers in balcony-jumping, drunk swimming and other funny suicide games.
The cops in Panama City, like any cops in places often beset by maniacal drinking, drug-taking hordes, are not necessarily the friendliest of fellows, for understandable reasons. Nonetheless, this doesn’t excuse such excesses as are evidenced in:
Willy & The Bulls—Mayhem On The Miracle Strip
It seems like just yesterday—or maybe forty years ago yesterday—when I was printing Charlatan in Panama City. I’d bring the copy into the printer and hang around to make sure nothing was screwed up in the process, printers being notorious for making little convenient changes whenever they feel like it. Since finances were always a grave problem, I usually slept either in the print shop or in my car outside. Since the Panama City printer was new and not particularly trusting, it was the car this night.
Barely settled down for an evening of troubled repose, I was jolted awake by the sound and fury of a police car gently crashing into mine. The cop in the cruiser had been curious about my car being parked where it was, but—since it was drizzling a trifle—he did not want to go so far as to actually get out of his car. So he just kept maneuvering closer until he hit me. I did not spring up directly, having placed a To-Whom-It-May-Concern sign in the window and optimistically thinking it might suffice and foolishly taking it for granted that most cops can read. The man behind the badge flashed his ten-thousand watt flashlight (it lit up the surrounding five miles) in my face and addressed me in a neighborly voice.
“Havin’ trouble with your car?” is what he said.
“Well, I wasn’t,” I told him, “until you crashed into it.” Upon which I explained my situation, showed him my permission note from the printer and promised not to say anything to my insurance company (as if I had one). He bade me farewell and in a couple of hours I managed to go off to sleep again.
Act Two, Scene One: The next night, another cop, this one a remnant of The Old Breed. Between puffs on his favorite pipe, he told me I could not stay there and that was that. The fact that I was on private property, possessed permission and there was naught but a swamp nearby for me to menace made no difference. The cop patiently listened to my utterances of protest including my testimony that the cop of the previous evening had allowed me to stay and he had an answer for all that.
“Well, this is a different night and this is me,” he said, as if that would neatly take care of everything.
“Well, I’m not leaving,” I told him. This was commensurate with questioning the marital status of his mother at the time of his birth and he flew into a rage.
“Well, I been nice about this,” he lied. “Now if you not outa here in two minutes, I’m gonna take you in!”
“What charge?”
“I’ll think of a good’un on the way.”
For whatever reason, however—maybe realizing he had grossly abused his office—he offered a third alternative, telling me I could sleep at an all-night gas station.
“Have YOU ever tried to sleep at an all-night gas station?" I asked him. He alternately offered the quieter downtown marina. Grumbling, I accepted the final choice and dragged off. I was there an hour when another cop drove up.
“Havin’ trouble with that car?” he wanted to know. I suppressed a scream, explained the history of my visit to Panama City and he left.
Next night, next cop. “That’s a nice-lookin’ typewriter you have there,” he said in admiration.
“Yeh, it is, and it’s mine, too.”
“I don’t suppose you got the papers on you.”
The papers! The PAPERS! No, I don’t have the goddam papers on me! I don’t have the papers for these clothes, either. You’d better check out those coke bottles on the floor—no papers for them! Say—how do I know you’re really a cop? You got any papers?”
“I don’t need no papers, boy, I got this,” he said, patting his friendly holster. And I had to admit that he was right, by God, he didn’t need any papers at all. So down we went to the police station, where seldom is heard an encouraging word and the skies are real cloudy all day, not to mention most of the night. A squat little man in a white shirt promptly came upon the scene. This was cause for optimism—I had learned in my long history of police interaction that the ones in the white shirts are the smart ones.
“What you trouble, boy?” he asked, causing me to question my assessment. Maybe it was the salt sea air. I related my sad tale of woe, wondering if maybe PC had too many cops with nothing to do. The white shirt asked me what my job was and obviously doubted my response. Eying my tousled hair, generous stubble and $2.98 ensemble, he announced his skepticism.
“You don’t look like no magazine editor,” he said, scratching his chin.
“Well, what do they look like?” I wondered.
“I don’t know about that, din’t ever see one, but Ah know you don’t look like none.”
That sounded reasonable, I figured, looking at it from a cop’s standpoint. I showed him some identification, a couple of magazines with my name and office, one of which contained a photograph. The cop, despite that fact the magazines were only Charlatans, relented. Hell, if you can’t read, it could be the National Review for all you know. Instantly, a new respect was offered. The boss, in a manner most cordial, took me aside and explained how the police were going to all this bother to protect me, somehow. Why, just the other day someone had been killed dead right near that very spot on the marina where I had been sleeping. Nobody, the cop reluctantly admitted, had been killed in back of the printer’s building recently.
So now I’ve gone and soured you on the whole Florida Panhandle and that certainly wasn’t my objective. There are many exciting opportunities in Panama City, not available in other climates. Teenage runaway girls, for example. Exotic deep-sea fishing. And, of course, the attraction that gets ‘em every time—where else but Panama City do they offer dwarf-throwing in the bars?
That’s all, folks….
