The drive is always the same, about an hour’s run through Williston, then left at the only stop light in Bronson and after that 33 straight-as-an-arrow miles through scrub pine forests and barely habitable wetlands to the bridges of Cedar Key. If you don’t see deer on the way or, more likely, on the trip back after twilight, you’re just not looking. It takes about an hour to get there.
Cedar Key is not a place anyone will find by accident. Nobody is just passing through. It is not on the way to anywhere. The trains don’t go there any more and there is no Greyhound bus station. And the folks who find their way there for an hour, a day or a lifetime like it that way.
The little town, population 701, welcomes visitors each year to an Art Show in April and a Seafood Festival in October, neither of them memorable unless it’s because you’re stranded in two-lane traffic for an unseemly amount of time. Cedar Key is not popular because there are crowds of people rampaging through the streets. It is popular because there are not.
Our annual excursion on Valentine’s Day can be a magical mystery tour. Wardrobes are a last-minute decision. The temperature can be 38, 58 or 78 and can turn on a dime. Last year, Siobhan and I wore overcoats; this time, at 65 degrees, not so much.
There are a lot of places to watch the sun set on the west coast of Florida. Key West has its Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square, a boardwalk festival of jugglers, clowns, musicians and trinket vendors, where elbow-to-elbow crowds vie for a spot to espy the descent. Things are a little tamer on St. George Island or at Mexico Beach, Naples Pier or nearby Yankeetown. But Cedar Key is different somehow. Maybe it’s the leisurely pace at which people slowly gather on the town’s westernmost street, Gulf waters lapping at the pavement. One minute, nobody is there. Twenty minutes later, the parking space is full and one barely notices the new arrivals. Golf carts drift in slowly from all sides. Cameras and cell phones are readied. The light from the sky reflects on the water bringing forth a proliferation of colors, some so subtle as to be rendered nameless.
It’s time for our annual Valentine’s Day photo, thus an artistic camera wielder must be chosen. We select a passing couple from Washington, D.C., one of them lucky to have an aunt with a cottage on the island, happy to escape for a weekend the brutal weather of the North. It is easy to meet people in Cedar Key, where it is not abnormal for perfect strangers to strike up a conversation on the street. Imagine that. We met another twosome fresh out of the Midwest, steered to Cedar Key by knowing Floridians and stunned to find themselves in this wonderful place. “We’re moving here!” said the distaff partner, perhaps a bit prematurely. “We can’t believe this place exists!”
Finally, the moment is at hand. The Sun glances back for one last look at its legion of admirers, then slowly departs beyond the horizon. Young couples hold hands, some kiss. Others raise a glass to the heavens. For most of us, perfect moments like this are few. They are available, of course, on a daily basis, but we’re often too busy to notice. Not today, though. Today, we’re here for the show. Glasses up, lovers and friends! Salud!
Wretched Excess
Everybody likes an enthusiastic display of affection. Except, perhaps, the girlfriend of Hannes Pisek, 20, of Hoenigsberg, Austria. Seems Hannes thought it might be a nice idea to use 220 candles to create a huge heart on the floor of his flat. He laid out the candles, lit them and went off to pick up his inamorata, heady with delight over his clever plan. Oops.
When the valentines returned to the apartment, they were met by the local fire brigade, fiercely battling to bring a raging inferno under control. And failing. Hannes was left out in the cold in more ways than one. He no longer had a home, nor a girlfriend. She kissed him on the cheek, told him nice idea and moved back in with her parents. Sometimes, a dainty box of chocolates will do.
Another fellow, this one from the UK, was determined to make a great impression on his new love. Valentine’s Day would be the perfect time. He ordered a bottle of her favorite wine, imported from France for the occasion. Then, on his way to her place, he stopped at the local florist to purchase a bouquet featuring her favorite flowers, white anemones. Alas and alack, the florist was sold out of everything with the sorry exception of a few feathery ferns sitting in the corner. Crestfallen, the fellow tried to save the day with a sudden inspiration. He would have the florist construct a bouquet using the flask of liquor instead of flowers. The effort went unexpectedly well. He added a card and went off to his girlfriend who was thrilled with the gift.
“I just love the whole idea!” she said, kissing her swain and opening the card. Inside, her lover had written, “Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder!”
Unwilling to be upstaged, she offered her own sweet reply. “Yes, and with fronds like these, who needs anemones?”
Okay, we’ll go quietly now.
The Squid Also Rises
When we last left Mario (The Squid) Rubio, he was stumbling around the debate stage in a blind stupor, repeating the same phrase over and over, put to rout by New Jersey Governor Chris (The Dancing Bear) Christie, for all the good it did him. If Christie’s performance diminished Rubio, it nonetheless failed to prevent The Trapdoor To Nowhere from opening under his own feet and he was gone faster than you could say “bridge gridlock.” Now, we are in South Carolina (The Cheese Grit State), looking for direction, an enterprise doomed to failure. You might as well ask a peon in Tamazunchale which way it is to the temples of Angkor Wat.
Into the fray now comes South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to rescue the sinking squid. “I wanted somebody with fight,” announced Haley. “Somebody with passion. I wanted somebody who had the conviction to do the right thing. But mostly I wanted somebody to put me on the ticket for vice-president, and Mario’s that guy!”
What does this mean for the other candidates, especially Jeb (“Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me”) Bush? The last of the Bushes—we can only hope—has been mired in quicksand for months before making a cameo appearance in New Hampshire to assure everyone he was still alive. The Bushes, we were guaranteed, are massively popular in The Palmetto State, so Jeb & Company have brought in family reinforcements to help out. George W. has been mincing around on the runway, mother Barb has been stomping through the precincts with her speed-walker and now there is word that Pops will skydive from an airplane strapped to an elephant. If that happens, I am going up there to vote for Jeb myself. Unfortunately, however, all the foofaraw has not caused Bush to budge from his single-digit standings in the S.C. polls. It won’t be long before the Bus to Oblivion pulls up and Jeb jumps in, another sad victim of overreach.
Meanwhile, back at the Orangeburg diner, Donald Trump has watched his large lead in the polls diminish daily and is bellowing like a newly-neutered cape buffalo over this latest slight. Trump says Haley’s time would be better spent “protecting the people of South Carolina from Syrian refugees,” armies of which have not been noted filling the highways toward Charleston. For his part, poll runnerup Ted Cruz has appealed to the devotees of fine dining, declaring that when he is elected (and wife Heidi becomes first lady), “French fries are coming back to the cafeteria!” Anything to spite that dilettante, Michelle Obama.
It’s a battle for survival in The Goober State, which has still not fully accepted the arrival of the 21st Century. After all, it remains against the law there to keep a horse in the bathtub, an outrage to equine hygiene if ever there was one. Although, on the other hand, drivers of automated vehicles must stop 100 yards from an intersection and fire a gun or rifle in the air to warn horse traffic, so there’s that. And what do you make of a place which would designate a state flower whose nectar is toxic to honeybees? It’s a muddle, no doubt about it.
Right now, it looks like Trump will prevail in South Carolina in a close one over The Squid and The Whining Otter, but there are miles to go before we sleep. There is still time for a Kasich comeback in the states where sane people live and it looks like no candidate will garner enough delegates in the primaries to clinch the Republican nomination, throwing the whole mess into the GOP Convention this July in beautiful Cleveland. If that happens, The Donald is a Dead Duck. Conventional Republicans will eschew the outlier and choose one of their own, maybe even a non-candidate like Mitt Romney, as a compromise. An outraged Trump will burst into a nova and threaten to run as an Independent before considering the costs. Who knows what’s next? Maybe Harold Stassen will emerge from retirement (and presumed death), landing in Cleveland in a UFO and presenting his credentials. So what if he lost three times already, he’s better than anybody in this bunch. STASSEN FOR PRESIDENT! It could happen. In the year 2000, Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan famously won election to the Senate 38 days after passing away in a plane crash. Carnahan beat incumbent Senator John Ashcroft, who soon became Attorney General under George W. Bush. So there. Stassen’s got a shot. We just need to heed these openminded Missourians and overcome this ridiculous predjudice against dead candidates. Jeb Bush is hoping so, too.
The End Of An Earache
As our old pal, Big Brother Bob Emery, might sing, “So long, small fry, it’s time to say goodby….” With the FBI tightening its ring around them, the last four holdouts in the armed takeover of the Malhuer National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon (aka “Those Crazy Bastards”) surrended last Thursday after a 41-day standoff that left one man dead and many others with severely bruised egos. The remaining quartet cited as reasons for their collapse, “missing home and family, and especially Duck Dynasty on TV.”
Federal authorities in six states also arrested seven other people accused of being involved in the occupation and brought charges against a leader of the movement who organized a 2014 standoff. Two more suspects remain at large but lawmen expected quick arrests. “They’re dipwads,” said Chief Ian Honeybaker of the Marshall’s Service. “Nary a brain between ‘em.”
Local residents expressed relief over the news. “I just posted HALLELUJAH! on my Facebook,” said Julie Weikel, who lives next to the nature preserve. “I been up all night for weeks worryin’ about those crazy bastards. I like to peed my pants with happiness when I found out they were gone. Matter of fact, I actually DID pee my pants. But it was worth it.”’
At least 25 people have now been indicted on federal charges of conspiracy to impede employees from performing their duties, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and being general dumbheads. The refuge will remain closed for several weeks as specialists collect evidence and try to determine whether the occupiers damaged any tribal artifacts sacred to the Burns Paiute Tribe. “The Indians are steamin’” said Honeybaker. “There’s….um….defecation on the burial ground.” The mark of the demon is seen in our land.
That’s all, folks….
