Florida Postcards

First there were palm trees, and alligators.



Veronica's lanai,



and dolphins swam alongside our boat to the Keys.



Then streets of Key West!





to the very end.



Our hotel bar and the blue blue ocean.



Parasailing at six hundred feet, Veronica and I vowed to do this every year. We floated over the blue indifferent water and were lulled into thinking this was forever. Then drifting in the pool, Veronica did crosswords and praised me when I, eyes closed, halfheartedly helped.

Later the carnival of Key West absorbed us. Water sprayed our hot faces in the open bar and we sat relaxed drinking daiquiris as the drag queens, the addicts, the rich, the deluded, the undecided passed in their nightly procession. The Duval Crawl. Key lime martinis. Sandals. Tourists snapping a picture. Chickens on the street. Parades. A display of quirkiness for the tourists satisfies us that we are in the authentic Key West.

The evening before I leave a vivid double rainbow arcs in the sky over Naples. The pier is lined with fishermen and a young man reels in a big one. People gather round as his toil becomes a community effort. Boys run for glasses of water to douse him and men shout directives as he lowers his rod and reels in yards and yards of line. A half hour later he has passed the job to someone else, and men begin to be the first to see the catch. "It's a manta ray!" "It's a shark!" "It's about 10 feet." "It's 6 feet." "You snagged it in the tail."

The white beaches of Naples catch me off guard, and I am a beach bum again. A beach bum among the millionaires of Naples, whose yachts are parked outside their mansions on their own private waterways. My tiny dream beach shack would cost 3 million dollars here. Life as we know it can't go on. How can the world support the rich? I am attracted to the mixed colors of the guys on the pier, some speaking Spanish and all treating each other like brothers.

The day I left Veronica and I were sober, aloof, like all last days.