Florida Archives

March 3, 2012

The Neumeyers Visit Florida

When we moved to West Palm Beach in 1973, Wife Lila and I discovered something curious: folks who hadn’t bothered to call us collect when we lived in Gastonia, N.C., suddenly started showing up on our doorstep as soon as the temps started dropping up north. We were usually happy to see them.

Over the years, the visits started tapering off. Maybe it was the bricks we put under the mattress, maybe it was because we pointed out the bullet hole in the window above where they were sleeping. Who knows what actually worked?

Neumeyers were welcome visitors

When Jane McKeown Neumeyer said she and her husband Don were going to be down this way from Madison, Wisconsin, to take in some spring training baseball, we said we’d be happy to meet up with them at The Loggerhead Cafe on the beach at Carlin Park in Jupiter (that’s a town, not a planet. It got its name because it was a stop on the Celestial Railroad, along with Juno, Mars and Venus).

Headed for the beach

After an excellent round of dolphin sandwiches, we decided to check out the beach. It was a perfect, if windy, Florida March day.

Watch out for the Wave God

Jane rolled up her pants, but not quite enough. (She’d have been fine in her high school majorette skirt, but she said she didn’t bring it with her.)

Folks from the Midwest take some learnin’ before they understand waves. I had an assignment to check out a report of a beached whale. When I arrived, I saw some helpful spectators who were trying to to push the grounded mammal back out to sea. The swells were long and gentle, so it looked like I’d be able to wade out quite a way into the water to be able shoot back toward the shore for a better angle. I had just turned my back on Europe and started to punch the shutter release when a rogue wave picked me up and deposited me next to the whale.

Fortunately, nothing was damaged but my pride. That’s about the time I started going to the beach about as much as if I lived in Kansas. Somebody or something out there wanted me and I wasn’t about it give it another shot.

Marilyn Monroe imitation

The wind was whipping Wife Lila’s skirt around, so she tried to imitate Marilyn Monroe’s famous steam grate pose with stage directions from Jane.

February 19, 2012

I’m Pronounced “Normal;” I’m Disappointed

In1968 or ’69, I was coming back from an assignment when a farm tractor hauling a wagonload of kids pulled out in front of me from a side road. Instead of hitting the tractor or the kids, I opted to steer off the road into a ditch.

I knew the trooper who showed up to work the incident.

“I guess that’s the quickest you’ve ever gotten to the scene of a crash, huh?” That’s what passes for trooper humor in Ohio.

I had one of those moments this afternoon. I found out that (a) two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time, and (b) the Law of Gravity has not been repealed.

I’ll go into detail about my bicycle accident later. Right now I’m sore and the pain pills have me a bit more confused than usual.

“Don’t worry, Doc. He’s always like this”

I declined to take a ride with all the fancy lights and sirens (at about a hundred bucks a minute), but I did opt for Wife Lila to take me in to be checked out. The ER doc was a bit concerned after questioning me until Wife Lila said, “Don’t worry, Doc. He’s ALWAYS like this.”

I landed hard on my left hip, left shoulder and knee, and painted the concrete with a fair amount of skin crayon. To be on the safe side, they X-rayed me from knees to the tip of my head and sent me through a CT scan.

The Doc came out about an hour later and pronounced me “normal”.

My feelings were hurt. Mother told me all these years that I’m above average.

The photo above shows why I wear a helmet. That and the life lesson I got from my riding partner Mary, who WASN’T wearing one once.

Back to regular programming Tuesday, I hope.

December 27, 2011December 27, 2011

Electrons Died for THIS?

Wife Lila’s best friend is a gal I’ve nicknamed Crazy Nancy. They’re a great pair. I love to listen to them laugh and cut up when they’re together.

She knows every dirty joke ever written, recorded, told, drawn or mimed and uses them in her job as a massage therapist. She delivers the punchline at the same time that she dives into a tight muscle with talons of steel, rips it out of your body, raps it against the wall two or three times, then manages to reinsert it into your body.

Crazy Nancy thought I should have a mascot to ride along on my bicycle, so she got me Hula Cat to ride on my handlebars back in ’06. Hula Cat had an upper torso joined to her feet of clay by a set of springs that caused her to bob and gyrate. Too much, in fact, to stay in one piece on my bike.

Medically unsanctioned joint repair

I performed an impromptu and medically unsanctioned joint repair, but it was obvious that she wasn’t going to be able to withstand the rigors of bicycle touring.

Crazy Nancy replaced Hula Cat with Hula Parrot. Rather than subjecting her to the same dismemberment suffered by Hula Cat, I retired her to my book shelf at Palm Beach Newspapers. Feeling guilty that she wouldn’t be able to see the world from my bike, I thought I should at least give her a 51-minute tour of her new home. Being the telecommunications manager, I had access to many areas off-limits to the public and most employees, so you, like her, get to see what’s behind the curtain of my old employer.

Hula Parrot’s tour of Palm Beach Newspapers

Hula Parrot got to visit the roof, systems rooms, the telephone switch room, my office, the food editor’s office (that’s the one with junk stacked to the ceiling), the ice machine, a waste dumpster, the cafeteria, a time clock and some other out-of-the-way places. They were shot with an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera on a lark, so don’t look for great technical quality or artistic import.

My theory is that everybody is too busy celebrating or recovering from the holidays to spend much time reading my blog, so I’m going to post these photos to fill in the time and space until things get back to normal. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

May 16, 2011September 18, 2011

Light Show Over the Ocean

I thought I had seen all the lightning I wanted to see when I was back in Cape last month. Last night, though, Wife Lila and I headed out to see the light show of all light shows over the ocean after a squall line passed over West Palm Beach.

Better than 4th of July fireworks.

It took a few minutes to get there and get set up, so my stills don’t reflect what was going on as well as the video below does. I couldn’t remember how to put the thing on manual focus in the dark, so it’s not as sharp as I’d like. Still, it’s a better show that you see on the 4th of July.

Speaking of fireworks

Son Adam and New Mother Carly needed a break, so they dragooned Graham’s grandparents (us) into babysitting. It’s funny, all of the photos and videos they post of the child show him grinning and gurgling and cooing.

THAT child was hidden away in a closet somewhere. Here’s the one they left us. I looked as hard as I could and I couldn’t find a mute switch anywhere on his person.