An Almost Perfect Day

What a day. What an amazing day.

It was supposed to be overcast. Instead, the sun came out around ten o’clock and stayed out all day, setting in a fireball of orange and pink. A breeze blew every time it started to feel hot.

We walked into the center of the resort where all the shops and restaurants are, and rented a couple of bikes for the rest of the week. We tried to remember how long it had been since we had ridden bikes together and realized that it was over twenty years ago in Bar Harbor. We had both forgotten how much fun it is, how much like a kid it makes you feel. We rode around all morning on this very flat strip of high priced real estate, gawking at the fabulous homes and lush vegetation, delighting in the charm of the white picket fence, which is a staple here. 

Of course, me being me, I got a little freaky with the bike at one point and had a brief encounter with a metal fence post, resulting in a jammed finger and a bloody forearm. No day isn’t complete without at least one eye-roll from Pam. 

After sandwiches at Hudson’s Market, we gathered up our beach gear and traipsed across the 600 feet of sand until we finally found the ocean. Walking the equivalent of two football fields loaded down with beach chairs and coolers is not for sissies. But, it was worth the trip. It was a gorgeous afternoon.

After a short power nap, I hopped on my bike and rode up the street to the Links Course for my 5:00 tee time. I have never had a tee time so late in the day, but it was all I could get. The course was in magnificent condition, and my rental clubs were brand new Callaways. I shot 44 on the front side, which featured an almost comical 8. I will not bore you with the details...but I deserved it! At the turn, I picked up my wife who had come up to have a cocktail and read her book on the balcony of Huey’s. She served as the cart driver for my back nine. She was also my lucky charm...shot 41on the back!

However, there is no such thing as a perfect day. There’s always something, am I right? Ok, so after 18 holes of golf, it was almost 8 o’clock, and we were both very hungry. Unfortunately, Huey’s was only opened for members last night, so our perfect plan to eat at the golf course was foiled by eilitism. No worries, we would just ride our bikes back to the Village Plaza and pick from the various eateries there. By this point in the day, we both started to notice a tightness in our legs, a gentle reminder from God that although riding bikes sure did make us feel like kids, we are not, in fact, kids. Being seriously hungry didn’t help either. But as we saw our first choice...Woody’s, come into view, all was well. Right up to the point when it wasn’t. Woody’s had closed at 5:00. No problem, let’s go across the street to that BBQ place we saw earlier. The young, overwhelmed maitre’d thus began her soliloquy...

Yeah, well...we are really, like, super busy right now and like, we only have like three waiters and each of them have like three tables each and it’s taking a long time to like, serve people...so it’s gonna be like, a while.

At this point, although hungry, we had not yet reached hangry level, so we demurred. There was always that burger place we had heard so much about down on the boardwalk. Now, it was 8:45, and we had to make the long walk to our third choice. We arrived only to be told by a befuddled young man bussing a table that the kitchen was closed...but if we wanted a drink, the bar was opened.

When I looked into the eyes of my beloved...I saw it for the first time. My wife was not only hot and sweaty from all the bike riding and walking, but now she was hangry. There’s always the Terrace in the Boardwalk Inn, I suggested optimistically. She replied with the one word, all purpose response she always uses whenever she’s started to become annoyed...Sssuure!

The Terrace Maitre’d, while possessing a better grasp of her native tongue, was equally confusing in her response to two people who just wanted for somebody, somewhere on this resort property to feed us!!....We have been very busy tonight, but the guys are bussing tables right now and it shouldn’t be more than five minutes. Can we offer you a menu while you wait?

Twenty minutes later, no table. Despite the fact that both of us were so hungry we could have eaten the maitre’d, absolutely nothing on the Terrace menu appealed to us at all. We left in a huff of righteous indignation and headed over to our last resort...Hudson’s Market. Alas, their kitchen had also closed at 5:00.

At 9:15 in the evening on a day when you have biked multiple miles, walked like packmules across a desert of sand, and played a round of golf...your body becomes a rebellious and petulant child. It demands food...any kind of food. Then I saw the...ice cream. Ten minutes later, Pam and I were sitting in rocking chairs gulping down large quantities of the hand dipped stuff. It would be our dinner, at least until we could find our way back to our condo in the dark...on bikes, where a half a sandwich and an orange left over from lunch awaited us.

Other than our dinner dining experience, yesterday was as good as it gets...

Morning Beauty After The Storm

I’m sitting on a screened in porch listening to the thunderous surf in the distance. It was exactly what I was doing for over an hour last night during the wind and rain, watching the heat lightening out over the Atlantic. It is cool this morning, but thickly humid. I just got back from a short walk on the massive expanse of beach on this island..200 yards from dunes to water massive...the widest, flattest stretch of sand I have ever seen. Inexplicably, a single driftwood tree sits perched on the highest spot on the beach, begging to have its picture taken. I obliged...

The beach is so wide and so flat, it makes the sky look bigger than the sky is supposed to look. The last time I saw such a big sky was when I was in Montana as an 18 year old and discovered exactly why that State is called Big Sky Country.

I’m not sure what we will do today. This is supposed to be the only cloudy day of our week. Maybe I’ll use that as an excuse to play the golf course that is right down the street. Dinner last night at Huey’s featured this view...

...which seems a bit unfair. How is a guy supposed to give his undivided attention to his wife of 35 incredible years with this view just to the left of her beautiful face? I would post the competing picture I took of her but after 35 years, I have learned a few things. One of those things is never post a picture of your wife on social media without first obtaining permission to do so. I only look stupid!

For the record, last night’s amazing dinner included this item from the appetizer menu...

Low Country Egg Rolls...filled with collard greens, pulled pork BBQ and drizzled with a smoked mustard sauce. 

Yeah, when you see that on the menu, thats when you know you’re nowhere near Connecticut.

I Win

I get to spend the next five days in this fabulous place...

...with this beautiful woman...

The place is Wild Dunes in Isle of Palms, South Carolina. Neither of us have ever been there before. If the website can be believed, we will have an amazing four nights. The occasion is our 35th wedding anniversary...a month late. Lucy will stay here, accompanied by Becca, the dog whisperer, and the cost of the trip will be paid for with Capital One points. 

I win.

Gail

It was twenty two years ago when I took the call. Everyone had gone to lunch and I was the only one available to answer the phone. Her husband had passed away and he had a policy with Life of Virginia and could somebody help her with the claim? I took down her information and set a time to have her come in, only she didn’t want to drive all the way to Richmond. She lived in Hopewell. Could I come to her? 

Thus began my over two decade relationship with an elderly woman named...Gail. That she would become not only a great client but a dear friend was one of the most unlikely outcomes imaginable, for Gail was and is the most unique person I have ever met. When I pulled up in the circular driveway of her house she greeted me at the door wearing an outlandish pink and green pair of velvet pants and a silk blouse, with an unfiltered cigarette hanging out of her mouth, I remember thinking...Holy Crap. What is this I have gotten myself into? She was tiny, a wisp of a 64 year old woman, with a warm grin on her face. She thanked me for driving all the way out to Hopewell, a place she described as...a place with no hope where ain’t nobody doing well, except me!! Then, I heard that laugh for the first time, high pitched and unrestrained. I walked inside very gingerly.

Her house was beautiful on the outside, all elegant lines with a finely trimmed yard. Inside, the place was a hot mess. It wasn’t dirty, but there was stuff everywhere. Gail was a hoarder. I kept a sharp eye out for cats, but thankfully the only animal was a small Pekingese who appeared from beneath the rubble and was frantically barking at the tall, nervous man in the dark suit. Gail barked out a raspy command..Sweetie!! Shut the hell up!!!! “Sweetie” was never heard from again.

When we finally found a place to sit around an antique table piled high with what appeared to be every piece of junk mail she had received over the past ten years, she slapped her dead husband’s policy down in front of me. I suppose you expected me to be dressed in black, since my husband died. Well maybe I should be, but I look like a God***** old woman in black. Besides, Ed loved these pants.

As I processed the paperwork, she told me her life story. With her husband’s death, she was now completely alone. She had no surviving family, neither did he. They had no children. There was literally no family left, no uncles or aunts, no distant cousins. What she did have was tons of friends and the ugliest Pekingese in the entire world. She grew up as an Army brat, lived all over the world. Her husband was a lawyer. She was once a great singer and dancer and had the photographs to prove it. I looked at the young girl in the pictures. She was a beauty. The more we talked, the less uncomfortable I felt. The stories she told were fascinating. What a life she had lived. In the couple of hours I spent with her that first day I discovered a complex woman with an astounding back story. I wasn’t quite sure how much of it was true, but if she was making it up, well...she was one heck of a storyteller. Her sentences were lively and flowed naturally, as if they had been written in advance, and carefully crafted. All of it was sprinkled with the most hilariously colorful profanity I have ever heard from another human being. Must have been the Army background.

She ended up investing the proceeds of her husband’s insurance policy with me. In the months and years that followed, she entrusted more and more of her money with me. In all of our 22 year business relationship, she has never made the trip north to my office. I have always made the drive to Hopewell, probably over 50 times by now. Over the years we have talked about everything. She wanted to know all about Pam and the kids, was fascinated with my parent’s story. She was astonished to discover that I was a Christian. She had a million questions, including this one...Ok, Mister Christian...what’s your favorite verse in the Bible? I answered with Deuteronomy 8:17-18...You may say to yourself, my power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me, but remember the Lord your God who gives you the power to produce wealth... Tears came to her eyes. Then she dismissed me with a colorful phrase. The next time I saw her, she met me at the door with a beautiful, professionally framed, hand stitched rendition of...Deuteronomy 8:17-18. 

Last week I received a call from the lawyer who has her Power of Attorney informing me that she had been placed in a nursing home after being found unresponsive in her home by a friend. Yesterday I went to see her. She lay there in a crumpled pile of covers, face twisted upwards, mouth ajar, her vibrant personality obscured by the ravages of time. I held her hand and looked closely into her face, and called to her. She opened her eyes and mumbled something I couldn’t understand. Her friend interpreted...She said Dunnevant. She knows its you. Then she drifted back off to sleep, or whatever state she was in before, something that looked and felt more painful and disturbing than...sleep. The doctors say she wont be going home again. She might not make it much longer, or she may hang on for months.

I’ve been around in my business long enough to know the rules of life. Clients get old and die. All the money eventually passes to others, in Gail’s case to seven environmental advocacy groups. It’s all part of the job. But every client is not like Gail. I will miss her friendship, her wit and wisdom, and yes...the side-splitting profanity. 

About ten years ago she asked me out of the blue...If I were going to read just one book in this Bible of yours, what should it be? I thought for a moment and answered...If I were you, I would read the Gospel of John. She nodded and said...Well, Doug...you ain’t me, but I will read the Gospel of John, just for you. Six months later we met again for a review. In the middle of my presentation to her, she slammed her hand down on the table and said, By the way...I just finished up the Gospel of John and I’ve got to admit...Jesus was a bad-ass!! I busted up laughing and we ended up talking for over an hour about her thoughts on the subject. For what its worth, I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who understood who Jesus was and what his message was more beautifully than my strange, and profane friend.

It takes all kinds of people to make a world...

How Would You Like to be Remembered?

Thirty six years ago I entered the workforce as an agent for a company which no longer exists called, Life of Virginia. My first day on the job I was introduced to the guy who I would share a tiny 10x10 office with for the next six months. I quickly gave him the nickname...Hexhead...and we got along great. A mutual friend from those old days sent me a note this morning informing me of his passing. Hexhead is dead. This news has transported me back in time to what life was like thirty six years ago. Its been part fond nostalgia and part nightmare.

Some things from those days are nearly impossible to believe. In 1983, I shared that tiny, cramped office with a guy who chain-smoked Marlboros. Hexhead made no apologies, never asked if I minded if he smoked, nor would I ever have expected him to. If I walked down the hall, about every other office had at least one smoker. Every single day, I went home smelling like cigarette smoke. But of all of my worries and concerns back then, the fact that my office-mate smoked was 36th on the list. I try to imagine what I would do today if someone came in my office and lit up a Marlboro!! In one generation smoking inside public buildings has gone from being ubiquitous to unimaginable. Amazing.

Hexhead was a good dude, if a bit rough around the edges. He had a loud, infectious laugh, and a great sense of humor. There was also no chance in a thousand hells that he would make it in the insurance business. He marched to the beat of a very different drummer, one who had only a passing knowledge of the beat. There is one clear memory I have of the man and it’s a doozy...

One Friday, our sales manager invited several of us for a day on the Chesapeake Bay on his beautiful sailboat. Girlfriends and wives were invited, so Pam...then my girlfriend...came along. It was a gorgeous day and as the boat cut it’s way briskly through the water while we sipped our adult beverages...all was well with the world. Then Hexhead got up and moved from the stern of the boat to it’s bow for a better view. Unlike the rest of us who were wearing swim suits so we could dive in if it got hot, Hexhead was sporting cutoff jeans. When he sat down in front of the rest of us at the front of the boat we all instantly realized that he was not wearing underwear.

There he was, oblivious...his full glory prominently displayed for all to see. We laughed. We cried. We had the mental image permanently burned into our brain for all of eternity...so much so that when my friend sent me the news of his passing...it was the very first memory that..er, um...reared it’s head.

I read the obituary. It was exactly the sort of obituary I would expect his family to write. He loved life, was full of fun and whimsy, loved by everyone. Yes, yes and yes. RIP, Hexhead.

Squirrels and the Existence of Evil

 There are two universal constants in my life, which at this particular moment are front and center. These two constants are completely unrelated, and writing about them both in the same blog post may seem odd to the reader, but this is my blog and therefore I owe you no explanation.

The first universal constant is the existence of evil in the world, the latest manifestation of which has been the Virginia Beach shooting and Mr. DeWayne Craddock. By all accounts, Craddock was an unremarkably normal man. He had no criminal record, was well educated, a civil engineer stable enough to hold a steady, responsible job for over 15 years, and came from a good family. But something inside him snapped and inexplicably turned him into a man capable of killing 12 of his co-workers in cold blood. It is a human trait to seek explanations, to assign blame and find a culprit. It is part of our need to discover meaning in life. We all construct belief systems that serve as a template for understanding the world around us. But...what if there is no explanation other than the existence of evil in the world? Some will dismiss the existence of evil in this case by saying that Craddock was obviously mentally ill with some undetected and untreated psychosis, which if properly diagnosed could have been treated and this violence could have been avoided. Perhaps that is true. But, mental illness or not, the act of killing 12 colleagues, in and of itself, is an unspeakable evil that cannot be explained away simply by giving it a name and classifying it as a disease. We prefer our mass murderers to look and act the part. We prefer that they are political extremists. We feel better when we discover that they came from an abusive family or were drug addicted or unrepentant racists. But when they turn out to be the DeWayne Craddocks of the world, what then? If someone like him...like us...is capable of this, what do we do then?

The second universal truth has to do with this photograph which I took this morning at 6:38 AM....

There I was, drinking my coffee and checking out last night’s boxscores, when I glanced up and saw a squirrel sitting up on his haunches, with a lovely rose blossom in his bony little mitts chowing down like a fat kid on a box of doughnuts. There was absolutely nothing I could do. If I bolted out there with my pellet gun, he would be long gone by the time I could get a shot off. If I raised a window and stealthily tried to shoot him from inside my house, his little squirrel ears would hear the slightest squeak from the window and flee. So I just sat there watching this pathetic and worthless creature laying waste to Pam’s beautiful roses. It is my sincere conviction that squirrels were placed into this world for the sole purpose of my eternal exasperation. It is clearly God’s way of introducing a daily dose of humility into my life...Yes, Doug...there are some things in this world that you cannot fix, problems which you cannot solve. Chill out.

Evil and squirrels...but I repeat myself.

Best Dog Culdesac in the Neighborhood

These past couple of days have been glorious. Yesterday when I walked out onto my deck at 6 AM I wrote that Maine had come to Short Pump. This morning it was exactly ten degrees cooler, which turned me into a liar since actually...today is much more like a July morning in Maine than yesterday was! Be that as it may, it is a wonderful thing to be visited by such perfect weather. We have taken full advantage. Last night Pam whipped up an Instant Pot meal extraordinaire called Mongolian Beef something or other. We ate it with our good friend, Al Fresca...

And yes...my wife is still wearing her apron, in my opinion, one of the sexiest garments ever fashioned by human hands.

Lucy loves it when we eat outside. She spends her time alternating between full sniffing interrogations of all quadrants of her yard to bouts of rolling around in the grass on her back, tongue flopped out of her mouth, not a care in the world. As soon as she senses that we are done eating, she brings me her frisbee and insists on a session of catch and keep-away. After three or four throws and three or four demonstrations of Lucy showing off her athletic grace, she is done and back to back scratches in the grass.

We are able to enjoy our back yard this year because we employed the services of an outfit called...The Mosquito Authority. For a tidy sum of cash, I contracted with this service which promised to rid my yard of mosquitos...guaranteed. I was skeptical, but desperate. Before these guys came along, our deck was the mosquito capital of Short Pump, a bloodsucking feeding ground. But now, after a couple of months under their protection, there hasn’t been a mosquito sighting, much less a bite. It’s like a miracle. Of course, if six months from now, one of us begins to grow a new appendage, one of us sprouts a sixth toe, or one arm suddenly gets longer than the other...we’ll know why!

The other day I was out on the deck doing my early evening squirrel reconnaissance when I happened to look over into my neighbor’s back yard and noticed their new puppy standing at their back gate, giving me the once over. This lovable beast is...Boss...their aptly named mastiff puppy who is, without putting too fine a point on it, HUGE, and getting bigger by the minute. Anyway, there he was, ginormous paws gripping the fence, ponderous head cocked to one side, beckoning me to come over for a scratch. What was I to do? Of course, I had to agree. Luckily, I have great neighbors who don’t mind me letting myself into their backyard to play with their dog (at least I HOPE not). Anyway, by the time Boss is full grown he’s going to be bigger than me, so I have a vested interest in getting on his good side. When I returned to the house, Lucy was on me like white on rice...as manic as one of those bomb-sniffing dogs from the Department of Homeland Security. She demanded to know where I had been and who I had been with. She could scarcely hide her disappointment when she discovered that I had been with...Boss. All Lucy knows about Boss is that he was this adorable new puppy next door one day, then she turned her back for a minute and the next thing she knew he was this towering beast slobbering all over her beautifully clean coat!

Our culdesac now officially has the best dog population in the entire neighborhood...

Lucy the Golden

Van the Pug

Boss the Mastiff

Pippen the Golden Doddle

Maverick the Lab

Kane the German Shepard 

...and Buddy the whatever