Bikinis, bars, beaches and baseball

 Wifey and I recently finished our annual Florida Fest, where we scrimped all year so we could blow our savings on a week-long gluttonous grilled shrimp and blackened Grouper fish taco extravaganza on the beach.

Some rando thoughts, observations and anecdotes about the Sunshine State:

** If you are in your 50s and want to feel young, attend Sunday Mass in Fort Myers. Let's just say you don't have to worry about babies crying during the service.

** Don't get me wrong, the service was lovely, the priest was great and it was a huge church. There's a portion of the Catholic Mass where names of ill or deceased people are read and we are asked to pray for them. It was the longest list of names I've ever heard read at a service. 

I was only half listening because, obviously, I didn't know any of the people there. So it was like: Marvin O'Connor, Harley Johansen, Mildred Margrove, blah, blah, blah, and then "Secretary Madeleine Albright." It woke me up. The rest of the service I was thinking: Was the former United States Secretary of State a member of this parish, or did they have a church secretary by that name, or do they just honor random politicos here?

** While we stayed at St. Pete Beach, we were in Fort Myers for a Twins spring training baseball game.

A lady sitting behind me said to her friend: “Let's get something to eat at halftime.” I bit my lip - yes, that is possible for me to do, especially because wifey was squeezing my knee with her vice-like grip, as she does when she wants me to bite my lip.

** Other than that outing, we did the least stuff we ever did on a vacation besides eat and sit on the beach and listen to bands. Day after day. It was great.

Wifey asked me on the beach: "Why do the women wear less clothes than the men?"

I wisely answered: "I hadn't noticed."

** Our first day there it rained off and on. So we did go 10 miles into St. Petersburg so I could visit the largest used bookstore in Florida only to find out it didn't survive COVID-19. It survived Amazon's take-over of the book industry and society's shift to reading nothing longer than 140 characters, but all the Ivermectin in the world couldn't help it pull through the Wuhan flu shutdown.

** There's a 7-11 and a Dunkin' Donuts across from the hotel we stay. They line up 40 deep to get coffee at DDs, but 2 people deep for 7-11 coffee. You know where this impatient soul got his java.

** The first question people ask you is "Where ya from?" When I tell them South Dakota, 9 out of 10 say a variation of "Oh, wow." Like we're from Mars or something. The 10th person says "Where's that?" So I ask: "Ever heard of Mount Rushmore?" They all have heard of that.

One couple said they went to Deadwood last year. "We caught COVID there," they said and laughed it off.

** I read two books on the trip, one of them "The Paris Apartment" by Lucy Foley. The guy under the umbrella next to us was reading "The Paris Detective" by James Patterson.

I held up my book and asked him if his detective ever stayed at my apartment. He looked at me like he was one of those people who didn't know where South Dakota was.

** The more I visit Florida, the more I like it. And, oddly enough, the more I visit Florida, the more I like South Dakota.