village life

All they have to do is deliver!

I guess I’m in a grumpy mood these days – airing all my gripes.

The other day I got a notice from Amazon that my package was delivered. Only I looked all over the building and I could not find the package.

This is a common thing. We have a sign out front that says leave all packages on the table by the elevator, but no one reads it or pays attention, so we’ve found deliveries back on the table by the pool, in unused emergency stairwells, on private balconies of neighbors and other places. So I looked all over and the package was nowhere.

I went on line to double check and it says it was delivered and signed for by “Fermin” who is one of the security guards at the building next door. So I traipsed over and he handed five packages – for five neighbors, including me. The Amazon guy just dumped all of our deliveries next door. But who is wrong? The guy did get a signature, and Fermin just accepted them without reading the labels.

Either way, Amazon is always screwing up. I know it’s the start of a busy delivery season, but he did manage to the packages next door. He just neglected to read the addresses.

We have a great UPS guy. He has my cell phone number and often calls about deliveries and other things. When I was in Greenport last week, he called, it was about a neighbor’s delivery. I told him I was just thinking about him because as we drove to Greenport, we drove through a lot of farmland and there right in the middle of it all was a UPS truck delivering a package to a house.

One day, recently, our UPS guy called to tell me he had a delivery I needed to sign for. I went downstairs and there he was at the pool (dressed) talking to one of my neighbors (dressed), both lying on lounge chairs feet from the bay, chatting away. I joined them and we all ended up talking for about 45 minutes. Sorry for the neighbors expecting deliveries!

Village life.

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Small town Greenport, NY

Greenport, NY

There were a lot of us together for Thanksgiving, and then Friday, we went to Greenport, Long Island, not to be confused with Greenpoint which is in Brooklyn.

Greenport is this little old village at the northern tip of Long Island – on the north fork. You can see Connecticut from the shore, which is across the Long Island Sound.

We ran into a guy, who seemed to bore everyone else who wandered off, but he had me interested in the history of the town. He was about 70 and he was visiting from Brooklyn. He told me he grew up there and he was pointing out things in the area – where the old police station was, where the 5 & 10 was, where his uncle worked in a sailing mast shop, etc.

***This old building was the hardware store in Greenport, some years back.***

He explained the place as if it was Mayberry, with only two officers on the police force at the time.

My family and I shopped and hung out, spending money on Small Business Saturday, but it was Friday.

It was nice, but so far from the city, about three hours in and three hours back. We went to the Hamptons after that for dinner and hung out, then headed back to the city very late.

Usually we would go to the Southampton Christmas parade and tree lighting on Saturday night, but we did Greenport instead.

We enjoyed the non-Starbucks, one-of-a-kind village coffee shop.

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Sleepy Hollow

As we drove back down to the city from Highland and pumpkin picking last weekend, we stopped to see the Hudson River views in Tarrytown, NY, but as we wandered around, we wandered into the village next door which was Sleepy Hollow!

What a find. It’s so wonderful. It reminded me a lot of Salem, MA, but also so much of Stars Hollow, the fictional town from Gilmore Girls. So quaint and such a special place to be in the fall.

So many hills and backstreets to explore. We also explored the cemetery and all the Headless Horseman locations. One problem – so did thousands of other people. The poor little town is overrun by tourists, including us. I’m not sure how the locals deal with this.

It’s one of those good things that is ruined by crowds. But even with the crowds, it was special and I would not mind visiting again, maybe in a quieter time of year when it’s out of season.

There is so much history there starting in the 1600s, including the church and grave stones.

We had lunch at a nice restaurant overlooking the Hudson River and called it a day. Exhausted by all the walking up and down hills, but very happy. A good exhaustion.

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Getting back into village life

I’ve been a hermit lately, ever since the start of the pandemic. I mean I do go out and I do travel, but I’m not doing what I used to do. I’m sort of stuck in that staying in mode. I used to be out all day and night. Now I’m not. I used to participate in the community, in a big way. Now I don’t.

Yesterday I went to a memorial in our village. It was for someone who was big in the town, who was almost the godfather of our town.

The memorial was in one of the parks in the village and there was a large turnout. There was a proclamation from the city in his name and a few beautiful trees were planted in his name. We have quite a few parks in the village, but this was his favorite, so it all centered around this park and him.

My point is that there were so many people there and I know 90% of them. I hadn’t seen many in quite awhile, ever since I stopped publishing the daily news here. When I covered the news I was everywhere every day, gathering up news, covering events. It’s a small village so it was easy to see most people most days.

The funny thing is that as I looked through the crowd, it seemed as if my news gathering caused a quarrel between many of the people present and me at one time or another, they weren’t too keen on things I wrote. I literally had issues over the years with half the people who where there yesterday.

Half of them yelled at me , or threw me out of their offices or called me names over the years. Yet in the end they gave me many awards and accolades. We were/are a dysfunctional family.

I remember the deceased telling me at a meeting once, “Tom, this is not for publication.” And at another point he says, “Tom, this is not for publication.” And a third time, he said, “Tom, this is not for publication.” And I held up my pad and said, “I have not written a sentence. You haven’t said anything worth repeating.” And the whole room laughed. I guess we did have good times through it all.

At one point, we thought it would all make a good reality show of the craziness we lived through daily. One of my friends worked for Endemol, a producer of reality tv, and she would always tell me to come in and pitch the idea, which I never did.

I caught up with so many people yesterday. The thing is, we all still live here and while the village is quickly turning into a city, the people are all the same.

I think I need to get out there again – go to things, participate again. Go to bingo at the women’s club, go to a meeting this week where our town’s yearly parade is planned, go to an arts festival meeting, attend a village council meeting. The good part is that I won’t be covering any news and it won’t be a job. I’ll just be one of the village people like everyone else.

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Right place at the right time

Today’s cartoon is about a peacock, or rather a peacock feather. When I looked at my personal Facebook page today, it featured a memory from two years ago – peacocks crossing the street. I don’t know how to show that here, but that isn’t the point, the point is that a sign like that means I am in the right place at the right time. According to my friend jak anyway.

jak always said that if you read a word and hear a word at the same time, that’s a sign that you are in the right place at the right time and coincidences like that always mean the same thing.

Where I live, we have peacocks all over the place. Some people love them, others hate them. I love them. But a few years back there was an issue that got in the news about people wanting to get rid of the peacocks. They would round them up and send them to a farm somewhere, which makes no sense, since they will never get them all, they are always proliferating.

NPR called me up to interview me on the radio about the birds. I talked to them about 15 or 20 minutes and I told them that I loved them and that they were part of the character of the neighborhood. I did say I could understand how people despised them because they were dirty, loud and they pecked at their reflection in cars in people’s driveways, which ruined the paint job.

The interview ran on the radio and it was picked up by newspapers all over the country. But what the newspapers did was pick up my comment about them being dirty, loud and a nuisance. They didn’t pick up the part where I said they should be left alone because they are loved by most of us and they are part of the village and village life!

One newspaper wrote a story and as is the case, newspapers all over the country picked this piece of news up. My uncle read my quote in the NY Post of all places! They ran my quote about them being loud.

I was in the Chicago Tribune and Michigan newspapers, Los Angeles, the Midwest, all over – I was branded a peacock hater, which was the total opposite! They all chose to run the negative comments, which really weren’t negative, they were just facts about the peacocks. I’ve always defended the peacocks, but that part they ignored.

It was a bit funny, except the people in the village where I live were not pleased with me. Since the original interview was on the radio, I didn’t have anything in writing to defend myself. But I was part of our peacock mascot project some years back where people painted and designed about 50 of those cement art pieces that you’ve probably seen in different incarnations and animals around the country (cows, dogs, cats, etc.). And I used the peacock as my business logo for years. So I am a peacock fan.

Anyway, I guess I’m in the right place at the right time today since the cartoon and one of the peacock memories popped up on Facebook today. Right?

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‘305 Day!’

Still lots of things going on this season. I missed the Lake Worth Chalk Festival last weekend and a few other art events, but managed to get to this past weekend’s Gifford Lane Art Stroll, which is a block party in our village. It’s a yearly thing – 25th year, this year and it brings out the whole village. It’s like a tv show where the full cast shows up for an event and they are all in one scene.

It was also “305 Day,” on Sunday, which is the area code for Miami and on March 5 (3/05).

The hit of the block party is cucumber punch which is delicious on a hot day, which always seems to be the case for this event each year – it’s been a cool winter, but Sunday was totally hot.

The first year I went, 20 years back, I didn’t know the cucumber punch had gin in it, and I really had my fill, I was feeling no pain. Now that I know the ingredients, I take it easy.

They used to serve the gin at a friend’s house where everyone lined up outside his green door and he and his wife and friends would serve it up to thousands. I guess after 23 years they felt enough was enough with the non-stop traffic through their house, so they have it out in someone else’s driveway now. So last year, I went to the driveway for the first time and got some punch and people started talking to me. But the homeowner was not having it, she started yelling, “Tom, you have your punch, now get out of here!” I couldn’t argue with her, because she is 97 years old! She’s a spry 97, but still.

This year while it was outside her house, she wasn’t around. She’s an avid bike rider at her age, so maybe she was out bike riding!

Anyway, it was a great day, I think I saw everyone I know there which is always nice. There’s a lot of food, live music and kibitzing. A perfect day for a small village.

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An art-filled weekend

Lots of art shows and boat shows and all sorts of things on President’s Day Weekend. I spent a lot of time out and about with family and friends. First day was hot and humid, second day not as bad and on the second day, I seemed to know every other person that walked by, it was nice.

I parked my car far away from the festival, most of us do, so that when we leave, we aren’t stuck in all that traffic which is on top of the events. When I walked back to my car Saturday, I was dying. I was telling people it reminded me of the final day of Naked and Afraid where people are trying to make it to the extraction point and barely making it. I have a habit of not drinking, or eating, and it catches up with me.

We spent a lot of time at the children’s area, both days, where I still have Baby Shark playing in my head, but one area I liked is where there were easels set up and small kids painted. Some of the work was amazing. One eight year old girl did this fish painting that reminded me of Matisse or something similar. Amazing to see how the children created things. I noticed one interesting thing – the kids draw a lot of trees and water, which is what we are surrounded by and interestingly enough, the trees are palm trees! We are in Miami, so they paint what they see, what they know.

I would have taken pictures of the art, but parents don’t like strange men taking pictures of their kids’ art and especially their kids.

The paintings take forever to dry and they don’t offer to frame them which would be a great little business in itself, so after waiting a long time for the things to dry, they just sadly end up in the trash. All that beautiful work just thrown away. Not a good finish to all that creativity.

We had our usual hot tea and scones at the English tea room which is always part of the event, and listened to fantastic music by local bands. One great band had five or six members and I personally knew three of them, which was cool.

I may pop over again today for day three. I usually go all three days only because it’s hard to get back into the neighborhood once you leave due to all the traffic. So we’re sort of stuck here until the circus leaves town.

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Ruining paradise

This New Yorker cartoon by Ellis Rosen made me laugh, and cringe.

I live on the water; well, at the water’s edge. I could almost jump out of my window and be in Biscayne Bay and for all the years I’ve lived here (20 years), I’ve thought of the issue of over-development. I’ve looked out over the bay and thought, “What if someone wants to build some sort of condo or something a few feet out from my seawall, literally in the water on stilts or landfill. Is that possible?”

It would be the same if you lived on a lake or river or any open space. Of course it happens on open land all the time. You have a forest in front of you for years and the next thing you know, it turns into a housing development.

And here in this cartoon is something so similar. This looks like an oil rig.

On Florida’s Gulf coast there are permitted sites where oil rigs and gas wells can be drilled, but currently while permitted, they have not been drilled. In 2010 there was an oil rig explosion in the Gulf, which killed 11 people and polluted the water. Sludge is still popping up onshore.

On the Atlantic Coast, I remember some years back, every time you walked the beach, you managed to step in black gooey oil slicks which smelled and of course polluted the area, not to mention your feet. I believe those were caused by cruise ships. I haven’t seen that problem for years, so apparently something was done.

Anyway, back to the cartoon – it reminded me of my thoughts over the years of looking out my window and seeing some structure being built out in front of me – in the water – in the Bay. As it is, our small village is turning into a city. As you look out over the village you see construction cranes dotting the sky. Greed. It’s all about greed. Nothing else. “Let’s destroy a small arts and sailing village to add high, sun blocking, traffic enhancing buildings,” is how the developers and city leaders think. Screw the quality of life, it’s all about money.

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King Mango Strut

We had a parade yesterday – the King Mango Strut, started in 1982 it’s usually the last Sunday of the year, but this year it was a week later, on Sunday, Jan. 8.

It’s a great small-town event and the best part is that most people know each other. It’s like Cheers, where everybody knows your name.

It was put off a couple of years due to the pandemic, but it was back this past weekend and it was so much fun. There are bands and lots of parodies of things that happened over the year – statewide, local and national. All one big parody.

It started as an offshoot of the Orange Bowl Parade and took on a life of its own. The center of town is shut down and the Strut takes over. If you haven’t seen people all year, they are sure to show up here on this very day.

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Life in a small village

So I’m starting off 2023 in a quandary. A friend and I were headed to lunch a couple of days ago. We went to one of the most popular places in town but the wait was up to 45 minutes so we left. As we walked passed the restaurant, the restaurant owner came running after us. “Oh good,” I thought, “He’s going to get us a table, slip us in somewhere.”

No such luck. He says, “Do you want to meet the new commissioner?”

We lost a City of Miami commissioner (a city council person) for our district in the City of Miami, because the elected guy ran for another office in November, and he had to give up his seat, so now they have to replace that seat for the remaining 10 months.

I didn’t want to “meet the new commissioner,” but I followed in hopes of getting an open table.

The restaurant owner brings us to this guy sitting at an empty table. Here we go, I thought, a meeting. Not lunch. I actually knew the “new commissioner,” and I’ve known him for many years. We were just speaking the week before about a village issue. The restaurant owner asked me to sit down. I asked, “Can I order then? If I sit down can I order lunch?” He didn’t answer, so I asked a few more times and finally he said yes, half heartedly.

The restaurant owner didn’t know we knew each other and his reason for bringing us over to the table was so that we, or I, could be talked into speaking up for the “new commissioner” at the city commission meeting next week – so that the commission appoints him to the seat, rather than have an election, which is what most of the residents in the district/village want – a free and fair election. Not an appointment.

What bothers me after I thought about it all later, was that the restaurant owner didn’t know the “new commissioner” and I knew each other. So why did he grab me to speak up at a meeting for a stranger in his eyes? Why doesn’t he speak up for the guy if he is so interested in him getting the seat? Probably because he worries about getting involved in politics because it would hurt his business. But I should get involved?

When the “new commissioner’s” food arrived I could tell he didn’t want us at the table. He wasn’t rude, but when I sked him if we were going to talk politics the whole time he said, “Yes, probably,” which meant to me, “Get out now while you can.” So we didn’t stay at the table to eat, we walked down the block to another restaurant but now I am supposed to speak for this guy at next week’s commission meeting. He has already texted me a number of times regarding this. My goal now is to get out of it, especially since most of my neighbors want an election and not me to speak up for this guy’s appointment.

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