Foggy Day on Longboat Key

Brent Kavanaugh may like beer and "boofing" - and perhaps with a slightly more nautical theme, a Devil's Triangle - but I like a foggy day. A foggy day by the sea about captures the ideal. There's something poetic about fog, a brume that inspires a pensive gloominess.  Its mist is so often aligned with a sea-fret, a shadowy veneer upon an otherwise visible path, a muddled state yet close to clarity. What could more foreboding than to be lost at sea?

The sun hesitatingly shone through the mist as I rode my bicycle along the Gulf of Mexico Drive. The dampness made me thankful to have worn a shell but the heat was palpable through the haze and the water droplets. I questioned whether the bench at Bayfront Park would be uncomfortably dampened; whether I would afterwards be obliged to confront the indignity of a soiled posterior or whether the bicycle seat would hide the evidence. This - and the meaning of life - consumed me.

Two middle-aged cyclists (a man and a woman, likely married to one another) approached the edge of the water and fulfilled their necessity to identify their geographic novelty by asking if the tennis courts were part of the Park. My languid posture seemingly betrayed a less than temporary association, a domestic acquaintance. I told them one could also rent sailing boats and kayaks, a detail which appeared to satisfy their yearning for public conversation.

The bulk of society is today absorbed in some football game. After playing the grand piano I decided to go to Publix to collect some stores to satisfy my carnivorous urges which were tantalizingly promoted yesterday afternoon by the wafting scents from the barbecue nearby the pool where I was lounging.  That and the narcotic smell of a cigar. The cigar put me in mind of Hemingway, straw hats and Key West. The indicia of the good life. I remember seeing the old black women rolling cigars in a Key West wooden structure not far from the docks where treasure hunting was advertised. The hands of the women were smooth and shiny like the top of a mahogany table. That was about forty years ago.

My venture to the grocery store was fraught with temptation of every order - pecan pie and Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream - in addition to the burgers and creamy cheese. I love the fat.

"Häagen-Dazs is an American ice cream brand established by Reuben and Rose Mattus in the Bronx, New York in 1961.  Starting with only three flavours:  vanilla, chocolate and coffee, the company opened its first retail store in Brooklyn, New York on November 15, 1976."

Post Scriptum

At the risk of sounding like a party-pooper I have to comment on the television broadcast this evening of the National Football League Super Bowl LIII game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams featuring Tom Brady and Jared Goff as quarterbacks.  Aside from the callipygean appeal of the players (a pornographic theme echoed by Adam Levine during the half-time show when he gradually removed his upper clothing to portray his tattooed muscular torso and washboard stomach for the immediate delight of the obviously paid centerfield audience), I can't help but think this contrived circus performance motivated by the Maffia-like owners in the stands is destined to fail.  Even if the entertainment model survives for a short time it will soon resound like the Roman's notorious public folly between the Christians and the Lions. If nothing else it smacks of modern slavery visited upon unwitting youthful athletes. As well the parents of young children will have to confess that the admitted exposure to concussions is not healthy. This will effectively sideline all but the most manipulated interests in the so-called sport. Add to this incentive the contrasting attraction of something as civilized as soccer (with the contemporaneous avoidance of the cost of helmets and shoulder pads) and it is not unfathomable that the madness of American football is doomed much the same way cigarette smoking is no longer fashionable.

The lingering association of the sport with male chauvinism (while the women are expected to prepare the food to absorb the quantities of beer consumed) will also work against this ritual dinosaur.  Having to endure the game in a heated stadium further contaminates the historic and authentic value of battle.

But the final embarrassment was the exhibition of kissing the trophy football by a collection of current and former players prior to its presentation to the winning team's owner. The perversion is seemingly endless!