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2022 Nutshells

After 24 years in print, it’s time to say goodbye

September 3, 2022 No Comments

I didn’t realize it had been that long. Not until I counted up all the years. More than 24. Dating back to … can it be?!? 1998. Wow.

Remember that year? So long ago? Google was founded. Bill Clinton was doing things in the White House that you shouldn’t do in the White House. The Spice Girls were pretty darn popular. What a year!

It was also when I first started writing this column for the St. Augustine Record, and kept it going, uninterrupted, for 24 years. Fifty-two a year. More than 1,200 in total. That’s nearly 1 million words. Wait, do the math again … yep. I’ve written almost 1 million words in this little weekly column.

How are there still tips on my fingers? Maybe that’s why I have the calluses, and my pinky is like a crooked twig.

Now, 24 years later, I’m sad to say I’m writing the final one for The Record.

2022 Nutshells, Florida, Weather

Wrestling with the hurricane addiction bug

August 27, 2022 No Comments

It’s that time of year, and I’m feeling the pull. The call. The urge. The bug.

All I want to do is stare at weather maps, charts and forecast models. All pointed at the Atlantic. I’m in search of tropical waves and storms brewing out in that vast seething ocean. Kicked off the African coastline and riding a freight train for the Caribbean and parts north. Think: Elementary school kids released on the last day of school. Completely cut loose. All screaming, “Freedom! Let’s flatten some houses!”

Hurricane season is in full effect.

And just as the tropics start getting down to business, I get my annual hurricane obsession. Part fear, part fascination, and a whole lot of morbid curiosity sprinkled on. (Like, what would happen if two hurricanes collided … OVER MIAMI!?!). Plus, my own brand of amateur forecasting. (Translation: Another dude who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.)

I’m turning into a bit of a weather geek. I sit at my computer studying Web sites, discussions, animated maps and lots of forecast charts with squiggly lines and strange numbers that I can’t make sense of no matter how long I stare at them. Maybe it’s color by numbers? Maybe if I stare long enough, I’ll see pictures of rabbits or rocket ships?

2022 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children

Back to the back-to-school rhythm

August 19, 2022 No Comments

Oh, how quickly the summer vibe goes away. That easy-going, relaxed, smooth as a new car’s coat of paint feeling that the mornings had.

“Had,” as in past tense. What your life used to be. Calm. Peaceful. Tranquil. People rising slowly. Birds singing sweetly in the trees. A kitchen all to myself in the morning and no one with anyplace to go, and no hurry to get there.

When you are the only one working during the summer, mornings are absolute bliss. My wife is a pre-school teacher, and my 16-year-old daughter’s only summer responsibility was to see if watching too many shows on Netflix could make her TV to burst into flames.

Nobody got up before 7. Sometimes 8. Who am I kidding? There were days when I didn’t see a soul before heading off to work. This meant I “had” run of the house. Run of the kitchen. Run of the vibe. All the bird singing to myself.

Had!

2022 Nutshells, Family

Goodbye to the high-tech of yesteryear

August 15, 2022 No Comments

“Oh no!” my wife said. “The CD player on my boom box is broken. What am I going to do?”

If there was ever a more dated thing to say, it was this. Why not just mention the 8-track player in your 1978 Gremlin was acting up again? Or the VHF stations weren’t coming in clear on your rabbit-ear Magnavox?

You do know what a boom box is, don’t you? A box that brings the boom. It wasn’t that long ago we actually used these. It was a big black or silver box with a CD player or terrestrial radio that would pump out music through two bass-heavy speakers the size of tractor tires.

Total weight: Kansas!

Cheaply made in recent years, they’re only built to last about as long as you can hold your breath. But when you need one, you need one. Like my wife, a pre-school teacher gearing up for the start of the school year. A fair amount of what she does revolves around simpler technology like pencils and tape and songs about dancing hamsters learning the alphabet.

2022 Nutshells, Animals, Houses, yards and projects

A critter who is getting chummy with my critter

August 5, 2022 No Comments

My critter has a critter problem.

My critter is a geriatric 11-year-old chicken name Ruby. I think that’s 275 in people years, and sometimes she walks with a cane. She is a buff Orpington – picture what a basketball would look like if a kid glued feathers to it and stuck a beak and red comb on top.

She is the last of her brood – outliving all of her original sisters, and even a second round of poultry – to become the queen of her house: House Pollo.

Her egg-laying days are long over. She never really cared for all the work it required to provide us with something we would scramble or add to cakes. She saw her purpose as more of “house chicken.” A pet. A bird who preferred to be given the attention she deserved. She demanded to be carried around like a football, tucked snug under your armpit. There she cooed, watched the world and told you where to go.

Now, my critter has developed a critter problem. A vermin. A rat. From House Rattus. Infiltrating our chicken run, which has stood nearly impenetrable for all these years. It is wringed with thick wire mesh, locks, sturdy doors and even used to house a chicken who could dispatch invaders with a merciless strike. Not a chicken to be trifled with.

2022 Nutshells, Family, Florida, Getting old ... er ... older, Parenthood and Children

The great mystical quest for the license of drivers

July 27, 2022 No Comments

They call it a driver’s license. With this license, you are legally allowed to drive. It does not specify in the rules where you can drive. You can drive wherever you want. To the store. To Alaska. Running guns to rebels in Central America. They leave that up to you. The license gives you the freedom to move, as long as you have an instrument of movement. A vehicle.

To get this license, you must first take a test. This test will quiz you on all the keys to successful driving. It is like a mythical quest. It might be the toughest, most demanding, most psychologically grueling thing you ever do. Well, after childbirth, your first day of kindergarten, the SATs, the time you got caught with a cigarette and that time you fit the giant jawbreaker into your mouth and had to go to the ER so they could remove it with surgical tongs.

To pass this test, you must show a mastery of driving, including how to park on an incline. Forget that this seems kind of absurd because you live in a flat state where there hasn’t been an incline since 1952. That’s when someone decided to build a hill. Everyone’s ears popped from the elevation and they bulldozed it the next day. It’s been flat ever since.

2022 Nutshells, Animals, In the News

The men who fight lions, and win

July 24, 2022 No Comments

It was one of those headlines that will catch a man’s attention.

It was also one of those headlines that will make a man think. And what it should make us think is: “What’s wrong with us?!?”

Or at least some of us. The insane ones. The ones who think it isn’t crazy, or a joke. Maybe a sign that women are clearly the more intelligent of the species. I mean, if that wasn’t already obvious. But here’s more proof!

The headline in Esquire read: “8 Percent of Men Believe They Can Beat a Lion in a Fist Fight, According to New Survey.”

I have read the headline over several times to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating from bad cheese. Or victim of a prank. Or, most importantly, to reflect on whether I myself was one of the 8% of certifiable dum-dums walking around waiting – just hoping! – for the opportunity to prove themselves.

Newsflash: I’m not.

2022 Nutshells, Family

Gettin’ all veggie with it

July 17, 2022 No Comments

“You’re just going to sit there and eat that steak in front of me?” my daughter asked across the table of the little bistro in Paris.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “I definitely am. And I’m not even going to pretend it’s not delicious. Because it IS delicious. I mean … Béarnaise sauce on a steak? Talk about decadent!”

“You know that poor cow had a life before someone came along and slaughtered her, right?” she said.

“Yes, I do know that,” I replied. “And by the taste, I would say she lived a rather good one.”

My daughter grumbled at me and glared.

It had been one of my few forays into the world of red meat in over a year. I can count on one hand the number of times beef had gone down my gullet. Two burgers, a burrito, a meatball calzone and some unidentifiable substance on a sandwich in New York that may have contained meat by-product.

2022 Nutshells, Family, Travel

Dealing with the post-trip readjustment blues

July 10, 2022 No Comments

Commencing post-trip re-adjustment phase. Re-acclimation in T-minus 10 minutes. Must clean house. Must get back on a schedule. Must remember that to make money, you can’t sit around in a café all day drinking espresso.

Damn you, real life!

It’s been about a week since our little family returned from our two-week journey to Europe. So amazing! We survived canceled flights, crazy airports, Dutch taxis, Dutch bikes, the French language, jet lag and maybe the toughest of all, the line to get a photo with the Mona Lisa.

But as with all great trips, they eventually come to an end and you return home. To real life and the world you left behind. Where there are routines to remember and houses to clean. Clothes to unpack and a host of other things that make you wonder, “Why did we ever come back? Why didn’t we just join a circus troupe and live the rest of our lives as traveling carnies?!?”

I’m certain I could be successful as an artisan cotton candy maker.

Anyway, it’s over and we’re all home trying to get back into the swing of things.

2022 Nutshells, Family, Travel

Dispatch from abroad: A European summer excursion

July 4, 2022 No Comments

London. Paris. Amsterdam. A two-week adventure. Shows on the West end. Wandering the winding roads of bohemian Montmartre. Boating on the canals. And stroopwafels! Still journeying. Still exploring. So here are some random thoughts on my family’s summer adventure abroad.

• In Amsterdam, death by bicycle is a real thing. You may have heard that the Dutch love their bikes. What you may not know is that there are more than 800,000 bikes in the city and a population of only about 700,000. What this means is that 100,000 of those bikes are out there riding themselves. No human operators! Which is why you have to be so careful. Everywhere you go there are bikes. Zipping along the bike lanes like cruise missiles. We hide in the bushes watching for them. When we see the coast is clear, we dart across the road and dive into another bush. You never know when an un-piloted bike might be coming for you.