Well, two full days left here in Corolla, and I'm wondering where the time went. Two sets of family visitors have come and gone, brother Tom rolls in tonight to join Tim, Erika, The Kitten and the Kittens and me. The older kitten got to bring along a friend on the trip, kind of a sad story. She and her family have to move away from us on the Eastern Shore because her Dad got a new job. The girls are heartbroken, and are using this little trip as a "farewell", making little scrapbooks and the like. I'll never cease to be amazed at how different little girls are than little boys, and I'm not sure I'll ever be too good at figuring it out.
Played golf with Dad yesterday--quite an experience. It was HOT, and we were stuck behind a slow group who eventually got moving with the help of the marshals. He and I tied--both shot 105--but get this. My round broke down as a 62 on the first nine and a 43 on the second. I was so off my game--huge head case on the front nine. I really let the pace of play get to me--but once things opened up, I settled down and got myself together. My Dad's been playing for nearly 60 years, and he said he never saw one guy play two nines as differently as I did.
Had a big crab feast last night--I knew it had been years since my Dad had done so, and I have great memories of hours spent at Max's Cafe in Gloucester NJ--just Dad and me--eating so many crabs I couldn't see straight. Teaching a whole new generation the proper way of relieving the little buggers of their tasty--yet hard to access--meat.
Cigars purchased Sunday remain unsmoked--haven't had the courage to run the Kitten gauntlet on this one yet. Perhaps I'll be more courageous with Tom around, or at least I can blame the bad behavior on him. He'll show up with a big bottle of vodka--so the bad behavior will be easy to generate.
Trying to sell The Kitten on this whole Outer Banks thing--she's a very practical sort, and wonders why I spend all this money to come live for a week in a house that is further from the water than the one I live in full time. The kids love it though, able as they are to cruise the streets of our quaint little neighborhood on their bikes, stoked by the big screen downstairs solely devoted to their TV watching. The truth is, I've been coming down here for 25 years, and it represents a week completely removed from the life I lead the rest of the year. Each week here is more like the previous weeks I've spent and less like the life I leave behind. Its attraction remains the same--the sounds of the beach, the food, the laughs, the family and friends, and the weather. Maybe I'm just stopping time for a week--here, I'm 20 again.
Ah, yes. Max's Cafe with Dad. I remember one time (not at band camp) we got there and the crabs hadn't arrived from the Gulf of Mexico. It was supposed to go like this; they were picked-up at PHL each day having been caught very, very early that morning, flown up to Philly, picked-up by Max's brother-in-law or some other person, cooked then consumed.
ReplyDeleteWell, there was nothing to do but drink beer and eat shrimp...until the crabs arrived. They eventually did. They were then cooked while we consumed the aforementioned beer and shrimp, then delivered to our table to thundering applause!
Max was from Argentina, his father from Germany and his mother Argentine. I once did the math and figured out that Max's daddy would possibly have stumpled over his answer to the question, "What did you do in the war daddy?"!!!!
Memories.
Who is that poor wretch on The Conservative Wahoo? Somebody give him a couple bucks for some wine.
ReplyDelete62 is atrocious. 43 is $.
ReplyDeleteCigars??? Do you have aspirations of becoming a CIA interigator and then blowing second hand smoke in the faces of those who had recently blown up the USS cole?
ReplyDeleteHey C.W. do you enjoy an H. Upmann, Hoyo de Monterrey or Punch with a rare single malt or are you a Black and Mild with Richard's kinda guy?
ReplyDeleteGHD--well, I don't drink anymore (found that no matter how hard I practiced, I got no better at it)--and my cigar is the Macanudo Portofino--though none available at the end of the 10 mile ride the other day, so I got some other Macanudo variant.
ReplyDeleteAcceptable. I think they're the biggest selling "quality" cigars. A bit mild for my taste but to each his own. As far as the drink goes, a wise and prudent choice. My plans are to do the same in, I don't know, 8 or 10 years.
ReplyDeleteNext year stay oceanfront out on the four wheel drive beach. Nothing beats it, and the constant ocean breeze means built-in cigar control!
ReplyDeleteAh feel your pain CW. Hill don't let me have cigars neither.
ReplyDelete