Strange experience yesterday.
It is difficult for me to become discombobulated. I did yesterday. Panicked!
Barbara was driving from Utica to visit. I last heard from her 7:30 in the morning. She had just passed through Jacksonville. Expected to arrive in Key West around 2.
Two came and went. As did 3, 4 and 5.
I tried telephoning. She did not answer her cell. Finally at 5:30, I telephoned the police. Assumed the worst. She had been in an accident.
Florida does not have a one call line system for accident information. An area by area system. Each has to be called individually. I started with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department. Then to the State Highway Patrol in Miami-Dade, Jacksonville, Orlando, and finally the Florida Turnpike itself.
All courteous. No help, however. No record of an accident. The Turnpike operator the best. I expressed concern. If she had not been in an accident, something worse must have occurred.
I was in the process of filing a missing persons with the Turnpike operator when my cell rang.
It was Barbara. She had been held up by traffic in Islamorada for 3 1/2 hours.
Respectfully, I ripped her a new a..hole. Why wasn’t your phone on? It was. No, I called six times and left messages. Must have been while I stopped to go to the bathroom. No, you don’t go to the bathroom that often.
Whatever.
I was glad she was alive and well. I had visions of her in a roadway ditch with her throat slit. Don’t laugh. We live in strange times.
She finally arrived a little after 9. She was mad. Felt Florida should have a better system of dealing with heavy traffic through the Keys. I was upset she had the phone turned off.
We were not on the same wave length.
Again, the police officers were helpful and sensitive to my concerns. One complaint. The State should have one number to call for accident victims. Not a sort of county by county system. In the age of computers, such cannot he difficult to set up.
A quick shower and we were off to get a bite to eat. Ended up at Tavern ‘n Town at 10:15.
As is said, all’s well that ends well!
Barbara brought several baskets of fresh strawberries and a big bag of peas from upstate New York. The season for them there. The strawberries not GMOs. Not big and shiny. Different sizes. Most small. Sweet and juicy. Enjoyed them for breakfast this morning.
The peas will likewise be delicious when we get to them.
I am in Starbucks again this morning. Comcast comes late tomorrow morning.
Starbucks packed again this morning. Most European tourists. Like a United Nations. I hear no one speaking English.
Some studies are just plain unreliable.
I love Key West. It has many pluses. Many negatives, also.
A company called WilliamHub (no space between first and last name) recently released a study. Key West was determined to be the second best Beach Community in the U.S. Two hundred twenty seven beach areas studied.
The criteria primarily involved housing costs, share of waterfront homes for sale, and the quality of beach water.
WilliamHub obviously used bad data.
A sadness yesterday. A 15 year old boy died while snorkeling at Fort Zach Beach. Cause not yet known. His family pulled him from the water and tried to resuscitate him.
Hemingway ended his life on this date in 1961 at his Sun Valley, Idaho home. Another sadness.
I close with a Trump reference. Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus in a 6/29 column wrote: “Authoritarianism does not announce itself. It creeps up on you.”
Enjoy your Sunday!