After reading a plethora of newspaper articles this weekend I decided to push back from the table of public affairs. It is not that I am giving up on our world but I need a break. Trade wars, impeachment, Brexit, Iran and North Korea will just have to wait. Time for some fun thinking. 

Several years back I happened upon a woman on a deck overlooking the Atlantic in Ponte Vedra. She was chatting with a friend and wore a red baseball cap. I apologized for smoking a cigar but was given absolution for it was my birthday. This cute damsel immediately threw a question at me. “Is your life a roller coaster or a merry go round?” What a fascinating  question.

In a dose of revery I am contemplating deeply on this beautiful Florida morning. We or at least I tend to look at things in an analytic terms. Is it this or that and then we apply some sort of standard to see if our theorem is valid.  When do we just stop and have fun? No right or wrongs, just letting it rip.

If you were a fish what type would you be? Would you sport dazzling colors or would want to blend in with reefs on the ocean floor? Do you travel in schools or pods or do you search the ocean like the Great White? Part of the food chain or king or queen of the undersea world? Me? I think I would like to be a porpoise. Cavorting with friends and sometimes veering off on my own. Chasing an ocean liner or freighter and having people look down and say, man I wish I could do that. Funny thing is they can.

Birds are interesting creatures. At our little refuge called Harbour Ridge there are thousands of them of all shapes and sizes. Some are delicate, some are brazen. They all patrol looking for their next meal. There is an osprey nest high above our seventh hole on one of our golf courses. It’s a par three and you usually wait for the green to clear. You get to know the family and the cycle of life as they grow from chicks to kids and rehearsing for their first solo flight. Real life.

Sand hill cranes are graceful and unruffled. Egrets soar and swoop. Cardinals shoot by and their color is surprising on the oh so green landscape. The ducks spawn their flocks and they parade through the ponds with Mom watching closely. Their numbers dwindle as they become breakfast or dinner for some gator but it is part of life. I think the osprey would be me. Observing my milieu from an aerie and hopefully raising a decent family. 

What if I was a car? Here the possibilities are endless. Are you functional and practical or are you gaudy and ostentatious?  Prius or Porsche? Ford or Ferrari? Is your top down and blaring some music that you sing along to or are you hermetically sealed and away from the outside world? 

You belong to a club and of course you must keep up with the Joneses as you make your grand entrance in the parking lot. BMW or Bentley? Maybe something more classic like a 65 Mustang or vintage Mercedes roadster. But then again maybe your club is not country but local. Perhaps we are taking about a big ass Ford F250 and everyone leers jealously as you pull into you local watering hole. I would probably be an Audi. Q5 for some room but not too big. Dark green with tan interior. Neat but not gaudy. 

Clothes are fun. I laugh when I see the weekend segments of the New York Times or WSJ. There is some pain in the ass designer from Milan, Paris or New York who wants to tell me that I am dated. Maybe I am but I don’t want to hear it from him or her. My nephew tells me pleats are out. BFD. It is a metaphor of how you feel in your own skin. Constantly changing or comfortable with what you got. 

 Dress codes seem to be going by the wayside. We were in a very nice oceanfront restaurant the other night. It was special night and we tried to dress accordingly. Across the way were two couples and the guys were wearing tee shirts and ball caps. If clothes make the man I wonder what that meant? I guess for me my appearance is a thing of pride not haute couture. Do people not care how they look or is that their way of expressing themselves? Good question. 

All this meandering up and down the hallways of my mind is to me a lot of fun. Thinking outside the box. Trying to simplify the world not make it more complicated. Not trying to invent the latest and greatest but studying the present lineup of Mother Nature and our everyday lives. Taking all we have and making it relevant without yearning for this or that. We are indeed lucky no matter what our lot. 

Getting back to that cute girl in the ball cap. A gust blew up and knocked it off her head. Beneath she was as bald as I am. She was there for a month undergoing chemo at the Mayo Clinic. I don’t know if she made it but she really got me thinking. I thank her for that. It made me pause and I try to do so every day. I hope I got you trying to do the same

As always

Ted The Great  

Factoids:

In 2017 there were 237 existing car models on sale in the US with 38 new models introduced. There are 1.2 billion cars on the roads worldwide at the present time with 2 billion expected by 2035. 

There are a collection of 16 million colors a computer can generate. The question of what is your favorite is complicated. Add to that is the fact you and I see and comprehend colors differently. My favorite color is green. Look out your window and tell me how many shades of green you see.?

There are over 24,000 species of fish worldwide. There are at least 18,000 species of birds. Try to define yourself in that crowd. If you think about it their designer is not in Paris and most likely of another world. At least I think so.