A Single Moving Truck

So as my new found walking energy continues, this afternoon, following a heavy downpour, I decided to do my third 1.1 mile circuit.  It was a dark and gloomy path -- also very quiet, even for a Friday afternoon.

As I rounded the corner, I saw a moving truck in front of Wifey's friend Shari's house.  I saw her daughter a few weeks back -- she told me they would be leaving by the end of July.  Sure enough...

Shari and her husband Dr. Bob moved to the 'hood in 1968.  Both of their grown daughters grew up here -- one still lives with Shari, and commutes to work as a horse trainer up in Davie.  Her sister, more mainstream, also lives in Davie, and Shari is moving to be closer.  The younger girl wants to stay -- she told me she loves this 'hood, and Davie lacks our tropical foliage.  I have a feeling when her Mom dies, she might take her inheritance and move back.  We'll see.

I miss Dr. Bob.  I met him soon after we moved in, in '01, early in the am.  He was walking his beloved boxer Sam, and he cut quite a figure.  He must have been 6'6", with mutton chop sideburns, and a loud, booming, educated voice -- sounded like Burl Ives to me.  His last name was as WASPy as they come, and I immediately decided he was a Protestant doc from maybe Missouri, or some such place.  Nope.  Turned out he was a NYC Jew, who had received his medical degree in the Netherlands, and was the oldest practicing dermatologist in Miami.

We'd chat in the mornings whenever he walked by.  I adored his political incorrectness, and wit, and intelligence.  When he finally retired, he complained that he would read the Miami Herald in 15 minutes, the Wall Street Journal in 30, and the NY Times in 45 -- leaving him nothing much else to do the rest of the day.  I gamely suggested maybe he volunteer teach -- with his decades of experience, surely UM or FIU would love to have him.

He told me something I keep to this day: volunteers aren't valued.  He was old fashioned and conservative -- but he told me in a capitalist society, you must pay for things of value.  He told me he'd had plenty of poor patients -- but he always expected they pay something -- even if it was a barrel of tropical fruit.  This way they followed his advice.  If he was free, he reasoned, he wasn't worth a damn, even to his patients.

Years later, when I became a Guardian ad litem, Doc was proved right.  I attended a phone conference about my ward, with no fewer than 9 bureaucrats on the line -- social workers, case managers, psychologists, teachers, Program lawyers, etc...When it came time to actually have someone DO something -- go check out the potential home for the ward and her coming baby -- they asked ME to drive to Florida City.  I barked that I was the only volunteer -- one of these functionaries could damn well go.  I thought about Doc that day.

Anyway, he died a year or so ago, and Shari decided to pull up stakes.  Wifey is her book club friend -- I assume they'll stay in touch.  Shari's best friend, Lori, lives in our 'hood.  They're all members of the LWC, or Lucky Wives Club.  All have successful husbands, and none have to work.  Nice gigs, if you can get 'em.

As I walked past, I reflected on their family home of nearly 50 years.  Almost no one stays in one place that long.

My childhood home, the one I still dream about when my dreams turn to my childhood -- my family was there a whopping 17 years.  Hell -- my Mom lived in her condo, the place none of us considered home except Mom -- for 33 years.

In February, we'll have lived in Villa Wifey for 17 years.  The memories here are priceless -- Ds going from girls to women -- tears -- but mostly laughter and love.

And I guess, at some point, just like Shari's home of much longer duration, it'll all come down to a moving truck on, maybe, a stormy afternoon.