The Friendly Trooper

 Our neighborhood is a "Special Tax District," which means we all pay a yearly fee in order to have off duty FHP troopers provide un-needed security. It truly is unneeded -- Pinecrest's crime rate is akin to Mayberry's from the great show, but the residents voted to not only keep it, but actually increase the hours the troopers visit. We used to pay about $2500 per year -- last year it was above $3K and expected to keep rising so that we compete with the even richer neighborhoods like Snapper Creek to get our people.

I guess it IS a nice benefit, and the troopers are nice enough -- typically I just wave as I walk or drive by. But another benefit is that we tell them when we're leaving on vacation, so they keep an extra eye out. We heard about one Kendall house, owned by our neighbor Lori's father, where they actually brought a moving truck and cleaned the whole house out while the Dad was away. Hopefully that won't happen -- wouldn't want to lose our 5 year old desk tops or aging smart TVs...

Anyway, this am I walked over to the SUV painted black and yellow, and the fellow rolled down his window. And we talked --for a good 30 minutes. He was a Cuban guy, probably mid 50s, and we hit it off right away. Well -- half Cuban. I noticed his name was Scalia, and sure enough - -he had an Italian Dad who died when he was young (parents met in Havana) and yes, he's a distant cousin of the late SCOTUS fellow. Interesting Miami connections...

We talked of life -- he's married nearly 30 years and has an artist son in college in Milwaukee, and a 16 year old son in high school ("We got to travel a lot because of my wife's international job, so we started late.").

I told him we were going on a river cruise, and he and his wife took one last year -- the Nile. I asked if he saw any baskets floating by the boat -- he got the biblical joke. He noted that for a Miami Cuban working guy, he's seen a lot of the world.

We both have wonderful wives who, once in awhile, almost never, don't look at the bright side of things. He told me he awakens each day and thanks G-d and Jesus for another day on this planet -- I told him I did the same, but not the Jesus part. He got that, too...

He took down the information, and I wished him safety on his job. He thanked me, but allowed as he didn't do patrol work -- he was the DOT representative, and mostly inspected interstate trucks for safety issues. Ah yes -- much better than encountering maniacs on state roads...

Before my encounter, I reflected on life again -- something Dr. Barry and I discussed over martinis on Zoom Friday night. I've taken to trying to be like the great cinematic method, the one where the camera shows a scene of high drama, and then pulls away, sometimes all the way up to show the entire planet earth. Barry reminded me that was a fine shot in "Forrest Gump," with the feather.

English 101 students get the symbolism. What seems SO critical and anxiety producing while you're in it, is meaningless in the big picture.

Sometimes the painfully obvious brings me great comfort. I recall when my Dad died -- so many people said so many nice things, and yet only one conversation resonated. Jim Ash, the Honors Director and professor or Religious Studies, who went on to a life out of a Carl Hiassen novel, hugged me and said "Dave -- sorry about your Dad -- but we ALL do it." Yes we do, and it reminded me that though I was just 21, someday I would die, too, just like Dad -- so no big whoop, really.

So today I'll try on jeans and slacks, for the happy reason that I've lost weight and many of them slide off of my smaller tuches now. I don't wish to give the upscale fellow Tauk cruisers reason for that kind of laughter...

I need to drop off the Special Needs Spaniel with D2 -- Bo will be bunking with enormous Betsy and skittish Spaniel Lemon while we're gone. And then Friday it's off to MIA, and a 777 ER across the ocean -- the only tensosity is whether we have enough time to make our connection to Budapest at LHR -- if not, we have an extra day to get there before the trip really begins.

Eric and Dana are flying through Paris on an even later flight --CDG is a mess, too, but I think they have a longer layover.

But one way or another, the two brothers of different mothers who started drinking cheap beer together at the UM Rat in 1979 ought to find themselves, with our long suffering wives, drinking top shelf stuff on a luxury boat on the Danube.

Yep -- plenty of reason to thank the Big Man -- I leave it to Trooper Scalia to say it to his supposed son...