The irony continued: all of Longboat Key toddled unprotected for weeks after the schools closed in and out of Publix touching the fruit, stroking the ATM machines and coughing at the deli counter.

The City Manager made some critical errors this past year, but he did do one thing right. He would do well in baseball — hitting the ball successfully one out of three times ain’t all bad!

Tree clinging to the edge of City Island. Photo by Steve Reid

Thoughts raced through my head: Is there a rabid raccoon nearby? What’s wrong with Popsicle? Should we take him to the ER? I fell into the usual male mode of instinct mixed
with arrogance mixed with decisive action.

I worried that we would drive off with the money and I would end up slit throat in some shed and only a link via an eBay account and a grainy photo by airport security as my legacy. I thought of my wife and six children. I walked out with that fake faith in humanity we conjure when there is really no other alternative but to go forward with a plan.

It seems celebrities and criminals go by single names — Sting, Oprah, Eminem, Jeter, and then of course presidents and Hitler and the like all end up branded by a single moniker which culture adopts. And so the seller of the BMW insisted in three phone calls that he goes solely by Hussein and when I pushed the issue he capitulated to, “OK, Mr. Hussein.”

SCAT drivers are the most aggressive New York cab school of driving jockeys I have ever witnessed. You would think St. Armands was a closed racetrack the way the SCAT bus races to its next empty spot with a sole lonely bicyclist aboard.

The Sarasota Orchestra plans to move to Payne Park. The organization cites parking and constraints on performances as well as sea level rise as factors.

The parking of dinner patrons at the Mar Vista Restaurant in the Village of north Longboat Key is creating discord in the otherwise peaceful residential community. Is there a viable solution?

The Colony is long gone, Murf Klauber has dies and the St. Regis Hotel plan was approved by the Town. When will the future come and what does it hold for this property?