MARCH

Spent it with my wife and kids in the coolest place. Won't bore you with the story of how it came together but it was a little beach house (the kind built on stilts I always make fun of people for living in) on a very tiny island on the gulf coast of Florida. Now the weird stuff. This island has no businesses on it. None. I think it may be by charter that none can exist, but I never bothered finding out for sure. Anyway, you couldn't just get up and go to 7/11 if you ran out of something. There's absolutely NOTHING on this island except for some houses and that's it. There are no roads on this island. Only sandy paths wide enough for a golf cart, which is how some islanders get around because there are no cars on this island. No cars on this island because there are no bridges to or from the island. Only way to get there is by boat. Weirdest, coolest place I've been in a long, long time. And the islanders. Population is maybe two hundred but that's a total guess. Very friendly people who never wear shoes. Nasty, dirty feet everywhere because with nothing but sand it seems shoes were decided to be unnecessary a long time ago. There's a bay side and a gulf beach side. Island is maybe 600 feet wide between the two. I went fishing a lot off the docks. Caught eleven fish in all. I'm not much of a fisherman so I got robbed a lot. Plus the marina on the other side of the bay only had live shrimp once, the rest frozen and I wasn't as lucky with that. Did learn that there's a saltwater version of a catfish though. Caught one. Just did catch and release. My soon to be three year old son would run out to the dock whenever I caught a fish and get all excited and hold it, talk to it, then would help me throw it back to the water. Then would yell, "Now catch a shark, Daddy!" Never did meet his demand. We went to the beach almost every day we were there and Jack and Mina had a blast. Sandcastles, burying Jack's feet, finding shark's teeth, running waist high in the water all on Jack's agenda. It was a blast. Mina who walks like Pearl the drunk landlord in Will Farell's Funny or Die internet bit loved the beach as well. My wife and I went body boarding several times and I STILL have bruises from it. We went just after a couple of storms and the waves were pretty crazy.
Now there's more to tell and one story is about Rudy...Rudy was with his family for a week about an hour from where we were, so he took a day and came and hung out with us on the island and I have a good story about him but I don't know if I should wait the several months and tell it on the air or tell it here...but for now I have to go cuz of my kids.
Oh, real quick. I feel different after living a month like that. For the first time in my adult life I didn't read a single newspaper for an entire month. Most days I barely noticed what time it was. Every day I had to think about what day it was. It was like forced relaxation or stress rehab or something. Only way I can describe it is to say living on an island makes you believe in the present. I never realized till now how much worrying about the future or dwelling on the past I did. I'd like to say I'm done with it. But I worry I won't be. Ah, I won't dwell on it.