NEW YORK — A funny fictional book (Jerry Klinger’s Boynton Beach Chronicles), reviewed in last week’s column, has triggered memories of our real-life visits to the Sunshine State.
“Triggered” might be just the appropriate word, as I recall an invitation by a cousin-by-marriage we were visiting, to accompany him to a Florida gun show. Guns are something I’d studiously avoided since serving in the U.S. Army years before, and my only conversations about them since have been to urge tighter legislation about owning the weapons.
So my first impulse was to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Then came an afterthought: Shouldn’t I actually experience what I’d had a preconception about?
Accordingly, I accepted my Boca Raton cousin’s invitation, and the next morning went off to a show that I fully expected would be attended by stereotypical bikers and “hold your ground” types. Instead, and somehow more more worrisome, was the fact that a great many of the visitors were young fathers holding their youngster’s hand and quietly enjoying a stroll through and holding a weapon, as if they were at a toy show.
On the subject of weapons, on another visit, we were guests of longtime friends at their timeshare on Marathon in the Florida Keys. When we entered the apartment, we noticed a knIfe left behind by a handyman who had fixed their blinds, as requested, Looking at the tool up close, we saw that the handle had a carving of a Ku Klux Klansman.
When we returned it to his supervisor, with a comment about the Klan fan, his boss shrugged it off with: “He’s some character.”
I wanted to try to interview the Klansman, to try to find out what and who had pushed him in that direction, but my wife and friends emphatically urged me not to do it…and I didn’t. But years later, I still wonder.
There isn’t much to wonder about that; on another visit, I was a suspected perp.
At the home of my cousin, where my wife and I were guests, I was waiting for my turn in the shower, wearing pajamas, a bathrobe and, because I’d forgotten to pack slippers, shoes. I was phoning a friend, but dropped the phone, which somehow must have dialed 911. Probably suspecting I might be an intruder, a woman officer or clerk at the precinct asked if I’d mind speaking to an officer. “Not at all,” I said, and waited and waited in vain, finally hanging up.
A few minutes later. another call came in from the same individual, who again asked if I’d mind speaking to an officer, this time not on the phone, but in person, outside the house. Again I responded, “Not at all,” and then started to look for appropriate attire. Since it had started to rain, quite hard, I grabbed a woman’s raincoat, a man’s hat and someone’s umbrella.
I headed outside to where a young police officer was lurking around the corner of the house.. I complimented him on his quick response time, then explained that I was a cousin of the owner of the house, that she was at work, etc. He looked at me strangely, as if to say that, dressed as I was — pajamas and shoes, as well as umbrella included in the wardrobe –the only person I could possibly harm was myself, and wished me a great day.
Which, in a strange way, it already was.
The only things that would have made it better were slippers, and a tighter grip on the phone.
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(Spoiler Alert: next week, more, Florida experiences)
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Joel H. Cohen is a freelance writer and humorist based in New York City.