We live in a nice, safe, friendly neighborhood on a small island.  There are about six hundred homes, a golf course, two parks, and the only access is by way of two small bridges.  So unless someone is visiting someone who lives on the island, whoever you see driving by probably resides here.  And the people driving by are one of the many things that we like to comment on to each other during our walks.  Some of the cars themselves are interesting.  We have on the island at least one Ferrari, a couple of Bentleys, and a high-end Aston Martin that purrs like a cat even at the illegally high speed at which it always seems to be traveling.  Most of  us who live here drive nice, normal, modest late model cars.  But some drive what in my grandfather’s day would be referred to as a “Jalopy”, in my father’s day, a “Heap.”

For years we used to see an old, rusted Cadillac.  We always saw it at the same time each evening.  When it was new it may have been yellow, but a combination of rust, a lack of maintenance, and many, many years of the relentless south Florida sun had rendered it a patchy, sickly shade of parchment, like the skin of a slightly jaundiced old man.  Even when it was getting too hot to walk, but before we realized that it was too hot to walk, we’d see this car with its windows rolled down.  Where we live there is only one excuse for driving with the windows down in the hot weather.  The air conditioner must not have worked.  The radio, however, worked just fine, and was always blaring what has come to be known as “Classic (old and passe) Rock” at a volume loud enough peel off what little paint this car still retained.

The driver and only occupant of this car was an elderly gentleman with gray hair combed back.  He wore a nondescript shirt.  Since we never saw him save but in his car, we never knew whether or not he wore pants.  But always, without exception, he loudly sang along with the radio, almost yelling the words as he drove by.  But that’s not all he did.  While he drove and sang, he accompanied himself on a tambourine, driving with his left hand, vigorously shaking the tambourine with his right (driving with both hands on the wheel is a highly overrated practice, uncommon here in south Florida) in time with the music.  We never saw him drive by without hearing the singing and the multiple “ting-ting-ting” sounds of his tambourine keeping the rhythm while announcing his approach and his departure through his perennially open car windows.  And we never saw him with another person in the car.  This went on for years.

We wanted to see where Tambourine Man lived.  Although most folks in our neighborhood keep up their houses fairly well, we were sure that the Tambourine Man’s house would be as derelict in appearance as his car.  But we never saw the car parked, and therefore never knew exactly where the Tambourine Man called home.  And then, we stopped seeing him.  We thought that he must have died, both because of his age, and because we couldn’t imagine anything else stopping him from doing what it was that he did with such regularity and such enthusiasm.  But we never really knew, and gradually we stopped talking about it, and eventually, we stopped thinking about it.  At least until last week.

I was out working in the front yard waiting for my wife to come home from her job at a local university, when a shiny, immaculate late model Cadillac rolled by.  It was a lovely shade of pale yellow.  The driver was a man who appeared to be in his early thirties.  It was one of those rare days here in south Florida that it is cool enough in the afternoon to drive with the windows open, so most everybody does.  And then I heard it…the singing accompanied by that characteristic “ting-ting-ting” sound of the tambourine.  I’m not a gambler, but I would bet that this young man is Tambourine Man’s son, although I have no way to know for sure.  I hope that I’m right.  I can’t imagine any other explanation.  I’ve only seen him once, so he may not even live on the island.  But that one sighting got me to thinking.  At some point in his life, this young man made the decision to sing and shake his tambourine while he drove.  He had to learn it somewhere.  On one hand, it’s silly, not to mention dangerous.  But on the other hand, how many of us have the capacity to fill the mundane moments of our day with such unbridled joy?  Maybe he learned it from his father…maybe not.  But either way, Tambourine Man is back in town.

A man could do worse in life than inheriting a tambourine from his father.

I am getting tired of telling people this because they don’t seem to listen.  It may mean that they’re just not paying attention, or that they don’t care, or it may mean that what I am telling them runs counter to what they’ve been told by others or the way in which they were brought up.  But like almost everything, my wife and I agree on this.  And I can’t think of a better time to make this request than just after the holidays.  Here goes…listen up now…STOP GIVING US GIFTS! Really…we’re not being disingenuous…stop it.  Stop it now.  No more gifts.  Really.

Why, you may ask, are we asking this of you?  We have a number of reasons.  First and foremost…we have enough “stuff.”  Way too much, really.  We have so many things that we like, things with real aesthetic value and/or sentimental value, that we can’t display and enjoy them all.  A lot of them are crammed away in cabinets, closets or drawers, and we only get to see them when we’re cleaning the house, or when we’re trying to find a place to stash some other item that we didn’t want or need that someone we like gave to us to commemorate a holiday or other special occasion, thereby instantly and magically imbuing it with the dreaded aforementioned “sentimental value.”  So there it will sit on a crowded closet shelf, until that person comes to visit, when we will panic, unable to find the item, until we eventually do, and then have to figure out some way and some place to display it, or some way to show it being used…at least until the person who originally gave it to us has left, at which time we will once again relegate it to its rightful place back in the closet, unless that place has been taken by whatever unwanted item that same person has brought us this time, in which case the cramming process must begin anew.  No…I am not entering a competition to create the longest grammatically correct sentence in the history of the English language, but this needs to be said.

RANDOM STUFF:  It matters not whether you call them tchotchkes, bric-a-brac, collectibles or decorator items…we don’t want ‘em.  Face it…we don’t have the same tastes, and this is not a bad thing.  Our taste is no better than yours, just different.  And even if we absolutely LOVE the item (unlikely though that may be) that you’re giving to us, we don’t have the room for it.  How many of us have shelves or display cabinets filled with things that others have given us that we don’t really care all that much for, but which we are forced to display in case the giver “drops by?”  Not to mention the stress and strain it causes when we are first given the item and we have to feign delight when what we really feel is, at best discomfort, at worst, revulsion.  So if you like that porcelain figurine of a marmoset drinking a beer so much, put it in YOUR house.  But if you give it to us, I’ll have to prove to you that I am pleased with it, even though “despise” is probably not a strong enough word.  Don’t do this to us.

CLOTHES:  We don’t like your taste in clothes, so don’t pick out our clothes for us.  You don’t like our taste in clothes either.  In reality, NO ONE likes anyone else’s taste in clothes.  That’s why fashion magazines are as funny as they are.  And in the odd case where you randomly do select something that one of us would actually wear (“even a broken clock tells the right time twice each day”), you’ll get the size wrong, and when we take it back to the store to get the correct size, they’ll be sold out of the item, so we’ll be stuck with an item that we like but can’t wear.  Don’t do this to us.

FOOD:  We have enough to eat…much too much, truth be told.  And chances are pretty good that we don’t really like whatever food product you’re planning to give us.  This is why most restaurants have many items on the menu, and people still can’t find something they want to order.  And even if you give us a food product that we do like, the gift generally creates more problems than it solves.  Right now in our house we have so much newly arrived chocolate that we are eating it at times of the day when no one in his or her right mind would ever consider eating such things.  Creamy Chocolate Mint Truffles, delicious though they may be, are not part of a healthy breakfast.  And even though I like to cook, I’ll select (and pay for) my own ingredients, and I’ll do so on my own timetable.  I may not feel like cooking right now, but if the expensive and perishable food that you have given me is about to “go bad”, I’m stuck in the kitchen no matter if I want to be or not.  Don’t do this to us.

WINE:  I’ve never had a drink in my life.  My wife drinks a little wine now and then, but she likes what she likes, and she likes very little.  So most of the wine that we’re given we turn around and foist onto someone else.  They in turn give it to someone else that they know, and so on.  I’ve been all over the world, and I’m convinced that some gift bottles of wine are better traveled than I am.  So if you like it, drink it, and if you don’t like it, pour it down the drain.  But don’t give it to me.  Don’t do this to us.

GIFT CARDS:  Gift cards are neither gifts nor cards.  We all know what they really are.  They are money.  Money is very nice, but we neither want nor do we (thank goodness) need your money.  We are not shy.  If we ever do want or need your money, we’ll ask you for it.  But until that day comes, don’t do this to us.

HANDMADE CRAFT ITEMS:  really?  REALLY???  Don’t do this to us.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.  But now the question arises…what CAN you do to show your love and appreciation for us and for our friendship?  Well…you can call us often, or make time in your busy schedule to visit us.  You can invite us to visit you.  We really will show up.  You can send us a card or e-mail us, just to let us know that you are thinking of us.  You can take the money that you would have spent on us and donate it to some worthwhile cause.  We love you, and we trust you to do the right thing.  Or you can adopt a pet, look in on an elderly neighbor, protect a child, volunteer your time, forgive someone for something, and so on.  Don’t tell us about it.  Just do it.  Do it for us.  Do it for yourself.  Do it for us all.  Those will be gifts worth both the getting and the giving.

So if you really love us as much as you claim that you do…now you know how to show it and how not to.  And by the way, when you receive that porcelain figurine of the marmoset drinking a beer that I just sent you, remember…based on our long and exceedingly close relationship…I picked it out especially for you!

One reason for this gridlock requires you to understand a bit about our geography.  Populated south Florida is a perilously thin, crowded, uninterrupted strip from the south end of Miami, up through Hollywood (yup…we’ve got a Hollywood too), Fort Lauderdale, and ending north of Palm Beach.  Just a few miles inland, the land is swamp…the famed “River of Grass” that includes the Everglades, the Big Cypress, and other uninhabitable territory.  So there are millions of us pressed tightly against the coast, and it works about as well as it sounds like it ought to.

Our expressways (HAH !!!) are at a standstill at anytime that anyone would want to go anyplace.  If your idea of a good time is to go for a spin at 3:30 am on a rainy Sunday morning…no problem.  But if you want to go have a meal, or go shopping, or sight see when there are actually sights to be seen, you’re in for some disappointment.  Now I get it at “rush hour,” but I’m talking about most other reasonable times of the day.  Your car can depreciate half of its value just trying to get across town.  We have a lot of water here, and only a few causeways and bridges to cross all of that water.  If there should be an accident (as there was last evening on the causeway that I must cross to get to my home) or if one of the many out-of-date, badly designed drawbridges should fail (as they often do) then you can be sitting in your car for hours, going absolutely nowhere.

And of course, this situation is compounded by the fact that all of the main roads are under construction all of the time.  I know this to be true by the thousands of traffic barricades I see everywhere, being carefully watched by men leaning on shovels or sitting idly behind the controls of non-moving heavy equipment.

So how about a detour?  Well…good luck with that.  In most parts of the country, when the main roads are backed up, you can drive around the blockages by cutting through residential neighborhoods.  Not in south Florida.  In south Florida, many residential neighborhoods have had any street that could be used as a shortcut blocked off at the request of the residents.  Of course these same residents complain bitterly when they cannot cut through someone else’s neighborhood.  I know this because I am one of those “someone elses.”

The fact of the matter is this…people spend a lot of money to come here for a visit, and this is a bad idea.  It’s a bad idea because you will spend most of your time sitting in traffic, which you could do at home for a lot less money.  And speaking of money, one of the problems with this whole situation is that renting a car in south Florida is cheap, unlike many other parts of the country.  I’m just back from a week in Maine, where I spent six hundred dollars to rent a small vehicle for just a week.  Sticker Shock is “shockier” when you don’t even own the sticker.  It’s a lot cheaper here, so the problem of the locals clogging the highways, which is bad enough, is compounded by scads of visitors in cheap rental cars trying in vain to get somewhere…anywhere…before they have to replace the batteries in their pacemakers.  It is the unusual trip to the grocery store that sees you arriving at home before that gallon of milk reaches its expiration date.

So take my advice.  Go out to your car, place a small potted palm on the passenger seat, turn on the heater, and spend several hours sitting in one place in your driveway.  It will be the same as a visit to south Florida, only a lot cheaper.  You may thank me later.  I’m here to help.  It’s how I roll, although here in south Florida, I roll neither far nor fast.

We were living in New Jersey, in a big old house, waiting for that new house to be finished, and we took lots of car trips.  With gas selling for about twenty-five cents per gallon, this was cost-effective entertainment.  We went to the Jersey Shore where my mother grew up.  We went to visit my grandmother in New York City.  We went to see friends in Clifton, Farmington, and any number of other small industrial towns trying to pass themselves off as suburbs.  We would start out early, make a day of it, and often we would return quite late, the lights of the factories and the oil refineries and the chemical plants giving the landscape, through the smoke and the mist, an undeserved ethereal look.

I don’t think that I ever stayed awake for an entire ride home.  Maybe it was my age, or the lateness of the hour, or maybe it was the gentle, bosomy luxury of the back seat.  No matter what I did to try and stay awake, the softness of the upholstery and the rhythm of the tires beating cadence over the seams in the roadbed would always cause me to drift off into wonderful dreams…dreams of puppies and of holidays and of good things to eat.

There was a small bridge not far from my house, or rather my parents’ house, although I always thought of it as mine.  The bridge was nothing more than a tiny hyphen on the long road home.  It crossed what must once have been a narrow creek, but was now nothing more than a muddy, weedy ditch, punctuated by derelict tires and rusted-out appliances.  It was an old bridge.  The sides were the corroded spiderweb steel of a railway trestle, only in miniature.  The floor of the bridge was made of old, thick, weathered, gray wooden planks, and some of them were loose.

I had the same graphic fears as every child.  I could describe the monsters in my closet in excruciating detail.  I knew with crystal clarity why I must never let a hand or a foot dangle off the bed.  And in my child’s mind, I could see the car, with me in the back seat, plummeting through the loose boards into the ditch.  But that fear was quickly banished by another, stronger feeling.  Those loose boards made a distinctive sound as the car rolled over them, a sound so subtle as to defy accurate description.  My pediatrician once tried to calm me down (prior to a shot, I think) by encouraging me to listen to my own heart through his stethoscope.  That’s as close as I can come to a description of the sound of those loose boards.  I have few early memories as rich and fully realized as my memories of being awakened by those boards, their heartsound telling my now-half-awake self that it was late, and I was tired, and we were nearly home.

And soon, my father’s business burned down, and we moved to Florida, and I went to school, and my father died, and I suddenly became old, and although now I’m too tall to stretch out in the back seat, and although now I do the driving, and although now I always stay awake until the end of the trip, I would give most anything to hear the heartsound of that bridge just once again, reminding me that it is late, and I am tired, and I am nearly home.

My wife and I love Halloween.  When we met these many years ago, it was just before Halloween.  Some years later, when we married, it was just before Halloween.  Each year I put on my T-shirt depicting a tiny, glow-in-the-dark vampire bat with the words “Bite Me” underneath, and the two of us carve several very detailed and elaborate pumpkins.  The folks in our neighborhood make it an annual mission to come by and see them.  We buy way too much trick or treat candy, and wind up finishing the last of it just before putting up the Christmas tree each year.  It used to be that Halloween started in early October, when the pumpkins from the north started arriving at the local schools, churches and firehouses that sold them to raise money.  Pumpkins will not grow in south Florida.  The only thing orange that will grow down here is…well…oranges.  But now the holiday starts much earlier than it used to…Halloween now starts in early July.  As soon as the Independence Day decorations come down, the stores begin to fill up with Halloween decor.  Pretty good for a holiday featuring symbols of death (skulls, tombstones, ghosts) and symbols of evil (devils, witches, politicians).  But in the past few years, Halloween has become something else.  It has become, in part, a holiday during which we take the opportunity to spoof, to ridicule, to lampoon the culture at large.  And this Halloween-to-come appears to be no exception.

Each year my wife and I visit costume shops to see what’s new.  Last week was our first visit for 2010.  We are charmed by some of the kid’s costumes (cute witch) and appalled by others (slutty witch).  Some of the adult costumes are traditional (pirate, vampire, hobo), some are funny (giant penis, giant whoopee cushion), some reflect the popular culture (Toy Story movie characters, Mario and Luigi from the video games), and some are just inexplicable (please Google “Down for the Count Halloween Costume”, and brace yourself).  And then we have the masks and the costumes that poke fun at the famous.

Several years ago, when former child star Rusty Hamer committed suicide, another former child star, Danny Bonaduce (Hey…you’re 51 years old.  Isn’t it time to lose the “Danny” and go with “Daniel” already ???) is alleged to have remarked “good career move.”  Nothing amplifies fame like death.  Elvis is a bigger star than ever, and Tupac, who died fourteen years ago this month, is still releasing loads of new material.  This year, Michael Jackson will be everywhere for Halloween, if the stock down at the costume shop is any indication.  Of the many possible Michael incarnations (including “late Michael”, when he appeared to be an anorexic white woman searching in vain for her lost nose), the Michael from the “Thriller” years seems to be the most popular.  There will be adult males dressed as Michael, there will be adult females dressed as Michael, there will be KIDS dressed as Michael (the irony here is palpable), and although I’ve seen no evidence as of yet, there will probably be dogs dressed as Michael.  Oh…I’m sorry…did I forget to mention the hundreds of costumes for your pets?  My favorite so far is the one for dogs that makes them appear to be Yoda from Star Wars.  Now I really would like to spend some more time heaping ridicule upon the notion of costumes for pets, but as a man who owns a tiny Santa Claus hat for his pet rabbit, I’m afraid that I cannot in good conscience do so.

Not everyone buys costumes for Halloween.  Sometimes a mask alone will do.  Men seem to love to dress up like the President of the United States, whoever he may be at the time.  A rubber mask, and that dark business suit and tie that you never wear anymore except to funerals, and you’re good to go.  I still see the occasional Ronald Reagan (let go already) and Bill Clinton still appears from time to time, although I generally see him in pajamas or worse, boxer shorts with hearts on them.  Jimmy Carter shows up once in a while, although the Jimmy Carter masks over-emphasize his really enormous teeth, so it’s hard to tell if it’s Jimmy Carter, or a space alien here to devour us, trying to disguise his otherworldly self as an Earthling by wearing pin-striped Armani.  And last year, it seemed like everyone wanted to be Barack Obama except for Barack Obama, who by last October 30th was already having so much aggravation that he wanted to be anyone BUT Barack Obama.  But my favorite masks this year are pictured above.  This may be the year of the Talk Show Host Halloween Costume.

All of the drama surrounding late night television talk-shows seems to have spawned something of a trend.  You can now dress up on Halloween as Jay, Conan, or Dave.  The masks hang as a group down at the costume shop.  In order to avoid having to pay the real guys for the use of their images, the company marketing these masks has very carefully avoided using the actual names of the hosts.  But since the images are not really the most accurate, each mask has a name to avoid confusing the consumer, although I would suggest that if you (or even worse, your child) chooses to dress up as a talk-show host this (or any) Halloween, your personal difficulties far surpass simple confusion.  The Jay Leno mask is labeled “Motor Mouth”,  The David Letterman mask is labeled “Talk Show Host”, and the Conan Mask is labeled “Ex-Talk Show Host.”  The masks are priced at $12.99…the embarrassment is priceless.  I thought about buying the “Letterman” mask for a split second (it seemed to be the most scary), but no longer than that.  I also wondered if, somewhere on Halloween night, the kid dressed as Leno steals the candy from the kid dressed as Conan.

So this year, I’ll once again put on my Halloween T-Shirt, carve the pumpkins, and sit on the porch with my wife handing out candy to some very cute kids.  And we’ll see little skeletons and little devils and little witches (both the cute and the slutty varieties) and so on.  Sometimes it takes a holiday that celebrates evil and death to help you enjoy life.  And enjoy it we do.  As I said…we love Halloween.  And if we see any pint-size talk show hosts, we’ll get back to you.

Some guilty pleasures are legendary. Twinkies, those little cakes that will outlast civilization as we know it. Snowballs, faux cream-injected, marshmallow frosted, coconut-topped chocolate “cakes.” Big Macs, with their “special” sauce. None of these interest me in the least. My guilty pleasure…Kentucky Fried Chicken. I prefer the “original” recipe. In the “extra crispy” you can’t find the chicken in all the breading, and in the “honey barbecue” you can find the chicken…you just can’t taste it. But the “original”…it’s mostly actual chicken, and it tastes good. It also gives you about a ten year supply of grease. This is far from healthy food, so I don’t have it very often. Not long ago the company tried to re-brand itself, and rid itself of its junk food image by trying to convince the world that KFC stood for “Kitchen Fresh Chicken.” What Nimrod green-lighted that idea? It worked about as well as you might have expected. It’s “Kentucky Fried Chicken.” It will always be “Kentucky Fried Chicken.” Get over it.

So there I was yesterday, at KFC, and hungry. This is not a good place to be when you are hungry. My wife was with me. Like so much else that we have in common, my wife feels as I do about KFC, although I do not share her other guilty pleasures. She loves Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls, chilled in the refrigerator to near-freezing. She is addicted to Jif Peanut Butter, creamy only, spread on most anything except on Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls, although I’m convinced that it’s only a matter of time before she discovers that combination. So we ordered a bucket of “original” Kentucky Fried Chicken, along with some potato wedges and some buttermilk biscuits. And we asked for ketchup to go with the potatoes, and honey to put on the biscuits. I’ve lived in the south for most of my life, and when you are eating fried chicken, you put honey on your biscuits. That’s just how it is. When we order a bucket of chicken, we always discuss when we’re going to eat the leftovers. This is as useful as discussing the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. There are never any angels, and there is never any leftover chicken.

So we got our food, and sat down to enjoy our meal. The biscuits had just come from the oven, and they were still piping hot. The honey comes in little plastic packets that cannot be opened by anyone who is not a member of the World Wrestling Federation. They are even more difficult to open when your hands are coated with a thick layer of hot chicken grease. So as I struggled to open my honey packet, I noticed something. The packet no longer said “honey”…it said “honey sauce.” Now I’ve heard of “honey barbecue sauce” and I make a mean “honey-mustard sauce.” But what in the name of Julia Child is “honey sauce?” The substance in the packets looked like honey, but what was it really? So I read the ingredients. There is still a tiny amount of honey in the “honey sauce”…eleven percent. The rest is corn sweeteners, coloring, and flavoring. So as if this food isn’t bad enough for you, you don’t even get real honey anymore. The “honey sauce” had no taste of honey (cue Herb Alpert, for all you old folks out there) whatsoever…all it was, was sweet. Now…listen closely…that sound you hear is “The Colonel” spinning in his grave. And I took this as further evidence of the decline of western culture. When the honey for your biscuits is no longer real honey, then the terrorists win.

There was no chicken left over.

So after we ate, I stopped in to my local supermarket to stock up for the holiday weekend. I thought that it might be nice to have a little ice cream, so I was looking in the freezer case, when I saw, for the first time, several different types of ice cream specifically for…wait for it…DOGS. Yes, there are now several brands of ice cream manufactured expressly for your dog. And the packages state that these products have no artificial colors or flavors. Some even claim that they are “all natural.” I guess that a lot of folks, seeing the cute, colorful packaging and noticing how healthy these products claim to be, unknowingly bought them to serve to the family, not realizing that they were…ahem…PET FOOD. I came to this conclusion because directly above the shelf with the Doggie Ice Cream was a fairly crude hand-lettered sign, with large bright red letters that read “FOR PETS.” Imagine Mom’s surprise, after little Susie said that tonight’s new dessert tasted “Yucky” and Mom took a closer look at the box! So now, the treats that you purchase for your dog (who also considers sniffing the butts of other dogs to be a treat) are more healthy and more “real” then the “honey” for your biscuits. Situations like this is why, many months ago, I named my blog “Go Figure.”

I need to stop eating anywhere but at home, and I need to stop eating anything that I don’t cook myself. I need to avoid eating ice cream unless I can have a look at the packaging first. And if I ever go to KFC again, I need to bring my own damn honey.

What’s wrong with bringing America back to Jesus? Well…a lot. In 1979, the Iranian Revolution brought Iran back to Allah, and we all know how well that has worked out, not only to the detriment of the civilized world in general, but most of all, to the great detriment of the Iranian people. I’ll grant you…they were not all that well off under the thumb of the (American influenced) Shah and his SAVAK secret police, but at least most aspects of Iranian daily life were not subject to religious law and the dictates of seventh century supernatural storytelling. Iran was (like America) a pluralistic society, with vibrant Christian, Jewish, Baha’i, and other communities woven into the tapestry that was modern Iran. Those days are long gone. Today Iran is an unapologetic theocracy, with all of the primitivism that such systems impose. And the non-Islamic Iranians? They’re not Iranians any more.

Could that happen here? Well…that seemed to be the overriding theme of this past weekend’s rally. Could we see religious law imposed in America? Like it or not, we are seeing just that. Almost without exception, attacks on such things as reproductive choice, LGBT rights, and other such areas that run counter to traditional Christian religious teachings come from the would-be theocrats…the Palins, the Becks, and the other opportunistic religious and nominally religious nut-jobs that seem to feel that a cruciform litmus test is a requirement for full access to the American dream. Do I think that most Christians feel that way? Of course not. Most Christians want to have regular, secular lives, practice their faith when and where it is appropriate, and offer that faith to their children. Even a non-believer like me can go along with that. But when you get together and try to impose your supernatural belief system, whatever it is, onto an entire nation, only problems can result. You can’t really vote such a thing into being either. In a nation like ours, the rights of a few (minorities, women, the poor, children, the sick, etc.) must not be determined by the vote of the majority. Would slavery have ended when it did if put to the direct vote of the people? As Benjamin Franklin (not known for his deep faith) is purported to have said: “Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”

I have nothing against Christianity, and nothing but love for Christians. Following Jesus’ example has brought a lot of good to this world. I just don’t want our nation controlled by ANY religious doctrine, no matter how loving, no matter how benign. The very same Christians who protest loudly restrictions imposed by the “State Religion” of Islam in places like Saudi Arabia and Iran are perfectly in okay with those who wish to install Christianity as the “State Religion” here in the United States.

So if you don’t like the president, or progressives, or minorities, or atheists, or reproductive choice, or limitations on assault rifles, or environmental regulations, or homosexuals, or immigrants, or anything else for that matter…fine. Sit around and pray all day every day for whatever it is that you want. But leave me out of it, and get off America’s case. We would be just fine (much better, actually) without your input. From my understanding of the scriptures, Jesus would probably prefer to be left out of it too. He was never much into politics, after all. He even told Pilate “my kingdom is not of this world” when he was asked about that “King of the Jews” thing. If Jesus wants to be left out of earthly political affairs, who are you to contravene his wishes? He’s got a lot more important things to do than listen to you and Sarah and Glen whine. There are children to protect, illnesses to cure, marriages to look after, animals to care for, old folks to honor, a planet to save and so very much more. That dude’s BUSY. Leave him alone, let him do his job, and thank him when you can and if you care to.

I spent a good amount of my childhood traveling with my parents. My father was an importer, and he had to travel a lot. He and my mother could not bear to be apart, so she went with him, and they took the kid, me, along with them as often as they could. Even though my father had no business in Italy, one year we stopped over in Rome for a full week. We toured the Vatican, the Colosseum, and just about every other historical sight we could find. We took day trips out into the countryside near the city. We tossed coins in the Trevi Fountain. And we ate…oh my, did we eat. Then as now, Italian food in Italy was terrific. Very few ingredients, carefully and lovingly prepared and beautifully presented. Nothing frozen or canned or otherwise tinkered with. And on our first night in Rome, my parents wanted to eat at a restaurant named Alfredo’s.

Movie Star Mary Pickford, “America’s Sweetheart” was married to Douglas Fairbanks, “The King of Hollywood.” They loved to travel, and they loved to entertain. While in Rome during the twenties, they visited Alfredo’s and loved the restaurant’s eponymous signature dish. They returned for it night after night, and asked for the recipe so they could have the dish when they returned home to southern California. Just before leaving, they presented the restaurant’s founder and owner, Alfredo di Lelio, with a gift…an ornate solid eighteen-karat gold fork and spoon, along with a picture of the two of them dining at his restaurant. Since Pickford and Fairbanks were the most popular and scrutinized celebrities of their day, Alfredo’s restaurant became very well known in America, even among those who would never travel much beyond their hometowns. The gold fork and spoon became the symbol of the restaurant, displayed with the photograph of Pickford and Fairbanks in an elaborate showcase just inside the front door.

Many years later Alfredo sold the restaurant in order to retire, but after some time the new owners, who had renamed the place L’Originale Alfredo in order to compete with copycats, convinced him to come out of retirement to act as the greeter/maitre de. He was a large man, with a nose the size and shape of a ripe Roma tomato, but noble in appearance nonetheless, in his fine fitting, beautifully tailored dark suits and subdued ties. His formal appearance belied his demeanor. He was both friendly and outgoing, with a big smile, a booming voice, and a ready, hearty laugh…and he seemed to love kids. He was the Italian version of my father, a situation that was not lost on either of them. They really hit it off. Each night of our stay, the two of them would chat while we were eating, as my mother looked on…smiling. He introduced my father to Campari and soda, which became my father’s drink of choice (on the rare occasions that he drank) for the remainder of his short life. Alfredo brought us special products to taste, including tiny wild strawberries the size and shape of olive pits. They were delicious. We ate there every night for a week. It felt like home.

Our last night in Rome arrived. It would be more than a month until we returned home to Florida. Our next stop would be Bangkok, and then on to Tokyo for several weeks of business meetings. We were going to miss both Alfredo’s food, and Alfredo himself. He greeted us as usual, and seemed as sad as we were upon finding out that this would be our last meal with him. My father had his Campari and soda, and then the steaming bowls of Fettuccine Alfredo arrived. Alfredo approached the table, and placed next to my bowl a meticulously rolled white linen napkin. When I unrolled it, I was surprised to see, tucked carefully inside…the famous solid gold fork and spoon. Alfredo watched me carefully, and burst out laughing when I finally realized what he had done. And so I proudly ate my last meal at Alfredo’s with that legendary flatware, while everyone at the nearby tables watched jealously. I’ll never forget that meal, or the kindness of that lovely man.

When we had finished, the dishes were cleared, and we had our dessert. As we said our goodbyes, Alfredo handed me one of the restaurant’s wineglasses, which had enameled on it the name of the restaurant and a picture of the solid gold fork and spoon. I carefully wrapped it in paper, and for the rest of our travels, I guarded it like my life depended on it. Somehow this fragile piece of stemware made it all the way home in perfect condition. I still have it. That trip was more than fifty years ago.

I have many memories of wonderful travels with my parents, and numerous mementos to help trigger those memories, because after all is said and done, that’s the only thing that souvenirs are good for. When I catch sight of that glass, the first thing I think about is my parents and our trips together, and then I think of Alfredo. Although he’s long gone, virtually every Italian restaurant in America serves his namesake dish. Most of them screw it up by adding things that don’t belong (shrimp, chicken, garlic, onions), or by using substandard ingredients, or by overcooking the noodles, or finding some other way to complicate or otherwise ruin this simple delight of egg noodles, butter (added twice…that’s the secret) and Parmesan cheese taken from the very heart of the “wheel”, which must come only from the caves of Parma.

That wineglass sits proudly on a shelf in my study today, like a totem…part of the detritus of a well-lived but ultimately ordinary life. The image of the gold fork and spoon enameled on its surface is as bright and clear as it was on the day the glass was given to me. And even today, perhaps somewhere, if only in my mind, my father and Alfredo toast each other with Campari and soda, as my mother looks on…smiling.

Irony seems as common in south Florida as wild giant pythons choking to death on alligators, or as common as goats being sacrificed in religious rituals, or as common as politicians’ children counterfeiting U.S. currency, or as common as the thud made by huge comatose iguanas as they fall from trees during cold spells, or as common as…well…you get the idea. This is one weird place, and I don’t know whether living here for so long has been an adventure or an embarrassment. But perhaps nothing characterizes this area more than a recent incident containing enough irony to supply our nation’s strategic irony reserves for years to come. Of course the best irony is never obvious at first. It takes a bit of mental analysis and some time during which the events marinate. Only then does the real and tasty irony emerge.

Miami International Airport routinely ranks as one of the worst in the nation. The rankings are too generous. Speaking of irony…when you fly out of Miami International you often have to walk farther from the parking lot to your flight than you would have had to walk from your home to the destination to which you are flying. The terminal looks like the waiting room in a nineteenth century Indian railway station, only the passengers are less well dressed. The only things missing are the farm animals in the open wooden crates. Rather than the crates, here in Miami livestock generally is carried on planes hidden in counterfeit Louis Vuitton handbags. This can include, but is in no way limited to, chickens, hogs, and small cattle. Miami International Airport is also ground zero for the smuggling of rare, endangered and just plain strange wildlife. Lizards, tortoises, birds, and all manner of creatures are routinely discovered in the undergarments of travelers, and usually not just one creature at a time, but dozens, even hundreds. If you see movement in the pants of the passenger seated next to you, it’s not a compliment…it’s probably just a few rare and colorful songbirds worth thousands in the pet trade (the chirping sound emanating from beneath the zipper is the giveaway). Ah…life in “America’s Tropics.” But I digress…

At Miami International Airport, like other airports around the nation, they take security VERY seriously. So seriously in fact that the airport was one of the first to receive the newest model of Full Body Image Scanners. These devices are quite controversial because they do just what the name suggests…they present the security screeners with a full body image to show if the passenger is carrying anything that might be a threat to safety on-board the plane. These became necessary when, last Christmas Day, a young man aboard an incoming flight attempted to ignite an explosive secreted in a highly personal location. So now, it’s no longer just the luggage or the pocket contents…the Transportation Security Administration needs to make sure that you don’t have C-4 packed into your underpants, or packed into what you have packed into your underpants. So…enter the Full Body Image Scanner. Literally. But this being America, everyone is absolutely convinced that everyone else is anxious to see them naked. And once again, on the subject of irony…the people most convinced that others would want to see them naked are, trust me here, the people that you would LEAST want to see naked. Last time I was at this airport, I did an unscientific research project on this subject. I sat in a chair and looked around to see if I saw anyone that I would want to see naked. I saw very few, and, having seen myself naked on numerous unfortunate occasions, I can assure you that I am unconcerned about my own personal modesty being violated for the “entertainment” of others. But apparently some people are still obsessed with this, so the Full Body Image Scanners have been configured so that they obscure the face of the person being scanned. All in all, this is a REALLY complicated and expensive ($130,000-$170,000 per unit) piece of machinery. And they are apparently not all that easy to operate.

When the scanners were delivered to Miami International Airport, the TSA began training its personnel to use them. They did not use passengers or volunteers in the training, but they used other TSA agents to substitute for the passengers. One of the agents they selected to substitute for passengers was 44-year-old Rolando Negrin. Well, dear readers, if you weren’t concerned about these scanners or about the professionalism of the TSA screeners before, you will be now. Apparently, according to those operating the scanner, who would be in a position to know, Mr. Negrin is, how shall I put this…somewhat lacking in the marital relations equipment department…and the Full Body Image Scanner revealed this unfortunate condition to Mr. Negrin’s fellow TSA “professionals.” And so the taunts, and the nicknames, and the other miscellaneous incidences of ridicule began, and reportedly grew more and more intense. And remember…these are the folks that we are trusting with our lives.

So Mr. Negrin, he of the recently-revealed endowment or the lack thereof, selected the person who he believed to be his primary tormentor, fellow TSA screener Hugo Osorno, 34. He waited for Osorno in the employee parking lot, and when Osorno arrived Negrin proceeded to beat the crap out of him…and…here comes the irony…Negin’s weapon of choice?…an expandable police baton…one that triples in length when you use it. In Miami, The Land of Irony, the jokes truly write themselves.