March 6, 2008--Snowbirding: Who's Here

Cousin Esther, who now lives in Boca Raton after years on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan, enjoys life here; but she also misses some aspects of living in New York. Sort of like us while Snowbirding in Delray Beach.

She knows that when we are in the City, we have coffee every morning at Balthazar in Soho. It remains a trendy place though for us it has slipped imperceptibly into our Big Apple routine. When there, to tell you the truth, we hardly any more notice who might be sitting across from us since we’re more involved with the coffee itself and the talk among those few of us who remain as “regulars” years after the neighborhood changed and most of the artists moved out and the hedge-fund guys and the boutiques moved in.

But Esther still wants to know who we encountered there since the last time we had dinner together at Veri Amici nearly a year ago.

Trying to remember, I finally manage to dredge up a few names and reported that K. D. Lang was there just before we headed south. And Rona added, Daniel Day Lewis. I remembered Salman Rushdie and Kate Hudson. And Rona mentioned Jon Stewart and Alan Rickman. I chimed in with Meg Ryan and Alan Rickman.

“Enough,” Esther said, “I just wanted to be reminded of what I’m missing. Though, to tell you the truth, not that much!”

“And, oh yes,” I was on a roll and couldn’t restrain myself, “there were Uma Thurman and Yoko Ono.”

“Oh Yoko,” Esther said, “She’s a good one to see. How did she look?”

“Short,” Rona said, “Very short.”

“So you must miss Balthazar. Being here, I mean. I’ll bet you’ll never see Daniel Day Lewis in the Green Owl.”

I admitted that that’s unlikely and so Esther asked if we missed our life in New York.

“Just last night, for only a few minutes,” Rona said, “I had thoughts about New York and what I was missing. Seeing our friends of course; but you know, not much else. I am surprised, in fact, how little I miss the place. I was worried that after two weeks here I’d be bored and itching to get back. But it’s almost two months now and I feel we’ve just begun to scratch the surface in getting to know the area. We keep finding unexpected things. This may sound silly, but I’ve never had better tomatoes than the ones we found at the Woolbright Farmers Market. They may not be the meaning of life, but they will do until a better answer comes along.” And she quickly added, “I’m of course speaking metaphorically. I wouldn’t want you to think something like tomatoes have become that important to me. . . . Though they are remarkable.”

Esther looked over at her questioningly and Rona said, “I’m only half kidding.”

“But what about you, Steven, it can’t all be about tomatoes for you.” She winked at Rona.

“Well, I do love them and all the other fresh, good things we’ve ferreted out. From the earth and sea. When you’re living right by the ocean these kinds of natural things begin to mean a lot to you.”

“I understand,” Esther said.

“But you know, you asked about who we had seen recently at Balth. And though I can’t deny it’s fun to run into Jon Stewart and to give him a bit of a hard time about his performance at the Academy Awards, we’ve also been meeting and getting to know quite a few interesting people at the Owl and elsewhere.”

“Give me some examples,” Esther asked. She knows that Rona and I are solitary by nature, not very gregarious, and she was therefore justifiably skeptical about the “quite a few” part of what I said. So Rona and I gave her a quick list:

Jack is the first person we met. He’s from North Carolina and is retired. He was an executive with a furniture manufacturer and drifted to Florida to help take care of his parents when they began to fail. He’s full of spit and vinegar and talks a blue streak. So much so that the staff at the Owl always threaten to charge him rent for his seat at the counter. He’ll talk about anything that interests you, but especially about what interests him. Golf more than anything else is his favorite subject. He’s travels the world to play all the great courses and just yesterday told us about playing with his late friend, tennis great Arthur Ashe, who regaled Jack as they raced around in their golf cart with wonderful, not to be repeated John McEnroe. At first Jack seemed to us to be too much of the Florida that we didn’t want to be a part of—the retired-golfing part, but he is so much fun and so energetic and interesting that for him we have chosen to make an exception.

Then there’s Charlotte. She’s an insurance agent in Boca and lights up the place when she comes into the Owl for breakfast. She’s one of the few people who were born and raised in Delray and has seen all the changes—the downs and now the ups. Other long time residents pine for the old days when Delray was a sleepy place, but not Charlotte. She likes the fact that the controlled growth here has meant that there is all sorts of work for young people; and so, if they want to—and most do—they can have an income and a life without moving south to Miami or north to Atlanta.

Troy always sits at the end of the counter down by where the Owl stashes the left-behind newspapers. He owns two tow trucks and in spite of rising gas prices manages to eek out a living. He’s married to one of the waitresses. Troy is from upstate New York and like Jack followed family south as they sought to get away from the deteriorating economy of New York’s rust belt and the lake-effect snows that buried them every winter in cold and isolation. He sits by the papers so he can get his hands on the New York Times crossword puzzle. Rona is always happiest when she gets the seat next to his so they can work on it together while schmoozing about what else is in the paper. Especially this winter the presidential primaries about which he knows a lot and has many nuanced views. Listening in on his morning monologue is about as good as tuning in to Morning Joe on MSNBC. Troy can and does take all sides or all perspectives so on his “show” he doesn’t need any guests.

Joe is a morning regular. Like Jack, he too is retired, but not in the traditional way because of age. He’s only in his late 30s and made a fortune, according to another regular, in the construction business. One he built literally brick by brick. We’ve gotten to know him and over the weeks we have learned his life story. He wasn’t much good at school so he dropped out at 16 and joined his father who was a bricklayer. Joe got quite good at that but quickly realized he didn’t want to do only that for the rest of his life, so on weekends he began a handyman business, doing home repair jobs for people he knew. He was so good at it, he could do so many things so reliably and well, that quite soon he gave up his day job so he could tend to his rapidly-growing business which almost as quickly he transformed into a full-blown contracting business. He’s from New Jersey and was fortunate to catch and ride the rising real estate boom. In addition to building and selling houses, Joe also segued into constructing commercial properties, including structures that housed electronic communications networking equipment. A very specialized form of construction he told us about one morning, the details of which I have not only forgotten but never even understood. Bottom line—his company got so expert at this kind of work that he received a $200 million subcontract from, he told us with a hint of embarrassment, Halliburton. And soon thereafter, with that in hand, he sold his company, got married, and moved to Delray so that he could spend most of his time helping to raise his children. Though he is concerned now that his four-year-old daughter and soon-to-be-born son need to see daddy and mommy do something outside the house so they will learn about the importance of work. So he’s started a handyman business again and is looking for small jobs. He promises not to grow it, and vows no more dealings with the likes of Halliburton!

Clarissa is a waitress at the W ___ Diner. I have never met anyone with more emotional and physical vitality. Or a more optimistic spirit. I don’t know how she does it. She works three jobs to keep her head above water and also is studying to become operating room assistant. Every morning we hear about the operation she witnessed the night before. It’s sometimes hard to keep the food down as she goes into lurid detail. Rona, of course, loves every word. She’s already a trained and certified EMS technician but can’t find any work of that sort since one of her jobs, helping out at her son’s school, which she is committed to continue, conflicts with the rare fill-in EMS jobs that have been offered to her. She thinks, though, that if she can complete her OR training at about the time her son moves on (she works at his school since he “has problems there” and she wants to be available every day to intervene to help him if he needs it—which unfortunately appears to be often), at that time she’ll be able to put the pieces of her plan together. That is, unless her Multiple Sclerosis “gets her first.” As she puts it with a chuckle.

There is also Michele who started the Woolbright Farmers Market where Rona gets her metaphoric tomatoes. You’ve met her before. She’s the Thanatologist who works with the dying and their families. But as an antidote to all the illness and death and sadness she longed for some work in her life that was about growth and life and vitality. Thus her interest in organic produce. But as we have witnessed, the market has turned out also to be a venue for her to continue her deep and caring involvement with people who are both her customers and friends.

Mrs. Wilson is the mother of two sons who own Wilson’s Barbeque. As in most Florida towns there is a decidedly black section here, which in the not-to-distant past was known by too many white locals by a very different, now unprintable name. But call it now what you will—it still very much exists and Wilson’s is situated right on the border of it and that part of town where the white folks live. One sultry day Rona and I were sitting on a couple of chairs while the younger son (the older brother is the pit master) was slowly filling take out orders. Ours included—a half order of ribs and two pulled-pork sandwiches with extra-hot sauce. Next to me was an elderly woman who turned out to be Mrs. Wilson. Without glancing my way she began, unasked and unprovoked, to tell her story. How she grew up on a farm not too far from where we were sitting. “Out there by those gated communities. You know in those days there was nothin’ but farms. Tomato farms.” Rona’s ears perked up. “Lots of them. Hundreds, maybe thousands of acres of them. Nothin’ but tomatoes far as you could see. Most of them for canning. To tell you the truth I don’t know where they sent them.

"All I know is that my mother and father and all my brothers and sisters we worked those farms. I had four sisters and three brothers. All older than me and all of them now passed.” She took a deep breath and continued, “Well, it sure was a different time back then. It was hard work but honest. Not what I see around me these days.” With a grand sweep of her arm she took in the entire town of Delray. “No, no. No sirree. Those days are gone. But I’ve got two good boys here.” Her smaller gesture took in both of them and their modest place. “Yes sir. I’m mighty proud of them. You see,” and for the first time she turned to look at me, “it’s very difficult for boys like them [the younger son looked to me to be at least 50]. To make a go of things. Even to survive. I’m one of the lucky ones to have boys like mine. Working so hard. To have their own business. How many folks like us do you see with businesses like this one here? Not that many. And do you know why?” Without stopping for my attempt at an answer, she answered her own question, “That’s ‘cause there are too many things pullin’ on boys like these. And then those that want to get started, how easy is it for them to get the help, the backing they need? I’m here to tell you, though things have changed since I was a girl, not by that much. Not enough.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think what to say. So she said, “Looks like Henry’s got your order ready. Enjoy it. They know what to do with ribs. It was nice talking with you.”

You’ve met the owner of Ocean View Optical who makes a good enough living selling designer frames to folks from the gated communities to keep his two kids in private school and to enable his wife to stay at home and, as he puts it. “shop ‘til I drop.”

Neighbors here include a former MIT professor who is also the CEO of a significant electronics business in Cambridge and who was also the former chair of WGBH, Boston’s public television station; two teachers from Valley Forge who also now own a string of inherited, family-developed properties in Palm Beach; a 95-year-old Nantucket scion who has three places here—one for herself, another for her daughter, and a third for her daughter’s daughter. So that one is always here to look in on her. She is known as Ticket, and she is undoubtedly, considering her noble and at times imperious being, the etymological source for the proverbial “That’s the Ticket”; another couple are originally from Oceanside, Long island but now live in upstate New York where he has numerous car dealerships; one fellow, Joey, owns one of the smaller places and comes here every afternoon after the stock market closes—he’s a trader—to spend two hours windsurfing; another is the mayor of Boca Raton who keeps a place here for weekends, but we’ve never seen him or any member of his family; then there is Phil who hides out here as often as possible—not from creditors or the law, as far as we know, but rather from his 97-year-old mother who, if she knew where to find him, would call her, he claims, at least 50 times a day—to let him know about every belch, hiccup, and yes bowel movement.

Other’s we’ve met thus far include the owner of our place and her partner. Sharon was a moderately successful player on the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour and after she gave it up in her early 30s went to work for a golf and sports management company which she now owns—she has more than 200 employees, manages all the public golf courses in Broward and Palm Beach Counties and on the side runs the annual Delray tennis tournament with has attracted James Blake and Andy Roddick among others. Not a usual line of work for a woman!

There’s Johnny Mango too. That’s in fact his name, and he’s also from New Jersey. He owns and very personally operates the areas largest and most exotic garden center. While wandering among his thousands of orchard plants Frank Sinatra pours forth from dozens of speakers. After a while, it gets under your skin and you end up with a bounce in your step and armloads of orchids and bromeliads you bop out to you car, which is parked at its own specially demarked place—“Vic Damone” or “Frankie Avalon” or “Robert DeNiro” or “Tony Bennett,” but not in the Chairman of the Board’s spot where the Mango Man’s red Corvette is perennially and conspicuously parked.

Christopher, the busboy at the Owl, also works on computers and is trying to save enough money to get himself back to Australia where he has been promised at job at a botanical garden. Brian was last year’s RE/MAX’s real estate salesman of the year and is somehow still doing well in spite of the collapse of the local real estate economy. “Guys,” he says, “from Latin America are still showing up with suitcases full of hundred dollar bills and buying $10 million casas by the ocean.” His brother had been the manager of the Florida Marlins and is now general manger of the Seattle Mariners.

And my mother’s roommate at the HealthSouth Rehab Hospital is a Cuban woman, Minerva, who had a moderate stroke and is visited every day at lunch time by her daughter, whose husband is a Formula One racecar driver, and daughter-in-law who bring her Cuban food. She hates the hospital fare and who can blame her when there are instead plates of homemade ropa vieja and arroz con pollo and rice and beans. Rona and I are careful to coordinate our visits with theirs and always remember to bring our own utensils. They are a wonderful family; and, though Minerva has a long way to go before she can again be independent, with that loving family, and not to leave out that food, she will be fine. Just fine.

And so will we be down here away from New York. Though I do miss those mornings with Salman. But to tell you the truth he hasn’t written anything terrific since Midnight’s Children. So who cares!

But we’ve run out of tomatoes and need to get some more.