In Perspective

By Bill Yanger

Another in a continuing series of imagined conversations over coffee at, now, the Rod & Reel Pier. Any resemblance to persons or personalities, real or imagined, is entirely coincidental and mostly unintended.

Good morning.

It’s a wonderful morning actually.
Ahhh, a bit perky are we?

Just happy to be alive and healthy my friend. Bills are piling up, the car needs new tires, the house needs a coat of paint. Have you tried getting down an aisle at Publix lately? My mango tree is on life support, I gotta do my taxes, that Republican guy won in Massachusetts…Massachusetts for chrissakes!...oy…but you know what?
What?

We don’t live in Haiti. Poor souls…

Yeah, kinda puts things in perspective.

Right, perspective, good word. Here’s my perspective…my faucet gives me cool clean drinking water whenever I want it, my cabinet’s full of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle, Publix is a ten minute trolley ride and I can catch a trout blindfolded with one hand anytime I find the need. My roof is still above my head, not pancaked on my floor. My dog spends sunsets chasing ghost crabs not sniffing for the living and finding the dead. No hoodlum mobs looting that P&Z lady’s General Store on Pine. No aircraft carriers sitting off Bean Point waiting to deploy the 82nd Airborne into a Sandbar wed…er…unification ceremony by Reverend Charlie. Developers can still wrestle with city hall and city hall can still execute an effective arm-bar takedown of those developers when they need to. A citizen can exercise his rights and attend a commission meeting and a Commissioner can exercise his rights and schedule a commission meeting. How cool is that? I got lots of friends and I can’t name an enemy. Life is good in my world.
I hear you. We have a lot to be thankful for, that’s for sure.

Well, not to put a buzz-kill on our little feel good session, but you do know it could all end?
Huh?

We could be them.

Who?




The Haitians. We could be them. Probably will be them sooner or later.

I’m pretty sure there won’t be any earthquakes shaking this old pier any time soon. And our building rules, while maybe a little in flux, are a tad more strenuous than theirs…just ask PAR. Nope, Anna Maria ain’t Port au Prince dude.

You’re an idiot, you know that?

Hey, where’d that come from?

Okay, sorry, but I don’t think you get it. Seems most people don’t get it.

So make me get it.

I saw Homestead after Andrew. I saw the Ninth Ward after Katrina. Both complete devastation right?
Of course.

Well, an Andrew or a Katrina hits Tampa Bay and we are done. Make Katrina look like an August thunder storm over Key Royale. The National Guard will pluck us out of trees in Ocala or hanging off of some bridge piling up in Tampa, and that’s if we’re lucky. And if we stay lucky, we’ll be waiting in line for water and rice and diapers, too. Those dogs’ll be sniffin’ around for all the rest of us.
Dang, you went from perky to grim in the time it took to put cream in my coffee.

Perspective works both ways.



It’d sure throw a wrench in all this new development on Pine. Can’t imagine city hall could move forward with much of anything after a big storm. Tough to have a site plan when there is no site.
You’re right, but I bet those three P&Z guys…well, the one General Store lady and the ex-commissioner and the tall guy with the droopy mustache…would vote, again, to shove it down our throats anyway. What’s that old saying?… “tilting at windmills” …?
And they’d lose again, I imagine.

I imagine. Think of all those hideous monstrosities the city has signed off on all over town…can you say Sycamore…they’d be driftwood on some beach in Pensacola.
If only. See? There’s a silver lining to every tragedy.

If you say so, guess it’s that perspective thing again. Hey, you know some of the folks down in Holmes Beach city hall don’t you?
A few, yeah.

Any in the building department?
A few, why?

Gotta buddy over on Park, you know, where that huge banyan tree takes up half the block?
Yeah, it’s like a little tourist attraction. It’s a stud of a tree. Photographed more than the City Pier, I think.

Uh huh…well… they’ve cleared all that land down there and are selling lots, like nine of them. Last real land grab in Anna Maria. Three mil for a few of the lots on the gulf. That broker down in Bradenton Beach, the one I told you about from New York City, good guy…got the Midas touch…he’s coordinating the whole thing for the owner. Out of my league but they oughta sell pretty quick….
Yeah, so, that’s in Anna Maria. Why you asking about Holmes Beach?

Because there’s apparently some bigshot builder-developer guy from there using Park as a race track in his nifty convertible. Keeps hot-rodding up and down the street meeting other bigshots in trucks and SUV’s and traipsing all over the lots like they’re interested. Hangs at Hank’s at night with his crew.
Yeah, so?

So I need someone to relay a message.
A message?

Yeah, first, tell him to slow down, show a little respect to the folks who live there. My buddy’s still a kid at heart, nice guy, but he’s got no patience for big guys who feel the need to be seen driving fast cars…know what I mean? And he loves paint balloons. A regular Jackson Pollack, he is.
He wouldn’t.

He might. Second, tell him the lots aren’t his style. They’re deed restricted. Can’t touch the banyans. No maxed-out monstrosities, no tasteless architectural fiascos. No Sycamore, that’s for sure. The owners are looking for like-minded buyers not two-guava wham-bam-thank-ya-mam’ers. The guy’s got plenty of rehab jobs to keep him and his lawyer buddy busy in Holmes Beach. And he should head out to I-75 if he wants to burn rubber. Just passin’ it along.
Right. I’ll...uh…pass it along. So you okay?

Waddya mean?
You’ve been kinda up and down today.

I’m good. Heading to the bank. Gonna send some money to Haiti.
Nice. Keeping it real.

Keepin’ it in perspective, my friend.
See you tomorrow.

Yeah, tomorrow.

© 2010 William L. Yanger