One upon a time there was a place called Peace....

The sheets weren't sandy the first night. They were crisp and clean and not yet damp from the salt air and the mist machines just outside our door. The towels were Motel white and folded like starched flamingos walking the wire, not yet heaped on the floor, dumplin's in a pile. And we laughed....


On the 7th night I cried. And we clinked. And counted our change. And decided we could never go home.

So we stayed one more night.
One more sunrise.
One more round of tides....
And laughed....



Kimbies won a bucket of Domestics at Beer Bingo
and Skinny won a bucket of Choice....
We saddled our boogie boards and rode naked in the waves....
Each new wave, the Mother of all Waves, yankin' down our britches and unlacing our ties....
We fell...
In the waves, on the deck, over the sprinklers, out of chairs, up the stairs, and in love.
We danced...
Barefooted and bikini bottomed, in gypsy gowns to the ground, and in cowboy boots. With friends and with strangers. All by ourselves.



This morning, I leaned over the deck railing, toes to the edge, and blew her kisses. Thanked her. Wayward child at the train station. She knows I'll be back. And no matter what happens between now and then, when she sees me, she'll scoop me up in her beer foam arms and rock me back to peace........



"In the End, Peace Wins...."

"Thank you, Ocean".....

The Kiss.....

I tiptoed over the hot coquina, his deck shoes with the laces hanging, one step before me. He climbed in and the little electric motor hummed, the roof folding like a sunset behind him. And he smiled. This wasn't the first time and it damned sure wasn't the last time. We had thousands of highway miles between us. I leaned over, fell into the Mustang, and kissed him hard. Stood on the mirrored parking lot and shot peace signs at the rear view mirror while he gunned it, periwinkle confetti flying....

And we laughed....

The last kiss. And we didn't even know it.

Happy anniversary, baby........

You can't make me.....

We caravaned. Met up in the Valet parking lot, squishing in between the "reserved-for VIPs"....and flip flopped up the deck to The Crab House. Oh, Man, what a beautiful day for Peace Out, coconut shrimp, french dip, and ice cold beer in a bucket. Me and three of my new best friends. I know, I know, I know, you've heard it before.....

But there we were. Instant friends. Old friends. With very short pasts. And a lotta catchin' up to do. 99 beers on the wall later, we had laughed ourselves silly, solved world hunger and been on a peace march. We had confessed, professed, dared, bribed, danced,harmonized throughHello Dolly in our best Joe Cocker voices, and scooched in closer for the punch line...

"But what if"?

"What if you won, fell into, stumbled on a gazillion dollars?"

Skipping the lengthy four-fold conversation we had about charity, clarity, responsibility and all that hoo~hah ....what it all boiled down to was this...

"But isn't it all relative? Wouldn't a blue lagoon with cascading fountains and towering palms be the same to you as a millionaire as your little vinyl pool was to you last summer?"

"Ummmm. No."

I chewed on a piece of celery. Dipped it and swirled it in bleu cheese. Chewed again.

Behind their Foster Grants I could sense their eyes rollin'......

"Lemme tell you about my little blue pool......"














When we caravaned out of the parking lot,
sunkissed and dreamy,
beerbattered and fed,
there were four make-believe millionaires dreaming about blow up pools.....

and smiling......