Longboat Key lies off Sarasota and to get to the CVS about halfway up the island, I had to go straight through Sarasota, across the John Ringling Causeway, over Bird Key, around St. Armand's Circle, across the northern arm of Lido Key and finally over the New Pass Bridge to Longboat. These are my old stomping grounds; full of ghosts and vivid flashbacks. I didn't suspect a thing as I drove across the state from West Palm, over FL-70 and up I-75.
As I crested over Bee Ridge Road, I realized I was going to pass the original shop where I started a plastics business in the mid 90s. It's Florida, so the whole area was much more developed than it had been. Nevertheless, I went by the site where the line between right and wrong got paved over for my ex-wife. I had another plastics guy as a business partner and our financial partner had locked us out of the building we were working in. Under the cover of darkness, we stole all our stuff -- from ourselves -- and started the business all over again across town, under a new name, without a financial backer. I squinted from the highway but couldn't tell exactly where the little shop on a cul-de-sac had been, but it was definitely gone.
Next I exited at Fruitville road. This exit had been redone since my near fatal road rage incident almost 25 years ago. Just west of the highway was super-developed with retail, but the original plaza I knew appears to still be there. It was there, halfway through a long day at the shop, that my partner and I were looking for some lunch and spotted a couple ladies walking along the plaza. As we crept by, totally obviously checking them out and got right alongside them - leering - and it was my wife and a friend!! Worse yet, Don had been checking out my wife, whom he didn't get along with. And I was checking out the friend!
A little further down Fruitville Road was the apartment complex where Cindy and I lived. It was also the site where a sheriff deputy showed up and served her with the paperwork showing that I was getting sued for $600,000. We'd been married less than a year - image coming home to that kind of news!
I didn't turn up Beneva Road to see if the Circus City Trailer Park was still there. I spent about a year at the park in a little 22 foot Prowler travel trailer. However, just a few blocks down Fruitville was the gas station where I got my propane to cook.
Further down the road I went by the Office/Drafting Supply store that made copies for me of a complete set of plans for a fifty foot trimaran. One of our customers had got all misty-eyed when he discovered we had a company subscription to Multihull Magazine. My Emma is nearly the complete opposite of a multihull but I had always thought I might build one. This customer had built the 50' trimaran in California in the early 1970s. Apparently, the man's son was not happy that he had let me copy the plans.
When I got to US41, I craned my neck but it looked like Walt's Fish Market was gone(moved apparently). My business partner and a friend/consultant, who was an economics teacher at Bradenton High School, used to go there for happy hour and stuff ourselves with steamed mussels and smoked mullet. It was often all I had for supper on a Friday.
Left onto US-41, and then a right onto the John Ringling Causeway was a little tight in a semi, but I chanced a look at the docks on the east side of Golden Gate Point. I had a Southern 21, which I had bought from our cardboard salesman, docked there. It was here that I got a round of applause for ghosting into my slip under sail. A little old lady, and her very protective daughter, lived on the first floor of the building she owned and rented the adjacent docks pretty cheap.
Next was Bird Key, a gated community, hence I didn't hang out there. Yet years after leaving Florida, when my second wife and I were auction hounds, we shipped a music box to Bird Key. I had found a rare music box at an estate sale. It was lacquered brass with intricate engraving. Inside was a little, realistic looking bird. When opened, the bird popped up and the box sang like a bird rather than playing music. My wife and I sold it on eBay for about $600.
Next up was St. Armands Circle, another interesting spin in a semi. The ‘circle’ means traffic circle with a park in the middle, boutique-y shops and over-priced restaurants around the outside. I once had a terrible blind date at a little place called Hemingway's. On the way out and back, I just put my four-way flashers on and took up both lanes around the circle. (I did yield for a few pedestrians.)
Around the northern elbow of Lido Key, it looked like the Old Salty Dog bar is something else now(actually, maybe it’s still there). I did a lot of sailing by myself, but one evening with a couple guys along, we were sailing out to the ‘Dog’ for supper. A few boats beat us to the turn west toward New Pass. We followed them in. All of us were "Wing & Wing" as the evening offshore breeze was behind us. It wasn't long after we turned that the other sailors started yelling at us. They were in some kind of race back to the Sarasota Sailing Squadron and our sails were blocking their wind. We just waved and carried on. The wind was very light and by the time we actually tied up to the dock, the kitchen was closed. Supper that night was beer and potato chips.
I barely recovered from that flashback when I was crossing the New Pass bridge to Longboat Key. Just outside the bridge, on the Gulf-side, is a party cove where I spent my last Fourth of July weekend in Florida. My buddy Tom and I got out to the cove early to get a good spot, but a no-name storm was going by out in the Gulf. We spent the night in winds approaching 30 knots with just an 8' sand dune between us and the storm. The anchor line was tight like a guitar string the whole night.
On Longboat Key, I drove past all the resorts starting with the Key Club on the south end. When I drove a cab in Sarasota, most of what I did was run tourists back and forth between the airport and these resorts. Tips were good on the way out because vacation had just started, everyone was excited, and no one was counting their money yet. The way back to the airport was a little somber and less lucrative.
The CVS is about halfway up the key. After the delivery, all that travel was just reversed; party cove, Lido Key, St. Armands, Bird Key, and the John Ringling Causeway bridge. Here I could finally safely and clearly see the anchorage where I had a boat for eighteen months or so. Back then, 60 or 80 boats were anchored there for free; about a third were liveaboards. Today, it's a state-regulated mooring field. Last I heard, it's about $275 a month - not bad for a place downtown.
Sunday mornings at the anchorage meant breakfast at O'Leary's. Whoever got there first had to buy the paper. When the rest of us wandered in - rowed ashore actually - we perused the random, left over newspaper sections.
I used to tell people I was a bi-athlete. Each morning I rowed about 50 yards to shore, unlocked my bike from the palm tree, locked the dinghy with the same chain and then pedaled to work.
I couldn't quite see the park and O'Learys past Marina Jack's but my brain was exhausted from all the flashbacks. I was a little delirious all the way out of town and back on the highway. Northern Indiana and Detroit are two other places where I've spent enough time that a simple drive through can be full of ghosts.
