O boy, I woke to an empty house, could not find anyone! Then I remembered they were all helping a friend, and I was sleeping in! NOT. Just a pretty day, so I called my brother who I had not seen for weeks and we decided to hook up at his house. Back in 2004 he had a nice little rancher style home on the tail end of Bayou Chico, nice bit of narrow bayou, and a boat house with his yard yacht hangng from the beams.

Then hurricane Ivan smashed Penacola. The next morning, our business was destroyed, every home and rental we owned took damage, and my brothers house was under 8 feet of storm surge, totally destroyed. Every memory, photo, stitch of clothes, ruined or lost forever. Fast forward to yesterday, 2008!

I grabbed my leathers, rode to the local leather shop and picked up one repaired jacket and dropped off another. Damn it was a nice crisp morning and it was nice to have my old school leather jacket back.

I took my time drivng back towards Bayou Chico. Four years earlier, I would have never believed I’d be on my very own scooter, headed over to sit on the patio of my brothers new house on the bayou. It’s worth over a million, but we built it ourselves, so he being the president of the family company, got a good discount, hahahaha. I dropped off a few things I had brought with me and we quickly migrated to the back patio, by the pool, and hot tub, next to Bayou Chico. The only thing that survived that storm, was his old boat house, and his boat. It still hangs, the lovely yard yacht, ever there a reminder of what we all went through, the town destroyed, lives turned upside down. Wallets emptied overnight, everything gone!

Well, sitting on the back deck, drinking sweet Tanqueray with a little ice, we never once even talked about all the sadness and destruction that mother nature can bring down upon us. We talked about making a run to the liquor store, but the Tanqueray was fine. We talked about me quitting smoking… which was fine too, I need to. We talked about our kids, famly, and all the rust that builds up in a man’s life over time.

Mostly, we just sat and sipped and enjoyed being alive. Storms matter. Property and losses matter. Businesses and ways to make a living matter. But nothing in this world matters more than this: Sitting on your younger brothers patio, in your bug splattered leathers, sipping sweet Tanqueray, on a cool Saturday afteroon, and listening to the sea eagles (Ospreys) and Redtail Hawks bicker screeching at one another is just about the best way in the world to spend a few hours. Several hours later, a samidge and some GatorAde-the national drink of Florida-in my gullet, I slipped on my new spiffy polarized bazillion dollar HD glasses/goggles, roared my Pearl to life and slipped out of brothers new circular drive way with the palms and landscaping. Looking over my shoulder as I thundered away, he with his prematurely white hair was still sipping on a Tanqueray and enviously smiling as he waved goodbye.

May 23rd, 2008 by forniss | Humor | No comments