Wishin' I was knee deep in the water somewhere.....

“Load the car and write the note.
Grab your bag and grab your coat.
Tell the ones that need to know.
We are headed north.”

How funny is it that this song calls to mind a very clear (oddly comforting) memory of a balmy night on a back street in Key West with my husband? We love Key West. The lifestyle, the people, the location. We are, at heart, ex-pats from real life. Jimmy Buffett sold me the lifestyle when I was a small girl and I sold it to Vince hook, line, and sinker when we married. There is something in the tropical setting and the laid-back atmosphere that calls us. It had long been a dream of mine to drive a 64 ½ Mustang convertible over the bridges and into that little piece of heaven....probably never to return. I don’t remember that “leaving” part of the initial dream! Age and experience have changed the dream a bit. Now the goal is to one day drive my 65 hardtop Mustang over the bridge with Vince. We’ll get there....us AND the car!

“One foot in and one foot back.
But it don’t pay to live like that.
So I cut the ties and I jumped the track.
For never to return.”

Anywho, back to the story....
We had been out to eat...and probably to cruise down Duval Street....in this harbor town on one of our vacations. It was late at night and Vince and I were heading back to the hotel along a back street that parallels N. Roosevelt (Northside Drive, if you need to get your bearings) and happened upon a local who was, shall we say, rather inebriated. This song was playing on the radio and I was mentally waxing poetic on how the first part of the song so eloquently described our yearly trek to Key West. OK, so you have to change “north” to “south”. Picky, picky. We ended up following this guy at a distance....just to ensure that he made it safely at least as far as we could go. He tottered along, quite happily oblivious to the big blue F150 that followed his crooked path behind the dark shopping mall. I hope he got home OK, where ever home for him was that night. He’ll never know that two mainland refugees were watching out for him.

“Dumbed down and numbed by time and age.
Your dreams that catch the world, the cage.
The highway sets the travelers stage.
All exits look the same.”

Here’s looking forward to that time in life when Vince and I will be able to claim Key West as a second home and our exits will no longer look the same.
Ahh Key West, Key West take me in. Are you aware the shape I’m in? My hands they shake, my head it spins. Ahh Key West, Key West take me in.....