It was a jungle setting and very lovely at Marilyn and Edward's home for Deborah and ourselves to meet in and talk.
Deborah knows my wife through school activities and the dinner we had planned was a get together to discuss funding strategies and scholarships and the like. I was a supernumerary along for the conversation. Ed was a terrible host pressing one ice cold Heineken into my hand after another. Unlike my wife I have no ability to nurse a glass of red wine while the talking ebbs and flows. I figured beer would be the lesser of two evils but the refreshing bottles undid me. I wasn't driving happily.
Marilyn and Ed have a great set up in Old Town, the sort of home that anyone could learn to love with no difficulty at all. The guest house is up front shielding them from traffic and passers by, the home in back is wide open to the breeze, ideal for entertaining and we sank into the spirit of the place with no trouble at all. Marilyn kept us supplied with shrimp which gave the festivities the proper Key West touch.
There is a thread that runs through Key West life that is not often seen directly and not much discussed in a town that like to maintain a facade of parties and events for the fun of the thing. There are many talented people who have no desire to veg out in retirement and end up more active than before. Sydney drives a cab and loves to meet people. He is a superb conversationalist and he entertained me while the others talked strategy and schools.
Deborah knows my wife through school activities and the dinner we had planned was a get together to discuss funding strategies and scholarships and the like. I was a supernumerary along for the conversation. Ed was a terrible host pressing one ice cold Heineken into my hand after another. Unlike my wife I have no ability to nurse a glass of red wine while the talking ebbs and flows. I figured beer would be the lesser of two evils but the refreshing bottles undid me. I wasn't driving happily.Marilyn and Ed have a great set up in Old Town, the sort of home that anyone could learn to love with no difficulty at all. The guest house is up front shielding them from traffic and passers by, the home in back is wide open to the breeze, ideal for entertaining and we sank into the spirit of the place with no trouble at all. Marilyn kept us supplied with shrimp which gave the festivities the proper Key West touch.There is a thread that runs through Key West life that is not often seen directly and not much discussed in a town that like to maintain a facade of parties and events for the fun of the thing. There are many talented people who have no desire to veg out in retirement and end up more active than before. Sydney drives a cab and loves to meet people. He is a superb conversationalist and he entertained me while the others talked strategy and schools.
One of the great things I have learned to like about Key West is how every single thing is taken with a pinch of slat. These are tough times in education and the economy and these good people have excruciating decisions to make but the work is always undertaken with a certain sense of joy that focuses on the positive. It's good to help but to help and be cheerful is much more in the spirit of the effort. 
I learned a lot from listening to these men and women who have spent a lifetime or two in worlds far apart from my own. To understand how their world works, the world of being engaged and doing to be on the look out for the opportunity to help is fascinating. It makes one feel inadequate to see and know and not know what to do.
Today's youngsters will have a lot to thank the previous generation for if they ever learn of the work they did with drinks and laughter and shrimp in the green recesses of a side street in Old Town Key West.
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