Night At Rest

Rest Beach at night is a place I come back to again and again. There is a table by the parking lot where one can sit and watch the water. If, as happens sometimes the table is occupied one can walk the pathway to an opening on the sand and sit on a step and watch the water and the lights twinkling on the White Street Pier.This is the first place I think to come when I get a lunch break and I want to leave the police station instead of taking a nap. There aren't generally many waves around here thanks to the coral reefs that keep the Straits of Florida away but if there is any kind of south east breeze here is where you will feel it. When the wind is strong it makes the palms flap back and forth.Many many years ago Rest Beach (named for a once upon a time local notable) was the place where cows, raised on Stock Island (hence the name) were slaughtered for consumption in the city. I have read that one can still find pieces of bone from that gruesome time but I think that story is a canard for cheap thrills for visitors. That is to say the cows were slaughtered but their remains are all long gone.I don't come here at two in the morning to look for cow bones but to clear my head and enjoy some sea air in the middle of a shift. Oh and I get to ride my wife's Vespa this week while my Bonneville is getting it's annual check up.Then it's back too work with lungs full of bracing sea air.