What I learned from that intensely educational period of my life is that one kind of misfit is the person who suffers abuse or trauma and doesn’t transcend it in the socially hoped-for way. We take a wrong turn or go deeper down. That’s often looked at like a failure, but sometimes I wonder. I’ve learned things by taking the wrong turn or going down deeper that I could not have learned any other way. ― Lidia Yuknavitch
I am the last man you would think to find in this part of Florida and I imagine that’s why nobody has found me so far.
An angry old white man in Florida gets woke when the children take to the streets.
I have been deep deep undercover in this second-world bright red banana republic.
Oh, the weather’s so great, you always hear. Last four days the hottest winter days in recorded history.
Summer seems likely to sizzle.
And the governor who has an oceanfront mansion prohibits the use of the term ‘climate change.’
God forbid, and She should, you say ‘Global Warming.’ Really, did you see all that snow up north?
A wall of seven-foot-high wire fence surrounds our community. An official bird sanctuary.
Gates block the entrance.
No sooner do you get past the guard shack, manned, likely armed, little generals in blue shorts, down to the main drag, big intersection.
Stop and look at the tidy home across the street. Words fail me. Honest.
Life-size replicas of first responders. Really. Maybe six feet tall, a policeman, a fireman, a soldier and a German Shepherd.
Okay, sure, the dog is shorter.
If you don’t set off some alarm at the front gate, fifty yards in, that’s what you see. Oh, and a giant eagle on a pedestal.
Painted. Life-like. Better than Trump at Disney World.
Then you drive along a treed and divided four-lane highway, recently paved, smooth as a kitchen floor. Watch out for the little white Chevy Sonic with official HOA insignia and his radar detector hiding behind a big bush.
This may seem repetitive but I really, really, really need you to understand. Four lanes. Divided. Repaved, smooth as a billiard table.
Then they bought radar detectors and installed draconian penalties for speeders.
Which wouldn’t be so bad but the speed limit is thirty. 30. Three zero. God forbid – and She wouldn’t think you were doing wrong – you get zapped doing thirty-six (36) mph. One hundred dollar fine and two-week suspension of privileges. No pool for you!
Worst part, they deactivate your bar code, so you have to stop at the guard shack and get condescended to by people who can’t spell condescended.
“Speed demon, huh?”
You got me. Caught doing 36 on a four-lane boulevard in light, okay, non-existent traffic.
“Oh, yeah, officer, you caught the Tater.”
My car idles at thirty miles an hour. So, I have come up with a palatable – for me at least, which is all that’s important – solution. I roll down all the windows and the wind rushing in makes thirty-two mph feel like forty-five. Maybe fifty, depends on your hair.
And I play outrageously loud hip-hop and rap. Introduce these folks to some real lyrics.
“Niggers in the Bronx call me Lex cause I push a Lex, and I rock a Rolex and I lounge on Lex.'”
Don’t know if my silver homies flow much with classic Peter Gunz. More than one Confederate flag do fly.
The Home Owners Association has been taken over by right-wing golfers who want to make Brookridge great again. Which I’m guessing means no kids and mandatory bridge lessons. Ceramics class.
Oh, oh, oh. Almost forgot. The Board implores all pedestrians to get off the roadway when a vehicle approaches.
Only in Brookridge and the streets of Hell do cars have the right of way. If I had to guess, even in Hell, hot as it is, they thought ahead of time and put in sidewalks.
I walk five miles daily and I like to stop by the clubhouse on my travels. Think drinking fountain, rest rooms and air conditioning. Like to scan the pool deck and see if there’s any women who don’t look like Ernest Borgnine in a two-piece.
The other day, I stumbled upon a HEALTH EXPO. Shiny salespeople in shiny suits and stiff hair. Old fat white folks still looking for the Fountain of Youth. Or at least cheaper insurance.
Wanted to shout, Save Your Money! Exercise and diet!! Back away from the buffet!!
But I didn’t.
Easier just to pop a pill and wrap your lard ass in Spanx by Tommy CopperFit.
I stay in shape.
Because most days I feel like Rick in The Walking Dead. Fossilized zombies around every corner determined to put a deadly bite on fun.
Must remain lean and mean and light on my feet. In case I have to outrun an angry herd of golf carts.
Worse outside the gates.
A local teacher, a young woman, just got suspended for espousing white supremacist propaganda. She was off duty, it must be noted.
Of course, an argument ensued. Should she be fired? Have her civil rights been violated? Should she get a medal?
What’s a Florida teacher to do in these troubled, divided times?
So, they asked a trained professional.
“You should never say who you are voting for,” said Rebecca Kaskeski, manager of the Hillsborough district’s Office of Professional Standards. “You should not say whether you believe in God.
As reported by Marlene Sokol of the Tampa Bay Times, Kaskeski went as far as to say a teacher shouldn’t try to talk a student out of belief that climate change is a hoax, or that the Holocaust didn’t happen They could be learning these views at home.
“You cannot get into offshoot opinions,” she said. “The potential to offend someone greatly is so strong.”
Oh, my effin’ deity, where do I begin?
The potential to offend someone greatly is so strong.
Indeed.
Who you are voting for is an opinion.
Whether you believe in God is a matter of faith.
Climate change is science. You’re supposed to teach science in school.
The Holocaust is history. You’re supposed to teach history in school.
I literally – and I know what literally means – have to take a deep breath every time I think of that person, that position, that responsibility, those words. How dare you? How dare you?
How dare you?
Just did it again. Must take a deep breath.
The truth is not an offshoot opinion.
You feel me?
