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Fleeting moments locked in memory
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 20, 2001 I begin writing this column as I sit, captivated by the moment, at a table in the White Lion Restaurant and Tavern in St. Augustine. It is fitting that I am here, celebrating the waning hours of my 56th year in the oldest continuous settlement on the North American continent. It lets everyone in the group use the word "ancient" with impunity. Even more, I am celebrating having found "it." This "it" isn't the big secret invention that we keep hearing all the hype about -- you know, the thing that is going to change all of our lives even more than the computer did. I'm not sure I want my life changed again. "It," when I use it in the context of travel, is that fleeting moment that captures the essence of cities that reek of atmosphere but sometimes fall short of keeping their promises. Once, in New Orleans, it was finding a parade led by a group of men wearing nuns' habits and carrying crucifixes with Pee Wee Herman dolls attached to them during what I later learned was an annual "Southern Decadence" parade. It wasn't the decadence so much as it was the sight of outrageously costumed marchers and drag queens wearing $5,000 gowns marching down a brick street in air heavy with the smell of Creole seasoning. Once, in Amsterdam, it was the sight of an entire ballet troupe setting up shop in a square in a city that takes its street entertainers seriously. In Paris, it was merely a matter of standing at the Trocadero at the Palais de Chaillot and watching the lights go on at the Eiffel Tower, and in Colorado it was the first view of the skyline of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and being able to take a deep breath without wondering what was on fire or had died nearby. My fiancee and I, with our hosts and friends, Clyde and Lorelei Walker, had taken a sunlit stroll down St. Augustine's narrow streets, which were designed by Spanish settlers to make it easier to repel invaders. We had soul-searching conversations, the type where middle names are revealed and men who think they are in touch with their feminine sides discover they aren't comfortable carrying a purse, even a Louis Vuitton purse, back to the car from a tavern. A gourmet meal or two brought us close, and a deep massage by Lorelei brought me even closer. The reminders of mortality that come with a birthday were tempered and mellowed by recollection of what a good life it has been to date, and knowing I was in the kind of place that makes it good. But the "Aha!" moment on this trip came at the White Lion, listening to Jim Carrick make an acoustic guitar do the things it is meant to do in the atmosphere in which it was meant to do them. And let the record show that I came to this realization well before having been plied with novelty drinks, most of which have names that can't appear in a family newspaper, by a server named Rachel. She was obviously in cahoots with Clyde, who was miffed that I had learned that his first name is actually Arthur. When you want to hear real guitar playing, it makes sense to follow a picker like Arthur Clyde Walker, who is as good as they come, to see to whom he is listening. The crowd was small, and Carrick, an old friend of the late Gamble Rogers, passed on the usual tourist fare (although his instrumental Danny Boy is still worth the trip) and played the kind of Florida songs that are almost an unspoken code for those of us who love Florida music and musicians. He sang the Gamble Rogers song Doris, followed by Will McLean's Hold Back the Water and Osceola's Last Words. He sang and played them in that magical place that athletes and musicians call "the zone," where things flow and happen as they should and everyone in attendance knows it. If he wondered why it got a little quieter in our corner of the quiet room, it is because we were finally in touch with where we were and why we were there.
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