The King of King’s Road (2)

Posted on June 25, 2011 by fast eddie

(continued from The King of King’s Road)

At first no one seemed to notice. Early morning commuters walked briskly towards the tube with their eyes down. Yummy mummies pushed their prams purposefully and glanced away. Slender ladies laden with designer shopping bags chatted on their cell phones as they hurried from boutique to boutique. Members of the London Fire Brigade arrived for their regular shifts at the Chelsea Fire Station and left several hours later.  The red number 11 bus made it’s regular stops. Black cabs passed, sometimes stopping to drop a passenger. No one took note of the incongruous presence that had settled in their neighborhood.

The homeless man had been sleeping rough on the streets of London for several months before he found shelter from the damp under the overhang next to the fire station on The King’s Road. He slept there one night to avoid the rain. Then another night. And another. Before long, the homeless man had found a home. He laid down his sleeping bag and a pillow each night on a foam pad he kept rolled and strapped to the side of his Tesco shopping cart, which overflowed with the things he had collected, warm clothing and blankets wrapped tightly in plastic trash bags, several cardboard boxes folded and tied to the cart, four liter-sized plastic bottles of water, a coffee can filled with coins, a battery-operated radio with live batteries and a Rubik’s cube.

One morning after about 10 days, one of the firemen offered the homeless man a cup of hot coffee and a breakfast muffin. He asked the homeless man if he was hungry, but the man just gazed back fearfully and did not respond. The fireman left the coffee and muffin and went about his business. The homeless man ate the muffin and slowly sipped the coffee until it was finished. The next day the fireman came again with coffee and a muffin and again tried to engage the homeless man in conversation. Again, no response. After about a week of the same routine, the homeless man nodded and said thank you. Thereafter, each morning one of the firemen brought the homeless man some coffee and something to eat, and the homeless man said thank you. To be continued… 

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Whose is Whose?

Posted on June 24, 2011 by fast eddie

People love lists and quizzes. Here is a list of stuff that belongs to either me or my wife (I can’t write about her, but what about her stuff?). Can you guess whose is whose?

  1. Onion goggles,
  2. A beer mug that looks like Winston Churchill,
  3. One William & Kate commemorative plate,
  4. One William & Kate tea towel,
  5. Eight William & Kate mugs,
  6. Cowboy boots,
  7. Nose hair clippers,
  8. 20 different-colored pairs of shoes that look like ballet slippers,
  9. 20 polo shirts in varying shades of blue and gray,
  10. 20 pairs of black pants in the same size,
  11. A wall-mounted stuffed striped bass,
  12. A rooster whittled out of a log and painted purple with turquoise tail-feathers,
  13. A collection of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues,
  14. Over one hundred pillows, and
  15. An Elvis lunch box.
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Beaches

Posted on June 23, 2011 by fast eddie

My wife and I love the beach. A beach somewhere has been at the center of many special memories. Here are some of my favorites. Tell us about some of yours.

  • The Hamptons: We have a house in Bridgehampton that we love in part because it is close to the beach so we get the ocean breeze and fresh sea air. We are just a short walk or bike ride away and we often just go for a few hours in the late afternoon to read, talk or take a nap. Whenever we visit beaches in other parts of the world we always conclude that our beach in the Hamptons is the best. That’s our view and we’re stickin’ to it.
  • Caneel Bay (1980): We spent our honeymoon here. Located in St John, U.S. Virgin Islands, the Caneel Bay of 1980 was a tranquil and elegant resort with seven relatively private beaches, no TV’s or telephones, and no nightlife other than each other. Unfortunately, we went back for our 25th anniversary and it had been updated with all the modern amenities and become “family friendly”, so now its just a memory.
  • Jones Beach (1960-70’s): My adolescent summer hangout in the days when we thought Johnson’s Baby Oil was the perfect suntan lotion and my tanned pumped guns looked great in a white “Guinea Tee”(or so I thought).
  • Montauk: My first beach vacation in the early sixties with my parents, ruined by my sister’s constant crying and non-stop rain, but it didn’t put me off beach vacations. Montauk is still one of my favorites with great waves, July 4th fireworks, fresh lobsters, and deep sea fishing trips.
  • Maldives: Family holiday for my eldest daughter’s 21st birthday, where we took a boat trip, went snorkeling and had a birthday picnic on a private sand bar. The Maldives are a stunning archipelago in the Indian Ocean, with thousands of islands that are actually the tops of an undersea mountain range that is quickly sinking. As the lowest country in the world, it may not be with us much longer, so get there soon.
  • Phuket: Another great family holiday at a private villa at the Amanpuri Resort in Thailand with some of the most beautiful water and sand we have seen, plus great food and service.
  • Boca Raton: It has long been our dream to have our own place right on the beach. We finally realized that dream when we bought a condo on the beach at One Thousand Ocean the Boca Raton Resort and Beach Club earlier this year.
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Buying Books

Posted on June 22, 2011 by fast eddie

It is so much easier to buy books than to read them. I have already resigned myself to the reality that I’ve bought more books than I can possibly ever read (see Turning Fifty Redux). But I can’t stop buying them. I love browsing in book stores, losing myself in the stacks and escaping into another era of history or feeling virtuous about reading some classic literature or finding the next great piece of modern fiction before all the book clubs are on to it.

Inevitably, I leave the store with good intentions. For some reason, I thought it was a great idea to purchase the first three volumes and 2,000 pages of Robert Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Whenever I look at them now, I cringe at the prospect of spending a year immersed in the details of LBJ’s life. I don’t have particularly fond memories of him to begin with, and I can’t imagine why a great historian has dedicated the last 35 years to writing about him (he’s still working on the fourth volume).  But at least they look good on my bookshelf, as does James Joyce’s Ulysses and William Faulkner’s three volume set of As I Lay Dying, The Sound and The Fury, and Light in August, all of which I’ve been meaning to get to for the last thirty years. My bookshelves are very impressive. That’s because I keep all the John Grisham and James Patterson books (which I’ve actually read) in the attic.

They say you should never go to the grocery store when you are hungry. Well, you should be careful about your state of mind when you go to the bookstore. I can’t imagine what a dark mood I must have been in when I purchased Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives by Alan Bullock, or how guilty I was feeling when I bought Martin Gilbert’s 1000 page The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War, or how persecuted I was feeling when I got my wife Germaine Greer’s The Change: Women, Aging and The Menopause for her birthday.

The advent of the Kindle and other e-readers, coupled with one-click wireless shopping, has exponentially elevated the risks of book browsing. Now I don’t even have to leave my couch and before you know it I’ve got Searching for Modern China, A Modern History of Japan, and Tibet: A History wafting their way through hyperspace to me with the click of a button. They all seemed fascinating when I read the online reviews, but I still haven’t finished James Michener’s Hawaii from my trip to Hawaii 15 years ago.

Now that I’ve been thinking about all my unread and unfinished books, I feel really guilty. So I am going to sign off now, go read a few paragraphs and fall asleep.

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Loyalty Programs

Posted on June 21, 2011 by fast eddie

I am a sucker for loyalty programs. I love collecting points. I choose hotels (Starwood), airlines (BA, Southwest), rental cars (Hertz), restaurants (Nando’s, The Palm), movie theatres (Odeon, Regal), grocery stores (Sainsbury), coffee (Cafe Nero), and vitamins (GNC) in order to earn more points.  I get excited when I get a free popcorn at the movies or a free coffee at Cafe Nero or a free chicken at Nando’s. I love free stuff. But I really hate cashing in my points. I feel like it sets me back in my collecting quest. I hate seeing my balance diminished after all that hard work building it up in the first place. If I cash them in too soon, then I might miss something really great down the road, like four first class airline tickets to Australia or a month in the Presidential Suite in the St Regis Hotel in New York or having my daughter’s wedding at The Palm.

I am even loyal to products that don’t have loyalty programs. I really deserve something from them too. I’ve had thousands of cans of Diet Coke. I should get at least a free six-pack. McDonald’s owes me a few free burgers. Gap jeans. Polo shirts. Fruit of the Loom briefs. Cohiba cigars. How about something for remaining a Knicks fan all these years? That would seem to deserve a championship at some point. I’ve bought all of Elvis’ Greatest Hits albums, even the gospel and country ones. You would think he could at least pay a visit (even if its an extraterrestrial one). Or Priscilla could send an autographed picture. What about thirty-one years of marriage? That would seem to merit more than My Very Own Closet.

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