Joe and I flew from frozen Flint’s Bishop Airport straight to South Florida International Airport outside Fort Meyers.
The sudden switch- from Michigan’s crack-the-plaster low humidity and skeletal trees bent with snow, to balmy, comfortably moist air and lush vegetation- turned me into a flycatcher. Mouth agape I padded after Joe to our rental car. Languid lizards basked on warm cement walls; people wore light clothing and smiles, and Bing sang dreamily about a white Christmas while I fantasized about tearing off my heavy turtleneck. Colorful pink, white and red flowers decorated lush hedges and vines. Countless palm trees, dressed in lights, sprang from an emerald ocean of grass. A vividly blue Gulf of Mexico winked on the horizon.
Naples was a short drive south, past ‘Panther Crossing’ signs and through a jungle of vegetation that lined both sides of Interstate 75. Off came my jacket. On came the air conditioning. Sun poured down. I craved my sister’s lovely condo cave and its arching shade trees, to recalibrate…
Joe just grinned, whistled and drove us there. Bliss.
Early the next morning we motored to the Naples Cyclery and rented two bikes for a week. In its nearly empty parking lot the store guy busied himself attaching a complicated-looking carrier to our car’s rear end.
Eighty feet away a pudgy older gent, wearing beautifully pressed Bermuda shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, was testing his newly rented three-wheeled tricycle while the wife settled up. He pedaled it along, gaining confidence. But the sleek blue machine had other ideas. Inexplicably, it turned toward me. Egad! The distracted rider, searching now for non-existent foot brakes, hadn’t noticed.
Meanwhile, back at the store’s door, wife and clerk watched the unfolding drama helplessly.
Alarmed now, the man, who kept peering at his pedals for stop-clues, began flailing pale legs while pulling at the handlebars and shouting ‘Whoa! Whoa, dammit!” But the big three-wheeler, chained to kin for too long and bored by inactivity, ignored its rider and gleefully focused on creating havoc. Always quick to respond to emergencies I stood rooted to the tarmac, fascinated by the man’s predicament and his machine’s steely determination.
There we were, two senior transplants- one futilely flailing atop wild rubber wheels, and one standing statue-still to stare at impending calamity- Yep. Dumb and dumber.
Gary Larson, that great cartoonist, would capture this absurd tableau perfectly.
I snapped out of my meditative contemplation just in time to back off smartly; guy and trike shot past, heading toward the lot’s far curb while he continued to shout futile “whoa” commands.
I could almost taste the cycle’s disappointment.
“Brake!” I hollered helpfully, and by golly he did- the old fashioned way. White sneakers dragged along the ground, smokin’ rubber for what seemed forever. The trike, obeying physical laws, reluctantly slowed, but couldn’t resist bobbing left and right, trying to unseat the poor fellow, who hung on grimly.
Those shod feet saved the day.
Finally at rest, mere inches away from a big dump ‘n toss, the shaken rider hung his head, mortified, and, I think, mystified that things had gotten so out of hand. Well over half a century had passed since he’d ridden this sort of contraption, but still...
Glancing back at me he mouthed an apology, then slowly peddled the subdued tricycle back toward the store, working the handbrakes. His embarrassed wife unhelpfully bellowed: “For God’s sake, Norman!”
Face as red as a Florida sunset he flung out a spirited retort to all of us: “I’m a retired auto executive who rides horses, NOT bikes!”
But when I offered a stiff salute, we both grinned. He had eventually stopped. The Greatest Generation is nothing if not persistent.
I cuddled a comforting thought: I’m not the only one who, when dropped into Paradise, needs time to adjust to its big- and subtle- changes.