Chapter 1

Up On The Roof Top

Forgot about the floods, mudslides, fires, taxes, our governor, water restrictions, a few other things let alone traffic, the illegals and ... I got the impression it was time to leave, don’t know why but that prospect got me excited. Oh! Why or why were there not ‘California Girls’ elsewhere? Perhaps I could take a few(A few dozen) with me?

What To Do?

Simple to move. Sell the house, car, boat and any and all placements lying about. Had to wait for the right time. Boom, bust, boom thing you know. Not to bad, rents bought the house in 1929; was a good year, to buy. Now the big decision was next, ‘Where to go?” Going West was out; too wet and floating was over-rated. Nor sure where it started but I had gotten used to a glass of water, tea and coffee now and then so not keen on heading to any Western State(My East though). Had enough of laws liberal made for liberals(Thought John Birch was too liberal), fines, restrictions about living life, high taxes and dodging bullets so those things figured in on any decision as to where I moved to.

Thought about Texas then heard they were trying to build a wall to stop the illegals(Not the flying kind of birds). Florida seemed nice if I wanted to live in a bunker, wear a mask and take a vaccine once a month or so. So many choices there. Strange it may seem but my thoughts turned to something a buddy once said: ‘When my playing days(American Football) are over I think I’m going back to Mississippi to raise horses’. Now there was an idea. Instead of horses, ‘California Girls’ on the range might work. I chose Atlanta, traffic would make it seem like home(LA) and I could learn to talk funny like they did, maybe in a million years. Some ‘I’ AD thing said they had water also.

Took me some tries to find an agent who could understand me. She said she was from down South, Columbia or something like that. That ‘Danwoods’(Dun woody) place with the ‘Big Pink House’ was not what I wanted though, might have been great to raise a few dozen of them ‘California Girls though. Another girl agent thought some ‘Mountain’ thing there may be just the thing for me. Them calling me ‘Damn Yankee’ put a burr up my ass when me telling them I was from California made no never-mind to them. They were the ‘Damn’ UN-social ones. It was requiring me to do some more thinking.

I looked at that ‘I’ thingee again in my hotel room. ‘Hot-Damn’ there it was as plain as day used to be back home. South and North Carolina. You might guess where was my next stop. The AMEX gal was nice, said I had my pick of flights. My ‘Where should I go?’ sort of brought some silence to her. She said she had to check something. I guess ‘Crystal Accounts’ with a $10 Million limit had more info than my old ‘Black’ one did.

She got back on the phone, not on-top of it, I meant so we could talk again. “I can ‘pick you up’ and ‘we’ can look at some places here or in North Carolina even”. Damn, finally, she spoke English, understood me and was willing to help. “Your not, by any chance in California are you? “No, Miami, but ... I am from the ‘Valley’ just last year when I finished High School.” My heart began to do strange things. “Avocados, Carl Jr’s, maybe Prawns even, can ‘we’ go to place where they have those?” “All but the burgers but, maybe ‘we’ can uncover something else.”

“Damn, Prawns! Umm, umm, umm ... mm. You got yourself a deal!” Little did I know. AMEX did not hire ‘doggy feed’ for a concierge. Something made an impression on her to come all this way to help me ... or was I supposed to go to her. She knew my card number, where I was at then told me when my flight left and ‘we’ would just ‘love’ Fisher Island. Her” “Can you speak Spanish or Arabic?” made me wonder if people there understood English and why was that not on my profile, everything else seemed to be there? I asked. “Don’t worry, ‘we’ can sleep on that question and find out later.”

At Miami International, when I saw the sign, then her I felt I was back in LA. Short, white short-shorts, very small halter, almost top, long platinum hair with a Texas type smile on here face made me want to run, not walk up to her. It was ‘love at first hug with those 42 DD projectiles’ she pressed into my chest. I made a vow to keep my AMEX cards and ‘never leave home without one’(Thank you Charlie Frost. Used to be Diners Club RIP).

You might have guessed, once I found her I was not giving her back; I was keeping her. ‘We’ did find a place on she liked ‘Fisher Island’(Water access only, no roads you see. No real need to drive anywhere either.) At 20 grand a month fee she should like it, even though the house was another Pink one but had been ‘on-market’ awhile now a way lower price and with the former owner right across the street so fresh dates and honey there to borrow. Bonnie told me not to get that yacht, ‘pirates’ she said. Fresh seafood and she said Crab Claws at ‘Joe’s’ were better than Prawns(In-season and yes I used to live in Miami) and we could order takeout or better, boatout.

Apparently Bonnie was getting used to this lifestyle this past year. I casually just mentioned “You are putting on a few pounds dear or are those ‘almost shorts’ shrinking?”

“Not a nice thing to say, ‘Almost Daddy’. Then she hit me. I had considered having to paint the house blue. I thought it would remind us of the Pacific more so than the blue-green stuff here. As usual, no need to do much now. When Bonnie gave birth to ‘our Scrogs’, Amy and Beth fit right in with the Pink. They could learn golf, tennis, swimming, boating, how to identify sea shells by the seashore and fishing here. Why the K-12 school(Yes, 70 ish kids here) was part of the Long Island NY system is another long story dating back to 1664. There was even a place like a ‘Seraglio’(Ottoman Turks harem place) we could turn into a playroom for the kids, maybe unless more California girls were joining us, which I doubted. Bonnie already made that clear when she hit the tender age of 19.