Chapter 5

Ted had come back from a successful fishing day and was filleting some snappers. Tony came up to him and they engaged in conversation. The holidays were a week away. Ted mentioned his parents were coming down for the holidays.

“That is the reason I came here to invite you to come over for Christmas Day dinner. Your parents are also invited since that is just two more chairs at the table.”

“Are you sure that isn’t a problem?”

“No problem at all.”

“Can I bring something, maybe some fish? How about you take these snappers and I will give you more in the coming days.”

“That would be nice. I will say the smoked fish was delicious.”

Ted thanked him for the invitation and made a mental note to have more kings smoked as he agreed they were delicious. He thought his parents would also enjoy the smoke fish.

He was successful in catching some kings that he had smoked and gave a portion to Tony along with a few additional snapper filets.

Ted met his parents at the airport and exchanged a hug and a handshake. Instead of going directly to his home, he gave them a quick tour of the area. They were impressed with the downtown area. They asked him a few questions which he answered. His mother expressed concern about the heat and humidity. He told her the humidity was normally high and the summers were usually hot but air conditioning made it tolerable.

Pulling onto his driveway, his parents complimented him on his house. The inside of the house in how it was decorated along with the large boat at the end of the dock also elicited some nice words. Dad couldn’t wait to watch the seventy-five-inch television. They said they weren’t hungry but Ted thought the smoked fish on the large plate he put out disappeared fairly fast.

The next day they were anxious to see more of the area and wanted to do it on their own. Ted gave them the keys to his car and printed out a few pages from the internet of a map and suggested places to visit in the general area.

In the spirit of Christmas Ted had purchased gifts for his parents, Tony and Joan, and he sent two dozen red roses to Debbie. With the flowers, he had a note enclosed that said, “Your ex is a dumb ass for letting you go. Ted.” He thought she would get a kick out of reading that.

Christmas Day dinner at Tony’s and Joan’s home made for a good time. It was the same group of people from Thanksgiving plus Ted’s parents. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves because of the food and friendship expressed at this holiday time of the year. While Ted had been raised where there usually was snow on the ground that was not going to happen in this part of Florida unless there was a drastic change in the climate. Some would have you believe that was coming because of climate change. Others would have you believe the rising sea would have those living here would be gone because of being flooded out.

The highlight of the day for Ted was seeing Carrie again. She was one good-looking intelligent woman who Ted enjoyed talking to and being with. He wanted to invite her out for New Year’s Eve but early in the conversation, she mentioned that with the current problems of flights being canceled, she needed to play it safe and had booked her return flight to Columbus on that day.

Ted’s parents mentioned that they would like to see the Sarasota area from the water. Ted invited Carrie to join them in doing this cruise and she accepted. The more he thought about her with her parents living next door to him, he laughingly thought that it made for a challenging situation to develop more of a relationship with her. This situation however was something he was going to try and work around.

The next day’s cruise consisted of slowly going up and then back down the coast doing sightseeing which had the time go by quickly. The following days also went by quickly and soon Carrie and his parents were going back north. His parents did say they planned on coming back here to spend more of their vacation time with Ted. He told them they would be better off doing that when they had cold weather up north and not during the summertime here because of the heat and humidity.

Ted’s social life improved with his dating Debbie. He was talking her out about every two weeks and every date ended with her “changing his oil.” That she enjoyed having sex was apparent and coincided with his enjoyment of having it. Because of his dating her, he put on hold going to the “Friday Nites” social club.

It turned out that in the course of their conversation, Debbie remarked that Ted was not the only man she was dating. Initially, he wasn’t sure how he should react to that news. After thinking about it, he acknowledged that being with Debbie had its rewards and he enjoyed her company. He accepted that it was a friendship relationship he had developed with her which he assumed was the extent of what their relationship would be. Until she developed a serious relationship with someone else, he would be content with this present status. Who wouldn’t be he thought as she was an exciting bed partner and a nice person.

It was just into mid-February when Ted on a Sunday afternoon heard his doorbell chime. Opening his front door he saw a man a few years younger than him standing there.

“Sorry to bother you but I am Cliff Stanley, and besides being a high school teacher I am also the high school baseball coach for the school that is just down the road. Wanda the realtor is my aunt and she told me you were now living here. My playing organized baseball experience is limited to playing American legion ball. I was hoping you could come to one of our practices and give me and the players some baseball tips. I think we have some good players and we could do well this year.”

Thinking this would give him something to do, Ted responded that he could do that and asked when and where. After being told that, Ted said he would see Cliff tomorrow.

Ted came to the baseball field and noted that players were throwing the balls around and some players were taking batting practice. Cliff greeted Ted and asked what he should do.

“How about you having your pitchers warm up and after they are, have them pitch seriously to each batter on the team, giving the batters five pitches in the strike zone to hit. Have someone be an umpire to make sure there are five balls thrown in the strike zone and also have someone sit with me that can answer my questions and give me the players’ names.”

This was done and Ted sat and took notes as he watched what was going on. After everyone had their turn at the plate and every pitcher pitched, he asked Cliff to call the team together.