Author: Vic Socotra

Key Weird Update

Life and Island Times July 25 2016 – Key Weird Update This one is from the spring of 2014. ——————————– Some refer to this island as Key Weird. Hunter S Thompson’s take was more direct – When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. Doctor Seuss wrote “we’re all a little weird and life’s […]

The Judge, Part Deux

Funerals at Arlington are a strange two-part affair. The first event is the stunner- the one in which you discover that an old pal or professional acquaintance has passed from this world to another. There is a grieving family, a memorial service, and tears. Then the matter is turned over to the Cemetery Administration for […]

Transitions

I hate to do this to you guys, but it really was a nice event. It was a glorious afternoon- sultry but not overwhelming- and we had just buried The Judge a couple hours before at Arlington. Too many people passing these days. I was unsettled. The company I abruptly quit after almost nine years […]

Red Zorro

Life and Island Times July 24 2016– Red Zorro This is from 2014. ———————————————- For almost three decades islanders have watched a bare-chested man run daily in a lady’s red hat. If you are on the sidewalk, his approach is announced by horse shoe clacking (he wears metal plates on the soles of his shoes […]

Day One Minutiae

Life and Island Times July 23 2016 – Day One Minutiae This one is from 2013. ———————————- Editor: As a professional keeper of secrets since his early youth, Marlow was apprehensive about committing to writing the intimate details of his existence that might be revealed to others. Jotting down his reactions to that first day’s […]

Christos Anesti

Life and Island Times July 22 2016 – Christos Anesti This one is from 2015. ————– For many years Marlow supped every Easter Sunday with the grandparents of his second godson Nick. Papou George and γιαγιά Helen were Greek Orthodox Catholic. Fleeing the Nazi occupiers, George emigrated from Cyprus, washing ashore in America during WW […]

Safety Inspection

I was parked out in front of Front Page last night- I had come from my first meeting with the management team of the concern where I will now be working, so I was wearing smart-casual for a change. I had ensured that I was legally parked, since that can be problematic with all those […]

Church Music

Life and Island Times July 21 2016 – Church Music This one is from early 2016. ———- W and Marlow had walked onto the church altar to fetch a live Easter lily with the name of someone on the bottom of the vase, who needed their prayers, when Marlow found himself jerked back in time. […]

Press Release

Not content to just deal with the hysterical pandemonium surrounding this surreal election, or the rising tide of social unrest that seems to threaten the dissolution of life in the West, I decided to put what is left of my professional life into the Waring blender, punch the button for “Frappe,” and see what would […]

Square Grouper

Life and Island Times July 20 2016 – Square Grouper This one is from 2014. ———————– From Marlow’s days in the Keys during the early 70s, square grouper was a species unique to American island waters. They were first discovered and named by the US Coast Guard during their routine patrols of US territorial waters. […]