The expression “NOCD” (“Not our class, Darling”) was one to which I was introduced years ago by Frederick aka “Freddie” Innes (or Innis, it doesn’t matter, he continues I am sure to be as preposterous now as he was then). He mentioned the quip while the two of us were sitting, sweating on the upper level of the two-tiered wooden bench in the sauna of the private health club at the Château Laurier Hotel in Ottawa.
A strong cup of coffee is an ideal start to the day! Since DD introduced me to the all-in-one Spinn espresso maker I have been absorbed in the variety of coffee makers on the market. This is however but one more intrusion upon my now burgeoning frugality. I hasten to add that my parsimony is far less a product of miserliness than boundless satisfaction.
As soon as I have published this and after having pressed the little green button to Send to Everyone I shall delete my Substack account.
I began Substack almost exactly one year ago on March 25th as we were then preparing to leave Hilton Head Island after having spent the winter there to return to our beloved home in Mississippi Mills, Canada.
Nothing rivals the ineffable resplendence and the soothing relief of a mid-Atlantic breeze on a hot and sunny day on Key Largo. A sudden skiff of wind off the face of the Great Lakes or the St. Lawrence River (or for that matter any lesser fresh water source) indisputably fails to match the unmarshalled strength of the subtropical ocean. Nor to go head to head with the incomparable atmosphere of a windy turbulence and assuaging salty blend. The latter is at the time practically imperceptible except upon the distance of an irreversible 1,500 miles when predictably the demulcent recollection enigmatically and hauntingly survives.
No long after Mrs C exhausts her winter sojourn on Key Largo and returns to her native northern haunt, she embarks upon a river cruise in the Nederland. To speak plainly, Mrs. C is an attractive woman of means. She has in addition the distinction of having being a professional health care worker. As here supervisory subaltern (and myself a former professional advisor) I have taken it upon myself to conduct what I believe to be a summary of useful prerequisites governing the wayfaring of such a woman among the unclassified populace of Northern Europe. I wouldn’t dignify the observations which follow as either imperative or even universally predictable; but nonetheless they acquaint the unwitting traveller with some of the more frequent and common perils of unintended publicity such as are the consequence of a peripatetic nature.
Say what you will, the high point of any vacation is the people you meet. In the instance this morning, it might be more suitably characterized as getting to know the neighbours better and chatting with their visiting friends who are here for a week. It naturally takes time for details to insinuate any relationship. I find too that acquainting oneself with others at different opportunities no matter how abbreviated is assured to expand the boundaries of familiarity. Because we’re not disposed to formal or even semi-formal gatherings, we thrive instead upon casual encounters such as the random crossing of paths or what may be called bumping into one another from time to time. It makes for a more spontaneous introduction to what is invariably an enlargement of personal knowledge on both sides.
It hasn’t been often this past season that we’ve had a cloudy day or stormy weather. Today is a rare exception. I have to say it is a welcome interlude from what otherwise has been an unabated compulsion to expose my wasting carcass (as far as cosmetically allowable) to the burnishing rays of the sun from within the cloudless azure sky.
“Stormy Weather” is a 1933 song written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. Ethel Waters first sang it at The Cotton Club night club in Harlem in 1933 and recorded it that year, and in the same year it was sung in London by Elisabeth Welch and recorded by Frances Langford. The song has since been performed by artists as diverse as Frank Sinatra, Etta James, Dinah Washington, Clodagh Rodgers, and Reigning Sound and most famously by Lena Horne and Billie Holiday.
By an entirely unanticipated fortuity this uncommonly cloudy morning I lingered at my makeshift writing desk on the ground floor of our townhouse in Buttonwood Bay sufficiently long to buckle down to a scintillating email from a former law school colleague (now practicing law in Paris) in addition to the composition of an improvised postulation about the shades of etiquette à propos the poolside itinerant here on Key Largo. As though to punctuate the chance and capital of the window, we soon thereafter launched our projected errand to the local grocery store to replenish the larder during the process of which we passed a sign on the highway announcing in modest white letters on a bright green background “Key Largo”. I instantly gushed with awe as I once again, for the umpteenth time no doubt, recalled what indescribable favour it is to recognize this palpable achievement; viz., having succeeded after escape from the pandemic and literally months of hopeful ambition to fulfill the goal of wintering on the Florida Keys. It has thus far been a record of indolence, complemented today by the commensurately idle recognition of the Spinn Espresso Maker (thanks to DD who has proven himself an invaluable resource of intelligence, social vibrancy and unmitigated humour).
What follows is an email from Daniel A. Laprès, a former housemate of mine at Dalhousie Law School in Halifax, Nova Scotia in the early 1970s.
Due in part to my current physical immobility (as I await scheduled knee surgery) and in part to my intentional (and admittedly curmudgeonly) removal from all but my most desirous social conventions, the extent of my society at Buttonwood Bay on Key Largo has been predominantly confined to poolside fraternity. When we arrived here 4½ months ago even those acquaintances were infrequent as there were often but 3 – 5 people gathered about the pool at any one time. Lately however the frequency of community has increased exponentially and as a result the acuteness of polite protocol has been accentuated.