Florida, Cocoa Beach, Cocoa Village...

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:     Florida, Cocoa Beach, Cocoa Village...

These are Pekilans or Pelicans, maybe...  They live around Cocoa Beach, Florid, at least that's
what they told me.  We had a very chummy chat...   We became Jolly good chums, as it turned out

In July of this year, in the Year of Our GeezerHood, 2026, my entire nuclear family (and I) paid an almost week-long visit to the beauties and delights of Cocoa Beach, Florida, residing therein in two separate rented condominiums. 

The main objective of our adventure was to offer three of our grandchildren -- 2026 graduates of the University of Wisconsin-

Milwaukee, Shorewood High School and Ronald Reagan High School respectively -- the Graduation Gifts they most vocally and earnestly desired.

Namely, the aforementioned commemorative, nostalgic, returns to a place they so thoroughly and memorably enjoyed in their more youthful, teenaged and pre-teen years of life on the planet.  (I believe they're all from this planet!!??)

This is an image from Mallorca, as opposed
to some other Mediterranean Island or
boat landing place!

I hasten to add, our fourth grandchild will not graduate H.S. until 2028, but we would never have excluded that sweet child from the journey.  She had recently returned from a "Study-Abroad" sojourn on the island of Mallorca, off the east coast of mainland Spain.  

One of the condos we had rented previously -- and over several years' time -- was from SweetHeart's cousins when their parents and they, for many years, owned the Florida retreat located in the

splendidly named Spanish Main Condo Complex.  

I believe the complex was thusly dubbed owing to the preponderance of pirates, brigands, piracy and their fabled

Pirate Flags and 
Information Graphics!

adventures aboard their "Jolly Rogers."  Pirate ships sported much-feared flags of menace as they prowled the seas off the shores of Cocoa Beach in search of gold, treasure and other booty obtained by chasing, boarding and then killing people, and then pillaging and 
plundering anything and everything of value. 

Or...  I could be wrong, and much of that pirate pillaging, murder and mayhem was excluded to the confines of the Caribbean Sea.  It doesn't matter...  (I think I spotted pirate vessels when scanning the horizon during our time in Cocoa!!  Or were they pelicans dressed as pirates... ??)  

The iconic Skull and Crossed
Swords Pirate Flag, Preferred 
by many Captains of Infamy!

Our happy times in Cocoa (dropping the "Beach" suffix for purposes of brevity) included frolicking in the Atlantic, hopping or diving under enormous breaking waves, avoiding sharks and jelly fish and barracuda...  (I hypothesized that one might carry peanut butter in one's bathing costume to combat jelly fish, mixing the two to endear oneself to the stinging nasties!!  I recall feeding a PB&Jelly Fish sammie to one of them with desired results!...  Or I may have been hallucinating whilst lolling in the sands?!...)

What else?  Oh yes, we dined at least twice at the famous and

This is an authentic image looking out from
the fabled restaurant, Coconuts on the Beach
in Cocoa Beach, FL.  I'm the one out there
on the Beach!

fabulous "Coconuts on the     Beach," an indoor / outdoor culinary parlor just a mile or so south of the condo complex.  A walk along the beach would see you there pleasantly, even rather quickly at times, amid the smashingly delightful sound of the sea and the surf and the waves that constantly collide obstreperously with the beach and its abundant sandy surface, always littered with shells and the decaying carcasses of deceased, former sea life, such as conches and octopi and giant extinct toothy sea creatures!

Another delight was our visit to Cocoa Village.  That drive consisted of passing the abhorrent (Ron Jon) monstrosity, then turning left, passing over the Banana River, then the Indian river (one the Hubert Humphrey bridge), finally arriving at the delightful confines of Cocoa Village.  The village includes many

The yummy cafe on the
corner, serving coffee, pop,
ice cream, other nummy stuff!

many shops (one should take care to avert one's gaze if one finds shopping as loathsome...) and fine restaurants, even a yummy cafe that isn't quite so fine but far more affordable and accommodating to those visitors who do not have vast money bins and jewels hidden in their commodious wine or just stuff cellars!

The only negative part of visits to Cocoa Village was that our youngest granddaughter left a purchase behind that we succeeded in recovering the following day.  Our sweet and wonderful eldest daughter left a newly purchased pair of sunglasses (lentas del sol) at the shop of purchase that we were not able to recover.  Alas!

(Special Note of Dedication:    For SweetHeart, Alie, Bethie, Tad, Coen, Seany, Lucy and 

Phi Phi...  and in a lesser vein all the glorious pelicans, ships at sea and creatures of the Deep! 

Humbly Submitted 07-20-2026...  by Joel K 

 

  

   

The Remarkable Surprise and Shock of Arrival!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:  The Remarkable surprise and shock of arrival!

Sometime in 1961, it was, a crowd of young military chaps boarded an aircraft in Brindisi, Italy bound for Yesilkoy (now Ataturk International) Airport outside Istanbul, Turkey. 

The airplane flew noisily, as if it had been  recently refurbished by a plumber. It seemed "rickety" and as un-"air"worthy as something pictured in medieval, pre-aviation drawings. Many of the GI's aboard clung to seat rests, knuckles white with terror.

I'm not particularly brave, but I was fascinated, fear having been supplanted by

excitement, as I scanned each rapidly appearing and then disappearing plot of earth below from a window side perch.

The flight seemed to endure for hours, if not days...  It lasted perhaps six or seven hours, as I recall, the bounce and turbulence and the dips and drops making it seem like a week and a half in an air balloon or a dirigible during a cyclone!    

We landed safely, as many sighs of relief like yellow, deflating balloons wafted through the cabin replacing panic.  We quickly disembarked and were almost immediately greeted by a wormy little Turkish chap who wasted no time in asking our ultimate posting destination.

I stumbled up to him and answered, "We'll be based at Karamursel Air Station, west of Yalova, I think." The base is perched on the shores of the Sea of Marmara, not far from Golchuk!  

"You will love the 'fa-cil-ee-tees,'" the wormy little man announced, a smile revealing all of the yellow teeth he had in his rather large, sort of cavernous mouth. It seemed he had as many teeth as there are keys on a piano!

Several of the lads, stating mainly soto voce, they wanted to slap him silly! Those several

clearly didn't want to be anywhere near the Country of Turkey. 

"Can I go home now?" one of them whined.    

The Turkish man meant "facilities," of course.  I found his pronunciation intriguing and amusing, wondering if every Turk we'd meet would elongate words and syllables comically. Couldn't wait to find out. 

I thanked him for his rosy prediction and his "wild" enthusiasm about our destination.  Many of my military companions complained, wishing they could get back on the aircraft and go home, frightening as the flight had been, as well as the scary prospect of some two years in wildly exotic Turkey.

As a means of easing us into the next two years or so, the length of our upcoming assignment at Karamursel Air Base, we were billeted for an overnight stay at the fabulous Cinar Hotel outside Istanbul, (pronounced si-nar, an accent cedilla placed like a goatee under the "C," creating a soft sound like an "S.")

The U.S. Military probably financed our stay and the delicious feast we were served.  But the servers, all male, kept emptying our ashtrays the moment an ash was dumped from each of the preponderance of cigarettes every GI was smoking as if it were the last awaiting a firing squad. Coming from modest or underprivileged backgrounds, the hovering waiters made all of us a bit uncomfortable.

Cinar's rooms were lavish, a kind of ridiculous (planned... or unplanned?) ploy as if presaging with a kind of evil sneer our accommodations at the air base.

Karamursel's accommodations were anything but lavish.  We discovered that fact the following day. At least the rooms were clean, and we were ordered of course to keep them clean throughout our tour of duty.  A military, disciplinary mandate!  

"A quarter should bounce off of the top blanket of your properly-made beds," a nasty sergeant had announced during basic training.  That bounce never happened in my experience...

Finally arriving at Karamursel, after a bumpy and lumpy bus ride, uh we stared in some dismay at the stark and sterile look of flat-topped

barracks and quonset huts and dull grey buildings that dotted and populated the base.  It also sported huge antennas and a so-called "flight line," but no possibility an aircraft could land there. 

One guessed that every air base in captivity must have a flight line for visible or invisible aircraft. Strange!

Soon we were installed in barracks rooms, each with three added occupants.  Then off to our assignments via a dark blue school-like bus, along the so-called flight line, past rows of towering antennas, to our work places.  

A few of use, including myself, were asked if we'd prefer to be assigned to "Research and Development (R&D)" vs. the utterly tedious and boring duty of monitoring printers and their endless output of correspondence from "the enemy."

It was an excellent choice, R&D, that is. Our duty was to learn known electronic systems by sound, about 90 of them, and then search for new electronic systems, using huge and

expensive radio / monitors.  Finding something, we'd explore, via "space-age" equipment and brain power, decipher the coded, musically-warbling information they were transmitting.  Great fun!

We had success!  Even hear of the Poet, Pushkin?  

I write this sort of ancient memoir given the timing...  I began my military service on June 12th, was discharged honorably on June 11th, four years later.  

Readers are welcome to share their own memories and adventures in military service. Don't hesitate; space is limited!  Thank You!

Humbly Submitted, June 12th...  Joel K.  

  

  

  

 

 

    

     

From a Fable -- A "Spark" -- Then Brass & Pewter!

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

It may be an old story, an old fable, but it continues to resonate,

have meaning even in today's complex, often strange and 

frightening era!  

This Episode:           From a Fable --  A "Spark" -- Then Brass & Pewter!

 

Along an ocean's coastline, a young woman and her small daughter strolled leisurely, enjoying fine weather, large breaking waves and the beautiful vistas that lay on all sides, like gorgeous paintings of both land and seascapes.

As they continued, in the distance a figure seemed to be performing a dance, a kind of arabesque.  "What is that?  Is that a someone, a person?" the child asked, looking up at her mother.  

"I can't tell from this distance," the mother answered.  As they drew closer, the figure defined itself, a tall man wearing a slouch hat.  In regular intervals, he bent, picked something up and hurled it into the sea.

Eventually, the mother and daughter closed the distance, approached the man, and stood near him, watching in wonder, his odd actions, his "dance."  

"What are you doing?" the child asked

"Sweetheart," the woman admonished her child, "Perhaps the man wishes to be left alone."

"I don't mind," said the man.  As he looked down at the sand, mother and Child followed his gaze, staring in wide-eyed surprise at the enormous number of starfish lying on the beach, many quite obviously dead, sun-bleached and twisted.  Many had bent limbs, oddly curled as if attempting to move and find their way back to the surf.

As the two stared, suddenly recognizing the incredible number of starfish, the man once again bent, picked up an apparently still living starfish and tossed the creature as far as

he could back into the sea, doing his best to heave it beyond the rounded, about-to-be breaking waves.  Some of the waves were so large and so loud they startled the small child.

"Why are you doing that?" the mother asked, amazed and more than a bit surprised as she regarded once again in wonder the enormous number of beached starfish.  "It'll never make a difference!"

At that, the man bent and pickup up another, and in one swift motion hurled it back into the sea beyond the breaking waves, his body seeming to perform again the strange dance viewed from afar by the mother and child.  

"It made a difference to that one," the man said as his posture returned to a straight and upright position.  

And then he grinned at the mother and her child.  They, in turn, looked back at the man, smiles of understanding brightly curling the contours of their young faces.

****************************************************************************

Whether true or a sweet story or a fable conjured by a beach-combing poet or writer, doesn't really matter.  The moral, or the idea is clear...   MAKE A DIFFERENCE! 

Some years ago, as if having heard the fable, the story having penetrated, a spark entering and joining forces with a synapse, like a collision of creative energy, someone borrowed the idea, had to have it, to share it with a group of followers.

The concept then morphed into something tangible.  It had to, and starfish bloomed and multiplied into many incarnations of brass and pewter.   Whatever the event that it spawned, it succeeded admirably.    

To my aged, "geezerized" brain, the idea is a marvel that demands to be shared and re-planted into the heads and hearts of everyone, proselytizing annoyingly if necessary.  We can all MAKE A DIFFERENCE, meaning a positive one, an empathic one that helps others to find paths to do good things, to make a difference in their own lives and those of anyone with hearing or shouting or "throwing" distance.

If you happen to find yourself on an ocean beach, one dotted liberally with beached starfish, bend over, pick one up and toss it into the sea... 

Humbly Submitted -- 05-15-2026 by Joel K.  

       

 

  

  

Probing the Histories That Lie Beneath...

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:          Probing the Histories That Lie Beneath... 

I was thinking just the other day...   and, yes, I do think occasionally despite my standing as a geezer of an "historic" age (according to a brilliant contributor!)...     I should perhaps explain.   Many of us have reached an age that should, in the young, I think, prompt wonder, respect and a desire to ask questions, seek answers, probe for history, lest the opportunity is lost forever in the blurred mists of passing time!

I regret I did not ask my grandparents and parents more about their pasts, their own

We / They are not as old as
those fine features on 
the Acropolis in Athens!
Truly, We / they aren't!!  It's
merely symbolic...

histories....   Other relatives and friends too, parents' friends...  I'm guessing many of my contemporaries harbor the same regret.  Shucks, Alas and Drat!  Too late now for too many of us...

SweetHeart and I, some years ago, became "Chief Volunteers" (or Volunteer Coordinators) at a school for seniors, along with installations upon -- having been unanimously asked and appointed to -- its Board of Directors, a dual honor or sorts.  (Again, one of those profound distinctions after it having been determined that we were indeed still breathing!)  

As we've grown into our roles and the comfort levels that come with longevity, we've been privileged to meet a number of extraordinary and talented fellow members and volunteers of "historic" standing!  

Here's the revelation that materializes in the mind as realization dawns like a rising sun on a summer's day:   People in their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and centenarian status as well, have histories, remarkable ones!  They were not born in the senior portions of their lives.  They have history, some if not most of it fascinating stuff!

One need merely probe a bit, ask questions, ask them about themselves....   Mind telling us your life story!  Start at the very beginning...!

Where they've been, what PATHS they've taken, where they come from, ancestral homes and homelands, what schools they attended and what professions or career paths they pursued prior to appearing somewhat different -- you know, grey or white-haired, faces and necks lined, hands and arms spotted and creased, road maps of achievement. 

 Like great, glorious and enduring symbols of antiquity.  Astounding!  It's true...    People have history, and they travel along interesting pathways throughout their lives...  Explore those pathways and discover...

In conversation with one of our school for seniors colleagues, those of us listening were delighted and fascinated to learn that he was a lawyer, in fact a patent attorney.  He spent time in the U.S. Army, in Berlin, Germany and other stations during his military service.  He's in his 90s.  And  he was a championship swimmer, having placed 7th in the entire U.S. collegiate swim team population!  He has a helluva history!

On the same board and among our friends, both new and of long standing, we have a past school principal and administrator, a former star reporter and editor, a professor emeritus of anthropology, a former and highly successful business founder and owner...

One of those historic personalities continues to play competitive tennis, another competitive softball.  A few of us played highly competitive volleyball for more than 40 years, well into the venerable 70s.  I mean, all of that background, that history, is quite amazing.  You'd be wrong, and maybe a bit addle-brained if you don't agree!!  Take the time to think and to inquire...  And, you'd make the objects of your inquiries very happy!  That alone is a gift, a significant and generous gift.     

One wonders how many young people would look at those individuals who have achieved "senior status" and register only their obvious ages, never bothering to look deeper or inquire about their lives, accomplishments and experiences.   Seek sit-down meetings and long conversations!  You know, "Tell me about your life...  Leave nothing out...  well, that is, almost nothing!"

And if there isn't enough self gratification in initiating a fine conversation with wonderful older adults, wouldn't it be a great way to "break ice."  An even greater means of making a friend, ingratiating oneself to a person with whom you might just build a friendship, a confidant, someone with whom you might start a valuable network!  

 THANK YOU!   Tune in again for fascinating reading, superb ideas and scintillating conversation, meaning of course sort of written conversation... 

However, I am available should readers wish to have an actual, verbal conversation.  Wouldn't that be swell!!??  

Humbly Submitted 05-09-2026, by Joel K.

  

     

  

A Hoops Revelation...

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:               A Hoops Revelation...

🌰🏉🌰🌰🌰

People tend to jump
when playing Hoops!

Our sweet friend Kathy, sometimes an enigma!  She traveled to Indiana frequently to visit with her brother, Pat, and his family.  What many of us did not know, sister and brother had a secondary motive, one of perhaps equal, maybe even greater anticipatory importance.

We, or perhaps just I, discovered that ulterior reason just very recently, and I was very much taken aback, completely surprised, really kind of amazed.  Sometimes we have no inkling about those we think we know so well.  We sneeze in wide-eyed wonder and surprise!

Had no idea "Hoops," March Madness was -- to me, in any case -- a passion of hers, a crazy Mad Passion, something that compelled her to travel to court sides and venues all over the damn place.  Remarkable!

If she couldn't travel to the games, she'd install herself in front of a large plasma television to savor as many of the contests as she could, probably all of them, each and every game until and of course including when the brackets reached the "Elite Eight" and then the "Final Four." Obsessed with buckets!  How 'bout that!  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm reminded of my great friend, Steve, the greatest -- in my biased opinion, I readily admit -- gatecrasher of all time.  I was aware of his talent, but the variety of it often had me flabbergasted!!  

On one highly memorable and treasured occasion, a group of his friends -- happily, myself included -- albeit a small group, traveled to Louisville, Kentucky to enjoy a slice of the fabled NCAA tournament.  Yes, more Hoops-Centered Obsessions.  But it wasn't just the game itself.  Steve created the "Honor Guard," a fabricated title that had his special group seated right on the basketball floor, meaning right next to the players' benches.  

No tickets for the game, no special passes, just Steve and his brilliance as a creator of special entree to events none of his peers would ever had thought possible! How'd he do that??!

Steve is no longer with us.  Our friend and her brother, those mentioned in the opening paragraphs, are also among the departed, sadly to say the least.  

What a hoot, and what wonderful "Hoops"of action and adventure!  What marvels, what extraordinary people populate our lives.  What memories.  We think we know them, and then remarkable revelations are driven unexpectedly into our awareness.  Like metal-tipped darts hurled into the bullseyes of our consciousness.