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