Missing Monty

I miss my friend Monty Trainer, who has been up in New England all summer, something I wish I was doing, maybe next year. Monty goes up north every summer, he always invites me to the inn he owns, but I never seem to make it, I usually end up in New England in colder months, after the inn has closed and Monty is back home in Coconut Grove.

The Grove just isn't the same without him, after all, he is the Grove Father.

I walk by his office almost every day, it's in the Coconut Grove Arts Festival Gallery. And for the last few weeks, I keep thinking I see him but it's this sculpture.

As I come up the stairs at the Mayfair Atrium from Florida Avenue, and walk up toward the gallery, it looks like Monty is there on the floor or something, the glare on the window and the straw hat, which Monty wear's often, makes me think it is him. You can't tell from this photo, but from a distance and with the glare, it looks like a real person. I don't know what he would be doing on the floor, but for a quick second, it always looks like him.

Monty always wears a straw hat like the one on the sculpture. That's probably his hat. So every day, I am thrown by the image. One day soon, it will actually be him inside the gallery, because I think he is coming home next week after a nice long cool summer up north.

I just may have to get up there next year myself.