Remembering a special place

Friday night, at the Coconut Grove Sailing Club, was special.  We go there most Friday nights, where we see new friends, and old friends who help to bring back great memories.  But, this drizzly, miserable evening, which started out sparsely attended, ended up being a mini-Taurus reunion.  Not the current Taurus, but, the pre-March, 2003 Taurus.  I feel sorry for anyone reading this who did not know THAT Taurus.

The current version of The Taurus is a friendly enough place, which is trying hard to have a neighborhood feeling, but it can never be anything like the original.  It will never have a shark on the ceiling, whose maw I decorated for every holiday, like with a Santa or Easter Bunny, or Leprechaun.  It will never have body bowling, ring toss, or blowgun competitions on Sunday afternoons.  It certainly will never have a big red phone booth.  How many problems were solved, or created, in that phone booth!  And I doubt it will ever have a poetry night.

We’ll never experience King Mango Strut preparations there, or the Strut after party with a couple of thousand people dancing on Main Highway.  There was backgammon in the back room, and liar’s poke in another.  And, the bands, oh, the wonderful bands we danced to Tuesdays through Saturdays.

And the characters – Sunhawk selling his ingenious wood carvings, Nassau shining shoes, Neith Neveleson selling her paintings, and Charlie Brown philosophizing.

There is so much that was so special about the Taurus.  We’ll never experience another place like it, or, another Butch Beamer Warren.

Feel free to send in Coconut Grove observations (good or bad) and we will run it as a "Postcard From a Friend." Any observation, long or short, if it's not good, please try not to use names of people or places. Email address is to the right, you can email your "postcard" there. We'll keep it unanimous.