I have a really good job. One of the things that qualifies it as such is that I travel a bit for work and go to extremely nice places. One of those places, where I was last week, is the company's facility in Riviera Beach, Florida.
Riviera Beach itself isn't particularly wonderful (more about that another time), but when I'm working there I stay in West Palm Beach. That is pretty much wonderful. More about that another time as well.
Getting there means flying into either West Palm Beach airport or Ft. Lauderdale. West Palm Beach airport is so convenient as to be ridiculous. It's Midway convenient, times two. It's also clean, bright, loaded with ancient travelers, stuff like that, but mostly it is incredibly convenient. The other side of the coin is that flights into West Palm Beach cost more, and the primary service provider for direct flights is American, and that would require my hiking it up to O'Hare, which I prefer to avoid. That's a long winded way of saying I like flying from Midway, and that means going to Ft Lauderdale aiport, an hour south of Riviera Beach. That requires, of course, an hour drive back to Ft Lauderdale airport when it's time to return home.
That's where I found myself Friday morning, southbound on I-95, headed for the airport in Ft Lauderdale, and wondering if there was ever an actual Fort Lauderdale. The rental car had to be fueled, so I got off the expressway near the airport, at the same exit I'd done before, to get gas and find a bathroom. Sunrise Boulevard. Yeah, that's where I got off last time, Sunrise Boulevard, and that worked out just fine. Food, gas and a shortcut to the airport access road.
I should interject here that I have always had a knack for finding the shittiest neighborhoods, wherever I travel. Places where I stand out as unique. Unusual. Not local. You get the idea. So it was on Friday morning as I realized that Sunrise Boulevard was not where I had been before and Sunrise Boulevard was not where I would be instantly comfortable making new friends on Friday morning.
Back in the day ("the day" in this case being the 1830's) it was customary for the military to name a fort after the commander who settled it. Luckily for the folks around here, the first fort was established by Major William Lauderdale, who was sent here to drive off the last warring Seminoles. I say they are lucky because imagine if the first fort had been established by, say, Captain Alvin Turdflinger. Would people be getting excited to travel to visit the beaches of Ft Turdflinger, Florida? I think not.
Our man Lauderdale (we are back in the day again) had contracted some respiratory problems that were exacerbated by chasing natives off their property and died six months later in Baton Rouge. So much for the health enhancing effects of working in South Florida.
Back in the current day, as I veered off the expressway onto Sunrise Boulevard, there was a sign directing me to a Shell station a mile or so along. Excellent, proceed. I pulled in there and was promptly approached by a local entrepreneur, a woman whose name I didn't catch, and from whom I would gladly catch nothing else.
"Well helloooo handsome...aren't you Johnny that I met at CVS last night (turning entrepreneurially to assure that I was duly impressed by what passes for coquettish southern belle behavior as displayed by gas station hookers at ten o'clock on a Friday morning)...I sure do hope so 'cause I will be so disappointed..."
No. I ain't Johnny, and I gotta go.
So, without gas and without having found a bathroom (shudder...it was probably Belle's "office") I jump back in the car and head back toward the expressway. REALLY need a bathroom by this point. AHA! McDonald's ahead! Clean bathrooms--and no hookers! Awesome!
I pull in and jump out of the car and enter and find, how shall I say this, hmm, it is as if I am Major Lauderdale, and this McDonald's is for the exclusive use of the local Seminole tribe. As I enter, all the Seminoles stop what they're doing, saying, ordering, eating, etc. and gaze upon the interloper. That would be me. Steve Interloper, how you doin'.
I spot the bathrooms, and that is much more urgent at this point than introducing myself to the locals. I brush past an apparent local and into the men's room where there's an employee tidying up. I grunt a greeting and close the door, at which point the other patron has followed me in (into the bathroom, not the stall) and there's suddenly this dual howl of laughter and chagrin, as the fellow following apparently had the same requirement and the employee found it highly amusing that I'd captured "the fort", and let loose with one of those screeching laughs while the other guy let go a lament and I ...well, you know.
There was no one in the rest room there when I exited. There was what appeared to yet another entrepreneur in the parking lot (at McDonalds--at ten in the morning--seriously?). I filled the gas tank at another station on the other side of the expressway, which was just as crappy, by the way, but far less entrepreneurial, and fled to the relatively mundane surroundings of Ft. Lauderdale airport, where the young woman who checked in my rental car asked "What could we have done to make your experience EXCELLENT?"
Nothing, thank you.
I'm fine just the way it was.
Riviera Beach itself isn't particularly wonderful (more about that another time), but when I'm working there I stay in West Palm Beach. That is pretty much wonderful. More about that another time as well.
Getting there means flying into either West Palm Beach airport or Ft. Lauderdale. West Palm Beach airport is so convenient as to be ridiculous. It's Midway convenient, times two. It's also clean, bright, loaded with ancient travelers, stuff like that, but mostly it is incredibly convenient. The other side of the coin is that flights into West Palm Beach cost more, and the primary service provider for direct flights is American, and that would require my hiking it up to O'Hare, which I prefer to avoid. That's a long winded way of saying I like flying from Midway, and that means going to Ft Lauderdale aiport, an hour south of Riviera Beach. That requires, of course, an hour drive back to Ft Lauderdale airport when it's time to return home.
That's where I found myself Friday morning, southbound on I-95, headed for the airport in Ft Lauderdale, and wondering if there was ever an actual Fort Lauderdale. The rental car had to be fueled, so I got off the expressway near the airport, at the same exit I'd done before, to get gas and find a bathroom. Sunrise Boulevard. Yeah, that's where I got off last time, Sunrise Boulevard, and that worked out just fine. Food, gas and a shortcut to the airport access road.
I should interject here that I have always had a knack for finding the shittiest neighborhoods, wherever I travel. Places where I stand out as unique. Unusual. Not local. You get the idea. So it was on Friday morning as I realized that Sunrise Boulevard was not where I had been before and Sunrise Boulevard was not where I would be instantly comfortable making new friends on Friday morning.
Back in the day ("the day" in this case being the 1830's) it was customary for the military to name a fort after the commander who settled it. Luckily for the folks around here, the first fort was established by Major William Lauderdale, who was sent here to drive off the last warring Seminoles. I say they are lucky because imagine if the first fort had been established by, say, Captain Alvin Turdflinger. Would people be getting excited to travel to visit the beaches of Ft Turdflinger, Florida? I think not.
Our man Lauderdale (we are back in the day again) had contracted some respiratory problems that were exacerbated by chasing natives off their property and died six months later in Baton Rouge. So much for the health enhancing effects of working in South Florida.
 |
Statue of Maj. Wm. Lauderdale.
Not the darling of the Seminole nation.
|
Back in the current day, as I veered off the expressway onto Sunrise Boulevard, there was a sign directing me to a Shell station a mile or so along. Excellent, proceed. I pulled in there and was promptly approached by a local entrepreneur, a woman whose name I didn't catch, and from whom I would gladly catch nothing else.
"Well helloooo handsome...aren't you Johnny that I met at CVS last night (turning entrepreneurially to assure that I was duly impressed by what passes for coquettish southern belle behavior as displayed by gas station hookers at ten o'clock on a Friday morning)...I sure do hope so 'cause I will be so disappointed..."
No. I ain't Johnny, and I gotta go.
So, without gas and without having found a bathroom (shudder...it was probably Belle's "office") I jump back in the car and head back toward the expressway. REALLY need a bathroom by this point. AHA! McDonald's ahead! Clean bathrooms--and no hookers! Awesome!
I pull in and jump out of the car and enter and find, how shall I say this, hmm, it is as if I am Major Lauderdale, and this McDonald's is for the exclusive use of the local Seminole tribe. As I enter, all the Seminoles stop what they're doing, saying, ordering, eating, etc. and gaze upon the interloper. That would be me. Steve Interloper, how you doin'.
I spot the bathrooms, and that is much more urgent at this point than introducing myself to the locals. I brush past an apparent local and into the men's room where there's an employee tidying up. I grunt a greeting and close the door, at which point the other patron has followed me in (into the bathroom, not the stall) and there's suddenly this dual howl of laughter and chagrin, as the fellow following apparently had the same requirement and the employee found it highly amusing that I'd captured "the fort", and let loose with one of those screeching laughs while the other guy let go a lament and I ...well, you know.
There was no one in the rest room there when I exited. There was what appeared to yet another entrepreneur in the parking lot (at McDonalds--at ten in the morning--seriously?). I filled the gas tank at another station on the other side of the expressway, which was just as crappy, by the way, but far less entrepreneurial, and fled to the relatively mundane surroundings of Ft. Lauderdale airport, where the young woman who checked in my rental car asked "What could we have done to make your experience EXCELLENT?"
Nothing, thank you.
I'm fine just the way it was.
