Travel Blog

Drinking tea in the cafe in the Delray Beach Public Library yesterday morning, a woman tried to give me some idea of the town 10 years ago. "My neighbor always went around in a blue bikini," she said. "One day she saw me with a camera and said, 'Oh, you're a photographer. Would you take a picture of my boyfriend's lion cubs?' This was in an apartment right on the beach!"

A short while later, at a restaurant on Atlantic Ave., a friend mentioned that after lunch he was headed to Sawgrass Mills. "When I was a boy," he said, "I'd go to the county fair once a year and pay 25 cents to see the fat lady. Now I see fat women whenever I want. For free. And they're even fatter."

After lunch, using a men's room at Palm Beach State College, I read: "I just wrote on the wall. Take THAT society!"

In the evening, at an event in downtown Fort Lauderdale, a woman who runs a used bookstore told me that she was at a party recently at which a woman asked her if she sold paperbacks for 10 cents. She told the woman that if she sold books for 10 cents she wouldn't be able to make a living. "Then I'm not coming to your bookstore," the woman told her.