Sunday, following the tennis, we went to lunch at Coconuts. After we ordered, I asked the young waitress what happened to the pelicans, which used to hang around the dock, and sometimes perch on the nearby yachts. I had noticed their absence the last time we were there.
"That’s a good question,” the waitress said, and then launched into Ogden Nash: “A wonderful bird is the pelican. His bill can hold more than his belican. He can hold in his beak. Enough food for a week. But I'm damned if I see how the helican.”
I was delighted by the news that Miami will be one of the hosts of the 2026 World Cup. Even if you don’t buy tickets to the games, you will be able to partake of the atmosphere, as fans from four countries will come to South Florida and gather in our bars.
In 1994, the last time the U.S. hosted the event, I traveled to Orlando to write color stories for the Sun-Sentinel. I remember grumblings then about The City Beautiful getting the games instead of Miami, which counted more soccer fans among its population. But Orlando’s advantage over Miami, at least for a feature writer, was that the celebrations were very concentrated; every evening Belgians, Mexicans, Irish, and Dutch filled the bars of Church Street Station. (You knew the first three by their national colors, the last by their height.) Here, fans – from what four countries we don’t yet know – will be spread out all over the city – South Beach, North Beach (especially if we get Argentina), Coral Gables, Wynwood – and even the region. Las Olas restaurants will hang big screens, and Pompano Beach (if Brazil plays here) will be buzzing.
I’ll probably spend my time in Coral Gables, where games are regularly shown on the pedestrian part of Giralda Avenue and at Fritz & Franz Bierhaus, which has a large terrace on Merrick Way. It was here that the mayors of Miami and Miami-Dade gathered yesterday to hear the news that their home will be a host.
One of my complaints about Fort Lauderdale, which have decreased as the city has grown, is that the longer I live here the fewer people I know. I’ll walk the main street – which admittedly has lots of tourists – and not see a familiar face.
But last night I saw two: one of a lawyer I frequently play tennis with and one of a former magazine publisher I never wrote for.
A quick weekend trip to a family reunion in Lancaster had me flying into Trenton, where I got my first newspaper job, and then renting a car and heading west. Friday evening I drove the back roads of Amish country, watching men in fields riding horse-drawn plows and women in bonnets hoeing in gardens. Saturday evening, strolling the streets of Princeton, I saw packs of people dressed in orange and black for alumni weekend. (One man sat on a bench on Nassau Street holding a ceramic tiger.) Last evening, arriving home, I drove from the airport to A1A and gazed at the women in bikinis and the men in tattoos. And I was struck not just by the variety of the world, but the variety of three worlds I know quite well.