And similar to that, subsequent week it’s Christmas. It’s the time of 12 months after I replicate on what has and has not transpired during the last 12 months.
Normally, I wait till my remaining column of the 12 months earlier than contemplating the 12 months’s occasions. I assumed I’d get began a bit early in case I’ve extra to say than I feel I do. It’d end up that I’ve much less to say than I feel, however that not often proves to be the case.
It’s also the time of 12 months to precise gratitude and acknowledge these issues that carry pleasure. I’ve a complete pink velvet Santa sack filled with causes to be grateful. For starters, I’m grateful to have created a life the place I can spend a variety of time writing, which is superior as a result of writing is my joyful place. It’s the one place and time after I know I’m precisely the place I’m presupposed to be.
I’m grateful that I get to do what I really like practically each single day – thanks, Michelle Bertelli, for twenty years of unconditional love and help for my obsession. I’m grateful, too, for spending the final 20 years, a 3rd of my life, with you, you superb, loving associate.
Now, final 12 months, about this time, I wrote about some huge issues I used to be anticipating to perform. Just a few of them by no means fairly materialized. For one, I hoped to create a bit pop-up museum. In some unspecified time in the future sooner or later, it would nonetheless occur. The opposite huge factor I assumed would occur was the discharge of Quantity 3 of my “Florida Keys Historical past with Brad Bertelli” e book collection. I got here shut with this one. The excellent news is that by the point the New 12 months rolls round, the manuscript can be out of my fingers and off to my editor. How lengthy that course of will take depends upon his schedule. Nonetheless, a number of weeks after its return, I’ll be blowing a conch shell to rejoice its launch. Blowing a conch shell can be becoming, as I speak lots about conch within the new e book. “A Conch Story” is without doubt one of the new chapters.
As yearly tends to do, 2024 additionally got here with a number of surprises. The micro-burst (quasi-tornado) that blew via our neighborhood in July got here as an sudden, five-minute shock. We misplaced a bunch of timber, and one fell on the patio roof. Whereas all of us may have achieved with out that occasion, it once more proved how a lot these island communities come collectively when huge issues occur. It is without doubt one of the causes I’m grateful to have known as the Florida Keys residence for the final 23 years.
The largest shock, and doubtless the 12 months’s spotlight, was being invited to Ketchum, Idaho, to talk on the Group Library’s Ernest Hemingway Seminar. Not solely was I requested to offer the closing keynote, however I used to be additionally requested to speak about piracy, Prohibition, and rum-running within the Florida Keys. It was a enjoyable speak, and I went properly over my allotted 60-minute slot. It was a broad subject and I had lots to say. Whereas on the topic, I assumed it might be legal to not carry up the historical past of the rumrunner, the traditional Florida Keys cocktail invented within the Seventies about 5.2 miles from the place I’m at the moment sitting.
In Quantity 3, the invention of the rumrunner by a bartender named Tiki John at a bit Windley Key resort known as Vacation Isle seems in a chapter known as “A Jimmy Buffett Tribute.” I’m excited concerning the new e book. It’s a bit longer, a bit totally different and full of what I feel are a few of my greatest tales but — and heaps and gobs of native historical past.
What’s all the time thrilling, particularly these previous couple of years, is watching how the trail I’m wandering down continues to unfold. Every year, it has led to new and sudden experiences. In 2024, a number of of life’s bread crumbs have been left on mentioned path, they usually could result in issues I’ll be writing about and speaking about in 2025. The factor about bread crumbs is that generally life’s geese waddle alongside and gobble them up, and never since you did something improper or since you wandered off in some path you weren’t meant to go, however as a result of generally life’s geese simply waddle up and gobble them down.
There may be one bread crumb particularly that I’m hoping doesn’t get devoured up, handed and forgotten. Months and months in the past, I used to be requested so as to add my historic two cents in a teaser/pilot filmed for a tv present. My fingers are completely crossed that these rattling geese don’t get to that bread crumb earlier than it’s given the prospect to achieve its hopeful conclusion.
I used to be proper to begin the final column of the 12 months per week early. There may be extra I need to replicate on about 2024 and extra I need to say about what appears to be like to be an fascinating 12 months to return. Within the meantime, I hope everyone seems to be protected and merry, and searching ahead to the festivities which are celebrated this time of 12 months. I do know I’m.