*Rubs eyes*
I think I'm seeing double!
Well I will take that as a compliment. I could look like Eleanor Roosevelt, bless her heart.
Okay, the story:
Back 15 or so years ago, my friends Alicia and Steve went to Key West. I learned about this trip when I got a slip in my P.O. Box that I had a package too large that would have to be picked up at the counter. The package was a coconut, wrapped it plastic, with my name and address and a greeting from Alicia and Steve. Wrapped up in plastic and sent thru the mail.
I had known the town had a strong connection to President Truman. I knew there was a street named for him and a few months later when I saw Alicia she presented me with a framed picture of the sign in front of the Truman Adult Books and Video store on Truman Street. She said they had been cruising around town and came upon it and had to ride all the way around town to get back and take the picture. It sits now in my kitchen atop a long disused turntable type stereo.
2008: Here we are in Key West, just left Chicos Cantina and running on Margaritas, riding down Truman Street, retracing footsteps, taking a picture of Truman Real Estate, the Margaret Truman Laundrette and it crossed my mind, wonder if the Adult Video place is still here. Bang, right there is was on the left. The sign I had seen for so many years suddenly became a real thing in a real world. It was like seeing one of the filming sites in Alberta. I whipped the pimpmobile into the empty parking lot and we went in.
If you have never been to one of these places, it is like this: hundreds and hundreds of DVDs of porn straight and gay, a few sex toys, a few lubes and other novelties, and a "back room" area where one can view porn in a small booth. It was well lit, staffed by a young gay white man conversing with an older black man who appeared to be homeless. Right next to them I saw it: the rack with ball caps.
The young man asked me if I wanted tokens for the peep shows in the back and I was like "Nah, do you take plastic?"
"Well yes we do!"
"Good" I said, "I want this hat" and I handed him my card, giggling, and said: "Look at the name".
The young man looked at it and looked at me and smiled and asked if I were related to the President. I told him I was not to my knowledge, and he told me that a week earlier a group of people who said they were his family had come in the store, laughing and having a good time, taking pictures and marveling in the knowledge an Adult Book Store bore the Presidents name.
My mind envisioned a group of slightly inebriated grandchildren of Margaret Truman Daniel, but the part of my imagination I wonder might actually be the psychic part quickly came up with a group of 70 somethings from the Missouri suburbs whose granddaddy had been Harry's third cousin once removed, clad in sensible shores and bowling league jackets.
"Where are you going to wear that hat?" I was asked.
Everywhere. Sloppy Joes, The Truman White House, The southernmost point, and the kite shop that mails coconuts to people all over the country. It is okay if you can't remember the zip code, they will look it up for you. The painted coconuts help to support a single mother of two.