I’m not a tourist, I live here

Driving back from breakfast this morning with friends, it hit me. I live a mile from the beach. Yet I only seem to go there when I’m working on a shoot. When asked why I never go, my response, “I only go to the beach if I get paid.” Silly I know. Yet thinking about how I wound up meeting my friends this morning and where, could in fact lead to a paying job! Living in a tourist town, the locals shy away from the areas most populated by “snow birds” until the beginning of summer. Yet this morning I had breakfast at a beach side cafe. Early of course. After leaving the cafe, we walked towards our cars, stopping in the stores that lined the area. The beach shops that sold all those must have gifts to give to everyone that says, “I was thinking of you and brought you back this.” What it really means is, you have no taste at all and think a tacky trinket will say you care. Of course there are the tee shirts we love to read, think for a sec that we may buy and then a friend slaps us up side the head asking what are you not thinking? This happened to my friend Joyce and I while shopping in Santa Fa. She asked me what I thought of of a fringe hand bag she was holding. I reminded her while it was fun, could she see herself walking the streets of Manhattan with it? The bag dropped so fast you thought it was a bomb! While chatting with one of the store owner about the clothing she carried, I told her I knew the designer and had worked for him shooting some of his collections. She then replied they knew each other and the other label that the store carried was her families. As we started to leave, I handed her my business card. She gladly took it and said she would give it to her husband as they are getting ready to shoot there new line. How funny to go to the beach to find a job. I decided to drive home along the beach instead of the main streets. Wanting to see what I am missing from my town that draws so many tourists each year. While it was a nice ride, I couldn’t help but see it’s lost some of it’s charm. “Where the boys are” just doesn’t seem to fit anymore. Condo after condo line A1A. Construction sites are everywhere. With fancy names of new places to live, most new projects lay empty. But the snow birds come, year after year. Maybe it’s time I stopped taking it for granted. After all, I to had come to Ft Lauderdale to vacation back in the day. Now I’m proud to say “I’m not a tourist, I live here.”