Next Door

Chapter 4 - Joe and Polly Waveland

Paul and I had just about scoured the entire map of the United States before deciding to move from the shores of Lake Cumberland, Kentucky to Canary Landing.

At first, our itch to relocate from the home we had designed and built in Monticello started with the fact that there was absolutely no diversity there, and it was virtually impossible for us to make friends. No matter how many locals Paul did business with, no matter how many Kiwanis or community meetings we attended, or no matter how many library presentations I made to high schoolers who aspired to become writers, we could not become part of the community. We were Eye-talians, and we would never be accepted by the good old boys and their wives who inhabited the town.

The whole situation came to a head when Paul attempted to purchase a track of vacant land on which no one had paid taxes for generations. Though we were willing to pay market price for the land and even pay the back taxes on it, Paul was blocked at every turn by the Wayne County tax collector who demanded multiple land surveys, geological soil samples and proof of financial responsibility.

“That’s it,” Paul said finally. “We’re done.”

And we were. We put the house we loved so well up for sale and began researching places to relocate.

We considered Texas and Louisiana and parts of Georgia.

“But I really don’t want to reinvent the wheel,” I told him. “In any of these places we will still be Eye-talians who can’t trace their roots to the pioneer days and probably have nefarious mob-connected motives for moving there in the first place.”

We even thought about going back to Chicago, but most of my family there had passed away and jobs at newspapers in the city and suburbs are scant if not nonexistent.

So we finally settled on Parrish, Florida, a tiny rural community near the Gulf of Mexico and where the biggest newspaper in the closest sizable town was in need of a local reporter.

We also had Paul’s uncle and brother living nearby and my cousin with a house in Sarasota. It was enough family to make preparing a traditional Italian Christmas Eve dinner worth the effort. I was just happy to be someplace where there were other “Eye-talians” - people like us.

But in truth though, we moved to Parrish and to Canary Landing because Paul could go fishing in the Gulf of Mexico any time he pleased.

So at least twice every week he would wake up before dawn, hitch his 17-foot 1993 Boston Whaler Montauk to his Cadillac Escalade and head off for a day’s fishing.

These days, he mostly took these fishing expeditions alone, but one morning he was stopped in the middle of the street by Joe Waveland waving his arms.

“Hey, you goin’ fishin’? Do you need a buddy? Can you wait a minute?”

Before he could answer, Joe ran up his driveway and emerged from his house carrying a fishing reel, rod and tackle box.

“I wish to fish!” Joe said, smiling broadly.

During the short drive to the marina, Joe prattled on nonstop about how he hailed from Rhode Island, had been in the Navy and was working as an analyst for Ross Perot’s company Electronic Data Services in Texas when he met his wife, Polly.

“She had been a debutante,” he told Paul. “I swept her off her feet.”

The pair spent the rest of the day on the water and vowed to do it again soon when Paul dropped Joe off at the beginning of his driveway.

But before he made it up the driveway Polly emerged from the house and grabbed Joe by the arm.

“Hurry up, Joe get in the house,” she shouted. “We have a seal in the back yard!”

Joe was still asking if she’d really seen a seal in the back yard when Paul headed for home.

I was just coming back from a trip to the mailbox when he backed the boat and trailer up the driveway near the garage and climbed out of the Cadillac.

“Okay, tell me everything.”

“He was a super nice guy, but kinda strange,” Paul said.

“He told me that he was from a highly influential family in Rhode Island and was Rich Daley’s classmate at Providence College. He also said that he was part of Ross Perot’s party in 1979 when he rescued a pair of EDS employees who had been taken hostage in Iran.”

Paul drew a breath.

“And something else. He was out fishing in a $100 Orvis shirt and carried a pair of needle-nose pliers to bait his hook and to take the fish he caught off of it.”

I shrugged.

“So will the two of you go again?”

“I’ve got his cell number…we’re going out again Thursday.”

“Then I guess you had a good time.”

Paul grinned.