I found it on our recent holiday on Anna Maria Island in Florida.
A place where children never grow up.
The children in question did physically age but thanks to retirement and their Shangri-La on the Florida Gulf Coast, many have returned to the those glorious days of their youth.
Pulling wagons along the icing sugar sands, that I would have given my eye teeth for when I was four, they seem oblivious to what grown-ups would think about them back north.
Riding trikes – again the envy of anyone’s youth – with carefree abandon as they leave snake like tracks across the early morning’s pristine beach.
They spend hours building sand castles for their grandchildren, while said grandchildren look on disinterestedly.
Kites fly overhead attached to strings played out by their elderly masters.
It is preschool days redux.
Some of these reminted youth look so old that they appear to virtually defy medical science to the point where the Grim Reaper would most certainly pass them by for want of a challenge.
But their activities on Anna Maria belie their years.
And off the island as well.
One evening, Anne and I went to a dance at a local park thinking that the music would be from our era of the 50s and 60s or likely earlier. To our surprise, songs of the 70s and 80s prevailed but the crowd was definitly our vintage and older.
And boy did they dance – crutches, walkers, canes and leg braces cast aside on the edge of the dance floor as the newly minted youth went wild.
It was a sight to behold.
Anne asked me to dance but I joked that the danger from flying false teeth was just too great.
She prevailed though and I was pushed, shoved and knocked around as if we were dancing to 70s acid rock – which to think back – we were.
Will we go back?
Most certainly; it certainly beats growing old with dignity … too boring.
As I saw it…
‘K.D. Galagher’
