Snowbird Tales , livre ebook

Austin Macauley Publishers - Gill Reames

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129 pages

English

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Snowbird Tales is the story of a Toronto couple adjusting to retirement life after long successful careers and spending winters in the Sunshine State. The novel begins when they buy their southern 'home away from home' and ends when they have to unexpectedly sell it seventeen years later. In between is their journey of retiring from busy jobs and living their dream as they enjoy the Floridian good life, peppered at times by unforeseen, sometimes painful, events.

Informations

Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers
Date de parution	28 février 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781645369653
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0175€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Snowbird Tales
Gill Reames
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-02-28
Snowbird Tales About the Author Dedication Copyright Information Acknowledgments Being Blessed Surprising Call Complainer Going Through a Storm Before Realizing a Dream Leading up to Cathy’s Retirement Closing on Our Southern Home A Floridian Dictatorship Finally Spending Winters in Paradise Having Family for Christmas Golfing with Alligators Smoking in Ybor City Having Friends over in Paradise Enjoying South Beach Seeing Richard Again A Flood in the Dry Season A Dog’s Life Paradise Interrupted Having Been Blessed
About the Author
Gill Reames worked for a major Canadian think tank as an economist and executive, where his numerous articles and reports on various economic and public policy topics were published. Before starting his professional career, he wrote poems for a neighborhood newspaper. Since he left his full-time job, he has been writing fiction. Snowbird Tales is his first novel. He now lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada, with his wife.
Dedication
To my wife, Suzanne Murphy.
Copyright Information
Copyright © Gill Reames (2019)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Ordering Information:
Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Reames, Gill
Snowbird Tales
ISBN 9781641825542 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781641825559 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781641825566 (Kindle)
ISBN 9781645369653 (ePub)
The main category of the book — Fiction / General
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
40 Wall Street, 28th Floor
New York, NY 10005
USA
mail-usa@austinmacauley.com
+1 (646) 5125767
Acknowledgments
Spending winters with my wife and newfound friends in an active adult community in Central Florida inspired me to write this novel. Our collective experiences of retirement and enjoying the good life in the Sunshine State provided me the foundation for the storyline.
I owe my friend David Mackenzie a million thanks for reading the draft and providing me with valuable comments and suggestions. When I asked him to do it, he agreed without hesitation and took the time to carefully read every page, make copious notes, and review them with me. My granddaughter, Natasha, read the draft and provided me the insight that novels are usually not written about people my age and she found it unique and interesting to read. For a young woman who has read hundreds of novels and says what she thinks, her response encouraged me to publish this novel. I wish to thank my friend and golfing buddy, John May, for helping me review the proofs. I am also grateful to the entire team at Austin Macauley for their meticulous efforts on my book.
My wife has always supported me in my endeavors and writing, and publishing this novel is no different. Her encouragement gave me the push to bring this novel to fruition. I am blessed, or just plain lucky, to share my life with her.
Being Blessed
You are blessed! That’s what a young blond hostess at Carrabba’s Italian Grill on Highway 192 told Cathy and me. She was new to the restaurant—at least we had never seen her before, and we had been there quite a few times during our visits in the Kissimmee area.
I had parked the red Mustang convertible in front of the restaurant’s main entrance. I did not bother to put the top back up, and I walked into the establishment holding Cathy’s hands. We were both beaming when the hostess, greeting us, asked us if we were on vacation. She was a curious one. I told her that we were on holidays but had just bought a winter home in the area and were becoming seasonal locals. This is when she proclaimed that we were blessed. Cathy and I never thought about us that way, since we were not really religious and never saw life in those terms. But, maybe she was right.
The restaurant was pleasantly cool after coming from the outside heat and our eyes needed time to adjust to the dim lights after having been in the sun, even after taking our sunglasses off. The restaurant had a huge dining room with wooden tables and chairs and a long open kitchen. Most of the cooks and waiters were chatting amongst themselves, since there were few patrons at the time, and were waiting for the dinner rush. The bar on the opposite side of the restaurant had a red-brick wall where bottles stood on glass shelves that were lit from above. Two bartenders were standing between the wall and a long wooden bar table with high, comfortable stools, serving drinks.
As the young hostess took menus from the podium, I mentioned to her that we wanted a table in about an hour and would first like to go to the bar for drinks to celebrate the purchase of our new house. She put the menus underneath the podium and wrote down a note about our reservation for an hour later. I thanked her and we walked over to the bar, Cathy in front of me, zigzagging between tables and chairs.
Few people were in the restaurant’s dining room and those entering the restaurant behind us were heading to the bar, which was becoming occupied. It was happy hour and sitting at that bar was always pleasant, since smiling bartenders always offered great service. We also often met interesting people not only from North America, but also Great Britain and Ireland.
Cathy and I found the last two unoccupied bar stools side-by-side at the end of the bar and we quickly sat on them and rested our feet on the bar’s railing. Others that came in soon after us had to stand behind those seated. The bar section was already getting crowded and noisy with all the chatter.
I recognized the friendly female bartender who greeted us from the last times we were there. She was slim, had short black hair and a small tattoo of a gecko on her right forearm. She asked us what we wanted. Cathy ordered a glass of Merlot and I ordered a Bud Light. She turned around and went to the counter where she poured the wine and draught into glasses and brought them to us, depositing them on cardboard coasters on the bar table. She then told us that she would bring our second glasses when we would finish the firsts. During happy hour, customers got two drinks for the price of one. It was a really good deal that attracted clientele, us included.
“Cheers,” I told Cathy as I raised my mug.
“Cheers, and congrats on our winter home,” she responded as she gently hit my mug with her wine glass.
We both took a sip from our well-deserved beverages and kissed. It was great to celebrate and relax after an exciting and stressful day of reviewing and deciding on which lot and which house we would purchase.
Having a southern home to go to during the cold and snowy winters up north had been a dream of ours for some time, and now it was finally being realized. We continued our conversation about our new home, its layout, and the choices we made that day in the sales office about flooring, cabinets, and countertops when a dark-haired gentleman beside Cathy turned his head and looked straight at us.
“Please excuse me, but I overheard that you bought a property in this area,” he asked with a British accent. He was a husky, jovial-looking man that I guessed was in his mid-fifties.
“Yes,” I replied.
He said that he too had a vacation home. I corrected him that we had not bought a vacation home, but a winter home that we did not plan to rent out.
“Where are you from?” I asked him, noticing his accent.
“London, England. How about you?”
“Toronto, Canada.”
We had met many British people at that bar and most owned a rental property of some kind in the area. We continued to chat with this British bloke about Florida, its weather, and things to do. They were the usual subject matters when we met strangers like him.
“Well, good luck with your new home,” he said.
“Thank you,” Cathy and I said in unison.
He then turned towards the bartender and asked for his bill. Cathy and I looked at each other and smiled. We felt relaxed and happy. We had finished our first drinks when the bartender quickly came with our second glasses without even asking.
We sat there slowly sipping our second drinks and talking about our eventual retirement. We counted ourselves lucky or blessed with our good health and comfortable financial situation, even though we had sacrificed a lot during our careers to achieve what we were about to do.
The young hostess who greeted us when we entered the restaurant came to get us, something that they usually do not do. I guessed that we were special that day.
I paid the bar bill and we followed the hostess to our table, carrying our second drinks that we had just started sipping. When we were seated comfortably across from each other, the hostess gave us the menus and told us that our waiter would come shortly to greet us. Soon after she left, our waiter came to our table. He was a tall man with dark hair and a mustache.
“Good evening, folks,” he said with a Southern accent. “My name is Andy and I’ll be serving you this evening. I see that you already have your drinks. I’ll let you browse the menu and will come back.”
“Thank you,” I replied, and he left to serve other tables.
“It’s so exciting that we’ve just bought a winter home,” said Cathy for the umpteenth time as she looked at me with her sparkling blue eyes. She could not get over what we had