destination - st. petersburg, florida | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
but my visits there have made me grateful that I don’t live in
the snow.
Two years into living at The Nook, my first and last
roommate burnt out his car during a night of particularly
heaving drinking 10 yards inside the property line but
luckily far enough from the house to avert utter disaster.
That’s to say, one morning I woke to see the remains of
his red PT Cruiser still smoldering from a car fire so hot
it removed the paint and melted parts of the frame into
small puddles resembling mercury on the ground below.
The leaves of the tree above would remain black from the
rising smoke, a reminder of how much worse it could
have been. I was 15 minutes late for work that day. The
roommate moved out two weeks later. A property on 8
acres is the kind of place where a car can burn through
the night or presumably first thing in the morning and the
only other people who know about it are the fire and police
department if they get a call.
For all its charm, I miss The Nook, but what I was truly
missing by living there became abundantly clear the very
first day I moved to St. Pete. Single and approaching 30, I
walter lamerton | photographer
"It’s surprisingly easy to make friends here. Just smile and bring beer."
had no social life. The friends I had spent the past 7 years
with and still love dearly are not really in tune with the
concept of social drinking, so the Friday night routine
hadn’t ever evolved for any of us. It was a 6 pm entry into
the same small group of bars for an irresponsible number
of beers followed by the soberest of us (me usually) making
the rounds to drop the others home to their wives. I went
home to fast food.
16 psst! | summer 2018
I don’t miss
that. I don’t miss
anything about
needing a car to
get to or from a
neighborhood
bar. After a couple
of cocktails, the
downtown walk
home is much
more refreshing by
comparison. And I
always need a little
exercise.
Above my
apartment, my
neighbor has a
balcony that is not
for beginners. The first step onto an 8 to 10 degree decline
from the living room door is terrifying before you learn to
expect it, even if it’s just three stories up. A running start
and you might take out a side of the surrounding baluster.
The decline allows my neighbors above to shout over the
edge at me to come hang out. It’s surprisingly easy to make
friends here. Just smile and bring beer.
Sunday brunch is gigantic here, like a part of the
downtown culture. Before I moved, there was a diner
around the corner from my house - but just the one, and it
wasn’t very appealing or the food very tasty: function over
fashion. I made better breakfasts at home.
Sunday mornings, I’m now just a text
message away from eating breakfast with
friends overlooking the bay or while we watch
small aircraft take off and land from Albert
Whitted Airport. Bottomless mimosas or
pitchers of Margaritas are a great hangover
killer, and as my sister once exclaimed,
“Everything is covered in bacon!.”
The Locale Market opened a little before
New Year’s. One of the newest additions to the
Sundial, it’s indicative of the growth I’ve come
to expect from this city over the next few years.
Salvador Dali Museum| istock photo