We’re counting down the days.  About 20 left before D (Departure) Day.  A year ago, we made a down payment on our new house to get the building started we were promised occupancy “around’ February or March of this year.  I could be mistaken, but I believe both those pages have fallen off the calendar.  With construction delays, it just didn’t seem as if we’d EVER get to Florida.  But we will close in under two weeks and get the caravan on the road April 30.

I’ve told my wife to commandeer any and all calendars in my possession.  For the past few weeks I’ve told friends, loved ones, sycophants and anyone else who’s willing to listen to my ramblings that we are leaving over Easter weekend.  Imagine my surprise when I showed up to Saturday Mass and found a large pile of palms on a table.  Could it be?  Palm Sunday (well, technically Palm Saturday), which means that Easter is NEXT Sunday, not the first of May.  No doubt I’d subscribed to the foolish notion that we’d be on the road over Easter weekend, rather than a couple weeks later.  In my defense, I’ll claim I was confused by Orthodox Easter, Festivus Easter or anything other than the Latin Rite Easter.  Of course, more likely it was the latent effects of my mother dropping me on my head when I was a child.  Wait, that wasn’t me.

But April 30 is D Day.  I’m finally excited about the prospect.  It’s really going to happen!  But there is still a degree of trepidation.  What will life be like in Florida, a state I haven’t visited in probably 40 years?  Will I see my friends again or just sit back and hope they decide to thaw out in Florida soon?  I would imagine my next trip to Illinois will be to check in to the Abraham Lincoln National VA Cemetery, the crown jewel of exhilarating Ellwood, Illinois.  Talk about checking out anytime you like but never being able to leave!  (Pardon my Eagles).  One thing I will truly miss is my brothers and sisters in the Edgewater Veterans Group.  But I have already started to ascertain interest in forming a similar group, the southernmost chapter of the Edgewater Group.

Further proof of “the best laid plans of mice and men aft gang aglay” (often go astray) is my plan to make a grand tour of Chicago’s museums, the highlight of which would have been a visit to the Museum of Science and Industry, hands down my favorite place on earth.  In the manner of all too many plans, mine took flight when my wife told me she would never, ever, under any circumstances cross the Chicago city limits again.  I think she meant it, burdened by a prescient sight of us lying dead along the expressway, victims of an urban miscreant.  As if people in Tampa don’t take target practice on one another.  But, major difference, in Tampa and everywhere in Florida, I’m told they actually discourage bad guys from committing crimes and punish the ones who fail to heed the warning.

Maybe not so much in the way of trepidations.  But decided exhilaration.  I’ve lived in the south three times and never dreamed I’d move there on my own volition.  But I’m going.  Not tis Easter, but a cut-rate substitute.  It will be a new chapter in our lives together (15th wedding anniversary the day after St. Valentine’s Day; they said I wasn’t capable).  I’m told there are alligators in most ponds in Florida, and the water’s edge is ten feet from our lanai. I guess sleeping on the lawn is out of the question.

But I’d like to remain a member of our writing group if you’ll have me.  The opportunity to meet with such talented communicators is an unparalleled honor.  Thanks for allowing me to be part of the group.