And just like that, next week it’s Christmas. It’s the time of year when I reflect on what has and has not transpired over the last 12 months.
Usually, I wait until my final column of the year before considering the year’s events. I thought I’d get started a little early in case I have more to say than I think I do. It might turn out that I have less to say than I think, but that rarely proves to be the case.
It is also the time of year to express gratitude and acknowledge those things that bring joy. I have an entire red velvet Santa sack full of reasons to be thankful. For starters, I’m grateful to have created a life where I can spend a lot of time writing, which is awesome because writing is my happy place. It is the one place and time when I know I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.
I’m thankful that I get to do what I love nearly every single day – thank you, Michelle Bertelli, for two decades of unconditional love and support for my obsession. I’m thankful, too, for spending the last 20 years, a third of my life, with you, you amazing, loving partner.
Now, last year, about this time, I wrote about some big things I was expecting to accomplish. A few of them never quite materialized. For one, I hoped to create a little pop-up museum. At some point in the future, it might still happen. The other big thing I thought would happen was the release of Volume 3 of my “Florida Keys History with Brad Bertelli” book series. I came close with this one. The good news is that by the time the New Year rolls around, the manuscript will be out of my hands and off to my editor. How long that process will take depends on his schedule. However, a few weeks after its return, I’ll be blowing a conch shell to celebrate its release. Blowing a conch shell will be fitting, as I talk a lot about conch in the new book. “A Conch Tale” is one of the new chapters.
As every year tends to do, 2024 also came with a few surprises. The micro-burst (quasi-tornado) that blew through our neighborhood in July came as an unexpected, five-minute surprise. We lost a bunch of trees, and one fell on the patio roof. While we all could have done without that event, it again proved how much these island communities come together when big things happen. It is one of the reasons I’m thankful to have called the Florida Keys home for the last 23 years.
The biggest surprise, and probably the year’s highlight, was being invited to Ketchum, Idaho, to speak at the Community Library’s Ernest Hemingway Seminar. Not only was I asked to give the closing keynote, but I was also asked to talk about piracy, Prohibition, and rum-running in the Florida Keys. It was a fun talk, and I went well over my allotted 60-minute slot. It was a broad topic and I had a lot to say. While on the subject, I thought it would be criminal not to bring up the history of the rumrunner, the classic Florida Keys cocktail invented in the 1970s about 5.2 miles from where I am currently sitting.
In Volume 3, the invention of the rumrunner by a bartender named Tiki John at a little Windley Key resort called Holiday Isle appears in a chapter called “A Jimmy Buffett Tribute.” I’m excited about the new book. It’s a little longer, a little different and filled with what I think are some of my best stories yet — and heaps and gobs of local history.
What is always exciting, especially these last few years, is watching how the path I’m wandering down continues to unfold. Each year, it has led to new and unexpected experiences. In 2024, a few of life’s bread crumbs were left on said path, and they may lead to things I’ll be writing about and talking about in 2025. The thing about bread crumbs is that sometimes life’s ducks waddle along and gobble them up, and not because you did anything wrong or because you wandered off in some direction you weren’t meant to go, but because sometimes life’s ducks just waddle up and gobble them down.
There is one bread crumb in particular that I’m hoping doesn’t get gobbled up, passed and forgotten. Months and months ago, I was asked to add my historical two cents in a teaser/pilot filmed for a television show. My fingers are totally crossed that those damn ducks don’t get to that bread crumb before it is given the chance to reach its hopeful conclusion.
I was right to start the last column of the year a week early. There is more I want to reflect on about 2024 and more I want to say about what looks to be an interesting year to come. In the meantime, I hope everyone is safe and merry, and looking forward to the festivities that are celebrated this time of year. I know I am.
