What a strange and interesting day. Phil is always so busy, I thought at best he might carve out half an hour or so. We were out and about for over 4 hours, touring our old haunts at the University of Tampa, driving by my old high school, making a supremely strange visit to Tampa Lanes (where I used to bowl and play video games) then landing at Maloney’s, an Irish pub on Dale Mabry. We also checked in at Guitar Center, where Phil tried out a $1500 acoustic guitar that had to be unlocked by a store employee with plate-sized earrings. But really it was the journey around University of Tampa that made the day. Plant Hall is now a classroom building but it used to be a hotel. It is a beautiful, complicated building around which Phil, Pete, Mike and I used to wander with abandon. That was one of the building’s more amazing qualities, the fact that people like us were free to wander the premises as if we lived there, or owned the place. The science wing in particular is an octopus-like complex of twisty-turny hallways and mysterious spiral staircases that lead to places you can only know of by walking down them. One of many unusual features of the building is how the spiral staircases are lined with thick slabs of rope, as might be used to tether a boat’s anchor. We discovered a freezer that contained something frozen at -69 degrees celsius. A bunch of doors had hazmat warning signs. All in all this seemed like an area where random wanderers maybe should not be allowed, but we just strolled on through, covering almost every spiral staircase and every strange corridor.

All of it felt new, yet I remembered everything, from the skunky smell of the carpet on the 2nd floor of the building to the large aquarium in the science wing — that aquarium is no longer present but it was there, around the corner from the display case of sea shells which was itself near the curiously curved mirror in the open area. My main destination in the science wing was the ornate lecture hall, which could also serve as a concert venue. It was shaped like a spiral, which now that I think of it seems to be an architectural theme of the science wing. The seats rose steeply over the lectern, and I seem to remember a chandelier. But that room was cordoned off with yellow CAUTION tape and its door taped shut, like it was a crime scene. Nothing to cry about but not being able to get into that room was a bit of a bummer.

We spent some time in what used to be called The Ballroom. Now it is the Grand Salon. I played my senior recital there, as did Phil (I think). There used to be a Steinway D in there but now there was a smaller Yamaha. It was being played by someone I assume to be a University of Tampa student. I could not tell what he was playing but it sounded at turns like Scriabin and then maybe Rachmaninoff. There were too many diatonic major chords for it to be Scriabin. I can identify an enormous quantity of piano music but this stuff he was playing was lost on me.

The acoustics in that room are magnificent. Combined with the former magnificent Steinway D a pianist on that stage could feel like the music was just playing itself. I played a concert there once and afterward a woman approached the stage and said “That was a New York City quality concert.” Hah.

I saw Michael Fardink play a concert there. Mother and I talked about that concert for years. He played Liszt’s “Norma” Fantasy, a piece I would play in later years. If that concert stays with me for any reason besides “Norma” it was because years later I found his handwritten name in a stack of piano music scores at The Strand bookstore in Manhattan. That would have been in the early 1990s. It took me a long time to realize that these piano scores washed up at The Strand because Michael Fardink had died. If I had realized this at the time I might have bought a couple of the scores, the lot of which comprised an impressive body of repertoire. I seem to remember Rachmaninoff’s third concerto (“Rocky Three”, as it is known) and Saint-Saens 2nd, among others. I don’t remember ever seeing that quality or quantity of piano scores at The Strand ever again, but finding it that one time led me to expect it every time I went there. I don’t remember the details offhand now (I’m at 30,000 feet) but Fardink is buried somewhere in Western New York. Used book stores and secondhand shops are like treadmills for the possessions of the dead. We pick through these objects like scavengers in the wild, scattering their memories into a disintegrating vapor.

I used to bowl at Tampa Lanes, on Dale Mabry. I did not fully remember this until we got there. The place looked deserted. This aligned with Phil’s comments  about how there is simply never anybody at that place. We entered a palatial game room containing pinball machines and consoles with games that appeared to have been sitting there since the 1980s. It was like stepping into a time warp. The change machines were the same exact devices as when I used to go there in the 1980s. The bowling lanes were all headed by the same 1960s-era-looking scorekeeping machines. The newest video games appeared to be Megatouch console from 2007. We went to the other end of the building and, to Phil’s amazement, we found another palatial video game room, this one also stuffed with games that looked to be from the 1980s and 1990s. He said this room must have been new because he had never noticed it before. Unlike the other huge game room it was not empty. There was one single person in there playing a game.

I was surprised to see that smoking was allowed at Tampa Lanes. There were cigarette trays with butts in them but in all that square footage of game rooms we saw only one person playing a game. All told I think there were two or three employees present and 4 or 5 customers at the bar and bowling. It’s a 50-lane facility.  Phil remembered to say “You sucked as a bowler.” I had to think about if before responding “That’s because I kicked your ass.” He was like “Yeah, and fuck you.” I routinely scored in the 180s and 190s. I think my high game ever in Tampa was 207 but I blew that score out of the way one time at the Port Authority Bus Terminal bowling alley. I tried to blot that memory out because the guy I bowled against was neither amused nor impressed. He was something between embarrassed and irritated that I was KICKING HIS ASS while barely even trying.

Tampa Lanes was like a time travel passage. Plant Hall was, in its way, as well. We also went into the new music building (new since maybe 1989, I think) and stopped at the former studio of our retired piano teacher. I told Phil how I looked her up before coming to town. The first thing I found was a page of student reviews at a “Rate My Professor” web site. She got a 1.8 rating, out of a possible 10. Reviews were uniformly bad, with a few insightful individuals adding that she was simply too old to be doing this anymore. I was amused by this but Phil was not. He thought she was an awesome teacher, and I agreed that she was good for us back in the day. But she seemed pretty old to us even back then. She might be pushing 80 by now.

And we went into the Sykes building, which used to be McKay Auditorium. That is where we took piano lessons until the new music building was built. It appears the auditorium part of the building is gone, replaced by classrooms and conference halls. Phil and I used to climb up into the attic over the auditorium and run around on the catwalks up there. Possibly dangerous but, well, they were there, and intended for use by humans. If not dangerous then at least it was stupid. A whole bunch of us did this the day it was announced that the School of Music would not be returning for a second year. Long story that…

It was fun wandering through that building, as changed as it is since we knew it, and saying “Judy’s studio was over there, Terry’s was upstairs, David’s was also upstairs…” We remembered a lot of the same things. Main difference was how I remembered where all the payphones used
to be. There was a 10-cent-per-call payphone in the new music building, and a pair of phones at the side entrance to Plant Hall. There was also a phone booth out on Kennedy Boulevard, not quite on the UT campus. That’s the phone I used to call and for whoever answered I played back cassette tapes of myself playing piano. I must have thought I was bringing some culture to skid row. That stretch of Kennedy Boulevard was known for its concentration of prostitutes and winos, a factoid I found most intriguing in the 9th and 10th grades. At the time I don’t think I really even knew what a prostitute was, and “wino” was just an open-ended term of derision. I actually thought “wino” was an anti-white racial term for a long time.

I remember asking my mother what a prostitute was. She nervously responded: “A lady of the night.” That did not really answer the question, did it…

And then we landed at Maloney’s. The bartender there was named Tina. One of my best friends in New York is named Tina. This was not her, though. Phil and I made good, almost non-stop conversation about all things, from his carpal tunnel treatment to my emergency room incident. He was neither surprised nor judgmental about it. I have heard him get a little high and mighty about his father’s drinking, and while we were at the old McKay Auditorium he mentioned in a somewhat snide tone that Terry, whose studio was upstairs, was “a fucking drunk.” I never knew that. There was none of that from him toward me, though he might have put it away in his memory bank.

We’ve been friends for 35 years. The last time I saw him in New York I remember thinking it might be the last, as I had no intention of ever returning to Tampa for any reason. This time I don’t think I ever felt such strong kindred spirits between us.

…

So, that was a day. Both days spent with friends were awesome, way more so than I had expected.

I am shipping a box full of my papers to New York. Good God I wrote a lot in high school and college. Page after page of single-spaced type-written pages, as well as handwritten pages of notebooks and school workbooks. I wonder if there is even a nugget of eloquence in all that?

I did a lot of walking, from the house to Country Club via Florida, the over to North Boulevard. It is not especially far but it seems like a vast distance. I encountered another old payphone enclosure I photographed 20 years ago, still standing outside the Lamplighter Motel on Florida. The phone is gone but somewhat amazingly a rotten old phone book is still stuffed inside the dangling plastic cover. Another phone enclosure outside a diner near the Holiday Inn where I stayed 7 years ago is also present, but I only spotted that from the car today going to the airport. No photos of that one.

And yesterday George buried the dog. That might not be legal in Florida, but whatever, he knew what he was doing. Six feet deep with a slab of cement on top. All the emotion about that incident seemed to evaporate quickly. I explained to him that in New York people put dead cats in garbage bags and leave them on the curb with a label on them that says “Dead Cat.” I don’t know if that is done for dogs as well, but George seemed shocked at what I told him. Customs about dealing with dead animals seem to differ considerably from state to state, even county to county.

I came very close to missing this flight. I got to TIA only 20 minutes ahead of scheduled departure. That’s the closest to departure time I think I’ve ever made it. Diane and I both thought this flight was at 3:30. I have no idea why we thought that. It was at 12:25. The only reason I noticed was because the Expedia app sent an alert to my tablet. I almost did not even look at that alert. Phew.

I talked to Tom yesterday. He said he thinks he’ll be done today, and did not seem concerned that I was coming back. I guess I did the smart thing by making this a 5-day trip. He had said it would take three days tops. I don’t know why he called on Wednesday without leaving a message, and I guess I never will. I’m guessing some kind of buttdial type of snafu. I said I’d be back around 7pm, this while thinking this flight was at 3:30. Weird how I messed that up but it’s all good.

Blahblahblah.

…

I am back on earth. LaGuardia is a fucking mess. I did not really catch that quagmire experience on Sunday, since there was no traffic going there.

I am at the Windmill, eating a bland sandwich and keeping clear of the apartment, where someone is still working on the shitter. I can never understand what Tom is talking about or what he is saying, and it seems mutual. He reacts to anything I say to him with a sort of baffled astonishment.

When I talked to him on the phone yesterday I should have said “I’m really looking forward to taking on shit on my new shitter. Just can’t wait.”

It is 5:00. The bells at the church nearby are tolling the hours.

Getting back to that ramble around the University of Tampa, I guess the most alarming thing of all to me is that we were even allowed to do that. Not even the slightest semblance of a security system, though I was not actually looking for that. And on top of that, the buildings were almost completely deserted. We could not have picked a more perfect day to do that.

That’s a thing about Tampa, though. It is so quiet, and so empty. Walking around the subdivision where I grew up is just deafeningly silent. And nobody else walks like I was doing. I saw a few derelict-looking people on bikes but not much of that, either. Not much biking, that is. Plenty of derelict looking people.

Speaking of which I traipsed around the area known as Suitcase City, the area so-called because of its transient population. I didn’t fully realize that the area was considered sketchy, though the cluster of smut shops could have tipped me off. This was where I decided not to take the bus. I thought I might try that just for the hell of it, to get to Ybor City on Tuesday. Three people waiting at the bus stop I would have had to wait at looked like they were on coke. One of them kept screaming “WHERE IS THE BATHROOM?” He was asking people in cars stopped at the red light. I think one of the others was pissing or even shitting on the sidewalk. I managed to avoid crossing their paths, and stayed away from the bus altogether. Stephanie said buses in Tampa were useless, which is consistent with what people said about them decades ago.

Really, though, Tampa looked about the same to me. A lot of new shooting ranges, which I think used to only be located outside the city limits. The bowling alley still baffles me for how much it felt like a step back in time. Nothing has changed, the place is always empty, it just keeps on keeping on. Maybe it’s a mob front. Why does spellcheck say “keeping” is spelled wrong?

Oh, a funny thing happened at the airport. Because belts be weaponized (right?) we must all take them off and put them under the x-ray machines. I accidentally put on the belt of the woman who was in front of me. The belts looked exactly the same. She was elderly and seemed a little confused by this, but a couple of others standing nearby got a laugh out of it.