How Your Vacations Define You

TML takes mountains over sea. You?

Last night on Longboat. That’s a boat, photo-bombing the sun. (Credit: Me)

He’s a Mountains Man, he thinks, as he stares into a 5-alarm sunset on Longboat Key, a sky palette enhanced by the otherwise unremarkable swirls of tiny clouds. It’s 82 degrees. A civil breeze keeps the humid air from being overbearing. The sand is the consistency of confectioner’s sugar.

Terns skitter around, begging for crumbs. The gulls fly to wherever it is they rest when night falls on this particular portal to heaven. He sips a Keystone Light and pulls on a cigar that tastes better than it smells. The sun slides into the Gulf of Mexico like an over-easy egg off a plate.

Mountains Man, he thinks. That’s different from Mountain Man. He doesn’t drive an F-150, doesn’t own a firearm or a flyrod; he does own a razor. (He also abuses shopworn cliches.) His idea of camping in the wilderness is an Airbnb where the wireless is spotty.

No. Mountains Man. The sort who would stare into his current situation of LBK perfection and say, “I like Asheville better.’’

His wife (my wife, actually, I’m done with the literary pose) is a Beach Person. She finds solace in the orchestra of the waves. To her, the beach is the most relaxing place. She sees faces in the clouds.

At the beach, I get a little antsy. I won’t just, you know, Sit There for hours. To me, the beach is the place to go on the way to the mountains. It’s never the ultimate destination. “I’m a mountains guy,’’ I say to her, to which she replies Duh.

Beach? Or mountains?

Does your preferred disappearance from regular days include sand ‘tween your toes or a tree canopy above? When you close your eyes in deepest February, is your vision at sea level, or is it cloud hidden?

It says something intrinsic about who you are. IMO, beach people are gregarious but know how to unwind. Mountain people are distance-seekers. Beachgoers find relaxation in the company of many; mountain climbers get bugged if they see more than two people sharing their trail.

Kerry says I’m mountains because that’s where I vaca-ed when I was a kid. My family went to the Blue Ridge when I was young. Hers went to Miami Beach.

(Miami Beach in July? And you’re still a beach person?)

As a family, we’ve spent far more time in the waves than in the woods. Isle of Palms, Hilton Head, St. Simon’s, Amelia, St. Augustine, southern California. Mountain trips? We went to Colorado once. Everyone, even I, decided it was our least favorite vacation.

Kerry and Jillian The Magnificent tolerate Asheville. We’ve never been there more than a few days. They complain about bugs, they don’t understand why walking endlessly in one direction, only to walk back the same way, is seen as fun. “I hate nature,’’ is Jillian’s stock answer.

I’ve rhapsodized about Montreat/Asheville in This Space long enough I don’t need to do it again today. The area doesn’t speak to me. It grabs me, pulls me in and dances with me. A long time ago, Kelly my son and I decided our annual flight to the mountains made up the best four days of our year. (No offense, ladies.)

I don’t like emerging from the salt and grit of the surf and into a sun-blasted beach chair, feeling like a cone of gyro meat. I have no problem walking for hours in the Blue Ridge rain.

In the surf, I can’t see my feet. I can’t see anything. Bruce could be swirling around my thighs and I wouldn’t know. If we knew what was really in a hot dog, would we ever eat one?

In the woods, I can see whatever my eyes allow. Except at sunset, the views are better in the mountains than bestride the shore. Unless you’re talking about women in bikinis, you mastodon.

Blue Ridge. (Me)

The mountains do remind me of my mortality and challenge me to leave no day unopened. The beach reminds me to turn from my back to my stomach. The mountains are permanent, the beach is fleeting to the point of being fickle. If you’ve ever seen your favorite beach after a direct hurricane hit, you know what I’m talking about.

Plus, I’m Irish, meaning I sunburn in a closet under a 30-watt lightbulb.

Beach or mountains?

Now, then. . .

PITCHING DRIVES US ALL CRAZY. . . No commodity in sports is more prized or more fickle. Not even an NFL QB. Football teams have overcome the loss of a very good starting QB. Flourished, even. . . ask Drew Bledsoe.

But you can plan perfectly, spend egregiously and dance through March in an over-optimistic fog. . . and if Nick Lodolo goes down in May. . .

Lodolo is out “indefinitely’’ with what the experts are calling a “stress reaction in his left tibia,’’ which sounds like his leg was just This Side of hairline-fracturing. Lodolo will be in a walking boot, which will hamstring the Reds progress.

To say nothing of his own.

What are the odds of a high school pitcher being drafted actually making the majors? How high do those odds go when we’re talking about making the bigs and being a top-end starter?

I’ve used the analogy of a baby sea turtle, finding the water and living to 64. Pitchers have all these weird, obscure bad things happen to them. Five bucks if you know what a “flexor pronator strain’’ is. It’s what will keep Dodgers budding star Dustin May out awhile. He’s already had Tommy John surgery, too.

Teams can’t resist throwing cash piles at pitchers whose arms come with clocks and fuses. Stephen Strasburg and Jacob DeGrom go boom. The appeal of pitching is so great, Verlander and Scherzer are making $40 mil. Half the time, they’re no more useful than extras on the set of Cocoon. Who says life doesn’t begin at 40?

Hunter Greene already has had Tommy John surgery, throws 100-plus and is still learning how to get hitters out without throwing double-digit pitches to each. Graham Ashcraft has allowed 19 earned runs in his last 12 innings, across three starts.

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These aren’t just promising starting pitchers. They’re the core of every dream the Reds have. You can hope for brilliance from McLain, Elly and others. But without Greene, Lodolo and Ashcraft, the ‘25, ‘26 and so forth Reds could resemble the forgettable clubs of Griffey and Dunn.

I’d rather pick a field horse to win the Preakness than bet on a kid pitcher to make it big. Major-league teams have no choice.

JOE BURROW FOR PRESIDENT FOR LIFE. . . Amid all my overwrought navel-gazing — what’s next, Doc, your take on chicken or fish? — I neglected to mention St. Joe’s words on Tuesday re a new deal.

It’ll get done, that’s a sure thing. What’s less sure are the mechanics, the details. The Saint became instantly more saintly when he said he would think of his deal as part of a master plan, not the plan itself. That suggests Burrow will not rob the Brown Building and Loan, but rather make his deal team-friendly enough to fit the money wants of Chase and/or Higgins.

Mahomes did this with KC. Tom Brady did six extensions or restructures with the Patriots. All came with an eye not on making Brady the highest-paid player in the NF of L, but in the name of keeping a good thing together.

Six quarterbacks already make more money — per year and overall guaranteed — than Mahomes. Burrow likely will be one of them, but apparently not in a way that will prohibit The Family from keeping the Saint and his closest acolytes together.

Can we get an Amen?

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Haven’t played this one lately. It’s on the TML Perpetual Playlist. Roy Buchanan lifts Tyrone Davis’ soul higherr and higher. Wow, such guitar.