Magnificent Lipizzanner Stallion goes into warhorse kick

John walks his favorite beach in the world on Siesta Key, Florida

Old times, old friends: Monongah High alumni reunite in Punta Gorda, Florida for 3rd time in 3 years
Joe Martin, Bob Cook, Sandy Weils Cook, Barb Enoch Arnett, Bob Arnett, Lyla Cosner Howell, Bill Meredith, John Olesky
 

Food and love with John & Paula is the cherry on top the cake

Oh, what a week it was !!!

WVU demolished #14 Baylor and #1 Oklahoma lost, so the Mountaineers are alone atop the Big 12, the toughest basketball conference in America this season.

WVU has 4 of its remaining 8 games against top 20 teams, so there’s still serious work to do.

But being King of the Hill sure feels good.

And I was among 8 Monongah High alumni who attended the 3^rd Punta Gorda and 6^th Florida (3 others in Sarasota) reunion in 3 years.

Paula and I made our annual trek to Myakka City, about 25 miles from Sarasota, to watch the Lipizanner Stallions perform. They are the Austrian royal warhorses that General Patton kept the Russians from destroying by “drafting” them into the U.S. Cavalry.

Patton returned the stallions to their Austrian owners, who brought them to America and their training grounds when they aren’t touring the country.

This story was told in Disney’s “Miracle of the White Stallions” movie.

I again ate the best lamb shank in the world, for me, at St. Barbara’s Greek Festival in Sarasota, my annual dip into that glorious cuisine. I plan my Florida winterizing, for 20 years now, so that I can zip to Sarasota for the Greek festivities.

Greece is among the 53 countries I have visited, but nothing there measured up to St. Barbara’s lamb shanks, in my opinion. Or anywhere else.

I had the best omlette of my life – brie and mushrooms set it off – at The Broken Egg on Siesta Key, Florida, adjacent to Sarasota.

I walked my favorite beach in all the world on Siesta Key with Paula Stone Tucker, the second great love of my life -- who rescued me from the despair of the 2004 death of my half-century love and wife, Monia Elizabeth Turkette Olesky, who I called my Mona Lisa, a play on her first two names.

Siesta Key’s beach is listed as #1 in the world on travel sites and in travel magazines because of its soft, fluffy sand that is cool to your feet, no matter how hot the sun beats down. That’s how I reach my Nirvana every winter.

As a bonus, the winds and waves washed up thousands of seashells onto the shore. It was a glorious cacophony of colors and shapes that only nature can create.

Paula and I enjoyed fabulous Dixieland music tonight just outside The Villages, where there are more than 300 activities EVERY day of the year.

And I haven’t had to worry about being buried in snow since we left Ohio for Florida on New Year’s Eve.

If I die in my sleep and St. Peter says, “This is Heaven,” I will say: “Sorry, Petie, but I’ve already been to heaven this week, and I grew up in Almost Heaven.”

I’m 83 and nowhere near dead, playing golf 5 days a week in The Villages and walking a mile or two without breathing heavily.

No man has a right to be this happy.

But I’ll take it.