FountainQuest Dispatch4
Dateline Baretoe Bay Florida
QuestDate 23 March, Thursday, Y2K "
My
tiger, it seems, is running 'round nude.
This fur coat must have made him perspire.
It lies on the floor -- should this be construed
As a permanent change of attire?
Perhaps he considers its colors passe,
O r maybe it fit him too snug.
Will he want it back?
Should I put it away?
Or use it right here as a rug?"
--Calvin
Hold that, tiger. What's with this crazy weather?
From hot and sunny to cold and windy and mean looking clouds
overhead. Not to be deterred, I head out to the car rental agency
as sirens wail in background, what can that be, the rain is supposed
to quench the draught danger. Can't stop to find out. Time is
my enemy. Only way to beat time is to go faster, what was that
formula? Velocity times time equals distance? Something like
that.
The car rental place is a zoo. Everyone beating it out of the state quick as they can. One poor bozo manning the front desk. He's hung up with a young couple from New Jersey, ran out their credit card partying and now they don't have enough to pay for the car. "Can we split it between two cards?" Nope, got to put it on the one card. I can see this is going to take some time.
I put on my taxi driver hat, grab a cart, wheel it
around the counter to the desk where the Freebillortater is sitting,
heft it onto the cart and I'm out of there, tip of the hat to
the waiting people in line, "Be right with you folks, thanks
for your patients," just like a doctor consoling the crowd.
Next stop, Cocoa Beach, where there may not be a fountain
but there's a surfeit of youth, string bikined and baggy pantsed,
making the most of Spring Vacation in the old traditional way
but what's up with those bathing suit bottoms ride up the crack
in the ass? Looks about as comfortable as a wedgie but who's
looking?
I assume the position and get out my equipment, making
sure to cover up completely, not only to preserve my anonymity
but also to keep the burning sun off my white Oregon skin. Once
ensconced I scope the area, looking carefully for a clue.
There's something out there all right, a structure
of some kind. Looks ancient. Can it be one of Ponce de Leon's
habitats? Maybe I can creep up on it and find out for sure. Oh
sure. Maybe I'm just building castles in the sand. But whatever,
this is Florida, the home of the fountain of youth, I can't give
up. I can't figure it out, either.
Were it not for the stringy haired guy with the red
bucket on his head the trip would have been a wash, but turns
out he's in the know. The vial was for real. Seems, according
to the old Indian legends he's a part of, there's 13 little bottles
still in existence, each containing a tiny portion of the juice
from the fountain of youth, only one drop in each bottle, the
rest water, but a tiny sip is enough to slough off the years
like a snake shedding its winter skin. "
So you happen to know where one of those bottles might
be?" I ask casually. "Maybe," he says. "Maybe
not. I'll tell you one thing, you won't find one here. It left
last week, heading south in a VW bus going to the Willie Nelson
concert. I don't know if it got there or not."
"Interesting. Where was the concert?"
"You'd need a boat to find it."
I knew they'd get me on a boat before this
was over. I thanked the gent for his help and headed back to
the research lab. Now that we 
had
the Freebillortater we could cut the processing time by a hundred.
Labhead1, our hostess with the mostess was
overjoyed to see the Freebillortater arrive. This would speed
up her work enormously. She danced a jig, admired the lemon meranque
(sic) pie she baked for the occasion and helped herself to a
cuba libre.
Labhead2, the main assistant at the secret
project lab was ready to go right to work. All the data once
collected on four by five cards 
could
be condensed onto a single chip. All it took was feeding the
cards into the round collector on the end of the Freebillortater,
turn on the motor and let the machine do the rest.
Leaving the Freebillortater chunking happily along with the Labheads feeding in the four by five cards, Zweeone and Zweetwo and I set out on the search for the last remaining vial containing the fountain of youth juice.
We decided to split up. The Willie Nelson concert was held on an island in the Intracoastal Waterway, but afterwards the concertgoers were following Willie to the SwampSite, a counterculture hideaway you could only get to by propellor air boat.
Since I'm deathly afraid of snakes and alligators
and other swamp critturs I let my assistants go to the swamp.
I would search the Intracoastal. First a boat. Luck was with
me. Not a mile from the entrance to Toefoot Bay I spotted one
for sale. Just rustic enough not to attract any attention. I
paid cash and headed for the water.
FOR THE NEXT REPORT, CLICK ON: