"Romance in the Rain"

I remember back in the late seventies in Lauderdale there existed a favorite haunt of mine called the " Café Martinique".

It was just a small bar/restaurant attached to a motel on US 1 , however, it had the most charming courtyard populated with exotic birds in cages where you could dine.

As part of the dining area , there was a small portico with a couple of tables and a tin roof that leaked randomly when it rained.


Some of my fondest memories revolve around sitting there all afternoon in the rain, with one of the most extraordinary girls I have ever known, drinking wine, eating bread and cheese and fruit, and feeling like European sophisticates as we talked of much and nothing. We could just barely hear the jazz from the outdoor speakers over the rain on the roof and since we were the only people outside, it seemed a romantic world of our own just for lovers.

Twenty-five years later the world has moved on, we all have changed, and nothing is as it was in what many of us perceive as a golden time.

In specifics we remember very little of the past and perhaps, mostly, that is just as well.

It still rains in Fort Lauderdale, the Café is long gone, and I have become only a reflection of who I once was, however, I still remember the wine, the rain, and that extraordinary girl. She was unforgettable !

And she still is !