I was walking along a Florida beach
\nwhen a man approached just to talk.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d walked many miles, all the way from
\nMiami to somewhere north of there.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure where I was. The post 9\/11
\nworld was fuzzy back then;<\/p>\n
And, my mind was just beginning to emerge
\nfrom decades of traumatic abuse.<\/p>\n
We talked for a while about nothing
\nbut life and the strange times.<\/p>\n
Was he an angel? I wonder that still,
\nfor at that time I was struggling on so many levels.<\/p>\n
Pennies in my pocket, and not a job
\nin sight, save an ice cream shop,<\/p>\n
whose owner thought I was a Jew
\njust for having a widow\u2019s peak.<\/p>\n
It was true. My father was Jewish,
\nbut that\u2019s beside the point.<\/p>\n
What difference does religion make
\nto ice cream, coffee, and milk shakes?<\/p>\n
Anti-Semitic jerk!<\/p>\n
Back to the angel on the beach\u2026
\nwhat was his name? I don\u2019t recall\u2026<\/p>\n
He gave me a rock. Just a small, round,
\nflat sandstone, about the size of a silver dollar.<\/p>\n
He said \u201cwhere I\u2019m from, when someone gives you
\na round rock, you put it in your pocket,<\/p>\n
and it will turn into money. I think he was right.
\nAfter that, my luck changed, though very slowly.<\/p>\n
It was among many low points in my life,
\nall of which I survived with growing strength.<\/p>\n
I am comfortably secure these days,
\nthough still quite cautious with money.<\/p>\n
And, I still have that rock in my wallet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was walking along a Florida beach when a man approached just to talk. I\u2019d walked many miles, all the way from Miami to somewhere north of there. I\u2019m not sure where I was. The post 9\/11 world was fuzzy back then; And, my mind…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3442,680,274],"class_list":["post-76568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","tag-2020poetrymarathon","tag-poetrymarathon","tag-hour-24"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76575,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76568\/revisions\/76575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}