It was 1994 and the great Northeast was still buried in melting layers of ice and snow. The bottom layer of ice came as a heavy freezing rain back on the first Friday in January. Since then, by the U.S. Meteorological Service's count, we've had fifteen winter storms. I took off for Florida just minutes before the arrival of Storm Fifteen. Actually, this trip was serious business. I was in search of a topic for this May 1994 column. I had decided that I would search for the topic at the West Palm Beach Municipal Stadium, where coincidentally, my beloved Braves were engaged in Spring Training.  They since have moved to the Disney World sports complex.

Well, I searched the ballpark for five days and found nothing. At night I searched various restaurants and came up with nada. After dinner, I searched the dog track and even a karaoke bar and found zilch. Like a great white beached whale, I bronzed my body on the beach and contemplated my navel, the parade of strolling bikinis and remained desperately topicless. By the way, who is the idiot that introduced those skimpy bikini briefs to men? Must've been some European. I wear a pair of All-American, Regular Guy, well-worn, baggy, khaki shorts on the beach. If I'm not mistaken, John Wayne wore baggy khakis in the "Sands of Iowa Jima" and Burt Lancaster wore them in the famous love scene on the beach in "From Here to Eternity."

I'd sure hate to think that any of my rootin' tootin' male readers wear flimsy nylon napkin-size swimwear on a public beach.

After several days I gave up and boarded the plane at Palm Beach International Airport with no topic, a painful sunburned paunch and the calm reassurance that my Braves would be the National League Champions again this year.