A Super party at the beach with Steve

Saturday night my wife and I had dinner with our friends Mark and Jane who, like us, could care less about the Super Bowl. “I don’t even know who’s playing,” Mark said.

“The St. Louis Blues and Boston Celtics,” I joked.

Jane mentioned she had received a robocall that afternoon from some guy who said he was running for Southwest Florida’s vacant Congressional seat. (Our Congressman resigned last week so a special election has to be held to choose his replacement.) The voice said he was calling to invite voters to a Super Bowl party at Doc's, a beach bar here in Bonita Springs.

I perked up immediately because I had received the same call. The candidate – neither Jane nor I could remember his name – said he was running to create jobs, clean up Washington, yadda yadda. He promised we could meet his mentor, his college basketball coach, and all we had to do was RSVP and show up. Jane said the message was still on her voice mail.

“Let’s go,”  I suggested. 

Mark, who hates crowds, said absolutely not. The girls and I overruled him.

We met for a movie Sunday at 4, after which we headed for Doc's. We still weren’t sure of the candidate’s name. I said I thought it was Steve.

“Steve” it was from that moment on.

When we arrived we had to stand in line and sign petitions to get Steve on the ballot for the primary. I’m not a member of Steve’s party – the other three are – but I signed anyway. A small price to pay for two free drink tickets.  

“This is stupid,” Mark pleaded. “Don’t you know we’re going to get all sorts of calls and be hit up for campaign contributions? Let’s leave now.” 

We ignored him.

Once we signed, we were admitted to Doc’s second floor overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. The sun was just going down. Breathtaking.

The room was packed with people wearing name tags. “Hi, I’m Marcy.” “Hi, I’m Phil.”

We made our way through the crowd to the bar and ordered our free drinks. On TV an opera singer was singing the national anthem.

A drunken woman at the bar said she had flown in that morning from Cleveland. She said she didn’t quite understand what was going on but hey, the drinks were free, it had been minus twelve degrees in Cleveland just few days ago and wow, look at that sunset, willya?

A table in the middle of the room held platters of French fries, chicken wings and pizza. People were circling around like vultures.

A tall man wearing a sport coat and white open collared shirt was working the room, going from table to table. We assumed he must be Steve.

A waitress bumped into Mark, causing him to spill his beer down my back. “I’m outta here,” he announced. We took our drinks and followed him down the back stairs and onto the beach where we watched the last rays of the sunset disappear.

Twenty minutes later the girls and I went back upstairs to redeem our second drink tickets. The crowd had thinned out considerably. The game was underway. Tables of sullen-looking strangers were sitting at round tables, watching the TV screens. The lack of enthusiasm was palpable.

“Where’s Steve?” my wife asked. He was no place to be seen.

The bartender was crazy-busy. The score, I saw, was two to zip. Some Dodger must have hit a home run while there was a guy on base.

It took a while for our drinks to be served. Then I helped myself to the last three chicken wings. By the time we returned outside, it was dark.

In the distance we saw Mark deep in conversation with a guy who towered over him. He was talking with Steve. Who, it turns out, isn’t a Steve at all. His name is Curt. Curt Clawson. Mark told us later Curt had admitted he needed to get out of that room to get some air, he wasn’t used to campaigning.

Curt played basketball at Purdue and went to Harvard for his MBA. He then became president of the world’s largest beverage can company, retired at 50 with more money than he can ever spend, lives at the beach and is now, he told us, running because he wants to give back to the country that made his success story possible.

It would also – I didn’t say it – be a pretty cool gig.

Everyone else running for the job is a professional politician. Steve – Curt – is not. This guy actually made something of himself without sucking off the teat of the people. He’s personable but, it was obvious, shy. Campaigning isn't going to come easy for him.  My gut is he may be too decent to serve in Congress.

I can’t vote for him in the primary but will happily vote for him in the general election if he gets that far.

After ten minutes or so the candidate ­­said he guessed he needed to go back inside and thanked us for coming.

We headed down the street to a seafood restaurant which, at this time of year in Florida, requires a wait of at least an hour. It was deserted. Super Bowl you know.

We got a table on the water, had a nice meal, and closed the joint down at 9:30.

Arriving home, we saw our next-door neighbor walking her dog and stopped to say hello. “I’ve got to warn you, I’m wearing a beauty mask,” she said. She leaned down and stuck her head in the window. Her face was totally white. She said her husband had been scared shitless when she came out of the bathroom looking like a vampire. It was hilarious.

We chatted a few minutes, drove into our garage, let the dachshunds outside for their evening run, then watched an episode of a French TV series on Netflix.

All in all a Super evening.

And from what I read this morning, the Patriots won.