This evening, we will be celebrating the birthday of my son, William Earle Treadway, who turns 27 today. Yesterday I shared a story from Williams birth. After that, he got bigger, and ultimately learned to swim, which puts him past me. My old law partner, Joe Johnson, and I took William to Palm Beach with us one year for Thanksgiving break, when he was about 6 or 7. Joe always had a place to stay there, and I often joined him. William quickly fell into Joes and my Palm Beach routine of visiting the old newsstand downtown, obtaining newspapers and cigars for us and comic books for William, after which we would have breakfast and read the news. People still read newspapers in those days, and every day we read the Miami Herald (which was a good paper then), the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Palm Beach Post. William was always disappointed to find the comics largely the same in the Miami and Palm Beach papers. If they had a Courier-Journal, wed throw that in, too. I dont think they ever had the Lexington paper. Joe only wore Hermes ties, and he encouraged me to buy my first one on Worth Avenue, where we used to see Lily Pulitzer walking down the sidewalk barefoot in one of her mumus. William became friends with the girl who ran the T-shirt store near the newsstand, and so we added that to our daily ramble. One day there was a robbery there, and the Palm Beach police who showed up at it gave William a junior Palm Beach police badge. The first day we went to the beach, Joe instructed William considerably about the dangers of the undertow (the deadly undertoad) and the stinging jellyfish. Let me tell you, that UNDERTOW will get you and pull you straight out INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN!! William would have none of it, though, and dived straight into the water, went under and disappeared. When he didnt surface in a few seconds, Joe started wanting me to dive in after him, only mildly deterred by the fact that I cant swim. About the time Joe was ready to dive in himself, William surfaced a hundred yards or so out in the ocean like a dolphin, and waved at us. Neither of us worried about him in the ocean after that . . . Now William and Courtney are expecting twins, and I can only imagine the adventures that will ensue . . . Happy birthday, William!
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 20:36:53 +0000
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