PARADISE LOST

First of all, let Miss Vero thank y'all for the wonderful emails and comments yesterday. We loved the suggestion of being linked to the PJ, but kids, y'all know that 's not gonna happen, besides that would just raise their stock and send ours plummeting. We are achievin our goals right here, thank y'all very much.

We sent an email to Miss Marilyn Bauer at the Press Journal, wondering why someone local isn't hired (cause y'all know the job will be filled by a newcomer, oh yes hunnies, mark my words), but she hasn't responded yet. hmmm...

Now today children we are going to talk about a place we swore we'd never review - Captain Hiram's. So stop groaning right now, y'all hear?

Since Miss Diana Foote is reviewing places she's never been to (and we all have) and since she saw fit to write about Hiram's yesterday and the PJ saw fit to print it and her other drivel (not our word, the one lone comment to her last two articles - and no, we are not providin the link).

We thought, well, we should take a crack at it.

Miss Vero has a long history with Hiram's going back 20 years or so. Now it's a giant tourist trap run by a management company, but back in the day it was the coolest partyin place this side of Key West. As Miss Foote found out, food is, or has never been the reason to visit, except if ya'll know what to order. Hiram's was once known as a raw bar and one of the original owners, Mr. Martin Carter, would fix you up a dirty oyster if he happened to be around the bar. He also had a very good recipe for Maryland crab chowder and a little unassuming guy called Captain Jimmy made the best crab cakes. All of these items made it onto the menu, but we much prefer the days when Captain Jimmy would come out of the kitchen himself with the crabcakes or Martin went behind the bar with Roxanne to get oyster fixins. We were there recently and glad to see Roxanne still behind the bar.

This is our favorite place to sit inside, probably because of all the great fun and fishin pictures. Miss Vero is sad to see that the great Don Ray art has been taken down to provide room for some lame flat screens spewing out sports programs. Our favorite was always "Snook in the Mangroves" (any idea what a snook is Miss Foote? good eatin, that's what). And that was how y'all got the best fish at Hiram's, y'all caught it and brought it in and they cooked it up.
http://www.donraystudio.com/donray.htm

Now the place got a bit a popular and Mr. Martin and his partner, Mr. Tom Collins (yup that's his real name), decided to pretty it up a bit and send the fishin boot wearin locals out to the dock area, so as not to disturb the genteel customers they were trying to attract. They put a little outside bar in the back, it was real cute with only seven seats, they called it "The Sand Bar."

There were two women who worked there, Miss Kate and Miss Margaret and they wore bikinis and sarongs and Hatmon hats and they kept the locals very happy and business boomed. There was Captain Terry, Cokie, Joey and Marcia, Scott and Leslie, Captain Buddy, Bobby, Captain Gus, Captain Bruce, Doug Moss and his dog Malei, Uncle Bill, Pete Harris, George and Dr. John, just to name a few.

Hatmon was "imported " from Seacrets in Ocean City Maryland, (now y'all know where the Maryland Chowder came from) and it was on the success of local business and the idea to replicate Seacrets that Tom Collins built the Sand Bar y'all see today. In fact if y'all take a look at the Seacrets website, it will look strangely familiar.
http://www.hatmon.com/

http://www.seacrets.com/

There were so many great stories and people that were present at the birth of the Sand Bar. Sadly some of them are gone forever. We already told y'all about Pete Harris in our June 18th post "Mad about Micco" and one of these days we promise to tell y'all about Doug Moss, but one person y'all should know about is Dr. John. He is the only original regular that has a plaque at the Sand Bar.


Now first off, don't get any fool ideas about pesterin Dr. John with stoopid questions or askin him about Miss Vero. As we told y'all in previous posts, he is one of the smartest people we know ( there's only a handful) and he is a Doctor of psychology, so he can see your BS from a mile away. And if that doesn't deter y'all, he's a feisty Irishman from Newark, NJ. who will make that very clear to anyone who annoys him. Y'all might have heard him on the Love Doctors, he's a guest quite frequently. We are still wondering why WZZR doesn't give him his own damn show.

Dr. John Dispensing Wisdom

We suppose the reason we chose to tell y'all about Hiram's is because it no longer exists, not in the way it used to. It's like Sebastian and Vero Beach, still there, still thriving, but not as folks who have been here a while remember. New people come along like Diana Foote and Russ Lemmon, who haven't lived here long but get paid to tell us old timers about our own surroundings. We know it will never be the way it was and that's life kids, things change. But what we need is something to hold onto while we make that transition. We need to build that change on the foundation of the past. We need the new folks to know who the plaques belong to and why. Miss Vero sincerely hopes to give y'all that. We'll do our best.

Now let's mix up a cocktail and start the weekend! See y'all Monday..

MWAH!

missvero@live.com