Anna Maria: Florida Man and the Wind’s First Game

A Gulf fable · Anna Maria

The wind asked for the green balls while Florida Man was measuring a point he had already claimed twice.

“Are those being used?”

He looked toward Mara. Mara looked toward her nephew, Jules. Jules held up both hands, one containing a pencil and the other containing nothing that could have spoken.

Beside the playing line, a little ring of dry grass clippings turned above the paving.

“The green ones,” said the wind.

Florida Man straightened slowly. His red ball lay closer to the small white target than Mara’s blue one. He intended to establish that fact before the afternoon acquired another opinion.

Jules stretched his measuring string from the target to each ball.

“Red.”

“Thank you,” Florida Man said.

“It was red before you asked again.”

They played along a sheltered paved strip beside Mara’s Anna Maria house. Low wooden boards edged the lane. Mara had kept the family’s old set of hollow plastic practice balls, round and light enough for a child’s hand, with three each in red, blue and green. The closest color took a point after every ball had been rolled. Their rules had grown with the family; the score arguments had remained much the same size.

Florida Man and Mara had been playing against each other for years. Mara could put a ball beside the target with the absent expression of someone remembering laundry. He knew better than to trust that expression.

The little wind waited. Two clippings made another turn around its middle.

“I could take green.”

“Do you know the game?” Mara asked.

“I’ve watched.”

“That isn’t what she asked,” Florida Man said.

“I know where I want the ball to go.”

Mara considered the green balls in their wooden box. She had been looking forward to winning back the point he had just spent so long proving.

“One practice turn,” she said. “Then we start a new game.”

Jules put a green ball behind the release line. The wind gathered low beside it. A puff sent it rolling toward the target.

The green ball slowed. The little ring of clippings traveled after it, and another push brought it right against the white target.

“There,” said the wind.

Mara shook her head.

“Nobody gets to walk their ball all the way.”

The clippings settled a little lower.

“How far do you get?”

Florida Man showed it the line across the paving.

“We let go here. The ball does the rest.”

The wind rolled its green ball back along the empty lane. Jules retrieved the target, and Mara collected the red and blue balls. Nothing was scored from the practice.

“I can stop here,” the wind said, resting its ring behind the line.

Jules tied a narrow ribbon between two low stakes beside it. The ribbon crossed above the line, clear of a rolling ball. When the little circle of clippings passed beneath, its top brushed the ribbon.

“We’ll see if you follow,” he said.

“What if a puff moves one of ours?” Mara asked.

The wind let a single clipping turn around it before answering.

“Then I haven’t let go properly.”

They agreed that the shot would be lost. Jules would mark the resting balls so they could put any disturbed one back.

Florida Man took his three red balls. Mara took blue. Jules drew three columns on the score pad.

The wind stood behind green, looking, so far as a small circle of grass could look, ready.

Mara rolled the target toward the far end. Her first blue ball stopped a little to its right. Florida Man crouched, feeling the warm paving beneath one palm. He sent red down the clear left side. It stopped nearer.

Mara’s expression suggested that she had just remembered some particularly troublesome laundry.

Jules marked both positions with small chalk circles. He would mark each new position as the other turns ended. The wind waited until he stepped out of the lane.

Its first scored puff was short. The green ball traveled straight, slowed and stopped well short of the target. The clippings stayed behind the line. The ribbon hung almost still.

“That counts,” Jules said.

“For how much?”

“It’s a valid ball,” Mara said. “We count the point at the end.”

The wind examined the distance it still had to cover. Florida Man was familiar with that examination. He had performed it after many entirely valid balls.

Mara chose her second blue ball. She could have tried to knock his red away. Instead she placed blue in the straight approach, where it would make everybody’s next decision more interesting.

Florida Man rolled his second red to the left. It ended up farther out than he wanted, leaving the side board clear on the right. He watched it stop and rubbed the last trace of grit from his fingers.

“Valid,” Mara told him kindly.

The wind gathered behind its second green. Its clippings drew close together, then spread.

This puff sent the ball quickly down the middle. The wind stayed behind the ribbon, but farther along the lane Mara’s blue blocker rocked before green had reached it. The blue ball rolled out of its chalk circle.

“Air,” Jules said.

The wind stopped. Its green ball continued a few inches and rested beside the displaced blue.

Mara looked from the two balls to the little visitor. Florida Man waited with his final red in his hand. Nobody had to guess whether the wind had crossed the line; it hadn’t. They had all seen what its longer puff did beyond it.

“That one’s lost,” the wind said.

Jules removed green. He set blue back in its marked circle and checked with Mara that it was sitting as before.

The wind had one ball left.

Above the fence, the tops of the palms moved in ordinary air. This smaller piece stayed beside the lane, its clippings turning slowly while Mara selected her last blue.

She crouched this time. Florida Man knew the pose and shifted his weight onto both feet.

Her ball ran just outside his nearest red, kissed it and took its place beside the target. Red moved away by an inch that looked much larger from his end of the paving.

Jules measured.

“Blue.”

Mara stood. “A useful word.”

Florida Man walked along the outside of the lane to inspect what remained. He had one red ball and a clear route against the right board. A hard shot might knock blue away, but it could also send the target toward Mara’s first ball. A softer one could slip beside it.

He chose soft.

The ball left his hand cleanly. It traveled close to the board, turned off it sooner than he wanted, and came to rest beside his earlier red. Both were short of blue.

He stayed crouched for a moment after it stopped.

“Would waiting help?” Mara asked.

“I’m checking.”

Jules put the chalk down beside his score pad. The wind moved behind its last green ball and looked along the right board.

“That side counts?” it asked.

“If the ball hits it,” Florida Man said. “You still stay here.”

“I’m staying.”

The little ring drew closer to green, keeping its clippings behind the line. Florida Man could see the angle now. The wind was aiming away from the crowded middle, toward a bare stretch of board before any of the resting balls.

One quick puff.

Green rolled out. The clippings loosened behind it, and a long dry blade fell to the paving at the wind’s feet.

The ball struck the board with a small hollow tick. It came away at an angle, passed Mara’s blocker on the clear side and traveled toward the white target.

Florida Man watched it slow. For a moment it seemed likely to stop beside blue. Then it turned another fraction and rested beyond it, close enough to the target that he could see only a thin strip of paving between them.

The wind remained at the line.

Jules waited until everything was still. He went around the side, put one end of his string against the target and compared the two nearest balls. Florida Man watched the string. Mara watched Jules.

“Green.”

“One,” the wind said.

Jules wrote it down.

Mara nodded at the lane. “Good ball.”

Florida Man collected his reds. The right board was still warm where the green ball had touched it. Next time he would leave less room beside it, if his hand would cooperate.

“Again?” the wind asked.

“In a minute,” Mara said. “I’m getting water.”

She brought four glasses from the house, looked at the small circle by the line and put one back. The wind turned a loose clipping over beside its first recorded point.

Florida Man took his glass and returned to the lane.

“Closest goes first next time,” Mara reminded him.

The wind was already waiting behind green.

The real Gulf behind the tale: Anna Maria and the coastal breeze

The City of Anna Maria occupies the northern end of Anna Maria Island, with Holmes Beach and Bradenton Beach farther south. Its official community overview places residential life, beaches and coastal wildlife together in this small part of the Gulf coast.

The ordinary breeze has a physical story of its own. NOAA explains that land and water heat differently during the day. Air over warmer land rises, and cooler marine air can move inland to replace it. The National Weather Service calls that daytime onshore flow a sea breeze; a land breeze can flow the opposite way at night. Larger weather patterns and local conditions affect whether those circulations develop.

For the real game, the United States Bocce Federation describes matched colored balls, a small target called a pallino or jack, and measurement when the closest ball is in doubt. Its open rules also allow players to use the side boards.