Sizing up the triangular downcourt target, I wonder if my wife and teenage son realize what an only-in-Florida scene we make.
Not only are we playing shuffleboard. We’re doing so in downtown St. Petersburg, as card-carrying members of the seaside city’s historic shuffleboard club, the largest in the world. You really can’t get more Sunshine State than this.
While older folks are shoving pucks on this Friday afternoon, most players are far younger, many in their early 20s and hoisting cans of beer. The club and city, it seems, have experienced quite a revival.
Like most of our friends, when we moved to neighboring Tampa nearly three decades ago, my then-girlfriend, now-wife, Gail, and I regarded the half-hour drive across the bay to St. Pete as about as fun as a trip to the DMV. Derelict buildings seemed to outnumber retirees in a town long derided as “God’s Waiting Room.”
My. How times have changed.
See complete original article here> Washington Post
