Aloha, My Friend,

 Since August 1st – August 7 is Smile Week, I will tell an amusing story here sliding in just under the wire.

 On August 3rd, 1981, I was in Frankfurt, Germany, the international airport departure area to be exact. I had just completed an FSU summer program in Belgrade & Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia. This program was jointly sponsored by FSU and the Yugoslavian Government, FSU supplied the teachers and the government paid for the room & board at a downtown Belgrade hotel. About 10 of us from FSU spent a week in Belgrade and during this time we made friends with some 10 or 15 local college students. They had shown us around the city, translated for us, took us to campus parties and otherwise showed us a fine welcome. On our last evening there we all gathered in the hotel restaurant for a festive communal meal and, since our train didn’t leave until about 2am, we drank until the smoke filled bar closed.

 At closing time our patient waitress came over with about 20 little notebook pages filled with numbers for the price of all of our meals and copious drinks. On top of this pile of scraps was a larger sheet with the final tally for our whole little jamboree. I have no idea what it totaled to be but it was the longest string of numbers that I have ever seen that wasn’t the product of some calculation of Pi.

 As everyone began to discuss how to divvy up this bill I ceremoniously reached into the center of the table and like the true gentleman and proud American that I am, I insisted that I take care of it. I then had one of the locals help me figure up a ridiculously generous tip of about 50%, not bad considering the workers in this communist state probably only got tipped by Americans.

Then, like I had for all of my other meals, I signed for it, put my room number on it and handed it back to the waitress knowing that some Yugoslavian bureaucrat was going to dig into Tito’s budget and pick it up.

 It was pure pleasure to watch her joy and excitement; she was smiling like her lover had just whispered something delicious into her ear. Although I didn’t understand a word that she said, that was good enough for me.

 Golly, I wish that I travelled on government expense accounts more often.

 Now, if I could just do something about all of my outstanding parking tickets in New Orleans.

Back to the beginning, how do I know that I was in Frankfurt? Because that is when the American air traffic controllers decided to go on strike and for more than 2 days I was stranded in the wonderful company of a foreign exchange student from East Germany. For these days we shared stories, a single toothbrush, some granola bars and a couple of apples that I had “gepluckked.”

 So that is how I spent my summer vacation. Let me tell you what is happening out at BALI HI. We are moving!!! BALI HI will be joining with The Other Side Vintage at the “First Building on your Left” as you enter Railroad Square. This will be a wonderful confluence of The Other Side’s eclectic goodies and our tropical paradise bits and pieces.

We will also be moving a smaller portion of our exotic jewelry, art, home décor and gifts to Midtown, 1123 Thomasville Road, between the Waterworks and the Whataburger. CLICK HERE FOR A GOOGLE MAP

 This will all be in place by the 1st Friday next month, September 4th – God willin’ and the creek don’t flood.

 And please, don’t get me wrong, I am not lazy, just generous, yeah, that’s it, magnaninous, I don’t want to move one more item than I have to so we are marking everything but consigned items down at least 15% and some of our larger furniture is as much as 75% off. So, if you have been waiting for it and you don’t get it now, Shame On You.