Look to Harry’s Banana Farm to define Chinese leader’s visit
Frank Cerabino
One of the advantages of holding diplomatic summits in Palm Beach County instead of Washington, D.C., is that it puts the action closer to Harry’s Banana Farm in Lake Worth.
Anybody driving by on Dixie Highway this week may have noticed the new message on the bar’s parking lot sign: “I just heard China bought Lantana & Xi paid Trump in rubles”
That’s classic Harry’s Banana Farm.
“Anytime you got something, you like it to be funny and a little bit biting,” said Lou Destout, who runs Harry’s and has become a kind of Bard of North Dixie Highway. “The Trump stuff is too easy.”
Harry’s is an equal-opportunity offender, serving as a kind frozen-in-time, smoky, dark, beer-and-a-shot joint railing against the world passing by.
“If masturbation is Satan’s typewriter, I’m a damn novelist,” the sign once read.
“We don’t care which bathroom you use, just wash your hands,” read another.
And one of my favorites: “More people read this sign than your stupid blog.”
Topical and caustic. That’s the idea. In a tribute to the local crematory businesses, Harry’s sign announced: “Cremation, the only time you’ll have a smokin’ hot body”
So there would be no reason to believe that Harry’s Banana Farm would observe a respectful silence this week in light of all the high-level international diplomacy happening in its midst.
While the southbound traffic on Dixie Highway is getting the message about the visiting Chinese president, Xi Jinping, buying the town where he is staying and paying President Don-