A New Age: St. Pete's Fountain of Youth

Page, apple-cheeked and dressed in jeans and a fleece, was working the late shift at the club, a 65-court lighted venue that is the world's largest. Most people associate shuffleboard with wrinkled players pushing disks across a cruise ship deck or a retirement rec center. Banish the image.

About a year and a half ago, the 83-year-old club started the St. Pete Shuffle -- free play to rockin' music every Friday night until 11 -- in an effort to inject some young blood into the sport. To be sure, no self-styled ironist can resist a retro activity set to a soundtrack of such indie darlings as Death Cab for Cutie and the Decemberists. Typically, 150 people show up for the event, but because of a recent cold spell (in Florida, 50 degrees = Arctic freeze), only two couples and Page were playing. The next day, though, the courts were jamming.

Each year, the club holds an "I Love St. Pete" fete, which celebrates homegrown talent with an art exhibit, band performances on the Main Court and a community cocktail party. I was playing doubles with Page, 35-year-old Chris Fellerhoff and a 26-year-old from Washington. A bench used by fatigued shufflers by day now held our beers. At my left was the band Auditorium, whose lanky musicians were an easy target for my wayward disks.

I don't know about the little-old-lady version of the game, but the new generation plays with the ferocity of dirty croquet competitors. More than once -- okay, several times -- my opponents blasted my puck out of the score zone and skittering close to the lead singer's leg.

Perhaps I could blame my abominable shooting on the band, whose garage sound was sometimes startling. Or maybe I should just admit that this game requires a set of skills that I obviously don't possess. I left the court in shame as Auditorium's final chords faded out. The scoreboard read 83-49; the next round of beer was on me.

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Where can you get a cocktail around here? So many places -- unlike a few years ago, when residents say you had to drive over the bridge to Tampa for some night life. Today, though, you can find a drink for every mood. Bella Brava concocts a tangy raspberry mojito served in a pint glass. BayWalk, an outdoor mall a few blocks from the water, handles the sports bar, hip-hop and post-shopping crowd. There are also posh wine bars, $1 sangria nights at the Salvador Dali Museum and punk dives so dark you need night vision glasses to avoid getting poked in the eye by a mohawk.

These worlds collide at the Globe Coffee Lounge, a corner hangout filled with board games, local artwork (and artists) and spruced-up Dumpster furnishings. The clientele on a Friday night had tattoos on their arms and iPod buds in their ears. For those without body art, Darla Nunnery was there to decorate.

The long-haired 28-year-old artist was sitting at a round table, her henna paraphernalia laid out with a surgeon's care. For $5 to $25, she'd paint a design on your hand, leg, even pregnant belly. I choose a spot on my forearm, not too obvious but prominent enough to offer a flash of intrigue. As she painted the mix of Pakistani powder and grapefruit juice from her mother's garden onto my skin, she explained her technique.

"I just sit here and go with the flow," she said, taking a quick call from her mother in between paintbrush dabs. "I'll pull a design out."

What materialized was an intricate paisley shape that bloomed like an exotic flower, its tendrils stretching toward my palm. Nunnery doused my arm with lemon juice, then bandaged it up to prevent smudging. She explained that the henna would flake off the next day and that the design would darken with time. As I walked away with my secret wrapped in gauze, I watched her gently take the arm of her next client, a 7-year-old upgrading from stickers.

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