Florida Two

I don't understand the human need to be just like everyone else. It makes a person look, at times, incapable of thought and decision. They repeat what they hear as if it's fact.

In the case of modern Florida, this poor state is getting a big bad rap due to trendy remarks, even by editors and newscasters.

I have lived here a long time and we are not a "crazy" state or a state "where anything can happen", anymore than any other state.

Florida is not unique in its number of citizens who carry guns, its floundering education system, the number of alligators and insects that plague us, nor should our state be ridiculed that way.

The climate isn't even unique, in that much of the very south is the same.

Florida does attract too many people who are not willing or capable of remaining and putting down roots, so they flee and go back home, but in doing so, too often give crazy reasons for it.

Just don't believe everything you read and hear, because repeating it could cause you to seem off-base, and make Florida look bad, and that isn't good.

Florida One

What intrigued me about Florida as a kid was the warm weather all year round and the palm trees. I'd only seen pictures and they weren't enough. I wanted to experience it myself.

That happened in my twenties. A road trip covered the entire coast, down the west gulf side, on to the string of islands called the Keys, and back up the east Atlantic side.

During the 1970s, Florida was a quieter place than it is today. Where condominiums, stores, and parking lots are now, the land was wild and free back then. Who knew that it would so drastically change over the years?

Miami amazed me with its outer miles of Spanish-speaking people, I assume from Cuba, who owned the motels and stores and restaurants along strips of highway.

Miami Beach was wealthy old hotels and the rich and famous, who came to entertain or relax or show off their status and money. It was a Jewish haven, for the old and young alike.

Key West was quaint and small and strange, a place for escapees to mingle with their common interests and drugs. There was not even one large hotel then, when I went. Two years later, a chain motel was built to bring in people who didn't think that staying in a tiny cabin surrounded by unmown grass was ideal. It was a quiet island then.

In fact, all of Florida was quieter than it is today, and I miss that. I live here now and have for twenty years, and I miss the way it was.

Cuba In 1981, Log Fourteen: The Ending

Just before dark, the guards at the doors to the waiting room called for our attention.

An official said, in heavily accented English, that our plane was now repaired and we were to walk silently out of the terminal with the guards.

Throughout the long and heavy day, we tourists had kept a constant vigil on our small scraps of numbered papers, afraid that we would somehow lose them and be doomed.

Everyone frantically checked their pockets and gave a silent sigh of relief when the official said to have our papers ready. We all had them.

As we boarded the plane, the guards were waiting at the top of the steps with glowering faces, trying to intimidate us even further. It was beginning to tick me off.

They said nothing to us, just thrust out a hand and snatched our papers and passed it to a guard behind them. Now we had nothing to identify ourselves. That was scary.

The second guard checked our numbers with a list and marked it with a pen and passed the number to a third guard, who matched it with the number in the passport.

We were motioned forward and allowed to enter the cabin. It all took forever.

The stewardesses and stewards were a smiling mess. All we were allowed to do was smile back, then find our seats. Guards were in the aisles at the rear of the plane, refusing to move out of our way.

Really, I thought, how ridiculous. But I guess they have their laws to follow, the same as we do.

Once we were all seated, the guards gave us the "eye", then left the plane. The door was shut and we all breathed out.

Immediately, the jet began to move while we all buckled up. No one said a word. It was as if we were afraid to.

On the runway, as the plane turned to ready for take-off, the pilot's weary voice spoke over the intercom.

He asked us to just go to sleep during the flight because there was no food or drink and the cabin crew was exhausted, and he knew that we were as well.

And then he asked us to pray. He said he hoped that our plane was alright, but would we all pray for safety and a safe flight home, because only time would tell whether or not the hydraulic system was good again.

And when he clicked off, we silently prayed. The plane began to whine as if its engines revved and screamed, and then we started to move.

Faster and faster down the runway, and I thought, the air conditioner is working, so we're okay. We're okay, thank you God.

We had lift-off, and this time we ascended and began to soar, and the whole cabin began to shout for joy.

Women were crying with relief. I just sat there and breathed.

The captain came on and for the first time since we left Toronto two weeks ago (because he was the pilot who had brought us down to Cuba in the first place), he sounded normal, cheerful, and confident.

We applauded his speech of thanks and then, "Now, relax and go to sleep," order, and then we did.

He had been afraid that our system was flawed. There had been no way to test fly the plane. He hated that, putting so many passengers' and crews' lives at risk, we learned.

The stewardesses had thoroughly gone over the "crash and landing in the water drill" with us before we took off this time, because the Cuban authorities had told the captain before take-off, "Don't come back."

The flight crew woke us up over Ontario. The pilots landed at the Toronto International Airport, and when we touched down, the cabin went nuts again, shouting and applauding.

As we cheerfully disembarked, the entire flight crew stood at the front of the plane to shake our hands and wish us well.

They were beautiful people to me, with their tired eyes and bright smiles, especially the pilots and the engineer who all desperately needed some rest.

I will never forget them.

Nor do I ever intend to return to Cuba. Once was enough.

I had a great time and enjoyed the people and the island.

It's too bad the ending left me with such terrible memories of people who should have been kinder to us through our scary ordeal. It wasn't right.

What they did.

Cuba In 1981, Log Thirteen: Hours Of Uncertainty

Our plane sat outside the terminal where we could see it from the confines of the waiting room.

We were not allowed any word from the crew on what was happening, because the crew was forbidden to leave the plane.

We could see stewardesses in the open doorway, getting fresh air from time to time. We could see how hot they were, their faces red, their crisp uniforms welting in the heat as the hours passed.

A member of the cockpit came out to sit at the top step of the portable stairs and was told to go back inside by the guards on the tarmac. I felt so bad for all of them, innocent people who didn't deserve such punishment. They had no more to eat or drink than we did.

The food and drinks in our little cafe inside the terminal ran out by noon. The female staff felt sorry for us. They had never experienced what was going on, because it had never happened before.

They all went home. Hours later, one of them returned with fresh melons. She sliced them and proudly handed them out to us. It was a wonderful thing for her to do, and she refused payment for it.

Around four o'clock or so, a group of Russian tourists arrived to await their flight home. They were all men in their twenties and thirties.

They talked boisterously and eyed the Canadians as being oddities. Why were we all here, looking so disheveled and tired, one asked in broken English.

The room was really crowded now. Some of us had headaches. Nothing was happening with our plane.

And then a small jet landed. It was a private jet from Toronto, carrying the parts we needed. The crew had purchased from a place in Louisiana what we required, then received permission from Cuba to land in Havana. On board were Canadian engine mechanics. No Americans were allowed in Cuba.

I watched and watched. The flight crew, exhausted by now, seemed to pick up with hope now that help had arrived.

We waited and waited, and still no word from our plane.

The young Russian men set up a card game. Chairs in a circle, luggage piled in the center for a table. Cards came out, voices became animated.

Every time a man played a card, he raised off his chair and slammed the card down on the table with a loud shout to accompany it. I watched with delight. I had never seen a card game quite like that. I had never seen cards like they had, either. They were very entertaining for hours.

When their flight arrived, I was sad to see them go.

It grew quiet and dull and stuffy in the room.

Outside, the crew of our plane began to look desperate. They were hungry and thirsty. It was becoming horrible for all of us.

Cuba In 1981, Log Twelve: The Russian Dream

The waiting room grew hot with the overstuffed presence of tourists who should have been happily on their way back to Canada, but instead were stranded in Havana with nothing more than a scrap of paper and a scrawled number as their sole identity.

Other flights came and went in the night, crowding their passengers all in that single room.

The washrooms became filthy, messy, and smelly with no one to clean them. Toilet paper ran out. Someone threw up in a sink and left it there.

There was nothing to drink except strong Cuban coffee and imitation sodas. We were served breakfast with a small glass of rationed orange juice, toast and fried eggs and some kind of sweet jam that we couldn't identify.

Trash cans in the waiting room were over-flowing, the stuff on the floor being kicked aside on your way past them, making a pathway.

People slept in chairs, legs stretched out, throats snoring loudly, all men, of course, not caring.

There was nothing to read, no radio to listen to, no television to watch. Just tourists to stare at and who stared back at you.

My own wish, going to Cuba, was to see a Russian tourist there, a big woman wearing massive furs making her the size of a barn. She would have a bear of a face. I could picture her in my mind and I was determined that my wish came true. Just one such woman was all I asked.

Sure enough, a Russian tourist plane landed in the afternoon, and yes, we were still there thirteen hours later, and I watched, at the wall of windows to the tarmac, to see who disembarked.

Men, men, and more men, wearing Russian garb of all seasons, and then, there she was. In all her glory. In all that stifling heat. The Russian in the gigantic fur coat and hat, the woman as big as a barn with a face like a bear. My wish - my dream - was right here, and I almost died with delight.

She came charging into the crowded and messy waiting room like some gorgeous princess from Siberia, an amazon of a woman who fought Arctic wolves with her bare hands, skinned them, and dropped their sorry hides across her massive shoulders.

She spoke loudly in Russian to no one in particular. She was amazing. I could not stop grinning.

"You see?" I said to my friends. "I knew she would come!"

They had all scoffed at me in Toronto. No woman would wear her furs to tropical Cuba, they said. But I knew. There just had to be one vain woman, big enough and bold enough to do it. And here was living proof.

She must have been dying in that heat, but she never once shed a drop of sweat or the tail end of a wolf from her massive back.

Now that's stoic, I thought. Truly stoic.

Cuba In 1981, Log Eleven: That Fateful Night of Departure

We arrived in the dark and we were to leave in the dark - Cuban rules back then.

We boarded the plane and the cabin was warm, an immediate sign that something was not right for our quiet escape.

The plane taxied to the runway, picked up speed, lifting off and into the night.

But we didn't gain altitude. We kept flying low over the water, way too low for my tastes. We were going nowhere.

The captain's voice spoke. We had problems. The plane was losing hydraulic fluid, which meant that all controls were affected. He said that we weren't allowed to return to the Havana airport. It was illegal. And we couldn't make it to Miami, Florida, a mere two hundred and twenty-eight miles away, over the dark and deep waters.

We sat there, stunned. The cabin got warmer and warmer; air conditioning wasn't working. The crew huddled near the cockpit door, out of sight, listening to the captain radioing home for help.

The plane continued flying low over the water, in slow, wide arcs while the captain spoke to the officials in the Havana tower, begging them to let us return- and soon.

Finally, he came over the intercom and his voice was shaky, so that made us all nervous.

He said:

- No plane has ever been allowed to return.

- We were in a desperate situation, so the Cuban authorities would make an exception in our case (or we would have ended up in the sea).

- Officials would board our jet.

- We weren't allowed to say one word to them or to each other. They demanded our silence. They were in charge.

- We would forfeit our passports to them.

- They would give us each a piece of paper with a number on it. It would be our only identification to them.

- Keep the number safe. If we lose it, we would not be allowed back on the plane when it was repaired. Instead, we would be put in prison, and good luck with that. Our captain could not stress enough how important that slip of paper was.

- We would disembark under guard, and be returned to the waiting room where we would remain under watch at all times, as prisoners who could not leave the room.

Did all of this scare us? You bet it did, especially seeing the crew as nervous as they were.

It all happened exactly as the captain said. The authorities had stern faces and black, glaring eyes. They said nothing. We said nothing. They reached for our passports, then they scribbled on two torn pieces of paper, stuck one piece in our passports and handed them to another official, and gave us the other piece of paper.

We were told to leave the plane with the guards. Our captain stood beside two officials at the plane's door. He looked distressed, and I felt sorry for him and the responsibility he had weighing on his shoulders.

Inside the terminal, we were told that our airline, Air Canada, would pay for our breakfast at six a.m., but any other food we had to buy ourselves.

I can't imagine the frantic conversations that had taken place on the plane while we circled, dumping all of our fuel into the water so we could land safely, conversations between Air Canada headquarters, the Toronto International Airport, and the southern American airports, all people trying to help us find the parts we needed to repair our plane, so we could leave Cuba and pretend this had never happened.

To Be Continued

Good Ole Lies You Tell Your Kids

1. Santa Claus: a jolly, fat man who wears red and white and employs little alien men to make toys at the North Pole, that place where Canadians live in igloos year-round, then gears up eight little flying reindeer, fills a sleigh with about six billion toys in one gigantic red bag, and spends the night invading every single house in the world where a kid lives, and never ever gets caught, arrested, booked, and sent down to do hard time, for breaking and entering.

2. Easter Bunny: loves eggs. Loves even more the anticipation of sneaking into hen houses and stealing about six billion eggs right out from under the pathetic little squawkers. Then he single-handedly paints them, or turns them into candy or solid chocolate or even hollowed-out eggs with chocolate shells. Tricky. Then he skips through the land carrying two billion baskets of beautiful and teeth-rotting eggs to all the girls and boys. He too never does time for break and enter.

3. Tooth Fairy: ewww. Must be a wannabee mortician. Male or female? Who knows in this day and age. Again, it flits through your house in the dead of night, looking for little teeth under little heads on little pillows. That should freak out any kid. But he or she always leaves something behind, preferably cash.

4. Sand Man: a freak who unloads the outdoor cat toilet box in your kid's eyes if they won't hurry up and go to sleep.

5. Boogie Man: like nasty spiderwebs and dirty dust, this creature lurks in closets, pockets, and under the bed of a kid's bedroom, and at night will scare the crap out of your kid if he doesn't shut up and go to sleep.

6. Jack Frost: a Canadian phenomenon where again, a fairy - a male one this time for sure, because his name is Jack - breaks into your house when you are sound asleep, and paints, with ice crystals, your coldest windows, usually the ones that face west of Alaska, the Bering Sea, and Russia. Pretty darned scary.

7. Man in the Moon: one giant, grinning face that leers down at your child on a summer night when the moon is full, and gives your kid the creeps for the rest of his life.