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.
Friday, May 3, 2013
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
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.
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.
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