Florida: to go or not to go

Going away for a late winter/early spring week in Florida has put a damper on my blogging, and I hope no one is too disappointed. I needed to rest up from my life in retirement. There is nothing like a great vacation, visiting old friends who take care of you from the moment you step off the plane until you finally enter the terminal to board the return flight. I am forever grateful to my friends who took such good care of me and treated me so royally. There is a charm about Florida.

Since I have returned, I have been asked the same question, over and over.  Are you going to move there? I don't like to say never. Anything can happen.

During my visit, I stayed in relatively decent shape by walking daily about 3 miles early in the day. I stopped at Joey's Place, a neat little diner in a shopping area along the way, one day. The walls were covered with licence plates from all the states that I could think of, and a couple of foreign countries like Brazil and Canada. It seemed like a popular spot for young workers and retirees.

I first sat at the counter and ordered a cup of coffee and an English muffin, and then was invited to sit in a booth by Mike, who welcomed me with the words "Tell me your story." I got as far as "I'm from upstate New York..." and then he began to tell me his story, about Port St. Lucie- how it was begun. "So and so bought 5 or 10 thousand acres of swamp land... divided it into building lots...which he sold  in the early fifties for $10 down and $10 a month for life...unless you sold it...it worked, eventually, and the city was born, growing to about 150,000 people today." "Hurricane Andrew showed how vulnerable the supply chain is. It all depends on trucking. There is about two weeks of goods in the line. When the emergency hit, the folks from Miami picked the shelves clean in their area, did the same in the county just north of them; the folks from there did the same to West Palm Beach area, and so on, picking the shelves clean further and further north, like the invasion of the locusts." His story ranged from his own short life in New York State, the politics of emergencies, and walking on the roads around Port St. Lucie.

It was walking on the roads that really caught my interest. I mentioned the road I was walking on. "You shouldn't walk there," he said. "Why not?" I queried. "You'll get run over." he replied. "I walk on US 22 in New York," I said, "18 wheelers  wide loads, roll by all the time." "But these people driving around here are blind and drunk... you're gonna get killed." he insisted. "I watch the cars and step onto the grass when they come," I said, trying to calm him down, "I actually worry more about walking on the grass than on the road because of the millions of ants that might kill me." "You shouldn't walk on these roads," he said. I decided that I had to get back on the roads to complete the walk.

As I walked, I thought about that conversation. The roads are straight, no curves, no hills, no shoulders; nearly endless sight, designed for speed. There were empty beer cans and bottles littering the grass; no bottle return policy in Florida. (I actually thought of collecting the bottles and shipping them to NY and collecting the deposit, but after examining one container, I realized that the deposit tag that is on the bottles and cans in NY and the northeast was missing.) As people exited their driveways, which are fairly close together along the road, they seemed to be intent on doing almost anything other than driving: texting, phoning, applying make up, shaving, computering, drinking, eating, hugging. The guy was right. the roads are dangerous, and you could get killed.

I learned from my friends that there was a wild area under some high power lines which is inhabited by wild pigs..."Stay out of there!"; that if you encounter an alligator...."Do not run in  a straight line to avoid him, but zig-zag."; that there are moats along I-95 that swallow cars that go off the road which might leave a driver dead and lost for weeks.

The real charm of Florida, besides the people I met and stayed with is the weather, especially in the winter. I suppose the same can be said of the Northeast where the people also are endearing, and the weather has its own attractive four seasons.

And the bottom line is, comfort zone. I think I am settled in for the long haul here; at any rate, I will not be moving to Florida soon.