Reflections on Florida

 

To Each His Own

·       There are so many old timers there…many of the public service jobs seem to be taken by these oldies….toll booths, pancake houses, gift shops…one woman said to me, “Honey, I lived in Wisconsin, and when you have had enough winter, moving south is like finding the fountain of youth.

·       Hotel we were at had six bars, 3 pools, 2 “hawt” tubs.

·       None of the pools that I saw were designed for swimming laps.

·       Most of the old men have a 75 degree forward lean.

·       Beer and wine are sold in grocery stores. Liquor stores abound too, with funny names…Pappy’s Liquor, Coco’s Liquors, Pasadena Liquors.  They all seemed to have something on special. However none were called the “Fountain of Youth Liquors” but I am not sure what was served in the hotel bar at the Ponce de Leon Hotel.

·       Read the Tampa Bay Tribune ….full page ads for medicare, insurance, hearing aids and real estate.

·       Besides Americans (from Bwoston, De-troy-it or Wisconsin) Canadians are the second largest group of tourists there. Apparently Germans also love to come to Florida. Canadian really stand out in Florida: sunburned faces and white legs.

·       Gas was $2.00 a gal, which means 50 cents a litre!

·       Oranges in a grocery store were labelled “California goodness.”

·       Everybody walks the beach in Florida. Some in sweatshirts, some in jackets, but not all…I saw one woman in her late 70’s I would guess, in a long winter coat, scarf, broach, winter hat…but she was walking the beach at 7 a.m.

·       One young woman on the beach was wearing skin tight jeans, high heels, talking on her cell phone.

·       Guy near me at a pool, on a recliner, suntanning, shirtless, in swim trunks, talking on his cell phone, giving explicit directions to the office back home. His talk was blunt, direct and unambiguous – far from the relaxed pose he struck at pool side.  

·       Another man beside me at a pool said he was from “Bwoston” and if you cut him open he would bleed black and gold. Said it has been a long time since “Bobby Orr.” Said he fears playing the Montreal Canadiens, because they always find a way to break his “hahrt”, and it’s usually in the last three minutes of the game.

·       Daughter E. said she had a dream about returning to school and having no one notice that she was tanned.

·       I dreamt about an ailing father who was not responding to chemo-therapy, although he had been gone a dozen years.

 I realized that to “each his own” also means nightmares.   

 

Tags: advertising for medicare insurance hearing aids and real estate, Florida Vacations, old men tilted at 75 degrees, Ponce de Leon Hotel, talking hockey in FLA., Tampa Bay Tribune, To each his own