I wish I knew exactly how many times I've been to Florida over the course of my 34 years. I've covered the Gulf side, Atlantic side, inland (though not too much)...never been to Tallahassee or as far north as Jacksonville, though.
The trips to the land of Ponce de Leon started pretty early on. My paternal grandparents, Izzy and Chickee, moved to a retirement community in Margate (near Fort Lauderdale) in the late 1970s. We went there very few times back when we were a family unit. My dad wasn't a big fan of visiting his own parents. Out of guilt, I still head to Margate every few years to put in a lunch visit with my grandfather, Izzy, who is 93.I think of my last trip to see Izzy back on my 32nd birthday. Bisq and I were staying with Uncle Beast at his condo in DelRay Beach, about an hour away from Margate. Over that weekend, we had many unexpected encounters with
parrots, which we take as a great omen. Even cruising on the interstate, Bisq spotted a blue and gold macaw in the passenger seat of a passing car. Come to think of it, my bird, Raj, comes from a breeder near Jacksonville. It's no stretch to say that parrot owners, much like old people, flock to Florida.A dear friend of ours, Don B., lives in West Palm Beach. He is a yacht broker who used to own dry cleaners in his former life before Florida [BF]. He still loves his ciggies, his rum and coke for breakfast, and blow-dries what's left of his hair, making sure that the area that grazes his collar is curled under and not too frizzy looking - a fairly tall order when you live in Florida. Like us, Don hails from Metairie, LA. Don used to sail with my dad (see The Family Gun, for more details) before they had a huge falling-out in the late 1980s. I couldn't bear to give up my relationship with Don, so I secretly visit him when I'm on the Atlantic Florida coast.
I've definitely spent some time on the Florida Panhandle. People in the know call that region the Redneck Riviera. I feel like I know every inch of the Gulf Coast, and I can easily say that I don't miss it very much. I am sad to see that the changing weather patterns are doing away with this region a little faster than the rest of the country. I have some almost trashy, almost sweet memories of the Panhandle.
For some reason I am remembering a trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama (which is spitting distance from Pensacola, FL) that I took as a teenage babysitter along with another family who had two very young kids. The main attraction, besides the beach, is the mammoth wave pool where the undertow is so deadly that girls' ponytails are tragically snapped off each day. I've had some unpleasant encounters with the treacherous metal grating on the side of the pool that sucks everything from hair to jelly-shoes off of the typical buck-toothed southerner on vacation in Gulf Shores. While on that trip, I pilfered a joint off of the cool mom, Elaine, who made the mistake of carelessly leaving it on the counter in the bathroom. What a score. I carefully guarded that joint in the pocket of my white perma-press tennis shorts for the entire week, just waiting for the perfect Florida moment. I walked along the beach with it to a bar that straddled the Alabama/Florida border: the Florabama Bar. I thought for sure that I would meet the right people with whom I could whip out this bit of contraband and have a legendary time. At 14, looking more like 12, standing at about 4'8"- it's a good thing I was widely ignored at the Florabama Bar. That very joint of Elaine's came home with me to New Orleans and stayed in my jewelery box for years un-smoked, but quite kinked from the journey it had made in my shorts all the way from Florida.
I journeyed back to the Panhandle around Easter 2002. We traveled there with some of our Atlanta friends and stayed with Jeanne (whom we lovingly refer to as "the Coach") at her beach house which they called Puckered Out. A team of heavily drunk and twasted lesbians and gay dudes were also guests at Puckered Out that weekend. A key player during this Easter beach trip was the frozen toddy machine set up to make super-sweet margaritas and rum-runners round the clock. As you can imagine, the scene got ugly fast. It all culminated around midnight when Coach's ex, the Roach, was wasted in the kitchen making pancakes with a six year old girl (the unfortunate daughter of a visiting neighbor in this beach community).
One of Roach's eyes was crossed and the other closed. With spatula in hand, she was cursing under her breath, "alright, you little shit - one more pancake." Roach was particularly ornery because it was obvious that the Coach was hooking back up with her Florida girlfriend, right there in front of Roach's drunken eyes. That poor little six year old would have to experience the wrath.On that same expedition, Brian, a.k.a., "the Brain," broke his toe while we walking to the beach to watch fireworks. We heard it break, and I think someone in the group re-set it for him back in the living room at Puckered Out. While inebriated, he proceeded to give us a lecture where he emphatically repeated the phrase, "I LOVE MY SIBLINGS!" Bisk and I did our best to escape all of the wasted guests who were up to no good and trapping us in their drunken tirades. On that particular weekend, it was unsafe to swim in the Gulf due to an algae that was spotted via satellite. As Brain put it (way too many times): "Thi-entists (scientists with a lisp, in case you couldn't catch it) are baffled!!" After spending 2 frightening nights with the tireless toddy machine, Bisq and I decided to head back up the I-85 to our apartment in Atlanta.
Leaving the pan-handle and heading southeast, you get to the Tampa/St.Pete region.
I attended practice management seminars which were based out of Clearwater, FL. The last one I went to was in early September 2005. My friend, Leena, and I stayed with a pretty offbeat (to put it kindly) married couple, Bob and Marion, who I'd met several times through these seminars targeted toward Acupuncturists and Chiropractors. We stayed with them at their house for one night in Dade City, so that we could avoid paying for a hotel room in Clearwater. I probably need an entire blog to describe these people, but here are some keywords: rat-tail, ex-Parrot owners, 50-ish, ex-coke-heads, swingers, overweight, acupuncturists, vocal sex enthusiasts. They took us by their impressive acupuncture clinic in Dade City where Bob (husband with rat-tail) prescribed me some kind of female topical sex enhancement cream (unsolicited, by the way). He and Marion spent the better part of the night begging us to smoke a joint with them and trying to coax us into their indoor swimming pool for a nighttime dip. They couldn't have barked up a wronger tree. Gotta love Floridians...
You really want to love Key West, especially after reading Hemingway's Islands in the Stream and
short stories by Bob Shacochis (a literary find by Bisq). It's pretty laughable that I wanted to move there, sight-unseen back when I was 22. The shame about Key West is that it pretty much sucks. It's way more Florida than it is Cuba, to say the least. Hemingway knew a much different place than the one that's there now. Bisq, Zulie and I visited back in 1997 and stayed pretty wasted drinking at a variety of shitty tourist bars that have you seated on white plastic lawn furniture. At least in New Orleans, they try to give you some sort of unique experience. Over there it's all go-cups and mid-westerners with fat pink legs. We actually managed to have a great trip - the alcohol helped tremendously. We kept ourselves entertained by falling into the hot tub fully clothed and getting into fights with people at the B&B where we stayed.Like I said before, I can't even remember all of the times I've been to "Flower-da," as my great-grandmother called it. These are just some vague memories of a state where I've worn a lot of bad French-cut bathing suits, drunk a lot of red, blue and green beverages, been scared as hell of its inhabitants and witnessed some twasted behavior.
Stay tuned for Oregon.
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