Saturday, July 11, 2009

Florida....

Modest Mouse has song titled the same name..."even as I had left Florida, far enough, far enough was not far enough - could not seem to escape myself, far enough, far from Florida..." - mowing the grass at the other house (this is what I affectionatly call it these days, even though I do not physically reside there, and most of my stuff has been cordially removed or handed to me in Publix plastic bags, I still mow the grass, indirectly pay 90% of the bills, and have two of the most important things in the world living there - so for now, it stands as the other house) - anyway, mowing the grass at the other house reminded me of what a miserable place Florida can be for about seven months out of the year - it is hot, monkey ass hot, the kind of sauna steam wet that makes it hard to breathe - couple that with wasps the size of quarters, mosquitos that don't seem to quit, the never ending weed season, the rednecks who voted Bush again (because they did not like either Obama or McCain - he let a wimin be his runnin pardner), and the anal retentive Julington Creek Homeowners Association (Mr. Bennett, we noticed the yard has a brown spot in it, and according to the by laws, you need to make it green or you can be levied $1,000 per violation...)the never ending stream of foreclosures, and finally the folks who just decided that it would be nice to spend their next ten years driving 12 miles an hour on any public street are just about enough to fill a cup of "I want to get the hell out of here" soup. That is Florida - some people fall in love with it - sure I like the reasonable winters, and the spring, and the ocean, the things that makes Florida great - but Florida is not a dream place - most folks with any money live in Vail or Beaver Creek or Aspen or Upstate New York from about March until October, the rest of the year, they sequester themselves away from us commoners on pristine manicured resort and golf course communities, deeply protected from the real world that surrounds them - but immersed in their seven percent club (the seven percent is the amount that the folks who can afford to live in those places experienced in income increase over the past two years - the remaining 97% of the folks in the States experienced the exact same decrease in income in the past two years...)that bounce around their ideas and ideologies amongst themselves in between tennis matches and two hours of volunteer work a week...

I know why I moved back here - she wanted to be back - at that point in time, we could have gone anywhere - and been happier - not subjected to the same people we moved away from in the first place - but we did, and instantly that old Florida magic started up again - granted, my folks live in Florida (a few here and a few there), my remaining grandparents live here, but they live in a different kind of Florida - certainly less pretentious, not as polished, and probably just as smart as those folks who are in those pretty places. We moved back because I was miserable, lost my job, and wanted a fresh start - hindsight being as perfect as it is, there was no fresh start - the friends had the same issues, the place had the same problems (and new ones coupled with the 60,000 homes per year they were spitting out of the illegal immigrant factory down here) - and I still felt the same way.

Some people are like that - they want safety and security and the same consistent sense of being all of the time - and I would be lying if I said I do not crave that some of the time - but to tell you the truth - Florida is not all that great - there are no mountains, our education system is strapped, the beaches are now mostly privately owned and fiercely defended lest we try and get an access to them, the hurricanes do a pretty good job of making August and September dreary months, and the land is as flat as a Waffle House griddle (and is decorated by mainly Waffle Houses and Indian River Fruit Stands that cater to those poor souls making the pigramage to Disney World). The real Florida lies in cities like Gulf Breeze or Live Oak or Lake City - very rarely do you find folks from Philadelphia who had to "escape the city" moving there - mostly you find decent, hard working folks - maybe a little racist, maybe a little country, but mostly decent.

Accept being threatened and legally bound to stay in Florida, and the fact that (as I so openly mentioned above) that the two most important things in the world to me are here - I would think of some place that I would rather be - but that is for another day and time. Another blog subject, another stupid chapter written in this tiny little apartment...

Dirty laundry beckons, and I smell like monkey ass (you know, the yard thing).

George

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