Old Florida

Where am I?

I actually blurted out these words in the car on the drive from the Tampa Airport to visit my mom in Avon Park. After scanning the radio for more than thirty minutes and getting nothing but the rantings of conservative talk show hosts and evangelical preachers I suddenly felt as though I'd been deposited in a foreign land. Oh yeah, I forgot...I have. I'm from Ithaca - Ten square miles surrounded by reality as the bumper sticker says...

Old Florida

I remember my dad talking longingly about Old Florida and how he'd seen it disappear. How at first the old grand hotels and steam boat landings were torn down and/or abandoned and then the old downtown storefronts were boarded up. In dad's Old Florida there were endless stretches of undeveloped beachfront, creaky old wooden docks, boat yards, smelly fish houses and seedy bars. Cedar-shingled bungalows housed fishermen, boat builders and rum runners, and the pungent smells of salt, beans and rice, and fish permeated everyone and everything. The water was inhabited by lively pelicans and manatees who took food right from your hand! Old Florida – I'm thinking about his version and longing for my own right now.

I have a few scant pictures of my Old Florida in my mind. Within walking distance of my childhood home are Spanish style stucco houses with red tile roofs, towering Australian pines, the neighborhood school, Kelsey Park and the marina. There are single story cinder block houses painted bright white with colorful doors and shutters. The small strip mall a few blocks away houses a shoe store (Park Avenue Shoes), a kid's clothing store (Kiddie Korner) and Johnson's Five and Dime (I learned to count change and work an old cash register at Johnson's). The Old Florida of my past has quiet side streets with wide sidewalks, street lamps on most corners and kids everywhere outside playing. I think my version of Old Florida might've disappeared too. In fact these days Florida just looks old and a little worn out to me. I know it's been this way for some time, especially in the more rural parts of the state, but somehow this time it just looks worse – fast food joints on every corner, abandoned strip malls, payday loan offices, liquor stores and of course Walmart. A lot of storefronts are boarded up and what's not empty is fortified with iron bars on the windows and doors. I wonder what or who they're trying to keep out. Don't see many kids outside playing here these days.

I travel on Highway 60 and 27 to get to Avon Park. Once I'm out of the concrete maze that is Tampa I find long stretches of undeveloped land. The land is flat and scrubby. Scrawny dairy cows and bony long-horned steers occasionally dot the dry landscape. I used to think it ugly but now I'm quite enjoying how big the sky looks. It is sunny and breezy – upper 60's. Quite a change from Ithaca where it'll barely hit 20 degrees today and it's snowing (of course).

I'm getting pretty hungry and I soon find that this is no place for a gluten-free, non-dairy, non-sugar-eating-granola-type-person like myself from upstate NY. I've never seen so many different kinds of fast food places in my entire life. After passing a number of fruit stands peddling Plant City strawberries and local tomatoes I start thinking I should stop for fresh fruit. I pass several dilapidated stands and then in the little town of Bealsville I come across this...

I drove by and then I just couldn't help myself. I made an abrupt u-turn on the highway and went back in for a closer look. As I got closer I could see that the fruit stand was literally shingled with colorful paintings. As soon as I got out of the car I was greeted by a little old black woman with a twinkle in her eye and a sweet smile. She introduced herself to me as Ruby C. Williams and said she loved to paint. I asked if I could see her work and she said yes! Ruby led me over a plywood covered path and in the direction of the ramshackle vegetable stand she called her “art house”. It was stuffed full with her paintings.

They were on the walls,on the groundand in the rafters. She agreed to a few photos and told me about her paintings in the Smithsonian. I could've stayed all day but my mom was expecting me so I told her I'd be back the next day...stay tuned!