I’ve seen the ones with the blinds closed tight. There are others where the lights are clearly on night and day. And then there are the telltale driveways – particularly after snowstorms – that haven’t seen a car tire or truck tire tread since New Year’s. Their occupants won’t be back until April at the earliest. And they might as well have posted a sign on their houses:
“Gone to Florida for the winter!”
I don’t know whether it’s because the weather has suddenly been normal and delivered us the snow, wind and cold that February and March are generally supposed to. Or, maybe it’s because the March break is just around the corner. But a lot of my friends, neighbours, some of hockey buddies, a few members of my family and a number of my working colleagues have all bailed and gone south. I can almost hear them testing their snorkels or whipping their golf drivers in practice swings. They’re into escape mode.
I know it’s going to sound as if I’m rationalizing my sorry position of having to work here through the winter, but I often find myself asking: “Just what are they trying to escape?”
It can’t be the snow. Until now, there hasn’t been any. It can’t be cold. On a few days this winter, it’s been warmer here than in Texas or Mississippi. Snowbirds can’t exactly be dashing to the currency exchange counters Stateside to turn in their Loonies for American greenbacks. And one can’t say that life’s been boring here this winter (unless you’ve had season’s tickets for Toronto Maple Leafs’ home games). No, the draw to the United States, least of all Florida, has not been there. Nor, in my view, has it ever.
In the first place, Florida is boring to look at. Have you ever taken a good, long look at the state’s topography? There’s nothing to it. It’s flat as a pancake, uninterrupted by anything other than palm trees, lifeguard towers and hotel skyscrapers. Seriously, on one visit, my wife and I went looking for a horse stabling complex near the Everglades. I thought, “Now I’ll see a change of scenery.” Well, we travelled inland for some distance in search of both the country address of the farm and (what I thought would be) the eye-catching foliage and waterways of Florida’s famous swamp.
We found it all right. It was more like mudflats occasionally accented by outcroppings of saw grass, irrigation towers and overgrown willows. It was so nondescript, that I actually drove past the horse farm and farther inland to an area of Florida that’s devoid of water, trees and civilization. I got us lost in a no-man’s-land of the interior of the state.
“But you’re not supposed to do anything in Florida,” friends tell me.
So, not doing anything in Florida means sitting on a beach or by a pool. The idea, they say, is to relax, take your mind off things, let your heartbeat slow to normal for a change. OK, then what? I’m not the kind of person who sits for very long, not even to relax. After one visit to a beach or the side of a pool for a dip or two, I get totally bored.
One winter back in the early 1990s when I was writing a book, the family convinced me to take a break from the manuscript. “Recharge your batteries,” they told me, “and when you go back north you’ll be so much more productive.” Well, I agreed to join them in Florida for a week, but I brought along the manuscript. I worked in the morning, took a break by the pool a few times a day, but then returned to my computer, which I dubbed “the Florida keys,” whenever I was bored by the conversation around the pool. I got a full chapter written because I’d mixed work and pleasure.
Daniel Spinner winds up his cesta to whip the pelota at Dania Jai-Alai during a matinee match on July 19, 2014. Spinner, a Boca Raton resident, is one of the few pro U.S. players within the sport of jai-alai.
Certainly, one of the redeeming aspects of Florida is its tribute park to Walt Disney. When my wife, daughters and I visited Disney World and Epcot Center back in the 1980s, I realized that my kids had waited eight or 10 years to enjoy the fantasy and I had waited nearly 40 years to be an eight-year-old. It was one Florida escape I admitted to enjoying. Oh, and there is one other thing I enjoyed about Florida. It was my trip to the ballgame. You’re thinking, “baseball game.” He must be a closet Blue Jays fan, who wouldn’t miss the Blue Jays in spring training at Dunedin. Right?
Wrong. Ten times faster and much more athletic than baseball is Jai Alai. Those team Jai Alai players in Miami and Orlando are so skilled, and the spectators so rabid about the sport, I don’t think there’s a baseball player in the world who could keep up. And the Parimutuel betting was so frenzied I wondered that such excitement was allowed there. After all, it was boring old Florida.
As one of the family members you referred to in your piece, I’d like to state my case in favour of Florida. I admit to resisting the lure for many years, based partly on the experiences that I shared with you in our parents’ Florida retreat.
But, because I don’t relish the winter, and because nobody can predict that we’re going to have a winter like we’ve just had, I sought out a warm place to escape to, and found it in Florida.
I’d like to report that I’m writing this rebuttal from the deck of our little room right on the beach. I’m wearing shorts a tee shirt and no shoes. And I’m looking out at a view that’s anything but boring.
The beach is beautiful. There are many times of the day when there’s not a person in sight. The palm trees wave in the wind. The sand is dazzlingly white. The surf is a moving painting, with colours constantly changing throughout the day. Almost every morning, dolphins put on a show for us. And most evenings, there’s a sunset that rivals any I’ve seen – and we’ve seen a lot.
To brand Florida ugly from our experiences in that one area would be akin to calling Toronto ugly after only visiting the underbelly of the Gardiner Expressway. And while it’s true that Florida is flat, it’s rather pot-calling-kettle-black-ish for a southern Ontarian to make that accusation. Someone who’s spent so many hours driving between Toronto and Kingston should know better.
Like you, I’m spending a lot of my time on “the Florida keys”, not to relieve the boredom as you say you did (and I’m trying to not to take personally the slight, being part of the company that apparently could not hold your interest!), but as the main reason for the retreat.
Admittedly, I’m fortunate to be able to move my office anywhere I choose and to write from locales more exotic than my Toronto home office with its view of my next door neighbour’s exterior wall. So every day I’m here, as I get up in the morning to take my dog for a walk on the miles of powdered sugar beach, and I DON’T have to load myself down with layers of clothing and boots, I’m thankful that I’m able to come here to our Florida escape.
As Dad used to say… “Oh yeah?”