Friday, January 9, 2009

Florida time

Posted in the Lynden Tribune on Jan. 7.

  When I think about the fact that Florida is three hours “ahead” of us, it fills me with a sense of irony, since, in reality, everything seems to move pretty slowly there.
  My wife and I just returned from spending Christmas in a corner of the Sunshine State that moves even slower than the rest of it. Perhaps it’s the fact that the island is populated by a large community of retirees. The rest of the occupants are either vacationers or a few original residents who have adapted to the slow pace.
  Just walking through a grocery checkout on our first day in town was interesting. The lady behind the counter took the time to observe that we were missing coffee in our small pile of groceries -- she had noticed it was all breakfast food (we did have coffee, but it was buried under the grapefruit).
  This touched off an assumption that we were out-of-towners, whereupon she asked where we were from. She obviously had plenty of time.
  Other interesting quirks I noticed: No one sets a definite time to be somewhere. Instead, you have lunch at “1ish,” catch the bus at “3ish” and close your store at “5ish.”
  Rather than being annoyed by the slow pace, Lindsay and I found it to be exactly what we needed -- a chance for us to slow down.


  Situated in the center of the island, our rental house was a five-minute walk from either side. Anytime we felt like it, which was pretty much every day, at least two or three times, we could walk to the beach and soak in the best of the Gulf of Mexico.
  The water was so shallow at times, that you could walk out as many as 200 feet in places and the ripples would still only be up to your knees.
  The beach pretty much took up the entire vacation except for the holiday festivities and some shopping. What better time to start a collection of shells? How about a winter tan to make everyone at home jealous? Well, “tan” is relative to your ability to tan in the first place.
  So while I have given our vacation destination pretty high marks, you will also notice that I have refrained from giving the actual name of the place. I’m sure you can figure it out anyway, but I’m not going to help you, since the residents prefer that it stays as quiet as possible.
  As a resident of Whatcom County, I can relate. However, I can’t help but cringe when I hear of the government measures that are taken to slow development -- these are on top of the already frighteningly high price of real estate.
  The number of permits that are required to improve a house, let alone build a new one, is staggering.
  There is one more thing to be warned about if you plan to visit: Just because it is in the Eastern time zone doesn’t mean you will find a lot of visible history.
  Don’t get me wrong, the place has its historical appeal. You just won’t find it in the architecture. The only styles I noticed were mixtures of quaint cottages and modern bungalows on or off stilts with the occasional Tuscan residence thrown in. Mostly, people just build what they want, and that makes sense, if many of them are for visiting renters like us.
  Finally, it’s worth noting the friendliness of the population.
  Where else can you get a full helping of marriage advice on Christmas Eve from a server at an ice cream shop?

2 comments:

Rebekah said...

Its rather embarrassing to be visiting this site for the first time! I'm really out of the loop. Wow. Anyway...this is fabulous! You should post all your Tribune articles here...:)

I love you.

-Your favorite little sister

Rebekah said...

BTW: you spelled my name wrong. But I love you anyway.