The world has been an awful mess this past month. It wasn't doing really well before, but this month has been a doozy. As I impatiently await the Bulldog's return from the hell-hole he has currently been assigned my thoughts drift to my future move to Florida. There is the real Florida, and then there is the Florida-In-My-Mind (FIMM) which exists somewhere North of Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville and South of the Okefenokee Swamp, on the Gulf coast of Florida nowhere near last year's horrific oil spill, or the excesses of coastal over-development. FIMM is a happy place where the lifeguards don't care if you toss back an alcoholic beverage on the beach as long as you share.
It's a Florida I first turned my sophisticated twenty-something nose up at many long years ago. I was too deep, too artistic to appreciate the tiki-tacky charm of my soon to be native state. No mermaids for me, no waters-ski pyramids, no rides on glass-bottom boats either. Like so many twenty-somethings, I was a pretentious idiot.
There must be some myth that is a metaphorical match to my current state of affairs: Some soul doomed to troll EBay for all eternity in search of the ultimate Florida souvenir, having snubbed the ski-pyramid in her misguided youth.
Then it occurs to me : I WANT TO BE A WEEKI WACHEE MERMAID!!!
I would be SO good!!! I could share my lunch with a fish and dazzle tourists from across the land.
Oh, the glamour of it all. Mermaids have even explored the MOON!!!
Who wouldn't want to be a Weeki Wachee Mermaid?
I remember all of those postcards as billboards throughout the state in the 70's (well before I-75 was built). Happy memories of a happier, kitchier time.
ReplyDeleteWe would have been such good mermaids!
ReplyDeleteI never realized that the Florida I long to move to, is also a FIMM. As a young teenager, I accompanied my parents once a year - with only slight reluctance - to the DiLido Hotel in Miami Beach for a week. But we also ventured over to the gulf and explored the "other" Florida.
ReplyDeleteI've been trying to move south from this frozen tundra of the Northermost midwest that I call home, for at least 20 years now. I made it 30 miles, and then another 15 mile. By golly, one way or another, I'm going to get there. Save a place for me at the Weeki Wachee Mermaid cove.
FIMM is nice, but the real Florida isn't too shabby either. While our family was in Ohio shoveling snow for week after week, we were swimming in high 80s. You're gonna love it.
ReplyDelete