Well, this year for the holidays the family and I are going to Florida.  No, no, not that Florida.  That one is the Disney World, Spring Break, and South Beach Florida.  I’m talking about My Florida.  The one that you have to look harder to find.  Drive past Orlando, hit the turnpike at Wildwood, and keep on going down to Miami and beyond.  Don’t stop at the normal places – that’s not the Florida that I know. 

You see, I grew up in Florida.  From age 3 until I graduated from college, Florida was my home.  There were five of us kids, my Mom and Dad, and a couple of outside cats.  We lived in a very tidy and modest house in a sleepy bedroom community near the Miami International Airport.  Miami Springs, to be exact.  We knew a number of people who lived there who worked for the airlines in one capacity or another.  Airlines like Eastern and Pan Am were big back then, before mergers and bankruptcies changed the commercial aviation landscape. 

We didn’t have much, but we kids lived a reasonably carefree existence.  I delivered newspapers, mowed lawns, along with other jobs over the years starting from when I was around 10 or 11 years old.  Every day, though, there was time to spend outside playing together and with the other kids in the neighborhood.  There was pretty much always someone to play with, and the South Florida climate was pretty cooperative most of the time.  I’d even get up early to go fishing with my brother on the weekend sometimes.  Though we did get to take school field trips to Disney World, I was much more interested when we’d get the chance to head into the Everglades or down to the Keys to places like John Pennekamp State Park.  Now these were cool places, full of real life and energy – and away from the concrete jungle that seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds.

After I graduated from college and got married, we would visit my parents in Florida once or twice a year.  I took my midwestern bride to the places that I’d come to know and love.  Then My Florida got turned upside down.  A year and a half after we were married, my father died suddenly and my mother and my 13-year-old brother moved to North Carolina to be closer to her family.  No longer was there a good reason to travel 1,200 miles back home each year. 

The years rolled along, and before long our two sons were 15 and 11.  My Florida had been dormant for way too long.  It was a part of me they hadn’t really seen, and they embraced the opportunity.  Mary and I eagerly made plans with the boys (there was some minor grumbling about not visiting the coaster parks around Orlando), packed up the family truckster, and began our Christmas break 2004 journey back to my home.

After two very long but uneventful days on the road, we arrived in Miami.  The palm trees mesmerized the boys.  Was this really December?  Maybe they could see the light in my eyes as I showed them around my old haunts.  Even the younger one was asking questions and wanting to know more about my life here.  We pulled up in front of my old house and it hadn’t changed much.  Everything seemed smaller than I remembered, though.  There was the front yard that we used to play our countless Super Bowl games.  The alley way where we “trash-picked” our supplies to build the elaborate fort in the back yard holly tree.  The berry and fruit trees that provided the ammo for our skirmishes.  (The battles started small with berries, and then progressed in ascending order from loquats to avacados to mangoes up eventually to full blown coconuts -- hey you've got to defend that tree fort with what you have available!)  A smile came over my face as the stories began to flow out of me.  Tales that now as a parent I cringe to recall.  Did I really just tell them how we used to tape firecrackers to berries, light them right next to our face as we pulled back the slingshot, and launch them into the sky? 

We drove past the high school (sadly it’s surrounded now by tall security fencing), and down along the river.  Stopping by the 7-11, we buy a Slurpee and find out from the manager that this is the same machine that was used 30 years ago to quench my thirst during those miserably sticky August afternoons.  Then there is the Key Lime pie store around the corner.  Oh.  My.  God.  The boys agree that this is to die for.  A few hundred yards away is the dream house my parents designed and built.  It still looks great, but I feel the sadness that comes with knowing that they were only able to live there for a few years.  The boys find coconuts near the house and tuck them away in the car.  When I tell them that we’ll open them with our hands later, they look at me with amazement and delight.

In the early afternoon, we take the drive over the river and through Hialeah to see The Tree.  At 2 pm in the middle of the week, traffic is crawling along.  When we finally make it to Biscayne West (the retirement home where my father worked, and where he fell on that fateful day in October 1982), the place has changed considerably.  There is now a guard and a gate that we have to navigate before we can enter.  We explain that we’re not here to see anyone, just to check on The Tree that we planted over 20 years ago in honor of my father.  The guard shrugs and in broken English consents, raising the gate for us.  The built-up neighborhood around the retirement home is clearly a bit rougher than I remember back in the day.  We eventually find the mahogany tree, though, and it is a glorious towering specimen.  Try as I may to hold them back, the tears stream down my face as I read the small plaque nestled at the base of the tree.  It’s been more than 22 years now, and I still miss him every day.  With hugs all around, we move on.

We head back to Miami Springs, and before long we pull in to 51 Park Street – Miami Springs Elementary School.  This was the school that my family knew and loved the most.  Hell, when we get together, my sister and all my brothers can still sing the school song!  Very weird . . .  Do other elementary schools have songs that people remember 30-40 years later?  We roam around the open-air halls a bit and then head out to the playground. 

When you come down with a serious disease in 7^th grade, it’s funny how your perspective changes.  It seems so odd to think about it now, but it was here on this field where I made my mark.  This was my Field of Dreams.  I would beg my brothers and friends to come over here after school.  We’d cut through the neighbor's yard, dash across the little bridge that spanned the canal, and the world would be ours.  This was where we would take our mighty swings, and when the ball finally arced over the fence, it was like a walk-off homer in the World Series clearing the Green Monster.  It was here on Thanksgiving Day decades ago where that perfect spiral pass I threw to my brother banged off his finger, sending him (and my not-too-happy mom) to the emergency room for repairs.  There was also a hole-in-one on our make-shift golf hole than went the length of the field.  During the school year too, I ruled on this pitch.  The annual field day was a highlight, and on more than one occasion I came home with the blue ribbon as the fastest in my grade.  It was here that I successfully executed an unassisted triple play in kickball.  It was here that I received top honors and three patches in the Presidential Physical Fitness program.  Small victories, perhaps, but my boys seemed to enjoy hearing their gimply old dad wax poetic about his glory days.

American Alligator lying on the bank in the Everglades

 Then it was time to leave the city and head down to the magical lands to the south.  First, stop was Everglades National Park.  Driving all the way back to Flamingo, you enter into a different world.  A River of Grass meets the sea, and we are transported.  There is nothing quite like the Everglades.  From the iconic alligators to the seemingly endless assortment of birds, this place is magic.  (Ever been canoeing through the swamp with alligators nearby?  Quite a rush, I can tell you!)

Osprey returning to the nest carrying a freshly caught fish (in Flamingo)

  Another shot of the Osprey, perched high to survey his territory

 Great Blue Heron fishing in Everglades National Park

 Santa with his Eight-Manatee team 

 The Seven-Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys

DogWoman enjoys a soothing sunset in the Keys 

 Iguana in the mangroves – an invasive species that is rapidly expanding 

A beautiful but treacherous Portuguese Man O War on the beach

Canoes beckon you to take to the water and paddle your own adventure among the mangroves.  The wildlife is stunning and everyone kicks back to take it all in. 

 

After brother David arrives solo from North Carolina, there’s even time for some fishing.  The mackerel keep us hopping and by the end of the day we are beat.  We make it home in one piece, and show off our bounty from the sea and matching shirts to commemorate the expedition. 

The night before we leave, the coconuts come out and David and I show the boys how to open one with your bare hands.  Real men do it this way, and getting coconuts at the grocery store just doesn’t cut it.

  Brother David shows Andrew and James the proper technique

When daylight comes, it’s time to get back in the family truckster and start the long journey home.  After chowing down on Sweet Sixteen donuts with a Tang chaser (a tradition that the boys heartily support), we’re off.  The boys can sense my sadness, but now they know a bit more about their old Dadzo.

We’re heading back there again in a little more than a week.  It’s only the second time in 19 years.  But this time it will be different.  This time My Florida is their Florida too.   

All photos © The Bionic Man and DogWoman.  May not be used without permission.