Well, for us at least, all turned out well. We had one day of incredibly driving rain (nothing to do with the hurricane; just Florida weather). And a frightening lightning storm. After that, beautiful. But hot. In the nineties. And humid, very humid.
Hurricane Charlie wreaked havoc on the west coast...
but nothing was happening where we were.
.... we boarded a plane at JFK early Thursday morning. My cousin Peter Schaffer called us months ago. Would we come down to Florida in August to celebrate his parents' birthdays. Bea and Walter are some of my favorite people. Bea is my mom's sister. When I was a kid they used to live down the block from us in Manhattan Beach. In the 60's they moved away. Walter got a job with Social Security in Baltimore. Till then, my cousins, Ken and Peter, were my best friends. Living down the block we hung out together, went to school together, had birthday parties. We were very close. When they moved away it was a big change in our lives ... for all of us I guess.
There's much more to tell about that part of the story: visits to Baltimore; Peter returning to NYC to study podiatry (we renewed our friendship then); Bea and Walter moving to Florida for retirement. But I'm not gonna do that now. Back to this trip in the now time. Lee and Alexis came also. Now that's a first. Since Lee and I ran Mayfair, the family camera store, we were never able to travel together. Now we're all retired. And so we can. Very strange after all these years to be able to share the joys of traveling. And very nice too.
Lee and Stacey in our hotel room - Boca Raton.
Florida is so bizarre. Some people love it. For my part, I could not live here. Yes, I could visit and spend some time in the middle of a miserable New York winter. But could I reside here year round? An emphatic no. Florida? Large parts, particularly away from the coast, are emblematic of crass American consumerism taken to the penultimate. If you're an obsessive shopper; if you a car-a-holic and enjoy driving anywhere and everywhere for anything and everything (even for a loaf of bread); if you like to spend your life indoors with your home theater, air conditioning, computer, et al, hey, you're gonna love Florida. But if you like ethnic diversity, if you like to walk out of your house and pick up some groceries at the store on the corner; if you like the concept of neighborhoods; if you want to hop on your bike and ride down some back streets and explore different communities; if you like the change in seasons and leaves that change color ... then you're not gonna want to live full time in the Sunshine State. And certainly not in the endless, cookie cutter, ticky-tacky developments that have been built out into the west, away from the coast. A huge, sprawling grid of highways and filled in Everglades, these subdivisions have been constructed by the 1000's, one after another. At every corner a Walgreens or an Eckerds. And one mall upon another upon another. Nope, not for me.
That's not to say that there are no beautiful parts. Au contraire. The natural beauty of the Everglades and the Keys. The fabulous coast (unfortunately, vast miles of it have been privatized and walled off by huge high rises). And some great and interesting communities also: in Fort Lauderdale and in Miami - South Beach, Cocoanut Grove, Bay Harbor Islands. And yes, diversity too. But then there's the other Florida that is sprawling west into the Glades with more and more people emigrating to their place in the sun. Perhaps I'm being one-dimensional in my description. But each and every time I've visited I've been repelled by the need to use a car to reach any destination and that's a real turnoff for me. The car is king in Florida. I need a more human-centric, walking/biking existence for the place I call home.
There's also a Disney-esque feel to much of the retailing down here. Everything is very designed and manicured. Everything has a theme. Nothing is left to chance. Because the developers own everything and control everything they're able to enforce a dull uniformity on their properties. Thus, retailing is very homogenized. Once in a while, however, there are pleasant exceptions to the rule. Our second day down we discovered a pretty French bistro style place: Mon Ami. No chain store. Nicely done. Good food.
A pretty French bistro, Mon Ami, on Glades Road in Boca Raton.
Lee and Alexis at Mon Ami.
But back to our reason for visiting: Bea and Walter's birthdays. From lunch we headed over to their house in Deerfield Beach. My cousin Peter had arrived the night before from Detroit and he was having lunch with his parents. They were happy to see us.
Aunt Bea gives Stacey a big hug.
And one for Alexis also.
Peter, Bea, Lex and Lee.
As it turned out, even though we had come to celebrate their birthdays, Uncle Walter had not been feeling well for the past few days. A visit to the emergency room the day before could not pinpoint the cause of dizzy spells that had been plaguing him. When he stands he gets dizzy and becomes unsteady. His appetite was way down as well. So our birthday dinner, planned by Peter for Saturday night was in question.
We stayed for a while and chatted. Even though we had been to Florida just a few months earlier in February, it was nice to see my uncle and aunt again and to see them again.
Despite his malady, Uncle Walter looked pretty damn good for his 90 years.
Walter and Peter.
Matt, Walter, Peter and Lee.
In front of the Schaffers' house.
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