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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (14436)	12/22/2001 7:42:13 AM
From: Ish	Respond to of 281500

<<i recommend an R&R trip to islamorada in the keys.>> I went there back when you had to drive to Marathon to buy gas or get something to eat.

To: unclewest who wrote (14436)	12/22/2001 1:38:34 PM
From: SirRealist	Respond to of 281500

OT: Yeah, I was in the Zephyrhills area, possibly the oldest demographically in the nation. Bumper stickers crowed "We don't care how you did it up North", the black folks actually did live on the other side of the tracks, and, as I wrote a few friends, both of the good looking women my age were married. Couple that with the humidity (125%), the lack of a decent restaurant within 25 miles, the principal dentistry practice ("Pull it"), the legislative process (during coffee at Barb's Restaurant... inside, in the back of Neukom's Drugstore), and the chief method of crime prevention (basically, stopping and interrogating anyone walking or bicycling after 8 pm). It was even more stereotypical than the stereotypes. A local Social Service agency tried to hire me as a home remodelling supervisor for $6/hr in 1998, explaining that I'd be permitted one coffee break and a half-hour lunch but would have to forego them half the time. For culture, I could go to the amateur boxing/kick-boxing/wrestling matches at Jimbob's Bar. I did get to the Keys once when a visiting friend flew in to fulfill a lifelong dream of cruising to Key West in a convertible. As you're aware, much of Key West has all the charm of a Mexican border tourist trap town, where everything is marked down 50% yet costs 3 times as much as it did an hour down the road. I recall Islamadora, vaguely, as one of the prettier Keys, and will go no further during my next pilgrimage, on your recommendation. My purpose in moving there was helping out my folks after my Dad had a coupla heart attacks. I'd never thought of myself as anything other than an American till I discovered, to my dismay, that I was a Northerner in a town of GoodOlBoys. I did learn a lot about being old and disease and dying, as that was the chief topic of conversation, and seriously, those lessons had great value, offsetting all the the rest which could only be endured. The concept of retiring to Florida someday no longer crosses my mind, despite all the favorable tax codes designed ta lure one in. And I understand all of Florida ain't like that. But it was, indeed, a culture shock.