One year ago today: December 9, 2014, acceptable uses . . .
Five years ago today: December 9, 2010, commitment & intimacy.
Nine years ago today: December 9, 2006, MIDI mystery.
Random years ago today: December 9, 2008, just coffee.
MORNING
This music store gets top billing despite it being the last stop we made before heading back to boring old Miami. Look at this impressive equipment. And in the middle of nowhere, in this case defined as Auburndale, Florida. I found vintage Fenders and Danelectros, this store is so well-stocked it seems out of place in the area.
So of the towns checked out that have been mentioned here (there are others), here are the places (parts of town) where you would not want to live if you were me. I’m not saying anything in black and white, just that you-would-not-want-to-live-there-if-you-were-me. Neither do your wife and kids.
Deland, Florida – anywhere in or near the south west area from downtown.
Bartow, Florida – stay clear of any property east of Highway 17.
Arcardia, Florida – avoid the south west end of town.
Lakeland, Florida – don’t go west of Harden Boulevard or near Wabash.
Plant City, Florida – you got no business in the west end.
Auburndale, Florida – don’t bother with the north east side and east side.
Ft. Meyers, Florida – steer clear of the area between the river and old downtown.
Ft. Pierce, Florida – you probably don’t even want to drive through Ft. Pierce.
Now, the adventure of house-hunting. JZ took a real liking to Mulberry, which is basically a one-factory town. That smelly fertilizer plant. We heard from several sources how that town died as the traditional American jobs, like furniture-building, got shipped to China by the people who are, today, criticizing Donald Trump. Nomsayn? The area is the Florida Highlands, if you call being fifty feet higher than the coastal plains that term. But very nicely forested as opposed to the south Florida Everglades scrubland of monoculture invasive species.
By knowing the way, we arrived in town plenty early to visit Thrift stores, where the investment in a knick-knack can pay off in a wealth of local knowledge unavailable in the city archives. As long as you can haul JZ out of there before he falls in love with the lady at the counter, I recommend these shops as an invaluable source of raw data. For example, all information about the hanging tree in Mulberry has been expunged from all the “official” history books.
I’ll describe Lakeland indirectly, and you can pick out why I’d now prefer Plant City or Auburndale. We bought record cheap gas at $1.91 per gallon and toured the downtown. It is most typical of places that got established way back when America had all the money in the world. There are acres of houses now virtual mansions that are five to eight times the size of the shack I was raised in with seven other people. The phone office was four stories, built when it housed Strowger switches. Now, the switching gear for the entire state fits in one of the storage closets.
Here is a motorcycle sculpture build of old tractor parts. We lucked out in that the route we chose, old route 17, fed directly into the old downtown. Immediately apparent is how much older and established the place is than Miami or Ft. Lauderdale. Fifty years ago, something like only 30,000 people lived in south Florida. Lakeland has relatively huge buildings.
They are now converted to condos, like the old hotel on the east end, but the old-school brick-workmanship remains to impress we latecomers. (Did I just say “old-school brick-workmanship” in one sentence?)
It is a six hour drive by motorcycle, but just over 3-1/2 hours by enclosed vehicle. So you do want to choose a place big enough to sport a few amenities and some diversion when you so desire. Although during this entire trip, I saw only one good-looking young female, that is more than you’ll ever get in Miami. Again, down there, everything even remotely desirable gets picked off by age 14, regardless of what the newspapers say. Well, in small towns, that raises to age 18.
At that point, the hopefuls all take off for the city. Where a good portion of them fall by the wayside. But remember, the last thing you want is one of those who returns back to the old home town. Unless you don’t mind being the laughing stock of the country. The women disappear between 18 and 36 in small towns. And Lakeland is no different on that count. And the last thing you want is a “Rhonda Lund”, the one who left at 18, got completely worked over, then comes back to town at age 24 with an attitude.
NOON
We did the whirlwind tour of three towns, four if you call Mulberry a town. Because driving through that place is the tour. As we drove through the Main Street crossroads, I could see all four signs leading out of town. Lakeland is more substantial, but still has all the trappings of traditions that, like most traditions, served no real purpose but to keep old people supplied with excuses for preventing young people from having any fun.
Here’s a snapshot of me taken by me, outside the barber shop. While I love to get a haircut and listen, JZ doesn’t trust strangers cutting his hair. Did you know that I am unacquainted with anyone in the state of Florida capable of taking an ordinary picture with an ordinary camera? That’s why I had to pose for this one myself. Hand a Florida denizen a camera, and the picture will never turn out even semi-professional.
This photo actually in Auburndale, across from the excellent music store above. But that town has more interesting shops than Lakeland, some eleven miles away. The topic of this picture was actually the poster at lower right. JZ says it is some famous quarterback giving a bible lecture this upcoming Sunday. The admission price is $50. (I informed JZ for fifty bucks a ticket, I’d rather get the nosebleed seats at the next Led Zep tribute concert.)
Progress makes its inroads more slowly, sometimes so slowly the locals lose track of the why or where. For example, did you know that the term “diner” originally applied to a restaurant with a counter and a few booths that was open 24 hours. The “Downtown Diner” in Lakeland closes at 3:00PM in the afternoon. (The phrases AM in the morning or PM at night are another example. The AM or PM suffix was automatically formatted long ago and persists even if I add a subordinate clause.)
JZ is catching on to the interpretive aspects of small town liars, but has yet to confine asking questions to well-dressed white people with good teeth. I still have to hold him back and make him pretend to be grateful while listening to a total load of manure from some yokel saying something that we both know is false. Having been in town over a day already, type of thing. They’ll swear there no such thing as something you just walked around two blocks up the sidewalk.
So go feed the birds. Here is a scene at a local lake where we stopped to stretch or legs. And in my case, my arms, neck, waist, knees and shoulders. Getting old is hell. We thought the ibis was a carnivore, a fish-eater. Yet, see this couple feeding them bread. The birds plainly like it.
But I read that items like bread and honey (for hummingbirds) can develop molds that have the potential to poison the birds. Nature is tooth and claw, that’s why it makes sense to me the moment birds eat people food, they become infected with parasites. This photo shows only a fraction of the birds now dependent on being hand-fed. Squadrons of geese that should long ago have migrated are waddling toward those people under the tree.
EVENING
There are fewer pictures than intended, as the Nikon camera I repaired to take along this trip went bad after the third photo. You cannot trust any of these cameras any more. What you see here is taken on my old $12 Argus 1610. Although this trip rang up at twice the cost of anything previous, including $145 just for gasoline and accommodation, the value of finding one house I can afford in cash in the next fiscal year is incalculable. We plan to return soon to the area for a better look, now that we know what parts of town to ignore.
Here he is early in the day, outside Carol’s Café in Mulberry. If this looks more civilized than driving backwards through the BK, you are right. Because this time I was in charge. And I had my standard on-the-road lunch. Coffee and a slice of pie. This time, banana crème because they were out of cherry. No ice cream. Note JZ carrying a light shirt. Florida or not, we are above the frost line in the middle of winter, such as it exists in Mulberry, Florida.
We did not find any real estate or any real estate magazines. Even the few plastic dispensers I found on the south end were empty. The two interesting new items for me this trip were the two businesses which I sort of knew were in that area, but never thought I’d see. One is the Publix food factory between Lakeland and Plant City. It is nice to see a Florida economy based on something other than shallow tourism. However, several people we met lamented the closing of other plants, I take it this Badcock Furniture once had a factory in the area.
The other business I have a lot less respect for. I spit out the window as we passed it. I’m not even going to mention their name here, but it is the jukebox company that rips you off. The company that charges a dollar a song, but all too often it isn’t the song you wanted. It is some abortionated “concert” version instead of the original. I hate scum that do that, even if you look later and see the fine print did say something, I don’t like being charged full price for a blurry live copy.
On the return leg through Arcadia, I saw a few buildings with promise, but now that I’ve seen the more vibrant economies of Plant City and Auburndale, I’d have to re-think that locality. It’s just over a half-hour away if I really want to go there. Arcadia is the town that closes up at night. And from what we’ve seen, cowbody town or not, a lot of the sides of beef aren’t always out on the range.
Our first clue was when the take-out window appeared on the passenger side.
Whee! See the photo, enter by the exit arrow and follow that path along the red line as it winds back to the street. This satellite makes it look so nice and flat and laid out. No way, when you go the wrong way, the signs and foilage and little hills block your view of any oncoming traffic. See the vehicle that was in the lane when the aerial photo was taken. It is narrow and no way to turn around or back out.
Here is it for all eternity, har-dee-har-har. I told you JZ I'd get you back for not showing up for my birthday in 2012.
Not that we are encouraging any contests or copycatism, but we did make it back through to the street in less than 45 seconds. Interestingly, when I talked JZ into going back there because it was the only food in town at that time of night, none of the staff inside had seen a thing and thought we were joking--nobody could drive all the way through the take-out lane backwards.
ADDENDUM
I see the treasure ship in the news, announced December 6. This utter nonsense of Spain making claims on this treasure since the 1700s has to stop. It isn’t even Spanish treasure, it was looted from the local populace. But I see the normal 50% to the finder is being increasingly overturned by international “courts” that favor all non-American parties. They are shooting themselves in the foot, in that most treasure is located by Americans, so slamming them is plain dumb. The Americans that don’t quit looking will simply go undercover. We need treasure hunting submarines.
This would be the largest treasure ever found, tipping in at close to $11 billion.
Last Laugh
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