Going Native, ch 2

Spot the Native Behavior There are things that happen in Florida which will cause many a faint hearted soul to gasp in amazement and flutter something to fan themselves. The ones who do this are not natives. We have seen it all, and yes I am a native, born in Gainesville and never moved out of the state. For that matter I have only even traveled outside these sandy, high priced shorelines for far-to-few vacations and no further north than Illinois, no further west than Texas. South and east treks were the ports of call for cruises – all two of them. I can’t imagine life better than here so why bother leaving? Back to the native behaviors, and amusedly, the non-native ones as well. It is assumed by those living in the middle states and maybe others that all Floridians live and breathe to go to the beach, Disney World and eat oranges picked right off our own trees. Disney is too expensive and when you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. Fresh oranges and other citrus fruits are good, make great juice and for the first year it was cool to have it right outside your door and to send to people who think all juice comes from the freezer case. Then it becomes a chore to pick up the fruit that falls on the ground so you let it fall, kick it into the neighbor’s yard, and mow over it which does add a nice fragrance to the scent of fresh cut grass. Then that gets old and you just ignore it and let it rot. This takes about 4 days to start and you will know it has begun by the droning of the zillion or so flies that swarm to it. There is also the matter of fruit rats. No one ever told me about fruit rats but I know about them now. They love for you to let fruit rot on the ground, saves them having to climb the tree. They then also love to come into your attic or under your house and make all kinds of noise which causes the cats inside to stare intently at the walls, floor and ceiling making you wonder what they are looking at so you look at it too. Natives who know about the rats and flies and wonders of picking up mushy rotten fruit will not let on to anyone else, it amuses us to see the reactions. Non-natives will simply call a pest removal company. Natives just wait them out, and give seedling fruit trees as gifts. As for the beach, we can take it or leave it. I live less than ½ mile to the beach and I go there maybe twice a year. I know it’s there and sometimes that is all you want, to know its there. When I do go the beach, I see more non-natives than locals. You can spot them. Some could be mistaken for oversized footballs by the look of their skin which has been tanned, much like leather, and some of them are the exact shape as well. The other extreme would be the ladies who go to the beach in full makeup and wearing heels. Why anyone would do this is beyond me. Either you will sweat so much that your “face” will slide right off and scare the hell out of the men you were hoping to attract or you will find that the men are only looking at the girls who don’t have to pile it on with a trowel and can get away with teeny bikinis. I also cannot fathom why anyone would think wearing heels to the beach is a good look. Your shoes will sink down into the sand and either come off every other step or get so filled with sand that you have to stop and empty them constantly. By the time you make it to a prime spot on the sand from the car, the sun has set and now you have to get back to the car before dinner. Personally I can’t walk on the beach any way but barefoot. Sand gets into any type of shoes and makes walking a chore so I just kick them off as soon as I park. Natives will know that the beach is the place to see and not be seen. Suddenly it seems that people, women in particular, want to take tiny little dogs with them everywhere. I don’t like tiny dogs and I don’t much care for people who force me to deal with them in places dogs should never be. I love my pets as much as anyone but I can’t think of a single reason to take them to the grocery store, out to eat, or into clothing stores. I am not terribly fond of taking my kids to these places never mind my pets. Natives do not carry tiny dogs in oversized, overpriced purse-like bags. We may drape a snake around our neck and walk around with that, but not a dog. That’s just silly. Native Floridians don’t own “winter” clothing. We don’t own a lot of clothing for that matter, its hot as hell most of the time and the less you wear, the more comfy you are. We will walk around in bathing suit tops, shorts and flip flops. All the time. If it gets cool, maybe add a t-shirt to that ensemble. For me, if I get invited out to eat and the restaurant doesn’t allow tank tops and/or flip flops, I ain’t goin’. I have dressy versions of these articles of clothing and footwear and so long as I am not kicking off my flip flops and the tank top is not wet, I can see no reason for them to look down on my attire. My Dad wore a pair of cutoff Dickies brown work pants, a cutoff t-shirt and slip on loafers from K-Mart with black socks everywhere he went, year round. He didn’t think men should wear flip flops and wearing loafers without socks was not his thing. He was not native to Florida or he would have known better. This isn’t to say it does not get cold here, it does indeed. Not for very long and not as cold as most other places, but it gets cold enough to make me wear jeans and a light jacket. At least half the day. In north central Florida, where my family lives, we go up for visits and during the winter it is quite cold up there. Frost on the ground, frozen pipes and crank up the heat cold. We don’t visit much during the winter, it’s nicer at home. Natives do not pull off the road to point at and take pictures of wildlife. Alligators in particular, do not interest us. We also know better than to take our tiny dogs out for a walk along the edge of any body of fresh water. The best advice I can give for non-natives about the waters here, always assume any body of fresh water that is deeper than 2 feet will have at least one alligator in it at some point. Also be advised that alligators like tiny dogs, especially ones that smell like the inside of overpriced handbags. Natives will not enter a water hazard to retrieve an errant golf ball. Let’s face it; golf balls are not as expensive as Emergency Room visits or prosthetic limbs. As for the salt water, always assume there are sharks in it. They too like the taste of tiny dogs but will also snack on humans or anything else in their way. This is especially true if you are in the water, wearing a dive suit and swimming far enough from shore that you cannot make out anything clearly and at dawn and dusk which is when they feed. There are many other things in salt water that will bite, sting or generally cause you discomfort if you disturb them. These things get disturbed easily and hold grudges. Natives know how to walk in water doing the “stingray shuffle” to warn of their approach so the stingrays can relocate to avoid being stepped on, which disturbs them. Admittedly it would tick me off something fierce to be stepped on by something as big as a person and if I have only one defense which is to lodge a painful barb into the unsuspecting, if deserving, offender – you can bet I would do it too. Natives do not walk into the water to get a better look when someone says “there is something out there”, we know there are lots of ‘somethings’ out there and we don’t want to be out there with them. Natives do not bring complicated food to the beach. No sandwich fixings, no potato salad, and no make-your-own taco bars. We know food at the beach has to be simple, easy to handle and resistant to sand, or at least not ruined by sand. We’ve all eaten at least a pound of sand in our lives but we can take it. Natives do not pack up to leave the beach and pick up the big blanket or towels and shake them out so a large cloud of flying sand covers everyone and everything within a 5 foot radius. Unless we have been subjected to their incessant nasal twang complaining about the things we hold near and dear as Floridians, then maybe a bit of sand to grate on their nerves – or any other exposed surfaces – is justified. Natives do paint their houses in odd colors and maybe we drink a bit before 5, but hey they say it’s always 5 o’clock somewhere. We do have a tendency to become more laid back the further south you travel in Florida. The people living in Key West are so damned laid back they’re almost horizontal. One visit there has me hooked, can’t wait to go back and soak up more of the “we’ll get to it later, have a drink now” way of life. We heard a sage bit of advice while visiting there: “when you leave a bar in Key West, always take your drink with you, it could be 30 – 35 steps to the next bar” and I think that was a stretch. More like twenty, unless they actually meant from the bar itself to the next physical bar, not door-to-door. I cannot vouch for the legality of this advice, but it made sense to us at the time. I did play tourist there, after all I was on vacation and arrived by cruise ship. It was great fun but the next time, I will go native and sit and laugh at people who are not. Natives get a raw deal on the driving ratings. Many of us are perfectly good to great drivers, but we have to deal with people who ‘ain’t from these parts’ and despite coming here for half of every year for the last 20 years, they apparently forget where everything is resulting in surprise lane changes, stops and turns. I say “surprise” lane changes and turns because they rarely signal for their actual intent. I have driven behind a battleship sized sedan from the 70s where the only evidence of a driver was 8 ghostly white knuckles gripping the steering wheel who had on a left turn signal for more than 15 miles. The only reason I was behind them this long was that I didn’t know if they wanted to change lanes or perhaps that left turn was about to happen any minute now. Didn’t matter, they suddenly slam on brakes coming to a full stop and them make a right turn from the center lane. Apparently the road used to be only 2 lanes and the feed and tack store that sells flour by the 50 pound bag which you can use to sew a fine dress used to be on this corner. Mind you it is now a Wal-Mart strip mall off a 4 lane super highway, but that’s not how they recall it.