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yellagalqotm-blog · 3 months

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This short story commemorating my fifty years of living in Central Florida is a both a snapshot of life in the "Sunshine State" during the 1970s as well as a nostalgic look at the trials and tribulations of a 10 year old still trying to figure out life. (Some names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent!)

August, 1974

“I heard my mama cry…I heard her pray the night Chicago died….” crooned the pop group Paper Lace over the tinny AM airwaves on our car radio.

Our 1968 Ford Falcon station wagon had been on the road for a couple of days and travelled over 2400 miles from Syracuse when we rolled into Altamonte Springs, Florida on that hot summer afternoon. My dad had just retired from the Air Force and we were moving to the “Sunshine State” after being stationed in New York the previous year.

I was ten years old at the time and having been born into a military family, I was well acquainted with the routine. Move to a new place, go to a strange school where I don’t know anyone, slowly start to make a few friends, Dad gets transferred, and the process starts all over again. By now, I’d already been to three elementary schools and was about to start at a fourth. But this time felt different. This was going to be our family’s final move - to Florida.

Even though I had previously lived in Florida for a year in 1968 with my mom and brother while my dad was deployed to Vietnam, I did not have too many memories of what the place was like as I was only four then. Now, my ten year old imagination was full of more recent secondhand tales I’d heard about Florida - mainly from tv and other kids.

All I knew about Florida was 1) it was full of alligators, 2) there were poisonous snakes everywhere, and 3) homes were regularly ripped apart by deadly hurricanes. Why on earth would anyone want to live there? And why were my parents making us move down to this awful place that sounded like hell on earth?

Speaking of my parents, they were in the front seat discussing the location of the Kentucky Fried Chicken where my Uncle Mike was going to meet us and guide us back to Aunt Mary’s house. Mary was my mother’s younger sister who had been living in Florida with her family for years. They seemed to have survived Florida’s hurricanes and dangerous creatures, so I figured we just might have a fighting chance.

I was the oldest of the four kids sitting in the back seat. Besides me, there was my brother Robert, a jokester who, like myself, enjoyed watching cartoons and drawing. My sister Laurie was the studious one who, when she didn’t have skates strapped on, had her nose in a book. The 3 year old clutching the Mrs. Beasley doll was my youngest sister Suzy.

As we got closer to our final destination, I stared out the window at our surroundings. We were approaching Altamonte Springs on Interstate 4, a long stretch of highway cutting through Central Florida. Cars zipped past us plastered in bumper stickers that promoted local radio stations like WLOF 95AM and BJ105 FM while others declared Orlando the “Vacation Kingdom.”

There were also lots of signs and billboards challenging us to “Arrive Alive.” To my somewhat morbid and overly imaginative young mind, this smacked of a cruel irony. Sure, Florida wants us to “Arrive Alive” so we can perish via a gator attack, snake bite or a killer hurricane!

Orlando’s Television and Radio Landscape

“If I had a box just for wishes and dreams that had never come true. The box would be empty except for the memory of how they were answered by you.” (Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce)

We soon got into the swing of things during those first couple of months. Because we still did not have a permanent residence, we lived with my Aunt Mary and her family. I remember it was a large, split level house where you enter through the front door and there was a flight of stairs taking you up to the living quarters and another flight taking you to the game room and two extra bedrooms downstairs. My siblings and I shared one of those rooms on that lower floor.

The main thing I remember about that downstairs area was the huge pool table. We’d never seen one in real life before and were fascinated. My dad and Uncle Mike patiently showed us how to handle the cues and which balls to aim for. I was never any good and I am still a lousy player to this day. But I love playing pool when I get the chance.

Another thing that enraptured me in particular was the air hockey table - especially the hum and the “whoosh” sound it made when it was turned on. Once while my aunt, uncle and cousins were out for the day, my siblings and I were bored and looking for something to do. Our attention turned to the air hockey table upon which sat a piece of notebook paper with the words “Out of Order” scrawled on it in a child’s handwriting.

This was no doubt that work of my oldest cousin, Matthew. I had an intense dislike of Matthew because, as he was a year older than me, he seemed to enjoy bossing all of us around and was consistently tattling on me. Being the oldest of four myself, I was not used to being the one tattled upon, so I found this new structure in the scheme of family dynamics quite upsetting indeed. The charges against me, according to Matthew, included: “Linda’s eating with her hands.” “Linda didn’t say thank you.” “Linda called Robert a name.”

Anyway, my dad saw my cousin’s note, tossed it aside in an air of disgust and plugged in the air hockey table. We enjoyed a few games before carefully putting everything back to the way it was afterwards.

Of course, the color television in that downstairs room was the main focal point for all of us kids, including our cousins. Central Florida television in the mid-1970s was a plethora of colorful, corny fun! Every day we tuned into our local UHF station - WSWB, channel 35.

A local children’s program called Uncle Hubie’s Penthouse Barnyard came on in the afternoons. Uncle Hubie, bedecked in a beat-up hat, overalls, a checked shirt and a bandana around his neck, was played by a gentleman by the name of Hugh Turley. I don’t remember much about the program other than the catchy, ragtime style theme song played on the piano. From what I gather, the premise of this show was that Uncle Hubie struck it rich and moved his entire barnyard, chicken coop included, to the top of some urban high-rise building. The only other things I recall were the cartoons shown and that Uncle Hubie’s mailing address was in Bithlo, Florida.

After the Uncle Hubie show, my brother Robert and our cousin Danny would excitedly tie bath towels around their necks and race towards the tv just in time to watch “Batman.” Pow! Biff! Wham!

Afterwards came one of my new favorites, “Lost in Space”. I had never seen it before and immediately became a huge fan of the series. I always wanted to be Penny Robinson and travel in space with my pet monkey….I mean Bloop. Next came “Star Trek”, where I was introduced to Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and phasers set on “stun.” Finally, our early evening television viewing was rounded out with “Mayberry R.F.D.”

Local radio in the mid-1970s boasted an interesting collection of stations. My favorite at the time was WLOF, 95 AM, which played mainly top 40 pop tunes. My mom was an avid listener of some of the early talk shows. Her favorite call-in talk show was an evening program hosted by a man named Mike Miller.

One day, not long after our arrival in Florida, I remember my dad threw all of us kids in the back of our station wagon and headed over to the local Kmart. I distinctly recall walking into the store barefoot, wearing my spaghetti strap green romper suit. It felt liberating not wearing any shoes and thinking that maybe Florida might not be such a bad place to live after all! But I had a feeling that if my mom knew we were traipsing through that store shoeless, she’d be mortified. But that worry quickly evaporated as we headed towards the electronics department.

It was there that Dad bought me my first transistor radio! It was a small, olive green Solid State that had a white wrist strap, a dial for tuning and a couple of knobs on the side for volume and for switching back and forth to AM and FM bands. Oddly enough, I can still remember the plastic, metallic smell that it had. I treasured that radio for a long time. Later on in my teen years, I would switch my radio station allegiance to WDIZ, an FM station based on Lee Road in Winter Park that played album rock.

Summertime: Pools and Peaches

“We had joy. We had fun. We had seasons in the sun. But the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time…” (“Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks)

One of the first things that hit us kids the moment we set foot in Florida was the searing heat. Florida wasn’t just hot, it was tropically hot. The humidity felt like a tangible lead weight pressing down on our small frames as if it was trying to drive us down into the sandy soil.

Playing outside was definitely off the table. My mother for years would constantly urge me to go outside and “knock a ball around” with my sister, only to be met with an incredulous stare. Me? Go OUTSIDE? You’ve GOT to be kidding! Of course, I never said that aloud. Instead, I’d just wail “It’s too HOT out there!”

Luckily, during those initial two months when we stayed with my Aunt Mary, we had access to something considered the Holy Grail to most kids: an in-ground, backyard swimming pool! A “cement pond” as the Clampetts of the “Beverly Hillbillies” would call it.

Sometimes we’d have to impatiently wait to use it because Uncle Mike needed to “shock” the pool. I used to think he threw a toaster or some other electrical appliance in there for some bizarre reason known only to adults. Of course, I’d eventually learn exactly what the pool shocking procedure entailed and why it was performed. But all we cared about at the time was getting our sweaty, overheated behinds into that lovely, cool, aquamarine water.

Both of our families spent many happy hours in that pool. My cousins, who were decent swimmers and daredevils, would show off and do jumps off the diving board. I didn’t know how to swim so I was happy to stay and paddle around in the shallow end.

I remember one day while we were out poolside, there was some talk on the radio about President Nixon and impeachment. But all I heard was the word “peach” being said hundreds of times, so I thought it had something to do with fruit. From the attitude of the adults, it was something serious. However, to a ten year old, all I kept thinking was “Geez, how dangerous can peaches be and what has our president been doing with them?”

Dining Out 1970s Style

“If you wanna a drink of water, you gotta get it from a well. If you wanna get to heaven, you gotta raise a little hell.” (“If You Wanna Get to Heaven” by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils)

Despite the fact that our family never really dined out, unless McDonalds counts, I still vividly recall visiting a few Central Florida eateries which are no longer with us.

One of the first places we dined out with Aunt Mary and her family was Tom’s Pizza in Maitland. The blueish white neon sign in the front window continuously flashed “Tom’s Pizza - 25¢”. I don’t remember much from that visit other than the place was dark and the harmonica solo from “If You Wanna Get to Heaven” by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils blared in the background.

One of the popular fast food burger chains of that period was Burger Chef and there was one in Fern Park, not too far from where we’d eventually settle in nearby Casselberry. In addition to the orange and blue color scheme and the chef hat logo, I fondly recall those delectable hamburgers. The burgers were so juicy, in fact, that one squirted me squarely in the eye after I squeezed it a bit too hard in my eagerness to shove it into my mouth. I haven’t been attacked by a better burger since!

Pizza parlors were places we didn’t go to often but when we did, it was a treat! There was a place in Casselberry called Shakey’s which catered to families and featured “Golden Age” show reels of Laurel & Hardy as well as the Little Rascals.

Shopping, Turtles and Roses (Oh My!)

“Can it be that it was all so simple then? Or has time rewritten every line? If we had the chance to do it all again, tell me, would we, could we?” (The Way We Were by Barbra Streisand)

My mother loved going to stores and that’s what we often did on the weekends. Our main target was usually the Altamonte Mall, which was visible from my Aunt Mary’s backyard. The first time I walked into that mall, I was dumbfounded at how huge it was. I’d never seen so many stores under one roof. And there were two floors of shops!

My dad was never one for the retail experience, so he would find a place to park himself while Mom whipped around from shop to shop with the rest of us in her wake, breathlessly trying to keep up. Back in those days, Mom idled in high gear. She talked fast and walked even faster. Because Suzy was barely out of her toddler stage and her legs would never keep up with Mom’s lightning-fast gait, she often stayed with Dad.

Back then, in the days before mobile phones, we had to arrange a meeting place and time before going our separate ways. Luckily the Altamonte Mall had the perfect central meeting spot. In the center of the first floor was a seating area of benches, bright red carpeting and a cluster of modern, stylized turtle sculptures. So, whenever my family visited the mall, we’d often agree to “meet by the turtles” at a predestined time.

Near the mall’s turtle habitat was Ferrell’s, a late 19th century themed ice cream parlor. The employees were outfitted in 1890s style flat boater hats and the long sleeve shirts with ties. They served gigantic sundaes and had just about every flavor of ice cream my young mind could think of. One day I felt a bit adventurous and ordered the bubble gum ice cream because it looked so pretty and colorful. A half hour later, I was left with a huge, flavorless wad of gum in my mouth. I wish I could say that this was an important lesson I learned in not being taken in by good looks alone - but I’d be lying.

The travel agency with its lush carpeting, sleek desks and beautiful posters of Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower was an early fascination of mine. I was particularly attracted to the glossy brochures and travel magazines. And once I realized that they were actually free for the taking, I’d always walk away with an armful. Once we got home, I’d spend hours pouring over the pages of exotic locales and dream of the day I could see them in person. My mom often declared that I’d eventually become a travel agent myself.

Other stores I remember were Casual Corner, Pants USA, the Gap, Lerners, Stuart’s, Zales, Tom McAnn, and Baker’s Shoes. But the stores I spent the most time in were the mall’s two record shops - Camelot Music and Chess King. Later on in my teens, I’d spend pretty much all of my allowance in those music stores on the latest albums by the Sweet, Queen, Van Halen or whatever group I was into at the time. I also spent many hours in B. Dalton and Waldenbooks, usually browsing through books about said rock groups.

During the pre-food court days of the 1970s, the mall had just a few snack counters and full service restaurants. Chick-fil-A was an early fast food outlet in the mall. I also remember a German restaurant called Mr. Dunderbak’s that was dark, festooned with hanging sausages and had a strong sauerkraut smell.

The York Steakhouse was a family favorite of ours. It had an orange, yellow and brown interior which was set up cafeteria style. I was never a huge steak eater so I’d often just order the chopped sirloin steak as it was more of a burger patty in gravy.

Another mall we’d visit was the Fashion Square Mall which was just east of downtown Orlando. The Naval Training Center was next door, so every Friday evening and on weekends, the mall’s concourse was a sea of white, starched navy uniforms.

There was a store at the Fashion Square that specialized in men’s clothing. I can’t remember the shop’s name but I DO recall that on Friday nights, a couple of male salesclerks would stand in front of the store and give out single, long-stemmed roses to the women who walked by. Sometimes Mom got one. And because I was tall and a bit mature looking for my age, I once got a rose, too!

And Now for a Word from Our Sponsor…

Speaking of stores, I can still remember the words to a lot of the commercial jingles back then. Well, at least I THINK these were the words!

Kmart:

Kmart is your savings store, where your dollar buys you more.

Eric Adams Furniture Warehouse:

Pick it out in the showroom, where the savings are great.

Pick it up in the warehouse and take it home in the crate.

Eric Adams Furniture Warehouse, Eric Adams Furniture Warehouse.

Don Mealey Chevrolet:

Don Mealey Chevrolet, Don Mealey Chevrolet

So you can have the car you want to drive….TODAY!

The 1970s School Pod System

“You went to school to learn, girl, things you never, never knew before. Like I before E except after C and why 2 plus 2 makes 4.” (“ABC” by the Jackson 5)

After that first month at Aunt Mary’s, the summer started to wind down and the new school year reared its ugly head. My cousins went to a private, Catholic school where the students wore uniforms. I thought that was pretty cool and wanted to go there. But because we didn’t have the money and - more importantly - we weren’t practicing Catholics, my siblings and I were enrolled at Spring Lake Elementary in Altamonte Springs.

I still recall that first day of school. I was going into fifth grade, wearing a new outfit and carrying a lunch box that I didn’t really care for. All the other kids had cool lunch boxes with pictures of cartoon characters or pop stars on them. I had a strange looking, oblong cylindrical thing adorned with yellow flowers that zipped around the top. It was more of an adult lunch box - something a teacher would bring to school. Because I was tall and mature looking for my age, my mother attempted to dress and accessorize me accordingly. For a short time, she insisted I carry a purse any time I went anywhere. But eventually, I won out on that battle - at least until I hit my teens.

As I mentioned before, I’d already attended a few different schools before we moved to Florida. But Spring Lake was new experience for me because it was a pod school. In the 70’s, many schools were based on the pod system, which meant open classrooms and very few walls. I remember our fifth grade class had three walls but the back of the class opened into a huge common area shared with the other fifth grade classes. We could hear what was going on in other areas. I don’t know what the thinking was behind this concept. I’m guessing it was a money-saving measure. But it was obviously quite easy to get distracted.

Regardless, I loved this new school. My teacher, whose name escapes me now, was very nice and used to read stories like “Island of the Blue Dolphin” to us after lunch. Speaking of lunch, I don’t think this school had a full cafeteria because I remember the meals being served usually consisted of a sandwich, a drink and a piece of fruit shrink wrapped in plastic on a styrofoam tray.

Another thing I remember vividly about this school was the day the book fair rolled in. My teacher sent me home with a book fair order form the day before and I’d carefully perused it before making my choice and pestering my folks for the money. As an avid young reader, the opportunity to visit the bookmobile and buy a book of my choosing was a real thrill!

Trick or Treat

“The zombies were having fun. The party had just begun. The guests included Wolf Man, Dracula and his son.” (“Monster Mash” by Bobby "Boris" Pickett & The Crypt Kickers)

Being a military brat meant dealing with constant change. Despite our nomadic lifestyle, I was always very fortunate to have made good friends in every neighborhood where we lived and at each school I attended. The downside was I always had to say goodbye a short time later. During our brief stay at my aunt’s house, I remember befriending a girl around my age who lived down the street. Her name was Caroline and I could swear her surname was Kennedy.

Caroline was a year older than me, which meant she must have just started junior high school that year. We’d sometimes hang out at my aunt’s house in the family room or I’d go over to her house. Caroline was the one who introduced me to Wacky Stickers, those delightful decals that spoofed well-known brands of foods and household products such as Kentucky Fried Fingers, Neveready Batteries and Cheapios cereal. As a budding artist myself, I was fascinated with the vibrant artwork which closely resembled the original products being lampooned. Each pack cost about a quarter and included several wacky stickers, a cardboard puzzle piece and a stick of gum that was easily mistaken for another piece of cardboard. We could only get them from the Lil Champ, which was a popular chain of convenience stores in Florida at the time.

As Halloween loomed, Caroline asked if I wanted to go trick-or-treating with her around the neighborhood. I was surprised because I had reckoned we were too big and beyond the age of trick-or-treating. My mom had kept me home the previous Halloween because she reckoned I was getting too tall and old for it. But now, here was a girl even OLDER than me who was going. So I asked my mom and after some misgivings, she miraculously let me go. Caroline and I didn’t have any costumes. We just wore regular clothes and carried a couple of pillow cases for our haul. We combed the entire neighborhood that night and filled those pillow cases with all kinds of sweet goodies. I can still remember the strong smell of all that confectionary combined into one fruity, chocolatey aroma. That was the final year of actual door-to-door trick-or-treating for me. For the next couple of years, my family would take us to the mall so my younger siblings could trick-or-treat. Then, I was more of a bystander but I DID still get the occasional piece of candy from a sympathetic merchant!

A Race that Nobody Wins

“Half-breed, that's all I ever heard. Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word. Half-breed, she's no good they warned. Both sides were against me since the day I was born.” (“Half Breed” by Cher)

It’s said that all things must eventually come to an end, and our two month stay with Aunt Mary and her family was no exception. During final months of 1974, my parents closed on a house in the suburban town of Casselberry, Florida. Once again, I had to say goodbye to a school I had grown to love and to my new friend Caroline.

Up until then, I never really gave my ethnicity any serious thought. I knew I felt different from other kids, but I was mainly focused on my height because I was often about half a head taller than classmates. Whenever a class photograph was arranged, I would be placed in the center of the back row, which would be composed mainly of boys.

I remember the first time I was made aware of being racially different from my classmates. It happened in Altus, Oklahoma, 1971. I was in the second grade then and my class was primarily made up of white kids. There were also two black boys and then there was me, with my olive complexion and kinky, curly hair. For some reason, one day my teacher, Miss Warren, who I absolutely ADORED, was in a jovial mood and started asking me which of the two black boys I wanted to kiss. The entire class started laughing. To this day, I can’t remember what led up to that question or why Miss Warren would ask that to begin with. I remember feeling embarrassed and mortified. I was only 7 years old at the time and to me, ALL boys were icky regardless of their race. And why was I being singled out along with the black kids? Looking back, I don’t know what upset me more - the public humiliation or feeling betrayed by a teacher that I had loved.

After we landed in Florida, other than one of my aunt’s friends once referring to us kids as “pickaninnies”, I don’t recall encountering any other bigotry during our two month stay in Altamonte Springs. But the moment we moved into our permanent home in Casselberry, the racist floodgates burst open.

It started as soon as we moved into that four bedroom/two bath, mustard colored house in a predominantly white neighborhood. I was standing in the driveway one afternoon, not long after we moved in. Two girls my age, one of whom lived across the street from me, were walking by. They looked over at me, put their heads together, whispered something and exploded into giggles as they once again looked back at me.

About half a block down from our house was a family who was well-known in the neighborhood. In fact, they delivered the daily newspaper. And one of the sons was a safety patrol at the elementary school we were about to start attending. Every time my siblings and I would walk by that house, the kids there would always make sure to loudly shout, “N*****s!” It was the first time I recall hearing that word used toward us.

What made things worse was that even I didn’t know what I was. My mother and father were both of Puerto Rican descent. However, they never brought us up speaking Spanish. As far as I was concerned, we were just an average white family, even though our skin tone was just a tad darker and our hair a bit kinkier.

“Why don’t you ever wear your hair down?” girls at school would ask me. I never had an answer for that one. My hair was too coarse and thick to wear loose so my mother always pulled it back into a low pony tail on my neck and twisted the hair into long banana curls. She called it “The George Washington” or “The George”, for short. No matter what name it was given, I absolutely loathed that hairstyle by the time I was ten. I thought it looked matronly on me as compared to the loose, lovely hairstyles I was seeing on the girls at school and the women on television.

In 1974, the Civil Rights Act had only passed ten years prior and a lot of the older generation was still not totally on board with racial equality. So walking around the neighborhood often involved being called every racial epithet known to mankind and occasionally having stuff thrown at me. Once, while walking to the store with some cousins, an old woman came out of her house and told us to stay off the sidewalk because it was for Americans only.

And if our neighborhood wasn’t enough of a racist cesspool, our new elementary school was even worse.

I continued my 5th grade year at Casselberry Elementary. I still remember going down there with my parents and my siblings to register. That's when we met the principal, a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a booming voice named Mr. Harp. (His signature often included a tiny drawing of a harp.) Mr. Harp was a jovial sort and, during our initial visit, he proved this by sitting on top of a file cabinet, holding a plunger and singing a chorus of “King of the Road.”

I was assigned to Mrs. Blair’s class. Mrs. Blair was a kindly, older, heavy set black woman who was probably near retirement by then. Unfortunately, she was lumbered with a classroom full of loud, unruly pupils led by a short, mean-tempered little bigot by the name of Mark Owens. With a face full of freckles and his red hair styled into the ubiquitous bowl cut that was in fashion among boys of that time, Mark was the personification of an angry, little red rooster looking for someone to pick on - often our teacher. One day, Mark found a huge branch out on the school playground and was planning on bringing it inside. He called it his “n****r knocker” and was going to use it on Mrs. Blair.

Mrs. Blair, to her credit, always handled Mark and the other class bullies with dignity. And when one of them started to spew racist drivel her way, I remember her standing tall and saying “I am proud to be a black woman!”

Mark’s nickname for me was “Big, Bad and Ugly.” Once he tried to challenge me to a fight. “Come on, let’s go, Big, Bad and Ugly!” I have no idea why he wanted to fight me as I never did or said anything to him. But I refused to give into his bullying and eventually he left me alone.

Later on, a new Latino girl named Lissette was assigned to our classroom. She spoke only Spanish. Mark’s nickname for her was “Chinaman” for some bizarre reason. I’m guessing he was a fan of the popular “Kung Fu” tv series, so any non-English speaking foreigner was a “Chinaman” to him.

As the years passed and I entered high school, the racism I encountered was not quite as intense but it would still flare up on occasion.

Once, as I was walking down the main street of our subdivision, a guy named Ricky drove by in a truck. He was a couple years ahead of me in school and I had a secret crush on him. But the crush immediately ended the moment he leaned out of the window, laughed and yelled at me. “Hey, Mexican American!!!!” What? I’m not even Mexican.

For years, I’d struggle with racial and ethnic identification. One dreaded question I was often asked (and sometimes I still hear), is “What are you?”

I wasn’t white enough for the whites, I wasn’t black enough for the African Americans and, because I didn’t speak Spanish, I wasn’t Latino enough for the Latinos. To this day, I cringe whenever I see a “race” field on a form. I honestly never know what I should identify as. Luckily, I’m seeing a “prefer not to answer” option more frequently, so that’s what I usually choose.

Ironically, I would later take an Ancestry ethnicity test which would reveal that I did INDEED have African DNA. So, I’ll be darned, all those racists were actually right! I do have black blood and I am very proud of it - just like Mrs. Blair was!

The City Beautiful

“Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe and to love you.” (“The Air That I Breathe” by the Hollies)

For the next half a century, I will have a love/hate relationship with Orlando and Central Florida in general as I see it grow from a fledgling metropolis to one of the world’s premier travel destinations.

When we first moved down here, there were orange groves everywhere. Now they are a rarity, having been cut down and buried underneath subdivisions, apartment buildings, strip malls, car washes, and fast food outlets. Most of the four way stop signs have long since been replaced by traffic lights. The old department stores in downtown Orlando have made way for banks and bars.

Goodings, Pantry Pride, Piggly Wiggly, Food Lion and most Winn Dixie supermarkets have fallen to the almighty Publix chain. The smaller tourist attractions like the Stars Hall of Fame and Mystery Fun House have been squashed by the mighty corporate Disney/Universal/Sea World trinity. The old local restaurants of yesteryear such as Ronnie’s and the Purple Porpoise are distant memories. Sun Bank became Sun Trust and then became Truist.

The boisterous children who used to ride bicycles all around the neighborhood have long since gone inside and now play on smart phones. And it’s no wonder because it’s hotter than ever outside.

The demographic of the area has certainly changed. I definitely see a lot more ethnicities and interracial couples now than I did when we first arrived. Many times I’ve been in stores where I was the only English speaking person. There is also more LGBTQ+ acceptance than there used to be during my childhood when it was considered normal to freely use the words “gay” and “queer” derogatorily. While there is still a lot of progress yet to be made, there are more support organizations and programs available now than there were in the seventies.

So have things changed for the better in the “City Beautiful?” Yes. But is there still room for improvement? Definitely!

In closing, I can proudly say that after half a century of living in Florida, I’ve survived countless hurricanes and have yet to be attacked by a gator or a snake. But more importantly, I’ve stopped trying to figure out WHAT I am and instead I’ve begun to appreciate WHO I am.

#1970s #florida #nostalgia

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