HOOKED ON FLORIDA!

I was on the fire department for about 4 years and I would spend most of my vacation time with my parents.  I had gotten hooked on Florida – it’s easy to do.  

  

When I would come down in the winter, my parents would tell me about a new restaurant that had just opened.  It was a steak house and a steak dinner only cost $5.00.  I was very suspicious of a $5.00 steak.  I should have remembered that suspicion a few years later.  I know this is off the topic, but worth mentioning.

One day a guy pulled up to our fire house and said that he was a truck driver and his truck broke down and it was full of frozen steaks.  He said they were thawing out and he would sell them real cheap.  Silly me - I bought 3 and brought them home.  I cooked one on the grill and you couldn’t cut it or chew it. My wife cooked one in a crock pot all day and you still couldn’t eat it.  The last one was cooked and given to the dog.  Even Willy quickly lost his appetite!  It was probably horsemeat (our firehouse was near a racetrack.  Our dinner probably lost too many races.)!  It only cost me about $7.50 but some guys spent about $150 on meat you couldn’t eat.  Very few would actually admit it, though!  A word to the wise – don’t buy steaks out of the back of a truck from a stranger! 

Back to the subject - My parents and I did go to the steakhouse and it was great.  The inside was all redone and beautiful.  I think the mob was involved because thousands of dollars were spent on rebuilding this restaurant.  The next year when I returned my parents would tell me the steakhouse had gone out of business.   Now there was something new.  Restaurants opened and closed like revolving doors.  

This time it was a dinner show.  We went one night and the place was packed.  The entertainer, a comedian and a mind reader, had a remarkable show.  He would walk around the room and ask questions of the diners – like their first name, where they were from, how long they had been in Florida, what they did for a living.  The show started about 9:00 PM when everyone was having coffee and after dinner drinks.  He would shine a spotlight on a table and remember everyone’s name, where they came from, and made jokes about their jobs and their lifestyles.  At the end of his show, he shined a spotlight on me and walked over to our table.  He asked me to stand up.  He then told everyone that he couldn’t make fun of me or my job because I was a firefighter and anyone who did this job deserved all the credit in the world.  He said it was his honor to introduce me to the audience.  I looked down at my parents and they were beaming.  When he left the table, I leaned forward and told them I really liked this job and I was going to make it my career.  That made them even happier.  Their son finally had a “career.”  

  

My Dad passed away in 1971.  He had been retired only 7 years.  My mom stayed in their house almost 7 years, then she sold the house and moved into a 1 bedroom condo.  It was on the first floor and looked like it belonged in a resort.  Just outside her screened porch was a swimming pool with a diving board, tables and umbrellas and a barbeque grill.  Just past the pool was a canal off the Intercoastal waterway with boat docks.  It was true Florida living – just beautiful!  I would stay with her when I was on vacation.  She owned the condo 3 years and then told me she had met a real nice man and they wanted to get married.  She said she had put the condo up for sale 6 months earlier but no one was interested. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t asked me about it. 

My wife and I both loved Florida.  When I met my future wife, I asked her if she liked Florida – that was a prerequisite for dating!  Fortunately for me she did - so we bought the condo and all the furniture, too.  Occasionally we rented it to some firefighters but mostly we used it for our vacations.  We would spend 6 weeks in the winter and 6 weeks in the summer.  We kept the condo for 5 years and then sold it, doubling our investment. 

We knew we wanted to move to Florida when I retired – which was fast approaching.  The kids loved Florida, too – actually, they loved anywhere that had pools everywhere plus Disney World and Shamu.  We began looking around the state for our dream location.  My aunt and uncle told us about a small fishing village on the East Coast called Sebastian.  After a lot of driving and looking, we settled on a piece of property just off Sebastian River with a deeded 1.5 acre community area with a dock. We looked at model homes and picked one out that we liked.  We saw this model in February, and when we came back in July, the price had gone up $4,000.  If we waited another 5 years until I retired, the cost would be way up.  We contracted for the house to be built that summer.  Before construction began, we took our vacation in a 3 room, really old, cottage not too far from the property.  We would do fun things with the kids during the day, but after dinner we all sat around the large kitchen table and picked out carpets, paint colors, fixtures, lights – all for the new house.  The builder let us take the samples back to the cottage to make our choices. 

The house was finished in February.  We flew down and went through the house – it was perfect - except the building inspector hadn’t issued a CO as yet.  Without the CO, we couldn’t stay in the house.  We had even brought sleeping bags with us – we were so anxious to stay in our new house.  This was actually the first really new house either of us had ever had. 

 

Now we had to find a room for the night.  This was the busy winter season and we drove south, all the way to Vero Beach – no vacancies.  We then drove north to Melbourne, no luck.  We were told the only place that might have room was the Grant Motel which was known for renting by the hour.  They had a room for us – for the whole night!  There was an older couple running the motel and they were great to us.  We told them about our new home and that we couldn’t move in until the next day.  The old woman brought us hot tea and cookies that night.  The next day we had our CO and could stay in our house.  We went out and bought a bedroom set, bar stools so we could eat at the kitchen counter, some pots and silverware.  

We had to make a decision about renting the house.  I wouldn’t be retiring for a few years and we hated to see it sit empty.  After hearing story after story of rental nightmares, we decided to keep it for ourselves and just have friends check on it.  We used it every chance we could get to Florida and slowly began to make it our home.  In 1983, we sold our NY home and moved to Sunny Florida.  The life I had been planning for 20 years had finally begun – and continues through today!