 | A WRITER'S WIT |  C. Cornwell |
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the twentieth post of fifty.
FLORIDA (1968, 1984, 2003)
St. George Hotel, Spanish Wells, Bahamas The first time I visited Florida, it was to pass through by way of Miami onto the Bahamas, a far superior spot, I believed. My plane, a two-prop job resembling a large goose, nearly went down in a violent thunderstorm, or so I was inclined to believe. I was head-over-ankles in love with a girl for the first time in my life, or otherwise I would never have traveled that far to stay in the home of strangers who just happened to be that girl’s parents. Two years later I would marry her and we would be given a large formal wedding in Trinity Methodist Church of Nassau and a formal reception at the Sheraton British Colonial Hotel. A friend from college would fly down to play the organ for the service. My brother, seventeen, would join the party as my best man and promptly get a bit drunk from drinking too much champagne.
R. Jespers, Bahamas, 1970
After spending more than two months in the Bahamas, I got a little sick of island life. It had never occurred to me, a landlubber, that I would tire of seeing the same people every day, that if all you had to do at the beach was grow browner, the experience might wear thin. That a city with only one movie theater was probably a little devoid of culture. I was too young to accept life as it comes to you, that the Bahamians have a unique culture going back hundreds of years. Though I would later divorce one really beautiful Bahamian, I would always recall the island’s inimitable treats: broiled crawfish, conch salad, peas and rice, and, oh God, baked grouper! Water skiing and hand trawling from a seventeen-foot outboard boat over swells larger than some hills in Kansas (see my catch above). And always aquamarine waters, a hue from which people concocted the idea to paint swimming pools.
Key West would be my destination in 1984, when I would tag along with two scuba-diving fiends, uh, friends. We stayed at an ever-popular gay establishment, The Pines bed and breakfast. Enough said. Again, got browner. Gorged myself on seafood, and, though my life partner was not with me, I behaved myself and only flirted with men gathered around the B&B’s tiny pool. Ten years later, one of the friends would die of AIDS, but I shall always recall the gales of laughter the three of us could create via those tiny in-jokes that only intimates can tell.
R. Jespers, Key West, 2003 In 2003, I attended a writers’ conference in Key West. A famous gay writer I’d always admired conducted our seminar, and I was pleased to be part of the group. I went in January thinking that the weather would be pleasant. I arrived in a gale of wind out of the north, and at the hotel I was placed in a freestanding cabin with no heat. No heat. I piled a couple of quilts on my bed, and that seemed to do the trick. In the remaining time, weather remained cool, almost like bright autumn days in New England! I purchased a heavy sweatshirt because I’d failed to heed the email warning sent by the conference’s leader. It was anything but a fun-in-the-sun event I’d anticipated. Note to self: never take another January trip to Florida. It may be just as nice in West Texas at that time of the year.
Florida, the twenty-seventh state, celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1995.
Florida, the twenty-seventh state, celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1995.
If you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link:
1-Kansas 13. New Jersey
2-Oklahoma 14. Delaware
3-Texas 15. New York
4-Louisiana 16. Connecticut
5-Missouri 17. Colorado
6-Illinois 18. Arkansas
7-Indiana 19. California
8-Ohio
9-Pennsylvania
10-West VA
11-Maryland
12. Virginia
NEXT TIME: My Book World
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