In the Wake of the Wind

When I moved to Florida two and a half years ago, I resolved to semi-retire. That intention has not materialized. The first 8 months were fun, I have to admit. I worked less and enjoyed my free time more...swimming all winter, sporting a deep tan in February, and being the envy of all my shivering friends in the northeast, for whom a warm day was a distant dream. And then there was the wildlife...all those exotic birds, come to roost in our back yard in winter. How improbable, and how quickly I took it all for granted. In spite of the general ugliness of this town, with it's unappealing strip malls, big box stores, and more lights and wires than I'd seen in a very long while, I began to think of it as paradise. I claimed it as my home. I placed my brain in a long-term parking lot and entered the Twilight Zone.

Someone should paint a big billboard at the Florida state line that says: "Entering Florida. Please check your heart and your mind at the door."

And then came Charley, who roared in on 8/13/04 as a Cat 4, blowing 145 mph, gusting to 175. Charley showed us no mercy. He slammed directly into our neighborhood. Spending my entire life on the East Coast of the U.S., I've lived through hurricanes before, but never a Florida hurricane. I was shocked last night to see a local map of the hurricane's path, which put the eye pretty much in our back yard. A direct hit. Do we get a prize with that bullseye?


The funny thing is, we moved to this area because the hurricane probability was, we fantasized, dramatically lower than the other coast. In 2003 living on the New Hampshire tundra was no longer fun. I was ready to believe we were invulnerable to hurricanes, so long as it meant I could hear the rustle of palm trees and smell the balmy Florida night air.

OK, this isn't what's left of my home, but it was a house only a few miles away. We can thank Charley for remodeling our home. Still, our dollar losses were substantial, so much so that I had to work more (not less) than I'd worked for years. Semi-retirement blew away with that wretched cyclone. I'm still working hard, but getting ready to take a much needed vacation at the end of the week. Florida is no longer paradise. I blame Charley. To date he has not apologized. At least there was no catastropic storm surge.

But none of this really matters. It's all a dream anyway, and a very bad one at that.