Live In An Unbound World

Growing Up in the Shadow of the Fish and the Rat

This statement can be made by both personal and commercial entities. I, as a personal entity, was born in Sarasota to a single mom from North Port. For those who are asking, that is north of Port Charlotte, which is north of Punta Gorda, which is north of Fort Myers. Okay, I could go on and on until I got to the Keys. This is all 1-2 hours south of Tampa on the Florida Gulf Coast. Ten years and many moves driven by my dad (mom happened to marry a great guy) being in the U.S. Navy, we settled in Orlando.

Don’t get me wrong; despite the derogatory sound of the title, I am a great fan of Land of Magic and this hydro-based educational theme park. I have been to both places many times, in Orlando, and I have actually been to the latter in two other states as well. I should also mention that there are several other large attractions that would be found near these in a phone book of this region. In the shadow of these great commercial entities is the real world. This world is one of my favorite sustainable places. In later blogs, I will detail other favorite places on earth that are not so sustainable in my everyday life, but I enjoy visiting. I am happy to say I grew up in Orlando. I can’t wait to move back, once I finish some long term commitments here in Dallas.

What I love about Orlando is the imaginary, yet thinning and almost overlapping but present, line between the Vacation Land and Everyday Life. Okay, parts of Orlando are supported by Vacation Land being a 24/7/365 market. It was a long time ago but two statistics and a comment come to mind. My dad always said that Orlando did not plan early on for the growth it experienced. Orlando, at one point in my semi-adult life, actually only had 120,000 residents. That is the city limits, not the tri-county or Central Florida. Central Florida (Tampa to Daytona) sees at least a 35:1 tourist to resident ratio, every year. That number has probably grown, as well. You just did not feel that ratio, as a resident. I was just a kid growing up in the 80s-90s in another suburb in America.

I lived in Everyday Life along with many other average families. That is about 25 miles north of the Land of Magic. There was never a reason outside of occasional expensive recreation or a school-based field trip, to go towards Vacation Land. You never saw obvious tourists in our corner grocery. In Everyday Life, I went to an elementary school almost 10 miles from my house in a neighborhood with an average household income at about half of what ours was, due to integration planning. It was the best elementary grade I had. Junior high became middle school while we were going there. My friends and I went to the original campus of what is now considered by some to be one of the three poorest high schools in Orange County. It did not feel like that to us. I would be comfortable letting my kids go there, when their time came. Many of the people that attended with me are successful pillars of that and other communities. I ate dinner with my family most nights. We had two dogs and a pool in our backyard. I made average grades but not good enough to go straight from high school to the university of my choice. I never actually made it to that university, but a few other decent university campuses. I left this locale to follow a sailor who would become my first husband and the father of my great children.

As a personal entity, I did not feel the shadow overhead. There are many educational, culturally-strong commercial entities that do. There is an Unbound World beyond these attractions. My mom wrote a book about these, in the early 90s; and I started to re-write it, as an update with a new title in 2001. Unlike hers, mine never made it to print. I have volumes of data waiting to be shared with the public. We are discussing bringing it back with a twist, online.

I will let Mom share her book title when she gets on Tumblr, soon.