Cathy Salustri - Backroads of Paradise: A Journey to Rediscover Old Florida

BACKROADS OF PARADISE

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF FLORIDA

Florida A&M University, Tallahassee

Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton

Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers

Florida International University, Miami

Florida State University, Tallahassee

New College of Florida, Sarasota

University of Central Florida, Orlando

University of Florida, Gainesville

University of North Florida, Jacksonville

University of South Florida, Tampa

University of West Florida, Pensacola

BACKROADS OF PARADISE

A Journey to Rediscover Old Florida

Cathy Salustri

University Press of Florida

Gainesville Tallahassee Tampa Boca Raton

Pensacola Orlando Miami Jacksonville Ft. Myers Sarasota

Copyright 2016 by Cathy Salustri

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

This book may be available in an electronic edition.

21 20 19 18 17 16 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016946693

ISBN 978-0-8130-6296-9

The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida State University, New College of Florida, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of North Florida, University of South Florida, and University of West Florida.

For Barry, who is the second-best thing that ever happened to me, and for my parents, Richard and Ann Salustri, who are the first

Not all those who wander are lost.

J.R.R. Tolkien

Contents

Prologue

July 1, 1980

My grandfathers face twisted as we turned off the oak- and pine-fringed interstate and entered the final leg of our southwest journey down US 301. As we passed bleached wood cracker houses, and dingy brown cedar sheds, his tanned forehead furrowed, drawing his coarse eyebrows tighter and tighter together until the bushy lines above his dark eyes disappeared under a thin ridge of curly dark hair.

Perched on stilts, houses sat, no shutters or coverings save grime and webs. Underneath and alongside them, a ragtag fleet of pickup trucks with rusted wheel wells, oxidized roofs, and Bondo fenders shared weed patches with Jon boats, the only difference the boats marginally better maintenance and the occasional trailer elevating them off dirt patches. Washing machines, sun-bleached farm equipment, and a mise-en-scne of auto parts greeted us anew at each home.

My grandfather sucked in sticky-hot Florida air, his silence crowding our weighed-down 1976 maroon Buick Regal. This, I can only imagine him thinking, is worse than what I left in Italy. This is what I have worked my whole life to give my son? That they should move to a slum in the South?

This referred to Florida, specifically, the interior parts of the state detailed along US 301, the parts of the Sunshine State not photographed by any Florida tourism board. They referred to my father, my mother, and me: a seven-year-old whose greatest adventure in life, prior to the three-day journey to Florida from New York, was a dead heat between a goat eating my coat at the Bronx Zoo and taking a train to see Peter Pan on Broadway. In a chain of events too complex for my young brain to comprehend, my parents decided to leave Westchester County, New York, and move to Clearwater, Florida. While my parents knew the drives end result, a small two-bedroom just miles from then-pristine Clearwater Beach, my grandfather, who had come along to help, did not.

Eventually we turned onto I-275, where the landscape grew noticeably tidier and steadily more sanitized. Our orange-striped moving truck dutifully followed the car as we made our way to Clearwater. The water of Tampa Bay bounced the sparkling sun into our car, and the salt formed diamond crystals on my grubby, sweaty hands.

Look at that, Cath, my dad said, his voice reverent. Look at how clear it is, not like Staten Island at all. My father still made the sign of the cross on himself when we passed Catholic churches, but not until this moment had I heard such hushed worship in his voice.

I nodded and peered out the window, feeling something new and familiar inside my chest as I gazed at the sandy landscape offering itself to me. I recognized this, much later, as the sense of coming to where I needed to be.

I fell in love with the water that day, but as I grew older I felt the inexorable pull of the other parts of Florida, too. I have fallen hopelessly in love with the weathered corners of Florida, the bits that dont fit with the Convention and Visitors Bureaus image. The chambers of commerce and tourism boards want quite keenly to present a fresh and clean land of white beaches and sparkling waters. In turn we have convinced ourselves that we need to make sure our guests never see the other side of Florida: the Florida that is the skeleton, the backbone of all the others.

I, like my parents and countless settlers before them, have not tried to claim Florida. Instead I have let the state claim me. Almost forty years later I travel Florida still, looking for parts I may have missed, seeking them out before they fade away under the heavy blight of franchises, strip malls, and rented Jet Skis.

Today I explore Florida on roads that parallel the interstates, rattling along with the same excitement that thrummed through me that afternoon in our maroon Buick. My beaches have changed, and the strip malls may one day win, but as I troll the backroads, I remain forever in search of that secret backwoods state with its sun-bleached roadside shacks. I feel the quickening inside as a sense of the familiar envelops me. It is that same sense of simultaneous longing and recognition I first felt when the salt water of the Gulf opened itself before me.

It is the feeling of coming home.

This map of Florida appears on the inside front cover of the Work Progress Administrations Florida: A Guide to the Southernmost State (1939).

Introduction

Look around any Florida bookstore: Youll find guidebooks to traveling Florida with kids, dogs, or your iguana. Youll find regional guides and even a guide or two about what youll see along the interstate. What you wont find is any sort of comprehensive travel guide to the Sunshine State. Theres Florida for lovers, for families, for gay people, for bikers, for hikers, but no simple This is Florida for