Snowbird

 

I’ve already written about “Daylight Savings Time” so I won’t do it again, even though I still find it irritating.

 

It is cold this morning. “Cold” being a relative term. It is probably about 50F, which would be warm at our house up in NY but down here seems like Winter. One quickly adjusts temperature expectations when one moves to Florida. The fifty in November is a “cold snap” and the pillow of super heated air that hits one when opening the door outside in July and sends one screaming for the pool or the A/C is the norm for “Summer”. I forget about such Florida things when I’m up north and conversely forget about snow, sludge, ice and frigged blasts of Arctic wind while in Florida. Such is the life of the “snowbird”.

 

Snowbird has become a derogatory term. It used to mean a person of privileged who has the capacity to enjoy both the blush days of northern spring and the relative warmth of the southern winter. Like the migrating flocks of birds there was, in the past, nothing untoward in wanting to enjoy both the temperate north and the near-tropical south. But that has changed and I am not sure why. Now it is more likely to hear the word “snowbird” trip off the lips with a sneer and a wink, like it is something to be ashamed of.

 

Yesterday, coming home from my afternoon walk in the mangroves of a local park I ran into a man I have known casually for a few years. His name is “Cal”. I slowed the car and pulled along side of him in the street. When he recognized me we had a clipped reorientation and greeting as befits half a year’s absence and then, searching for a topic, he commented on how nice the weather has been. A common “fall-back” conversation ensued. I bubbled over for a moment having just enjoyed my breezy walk with my dog near the water on one of the nicest days in memory and then he said something just a tad unwelcoming. “Yeah, that’s why all you Northerners come down here!” For a moment I was flustered. I was going to say something equally unpleasant but stopped myself. Instead I reminded myself that he was an old fart and probably had forgotten that we shared a very common background having grown up and lived for many many years in the exact same area of Miami. He was, and is, no more or less able to claim any sort of special resident status in Florida. Almost everyone in Florida is from some place else. Amend that to read “Everyone” except the tribes of natives who were dispossessed by the Spaniards, the English, the freed slaves, the Cubans who came over in rubber rafts escaping Castro, and Walt Disney.

 

Today another neighbor welcomed me back to H.S. and could not resist the temptation to ask me if I’d brought the cold weather down with me? I would gladly own up to the responsibility for the weather if the “Locals” will step up and own the destruction of the coral reefs and the Everglades. While they are at it how about claiming responsibility for their thieving/ignorant state government? I didn’t vote for a governor who thinks vaccines approved by the CDC and face coverings meant to insure the health of the public are a socialist plot to take away our rights and freedoms. But I am getting away from the main thrust of this journal entry.  Looking back as far and near as possible you will find that every person alive in the USA came from someplace else. We are all looking for better and greener pastures. We’re all of us “snowbirds” of the Earth. No matter what the bumper stickers may say there is no sucha thing as a “Local”.