So what's up with Florida?
Talk about a swing in reputation. Forty years ago the
Sunshine State was an unthreatening View-Master reel of
orange groves, alligator wrestlers, tail-walking dolphins
and shuffleboard.
Near the turn of the millennium, Florida had become either
romantically lawless or dangerously stupid, and often
both: Casablanca without common sense, Dodge City with
more weapons, the state that gave you the Miami Relatives
on the evening news every night for nine straight months
and changed the presidential election with a handful of
confetti. Consider that two of the most famous Floridians
in recent years have been Janet Reno and the Anti-Reno,
Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Is there no middle
genetic ground?
And yet they keep coming to Florida. People who maintain
such records report that every single day, a thousand new
residents move into the state. The reasons are varied.
Retirement, beaches, affordable housing, growing job base,
tax relief, witness protection, fugitive warrants,
forfeiture laws that shelter your house if you're a
Heisman trophy winner who loses a civil suit in the
stabbing death of your wife, and year-round golf.
On a typical spring morning in 1997, five of those
thousand new people piled into a cobalt-blue Dodge
Aerostar in Logansport, Indiana. The Davenports -- Jim,
Martha and their three children -- watched the moving van
pull out of their driveway and followed it south.
A merging driver on the interstate ramp gave Jim the bird.
He would have given him two birds, but he was on the
phone. Jim grinned and waved and let the man pass.Jim
Davenport was like many of the other thousand people
heading to Florida this day, except for one crucial
difference. Of all of them, Jim was hands-down the most
nonconfrontational.
Jim avoided all disagreement and didn't have the heart to
say no. He loved his family and fellow man, never raised
his voice or fists, and was rewarded with a lifelong,
routine digestion of small doses of humiliation. The
belligerent, boorish and bombastic latched onto him like
strangler figs.
He was utterly content.
Then Jim moved his family to Florida, and before summer
was over a most unnatural thing happened. Jim went and
killed a few people.
None of this was anywhere near the horizon as the
Davenports began the second day of their southern
interstate migration.
The road tar at the bottom of Georgia began to soften and
smell in the afternoon sun. It was a Saturday, the traffic
on I-75 thick and anxious. Hondas, Mercurys, Subarus,
Chevy Blazers. A blue Aerostar with Indiana tags passed
the exit for the town of Tifton, sod capital of the usa,
and a billboard: jesus is lord...at buddy's catfish
emporium.
A sign marking the Florida state line stood in the
distance, then the sudden appearance of palm trees growing
in a precise grid. The official state welcome center rose
like a mirage through heat waves off the highway. Cars
accelerated for the oasis with the runaway anticipation of
traffic approaching a Kuwaiti checkpoint on the border
with Iraq.
They pulled into the hospitality center's angled parking
slots; doors opened and children jumped out and ran around
the grass in the aimless, energetic circles for which they
are known. Parents stretched and rounded up staggering
amounts of trash and headed for garbage cans. A large
Wisconsin family in tank tops sat at a picnic table eating
boloney sandwiches and generic pork rinds so they could
afford a thousand-dollar day at Disney. A crack team of
state workers arrived at the curb in an unmarked van and
began pressure-washing some kind of human fluid off the
sidewalk. A stray ribbon of police tape blew across the
pavement.The Aerostar parked near the vending machines, in
front of the no nighttime security sign.
"Who needs to go to the bathroom?" asked Jim.
Eight-year-old Melvin put down his mutant action figures
and raised a hand.
Sitting next to him with folded arms and dour outlook was
Debbie Davenport, a month shy of sweet sixteen, totally
disgusted to be in a minivan. She was also disgusted with
the name Debbie. Prior to the trip she had informed her
parents that from now on she was to be called "Drusilla."
"Debbie, you need to use the rest room?"
No reply.
Martha got out a bottle for one-year-old Nicole, cooing in
her safety seat, and Jim and little Melvin headed for the
building.
Outside the rest rooms, a restless crowd gathered in front
of an eight-foot laminated map of Florida, unable to
accept that they were still hundreds of miles from the
nearest theme park. They would become even more bitter
when they pulled away from the welcome center, and the
artificial grove of palms gave way to hours of scrubland
and billboards for topless doughnut shops.
Jim bought newspapers and coffee. Martha took over the
driving and got back on I-75. Jim unfolded one of the
papers. "Says here authorities have discovered a tourist
from Finland who lost his luggage, passport, all his money
and ID and was stranded for eight weeks at Miami
International Airport."
"Eight weeks?" said Martha. "How did he take baths?"
"Wet paper towels in the rest rooms."
"Where did he sleep?"
"Chairs at different gates each night."
"What did he eat?"
"Bagels from the American Airlines Admirals Club."
"How did he get in the Admirals Club if he didn't have ID?"
"Doesn't say."
"If he went to all that trouble, he probably could have
gotten some kind of help from the airline. I can't believe
nobody noticed him."
"I think that's the point of the story."
"What happened?"
"Kicked him out. He was last seen living at Fort
Lauderdale International."
The Aerostar passed a group of police officers on the side
of the highway, slowly walking eight abreast looking for
something in the weeds. Jim turned the...
© 2003-2026