In the End: Part 3 -- Florida

Miami, Florida Latitude 25°46' N
October 15, 2011

In the end, I put 775 miles on my Ford Fusion rental. I’d picked it up in Daytona Beach and, over a week’s time, drove coast to coast and back again, finally dropping it off at the Miami International Airport on October 15th.

In the end, it was wonderful to see so many people from my college days and years at NCCS. People like Dan Spink, one of my college roommates, whose friendship has spanned more than forty years. And Seth Bliven, my first principal. Once more I wanted to tell him how grateful I was to have started my career under his gentle administration. All of us who started in Mooers, NY when that district merged with Champlain feel the same way. What a privilege it was to tell him directly. And it was equally nice to see Bob and Judy Wood and Mary Mahar. Our careers are meshed together for four decades. They’ve left the north for good. “I never want to be cold again,” said Mary. More and more I have to agree.

In the end, Florida was a Ladue family pilgrimage—from central Florida where we first lived in 1953, and then to Lakeland, to the small concrete house we lived in and where I started Kindergarten in 1954. And lastly, to the Gulf Coast where my parents lived from 1977 to 1990. For me, all of it was a happy revisit.

In the end, Florida was, for the most part, clear, hot days, hours on Gulf Coast beaches and nights of fabulous sunsets. Despite its loathsome politics, it’s still a beautiful state, and an integral part of my pesonal history.

In the end, I know I’ll return.