{"id":1118,"date":"2019-05-07T13:56:24","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T13:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/?p=1118"},"modified":"2019-04-23T03:31:26","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T03:31:26","slug":"florida-on-my-mind-by-james-barr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/2019\/05\/07\/florida-on-my-mind-by-james-barr\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida on My Mind by James Barr"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For years, Jim was a creative director (copywriter) at two top advertising agencies. He wrote a variety of national TV commercials and ads and is on a first name basis with the Pillsbury Doughboy, the Green Giant and several Keebler Elves. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Florida on My Mind<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had no idea she was a sword swallower. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How was I to know? Watching her delicately drizzle a dollop\nof honey onto her biscuit, take a delicate bite and slowly swallow it revealed\nnothing about her unusual profession. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hearing her backstory in a Sarasota, Florida coffee shop was\nan eye-opener. Once the winter headquarters for the Ringling Brothers Circus,\nSarasota became the forever home of trapeze artists, clowns and stone deaf\nhuman cannonballs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My next Florida encounter was with a roofer and serial biter\nnamed Harley. He recently moved into his 308-lb. girlfriend\u2019s tiny home where\nhe shares any remaining space with her two out-of-wedlock kids. Recently, he\nand his girlfriend got into a fight and he took a chunk out of her upper arm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The girlfriend isn\u2019t without her issues, either. Having that\n308-lb. \u201ccanvas\u201d to work on, she has covered herself with tattoos that appear\nto tell the history of the world, with very little space left over for next\nyear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I met twin sisters who have been battling for the past 30\nyears. One has an eating disorder of such magnitude, she eats only small\namounts of salmon and shrimp, then cleanses daily. While she and her husband\nare at work, their dog is locked in his cage and forced to listen to Christian\nmusic for 10 hours. The dog is not pleased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Days later, I met someone who works for a Port-a-Potty\ncompany. Her job is to dispatch drivers to pick up and deliver these plastic\npalaces to alligator and snake-infested building sites. There are no words to\ndescribe the state of these potties that have been used all week at an insanely\nhot, humid Florida building site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day, I met a chain-smoking, overweight middle-aged woman\nwho was about to have a \u201cPirate\u201d wedding. Guests were going to be encouraged to\ndress accordingly and to bring a bottle of rum. Wooden legs and eye patches were\nto be optional. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, trying to eat healthy in Florida is a lost cause.\nBacon finds its way into virtually everything on the menu. All fish seems to be\nfried. Salads are seemingly nonexistent. Looking around a strip mall breakfast\njoint, you see folks with massive guts, and chowing down on biscuits and gravy.\nThey just don\u2019t seem right in the head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A trip to a Dairy Queen exposes you to people who look like\nthey\u2019ve either just robbed a mini-mart, are thinking of robbing a mini-mart or\nhave just been released from prison for robbing a mini-mart. How else to\nexplain the conversation that stopped as I walked by or the lingering, smoldering\nassessment of me (Cop? Detective? Snitch?) as I got my Blizzard Blast and made\nquickly for the door?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For family fun, adventure, lasting memories and eye-popping\nexperiences, who needs Disney World<\/em>? It\u2019s\nall right there for free as you wander around Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years, Jim was a creative director (copywriter) at two top advertising agencies. He wrote a variety of national TV commercials and ads and is on a first name basis with the Pillsbury Doughboy, the Green Giant and several Keebler Elves. Florida on My Mind I had no idea she was a sword swallower. How … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-i2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1118"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1120,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions\/1120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}