Sun, sea and sand!!! The enduring image of the state of Florida. It seems it has been advertising its sunny and seductive presence to winter weary northerners in a palette of pinks and pale blue and orange forever.

Invariably garish. Gigantic billboards. Often in neon. Bigger than life. Florida and oranges have always been closely associated.

I have lived in Florida off and on now for over eight years. I could not be more surprised to find myself here but such are the mysteries of both life and love. It is much less gaudy place than I remember it from the Fifties.

One winter, my parents decided to drive to Florida. They followed the route snowbirds still take today. The I-95 interstate highway opened in 1956 and started on the Canada/US border from New Brunswick at Houlton, Maine.

The impetuosity of that trip fits what I remember about my father’s character. A new and interesting option had opened up. I can see him intrigued and eager to explore. So that is what he did. Headed South on the big, brand new highway, with his family in tow.

We often stayed at Howard Johnson motels along the way. My heart would jump when we pulled into the parking lot and saw the familiar orange and blue logo looming large in front of us.

Howard Johnson no doubt had amenities like swimming pools and vending machines to lure families in. All I cared about were the clam strips. Unreplicated in any restaurant I’ve ever been to until this very day. Perhaps that is nostalgia’s memory.

My most real and enduring memory of Florida was driving our car on the beach. I was beside myself with excitement. We drove on the sand in our big maroon Chevy with the Atlantic Ocean on one side and miles of beach grass beside us as far as the eye could see. I was surprised we didn’t sink.

I remember the wind whipping through the open car windows. The sun beating down from a blue and cloudless sky. The sense of joy and freedom of that day is unmatched in my memory.

I remember little else of that vacation except warm, happy memories. I must give a nod to Georgia. The old plantations were open to tourists where beautiful Southern belles sauntered in elaborate and colorful hoop skirts with parasols to match. There were demigoddesses in the eyes of an impressionable child. I may have aspired to be one when I grew up.

What was not evident at the time were black people. Maybe I couldn’t make a distinction back then. Perhaps there weren’t any in the locations we visited. Black voices would have been mostly silent in that time. Especially in the South. Blessedly, we saw no strange fruit hanging anywhere. It may simply have been that they were kept well away from the tourist traps.

Florida today has not lost the natural beauty, warmth and tropic lusciousness it has in my memory. But I cast my mind back through the tumultuous social history the US has gone through in the sixty-odd years since our family had that momentous vacation.

Florida today is a world where unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin was brutally and senselessly murdered by a paranoid white man. It is where the USA’s only female serial killer was executed, less than an hour from where I still live. It is the home of radical, lifelong Republicans to whom Trumpism is next to godliness. Store clerks still wish everyone a “blessed day.”

Change when it comes can either be painfully slow and way too sudden. We seek oases of calm and stability in a world that is marked by constant change. In Florida, it is a fascinating and perplexing mix of old South, tourist mecca, retirees’ paradise (no state income tax is one hell of a draw) and ongoing tension between races and social classes.

We live in a predominantly white community. Yet only a few miles away, in a poorer section, a young black mother of four was killed on her doorstep by an angry white woman because the black woman’s children inadvertently trespassed on her property.

That seems the general Zeitgeist in America today. Uneasy tensions abound. The center cannot hold. Indeed, these days there doesn’t seem to be much of a center at all.

But Florida is still here. If the world does not soon implode, it always will be. Sunny. Seductive. Awash in sun, sea, sand and Disney characters. It changes when you live here. You see these elements for the marketing advantages they are. Day to day life is different. Just day to day life.

A more personal pain point is that Hojo’s went bankrupt and has gone out of business. No more exquisite clam strips.

Such is the egocentricity of self-interest. Such is the refuge of the politically impotent. And the politically discouraged.

Think I’ll head to the pool for a swim.