Florida is a Sci-Fi World
For a huge chunk of my life I lived in Florida. People consider it some kind of lazy retirement area. Now, for some reason that I can’t fully explain, people equate Australia with wild animals and danger. This is also very true of Florida. Growing up in Florida was like growing up in some post-apocalyptic world of fantasy and danger.We had the entire checklist for a rich universe where law and order were nothing but concepts.
1. Monsters. This is first on the list. There are alligators everywhere and we don’t seem to care about it. For example, the following pictures of my local childhood mini-golf joint. They kept an Alligator pit like the villain in Romancing the Stone.
photos via Gear Diary and Someone on Flickr
Sharks. Yep. Sharks. My home town of New Smyrna Beach is now the shark attack capitol of the world. (Formerly billed as “the world’s safest bathing beach”). This is an aerial photo of exactly how safe the beach is. However, this isn’t the only danger facing humans in my old stomping grounds.
Jellyfish. There is what is known as jellyfish season. This is when jellyfish wash up by the thousands on the beach and get partially covered in sand. Hundred of people are stung everyday during this time. As local children we would have fun tossing rocks at the dying jellies and exploding them.
2. Ancient Ruins. I used to play in the ruins of ancient Spanish forts as a small child. These are two sets of ruins from hometown alone.
The town was also full of ancient Indian burial grounds and other such places of myth.
3. Social Outcast. Florida is full of society’s cast-offs. It’s kind of like Thunder Dome if you go far enough inland. Ever been to a school bus demolition derby? Isn’t it a great metaphor?
4. Armed Children. Growing up in Florida was full of times when we’d play our favorite childhood game… sharpen the sticks into spears using the highway’s grit. We also had ready access to fireworks and some of our favorite childhood toys were machetes and crossbows. Many an afternoon was spent wandering the neighborhood or woods looking for mysterious villains that never appeared, but we did insist on doing damage.
5. Apartheid. Well, not officially, but let me just say that there are literally railroad tracks in some towns. When you cross them the houses jump from cute to (no kidding) shacks. Wooden shacks with the roofs falling off. Some don’t have windows. Black people live on this side of the tracks. Not exclusively, I mean I’ve seen some affluent transplants who moved from large metro area… but enough poor and uneducated blacks live on the other side of the rail yard to make the pit of your stomach turn.
6. Forces of Nature. Lighting, hurricanes… these are facts of life. Although the damage is usually minimal the frequency makes up for it.
7. High Technology. This is where it becomes odd. Florida is a hotbed for testing some of the newest in high technology. Wi-Fi? Video-On-Demand? Solar Energy? Hell! They’re one of the few places on our planet that has a functioning space port! A space port for Christ’s sake!
So… in my summation… this is how Florida came to be…
There was once an ancient civilization that was at war. A nuclear disaster rendered the few survivors mutants and they moved away from the coast where they were no longer able to fend off the monsters. In their new inland home the regressed to the point where coliseum-like games were all that remained of their once proud way of life. The disaster also created the potential for huge electrical storms and random violent weather, making the surface a harsh environment. In a secret bunker under the coast a new generation of survivors emerged to reclaim the surface. They would train their children in the arts of war and survival. Teach them to tame nature and not fear it. However, the ruins where never discussed. The ruins were from a long-dead society that was better left unremembered. However, there were more survivors. One last outpost in a fortified high-technology compound where the new generations were launched from the stronghold to the new Utopia… Mars. The terraforming would take generations. The three new societies of this strange land kept to themselves, but the forests would occasionally erupt in violent conflict.
That’s where our story begins and that’s why I can never really hate Florida.