I Visit the Swamp

I had to go to Florida last week to attend to personal business and have a reunion with a couple of friends I met while I was in graduate school at the University of Florida. We went to a Gator football game at the Swamp. For you non-Gators, the Swamp is the nickname for the UF football stadium. The Gators beat up on the Eastern Kentucky Colonels. In most years you would think that a game against a school like Eastern Kentucky is a sure win for the Gators, but the Gators have not been very good for the last couple of years. It’s ironic. When I went to school at UF, Doug Dickey was the coach, and the Gators sucked. I return 40 years later and the Gators suck. In between they were great. Maybe it’s me.

Meredith and I spent several days in Cocoa Beach before going to Gainesville. The experience of being in Cocoa Beach and then in Gainesville on a football weekend makes me realize that I am rapidly becoming a country bumpkin. The amount of traffic and people was almost overwhelming. I think I now understand what primitive people felt the first time they encountered Europeans with large sailing ships and guns that discharged thunder and lightning. I’m afraid I’ve become very provincial. I probably should have entitled this post “Ma and Pa Kettle Visit the Big City.”

I am not being entirely tongue-in-cheek when I say that it is apparent to me why folks living in urban areas appear frustrated and angry most of the time. I seem to recall there was an experiment done many years ago where they discovered that if you put too many rats in a cage, they start to turn on each other. I think that modern urban living has that effect on people. It’s only when you get away from it that you notice it.

That being said, there are a few things about urban living that I sorely miss. One of them is home delivery pizza, and the other is convenient access to good ethnic food. There are no Thai, Greek or Cuban restaurants in Fannin County. I’m not even sure there is a Greek or Cuban restaurant in the surrounding counties. Meredith and I made sure to order home delivery pizza and eat Thai and Greek food while we were in Cocoa Beach. If we had been there longer I would have hunted down a good Cuban restaurant and ordered a Cuban sandwich. Getting good ethnic food is one thing that’s great about living in a multi-cultural urbanized area.

Another thing I miss is fast internet. We cannot get cable where our house is located so our internet is via satellite. It’s a wonder of technology and adequate for our needs, but it’s not lightning fast. Even if we could hook up to cable, we would still not have high-speed internet. The local cable companies have not installed fiber optic cable, and the local cable internet is slow compared to what you have in urban areas. If you absolutely need fast internet, then you better think twice about moving to the country or try and find a rural area that has it. Good luck with that.

While we were in Florida we had convenient access to department stores and shopping malls. To be honest, that is not something I miss. I think part of the reason is that life is so much simpler here. I can do ninety percent of my shopping at the local Walmart. Like everyone else around here, I wear casual clothes like blue jeans and boots most of the time. The only time I put on a tie is to go to church, and the only reason I wear a tie to church is so I don’t forget how to tie one. I suggested to the folks at Feed Fannin that it have a formal fundraiser, and they looked at me like I was nuts. It’s not hard to keep up with the Joneses in Fannin County.

We accomplished a lot in Florida and had a great time visiting with my old friends, but it’s good to be back in Fannin County. Driving back Meredith and I realized that this place has become our home in the truest sense of the word. It’s the place where we are the most at ease, where things are familiar, and where we have established comfortable routines and habits. In World War I there was a song that had a line that went “how are you going to keep them down on the farm once they’ve seen gay Paree?” For Meredith and I the answer is clear. It’s nice to visit hustling and bustling Florida, but it’s even nicer to live in the serene tranquility of Fannin County. Like the Eagles once sang, “It’s a peaceful easy feeling.”