Setting the scene for our stories can bring our reader into the writing straightaway.
When I tell people that Florida is one of my most favourite places, they hesitate before replying with something like, 'Why? It's for retired people and tourists to Disneyworld' or, 'It's hot and full of alligators and snakes.'
Yes it is those things but it's where Mom grew up, and was the source of, and inspiration for, many stories she told me about her childhood, especially those about the years her parents owned the Keystone Hotel on the corner of 8th Street and Atlantic Avenue in Fernandina Beach (pictured).
The Keystone was built in 1912 (it was torn down in 1972) and was a favourite place for wealthy northern families coming down to escape the winter snows, hosting Vanderbilts, DuPonts, and Carnegies galore.
Whilst I didn't get to see the Keystone (only the bare lot where it had once stood, and some old concrete steps that had obviously led into it), I had the good fortune to visit her hometown of Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island before it became really touristy, and before the approach to the Island (on what's now known as the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway and Buccaneer Trail) was cleared of its forest and became flanked by strip malls, big chain stores and fast food joints.
I remember the town of Fernandina Beach in the late '70s as quiet, sleepy, big pulp mills belching out cabbage-smelling smoke, plenty of large trees with the grey wisps of Spanish Moss hanging from spreading limbs, the trains shunting and banging down at the waterfront bringing in logs for the mills. There was the calm Inland Waterway and harbour on the west side of Amelia Island, and the broad, flat beach facing up to the fickle moods of the Atlantic on the east. Connecting the two was a long, straight road that Mom referred to as 'the Main', now known as Centre Street and Atlantic Avenue. When Mom was a teenager, she and her girlfriends would 'drag the Main' in someone's car, sneaking puffs from cigarettes and just driving around.
There was an historic district close to the town centre, with impressively restored and well-kept old houses, some with turrets and gingerbread decorations on the wide verandahs, and lawns and gardens, pots of geraniums on the steps, and tall oak trees that had guarded gates for years. The road to the centre of town passed by small businesses and little abandoned shacks with torn screen porches and overgrown yards. The historic district is, of course, still there and beautifully preserved, but the old shacks have gone, replaced by businesses and other establishments.
My travels to Florida usually coincided with the height of summer, and I remember the humid heat was pretty much as bad at 3am in the morning as it'd been during the day before. It never seemed to cool off in Florida, so there was nothing for it but to retire in the evening to a bar somewhere that maybe had an off-kilter ceiling fan doing its best to circulate air heavy with the scents of spilled stale beer and deep fried food, or perhaps an outside area that caught a bit of fishy-smelling breeze off the waterway flowing lazily by. Bottles of beer came in large buckets, fried shrimp could be ordered almost by the ton if you wanted, along with hushpuppies and baked potatoes with sour cream and butter, maybe some coleslaw on the side.
You may be thinking, how could anyone love heat, humidity, snakes, lots of bugs, buckets of beer and all that fried food? Well, let me tell you - it can be an acquired taste but it's one that I took to like a spider to Spanish Moss - and I miss it, especially the fried shrimp caught fresh that day.
So I ask you - have I created a picture in your mind of my '70s Fernandina? If you haven't been there yourself, do you feel like you've just paid a little visit?
Now that I've set the scene, it's time for the story to begin ... stay tuned! More to come ...