Siberia in Connecticut

OK. I’ll admit it. I am a snow refugee. A Connecticut Yankee in Ron DeSantis’ Court. A melted snowbird. Having lived for over 60 years in Connecticut I moved to Wesley Chapel, just north of Tampa, Florida. How cliché.

I have tons of friends in New England that I was loth to leave, as well as family, but my only daughter lives with her only husband (to my knowledge) in North Tampa. They had moved here three years ago from their 10 year home in Oregon and I had flown down to help them move into their new adobe and clay tile roofed hacienda. While there I drove around seeing what the Florida countryside had to offer.

My only knowledge of Florida consisted entirely of stereotypes. Jackie Gleeson moving to Miami from New York, “How sweet it is!” Gleeson used to joke that once he lived a few years in Florida he could no longer stand the New York winters. His doctor told him it was due to his blood becoming thinner in the warmer climate. “Of all the places to lose weight,” he quipped. “It has to be my blood!”

I heard stories of four lane roads with strip malls, restaurants, gas stations, endless traffic lights, and congestion. A few years earlier I helped my nephew move into a new house in Valrico, which is east of Tampa. I saw a lot of those strip mined, strip malled, four lane highways. And there are Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. I remembered Walter Cronkite narrating the launches of the Atlas rockets to the moon. And, of course, Florida is Disney World.

What I found was an Other Florida. A few miles outside of the strip mall mycelia growing out from the big cities, there is a countryside every bit as lovely as the lonely lands of Connecticut. There are fields and farms. Cows and horse barns. Theaters and cultural centers. Bee hives-I liked that! Rivers, of course. Florida is one, big sand bar soaked in water. Rail road tracks labor under the weight of boxcars of freight. There are little towns and, yes, long county roads growing barnacles of shops, bars, and businesses in clumps. Dade City, about 15 miles north, is a lovely old Florida city. There is history here going back to the Spanish. And the Seminoles, of course.

Connecticut? Well, what about my home? I will always be a New Englander, New Englandman. New English? Culture is like salt, once it gets into the blood it never leaves. But part of one’s culture is criticizing one’s culture. I was getting tired of New England winters, which can be a dastardly drench of dismal. My house, my home into which I had invested decades of improvements, work shop, custom made cabinets and staircases. Maquettes of a compass rose and an actual rose in the oak floors in my office and living room. And the flooding basement. God, the mold in the basement was evolving opposable thumbs.

I lived in Eastern Connecticut. What is affectionately called the Other Connecticut. That’s the Connecticut east of the Connecticut River. Unlike the Connecticut Gold Coast that stretches from New Haven to Greenwich, where people like Paul Neuman, Mia Farrow, and Radar from M*A*S*H had lived. 

The Connecticut river runs from Quebec through New England and straight down the middle of Connecticut, except for the bottom bit where it suddenly turns to the southeast and drains into Long Island Sound around Old Saybrook, like an Egyptian mumification tool gouging out Southeast Connecticut’s brains.

Eastern Connecticut was the rural part, except for the Military Industrial cities of New London and Groton. I had worked in EB at one point for about 10 years. The Electric Boat Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, to be precise. Builders of the world’s finest submarines. Our boats are guaranteed to sink!

Everybody in eastern Connecticut worked, had worked, knew someone who worked or had worked, or was related to someone who worked or had worked at EB. Or all of the above. EB was in our blood like seawater. Norwich used to, note: Used to, be a great city. Putnam is an up and coming city with the Bradley Playhouse a pillar of culture. I volunteered there, too, for decades. 

There is some spark of the old New England gentile society still in place. A mark left on us by Mark Twain. The University of Connecticut is in the east part of Connecticut. I worked there for 25 years and loved being part of academia. At least as a technician in the Computer Center. I pushed the buttons and pulled the levers of Metropolis. Though the freshmen kept getting younger every year.

And that’s where I lived. In the northeastern part of Connecticut. The real back country. The Appalachia of New England. Really, there are some burned out factories to yesterglory. Capitalism comes in like the whirlwind and leaves like a defeated army. Thus had had the industrial revolution its way with us. 

The Other Connecticut is doubly blessed. We have all the benefits of high taxes and regulations from Hartford without any of the burden of public services, economics, and stuff. What’s not to like?

And then, with nostalgia, I moved to Florida.