Florida got its name from an invading, European, Spanish dude looking for a fountain that would Botox his whole body. He never found it; heat, humidity, and bugs, those he found, oh, and flowers.
That’s what the word Florida means. “Wow, check out all the flowers and the Native Americans that are not European or Spanish hiding behind the flowers. Let’s get ‘em.”
Thus we learn that the first bad guys in the story of Florida were Spanish.
After that, no one came to Florida unless they were running away from still more Spanish people, followed by French people, and then the sons of English snobs and, eventually, Big Gov.
Florida became a kind of no man’s land guarded by bugs. No. Seriously. BUGS.
A couple of brave descendents of those first jerky Europeans, who owned or had stolen some cattle, tried to settle Florida. Mosquitoes killed them—the cows. True story, and not from biting them to death like you might think. Nope.
Early settlers who tried to rape and pillage Florida like the Spanish reported that there were so many mosquitoes that their cattle died—FROM SUFFICATION because of CLOUDS of bugs, actual CLOUDS. It’s true. The bugs, reproducing like rabbits in the heat and humidity, were so plentiful they flew up the invading cow’s noses and smothered them. Their owners turned around and went back to winter, spring, summer, and fall and started a war between the states.
Then the Timeshare vacation club was invented by the children of Europeans,, and a guy named Flagler built a railroad. This was after the mosquito cloud survivors had returned north and reported, “It’s a nice place to visit but you don’t want to live there.”
Then President Kennedy, the child of Irish white people, gave an awesome speech about kicking the Russians butts and racing them to the moon, so my father, a West Virginian child of white Irish people and a Black Foot Indian woman, moved to the Space Coast, after marrying my mother because her dad owned a bar that her family called “The Tavern.”
And I was born in Florida.
I believe in two seasons, hot and hotter.
I consider bug spray a gift from God.
I don’t drink water; I breathe it.
My muscles are wiry and strong, because the air in Florida is heavier than normal air.
My blood is thin.
When the space shuttle stopped flying, a little piece of me died.
Mosquitoes don’t bite me anymore. My blood is nasty. The word is out.
Sunshine can make me high.
The smell of rot and swamp brings me comfort.
Oh, and I LOVE flowers.
Linda (Child of Vikings and Black Foot Savages, so look out!) Zern
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