Tampa -- City of the Apes

You blew it up.  Ah, damn you.  God damn you all to hell.

These days I often feel like Charlton Heston in the movie "Planet of the Apes."  In particular it's the revelation at the end, where Heston's character realizes he's never left. Only, everything he's ever known about his world has been turned upside down.

I DID leave.  And that's a fact.  But I came back to Tampa.  I've been in Texas since 1989, and there's a standing joke that Texans inflict on outsiders.  If you're to be accepted at all, you say "I wasn't born here, but I got here as soon as I could."  That's about the only way a Texan would give you any credence.  I kind of feel that way about Florida.

On a particular day, at a particular time, I knew I belonged in Florida.  And I remember it like it was yesterday -- only it wasn't.  I was a man in my early 30s, I believe, when I was driving with the top down into the setting sun.  I was going over the hump on Gandy Bridge, with the radio blasting and the wind in my hair and face.  I was in my 1971 Olds Cutlass.

"Yeah!" I yelled, as my eyes scanned the horizon.  "I'm in Florida!  This is where everyone else wants to be."  And that feeling -- that feeling that Tampa was my home, where I was meant to be -- has never left me.

Back then, it was "Tampa town."  Traffic congestion was unheard of, unless one of the bridges across the Hillsborough River got stuck open.  People didn't actually live in St. Petersburg or Clearwater and go to work in Tampa, having to cross the bay via the Gandy or Howard-Frankland bridges, or the Courtney-Campbell Causeway.  No.  No way.  The three cities were all very well defined communities, each with a character all its own.

Today, we live in the Bay.  Quite literally, the marketing Gods would have the rest of the United States and world believe that residents live in a place called Tampa Bay.  Oh!  You mean "Tampa Bay area?"  Well then, why don't you say so?  Any map will clearly show you that Tampa Bay is a body of water, as is Hillsborough Bay, Old Tampa Bay and McKay Bay.

In this topsy-turvy world today, people young and old are fleeing Tampa to live in -- of all places -- St. Petersburg.  Hell, I wouldn't be caught dead living in St. Petersburg unless I was 65 or older.  At least, that's the way I saw it when I was young.  Clearwater was just a sleepy little town whose claim to fame was its fantastic beach.  Today, St. Petersburg's bayfront district is experiencing an incredible resurgence. Gone are the famous green bus benches and shuffleboard courts that catered to senior citizens.  Clearwater is so popular with the ultra rich that they've built walls of condominiums along the beach, screening off the Gulf waters from everyday people.  Why, even the Church of Scientology is in on the act, buying up as much downtown Clearwater property as possible to go along with its downtown world headquarters.

I live out in the country now.  Well, it used to be country.  Now there are thousands of home sites going in just north of us in what used to be pasture land.  Traffic is so bad on our east-west state road that we may have to drive back roads to a nearby intersection with a traffic light in order to be able to get onto or across the highway.  Developers are pushing elected officials to ignore planning efforts and law so that this rural area can be developed to the point where you can look in your neighbor's windows or stare at the three-story tower of town homes.

I grew up in South Tampa.  I could ride my bike down the middle of Howard Avenue, paved with Baltimore Block bricks, and never fear being hit by a car.  Today Howard Avenue is a parking lot.  In some places our wise city fathers have allowed apartments and condos to overshadow the street to the point that you feel you are in a canyon.

I was away from Florida for almost 30 years.  Each time I came back to visit I became more and more aware that "you can't go home again," as the novelist Thomas Wolfe noted.  Things change, and usually not for the better.  I'm certain young people today love Tampa Bay and all its bars, restaurants, malls and attractions.  But, if they could know what I know, see what I saw, and live the life I had back then, they would breathe a deep sigh, and dream of paradise lost.