Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 8, 1991                   TAG: 9104080246
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A/9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FLORIDA

As well as I can remember, I've been to Florida twice in my life: once when I was 5 years old, and once a few years ago. I was somewhat older.

My first trip to Florida was, of course, a family vacation. We drove down in a station wagon and stayed, all five of us, in a two-room efficiency apartment at Daytona Beach. My brother was still in diapers, and Mama cooked all our meals on a tiny little stove tucked into an alcove.

I remember three other details distinctly: Mama made blue-and-white striped terry-cloth robes for each of us; we spent one afternoon in St. Augustine inspecting the oldest standing building in these United States; and I learned to swim in our motel's swimming pool. Ours was the consummate family vacation of the 1950s.

A couple of years ago, when next I visited Florida, I was tagging along to Sarasota on one of my husband's business trips. It was January, and we kept calling Floyd Citizens Telephone Cooperative's time-and-temperature line to congratulate ourselves on what we were missing at home.

"The time is 7:26," that nice man on the line would say, "and the temperature is 15 degrees." We'd roll around the hotel lobby laughing and slapping each other on our short-sleeve-clad shoulders.

While my husband attended his meetings, I strolled around the city. A great many elderly Yankees run "vintage clothes" shops in Sarasota. Most of their "vintage clothes" looked to me like the very things they would have worn in their cold, Yankee youths. Tweed jackets, cashmere sweaters with little mink collars, Argyle socks.

In these shops, I think I saw the truth behind all the cliches about Florida's Fountain of Youth. These aged Yankees seemed to be financing their sunny presents by selling off chunks of their pasts. I almost bought a pair of black-and-white saddle oxfords, the consummate '50s shoes.

Even though I've only been to Florida twice, I think about it a lot. Like a lot of English majors who first read Hemingway when they were too refined and randy for their own good, I've set a lot of fantasies in Key West. Most of these fantasies occur to me during ice storms or on evenings when I'm trying to keep the pipes from freezing.

Now that I've visited Sarasota, I also think about its Gulf Coast beach. The sand was as white and the water as blue as any depicted in touristy travel brochures. I didn't think their beach could be that beautiful. My husband and I waded in warm, calm water up to our knees and picked up whorled shells, still whole. It was the consummate romantic afternoon for a childless couple living through the decade of the '80s.

Good ol' Ponce de Leon. Whenever I get to thinking that I'm one-of-a-kind, alone in this world and totally misunderstood, I remind myself of Florida. It's a good place to go, in body or mind, when you need reminding that you're still among the masses.

\ Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.