Winter Paradise In The Sunshine

Sarasota must have been the charming center of a delightful landscape back when John Ringling built his house and mansion, Mrs. Potter Palmer came down from Chicago and built her mansion, and a man named Burns put up a number of cottages in charming little streets, all of which survive to this day.  As readers of the newspapers must know Florida has now surpassed New York State in the number of inhabitants.  The prevailing philosophy of the state is loathing of government control; everyone wants to have a gun on his or her person whether in the woods, in a restaurant, a church, a school or on the front seat of the pickup truck.  And this vehicle, thanks to another stand off with government, is not inspected, and is free to belch its fumes, as indeed most cars do.  Motorcycles are everywhere; you don't need to read bumper stickers to know this, the incredible noise proclaims it.  Motorcycle noise is to straight men what tights pants are to gays: it shows off their virility, or at least perceived.  To make the motorcycle all the more butch, some one of the governors awhile ago cancelled the law requiring cyclists to wear helmets.  Just another cross for the overburdened emergency rooms to bear, stretched as they are with a population underpaid and without health insurance.  But hey, there's always Siesta Key and Longboat Key, and various other ghettos, with populations so rich, in houses so large, that it is truly another universe.  The charm of old downtown Sarasota is being eroded by the mindless city permission to developers to build towers for the rich, here there and everywhere, springing up, grotesquely, incongruously looming over the charming real estate of yesteryear.  Pretty soon it will be like 72nd and Broadway where the monstrously large populations of all the towers Donald Trump was given permission to build along the West Side Highway flow into the miniscule IRT subway stop.  One wonders where the increased population will dine out; lines, reservation tension, frenzy to turn the tables over fast, ah, well, larger profits.  The somewhat quaint down town area is fenced in by a number of multi-lane--I would call them highways--avenues upon which ceaseless heavy traffic bumper to bumper flows at a ceaseless forty five miles per hour, the worst of them all being historic Tamiami Trail.  Woe to them that would cross these roads on foot, which I do daily to walk to my gym.  Turn right on red is the law down here, more freedom from government control, and no one looks up from their texting to consider objects in the pedestrian cross walks.  Knowing the statistics for pedestrian deaths in Florida, I have devised a maneuver of extreme caution, which I hope will see me through my remaining days.  I press the pedestrian walk light.  Do not move from the curb until it is clearly illuminated, then look to my left, wait until I have established eye contact with the driver waiting--and I use the word loosely--to turn right, then signaling with my arms by waving vigorously, I then step off the curb, and as I go along I keep close tabs on cars coming from the other direction and turning right into where I am walking and I keep an eye for maverick turns from any direction.  But if you come, don't miss the glistening white high rise condos facing the marina along Tamiami Trail studded with giant palm trees.  The bay glitters, the white gleams, the sky is blue, and in some funny way it looks exactly like the Boulevard des Anglais or whatever it is called in Nice.  Quelle beauté!