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Posted on 09/17/2001 1:05:37 PM PDT by Herbivore
If there's a story with unsavory characters, chances are it will have a Florida connection.
So it didn't come as a great surprise that soon after Tuesday's suicide jetliner attacks in New York and near Washington investigators began scouring Florida, which was full of fresh tracks left by the terrorists. I've come to believe that no matter where in the country things happen, you can scratch the surface a bit, and like magic, Florida comes festering to the top.
From earth-shaking conspiracies to the works of petty scoundrels. From murderers to swindlers. And sometimes just as a haven for those getting away from the bright light of notoriety.
Florida, which is both a gateway and an end of the road, is a magnet for it all.
The Watergate investigation led to a band of burglars from Miami. Fallen televangelist Jim Bakker might have set up shop in South Carolina, but his carnal unraveling with church secretary Jessica Hahn happened at a cheap motel in Clearwater. (Bakker has since remarried and begun plans to start a religious retreat for kids - in the Florida Panhandle.)
The murder of O.J. Simpson's wife appeared, at first, to be a tawdry story without a Florida taint: And then O.J. moved to Miami.
Let's face it: Florida is the perfect place to either plan, carry out or survive the aftermath of a smorgasbord of unpleasantries - everything from the grotesquely barbaric to the mildly embarrassing.
Crack-snorting Washington Mayor Marion Barry dried out in West Palm Beach. Iran-Contra document shredder Fawn Hall began putting her life back together while working at a bookstore in Palm Beach Gardens. And Pete Rose chose to live out his exile from Major League Baseball in Boca Raton.
The two biggest national events of last year - the November presidential election and the fate of Elian Gonzalez - played out on Florida's streets.
Affordable training for terrorists
And during the past five days, news reporters and FBI agents have begun searching for clues about the travels of Tuesday's airline terrorists, who left a trail that is beginning to look more like a travel guide to the Sunshine State.
FBI agents began loading up evidence in Venice, Coral Springs, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Lantana, Palm Beach, Vero Beach and Daytona Beach.
By Friday, the FBI released the names and probable last addresses of the terrorists, and as many as nine of them were in Delray Beach.
The terrorists had apparently lived in Florida, learned to fly here and carried on in bars here, engaging in all sorts of activities not normally associated with their Muslim religion, everything from running up four-figure bar tabs to paying strippers for lap dances.
Once again, it's not surprising. Florida's a great place to misbehave. Or to reinvent yourself.
If you want to be invisible for a while, and you think of America as a country with four corners, Florida is an alluring choice. The Pacific Northwest is wet. The Northeast is cold. Southern California has better weather, but it costs a fortune.
Florida is warm in the winter, relatively inexpensive without winter clothing and a state income tax, and diverse enough in its population to accommodate just about anybody, no questions asked.
Florida is, in some respects, a state of transients, where people often know next to nothing about their neighbors and where people who come and go are just part of the landscape. And in many parts of the state, English is optional.
All in all, it makes for an attractive place to either retire, raise a family on a budget or plot the overthrow of Western Civilization.
Only Florida-licensed bondsmen, many of who are aging or aged, are allowed to effect the apprehension of skips who end up in their state. And Florida-based bounty hunters, who are relatively few in number, must operate alongside of said Florida bondsmen.
Indeed, an out-of-state recovery agent can be arrested for even identifying himself as such.
The real Florida still lives North of Orlando.
When I read or hear of some event which took place in Miami, it is as distant and foreign to me as if it happened in London or Los Angeles. Pensacola and Miami are not only different in morality and lifestyle, they are as far apart by land as Chicago is from New York.
They are even farther apart in politics than they are in distance.
Anything or anybody can show up here these days and nobody will notice. There is no "norm."
As for cutting off below Orlando, what about Okeechobee, LaBelle, Holopaw, Arcadia, and a whole bunch of others.. REAL Florida. It's the crust on the edges that needs scraped. The middle of the pie is just fine.
I'm a 5th generation Cracker, and I sure aint no part of Georgia. Son, that's blasphemy!
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