The Guide

10 THE GUIDE Thursday, August 3, 1961

South Miami Roundup with Ed Knight

MADEIRA BEACH, St. Petersburg — Time, that great judge of men, is tugging at both ends of our vacation this week here in this beautiful city jutting out like a thumb into Tampa Bay on Florida's west coast. ON ONE HAND, time always travels faster on a vacation. It speeds by like the cool breeze drifting in from the Gulf of Mexico and onto the cool white sands. It races by like the out-of-state cars that passed us on the Tamiami Trail, that highway that connects Miami with the west coast. BUT YET, in another way time has been good to us here. We have found that the people, the vacationers and permanent residents alike, have slowed down time. The pace is slower here. And the people are less easily aroused. We are following suit. NOTHING IS MORE exciting than the early morning on the day one leaves on a trip. For us, it was about 6 a.m. With the station wagon loaded with suitcases, fishing equipment and hangers full of clothes, we backed out of the driveway, turned west toward the Everglades and we were on our way. FROM MIAMI to Naples, the first city on the trip, is 110 miles of nothing but sawgrass, Palmettos and water. They call it the River of Grass. And they are right. It's a lonely drive. But a delightful one. There is little traffic. THE SUN IS behind you and the Everglades birds swoop down in front of the car as if they were going to sail through the windshield. You test the car and find it is holding the road easily at 60 mph. And you are already beginning to relax. TWO HOURS later we pulled into Naples, one of the prettiest and best-planned cities in the state. The townspeople are just beginning to stir. And almost half of our journey is over. We drove through Naples to the Gulf of Mexico, where the waves were rolling onto the beach. WE THREW shells into the surf and then aimed the car up the west coast. The next city is Ft. Myers, a lazy kind of town where Thomas Edison had his winter home. This seems to be the big tourist attraction, aside from the millions of shells on Sanibel Island near there. PUNTA GORDA is the next little town. It's called the home of the Silver Tarpon, one of the fightingest fish in the state. Like all of these west coast cities, Punta Gorda has also grown. It now has several nice restaurants that abound with tourists. It's also near several huge retirement villages that beckon to the elderly. VENICE COMES next followed by Sarasota, another of the most attractive cities in the state. This is the winter headquarters for Ringling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey circus and the year-round site of the Ringling Art Museum. It's nestled on Sarasota Bay opposite the Gulf Beaches that serve the area. FROM SARASOTA through Bradenton and Palmetto there are almost continuous buildings where once there was wide expanses. It's difficult, except for the city limit signs to tell where one city stops and the other city begins. FROM PALMETTO, the only means across Tampa Bay to St. Petersburg is the Sunshine State Skyway, a causeway-bridge that has made the St. Petersburg-Sarasota area nearly one continuous line of buildings. PRIOR TO 10 years ago, the only way across Tampa Bay was by ferry boat, a quaint little operation that thrilled tourists whose only previous boat ride had been a rowboat outing in New York's Central Park. TRAVELING ACROSS the Skyway, the view of the area is breathtakingly beautiful. One can see from one end of the bay to the other, across the bay and far out into the Gulf. Cars travel up a steep incline to the top of the bridge and then speed down the other side, which is St. Petersburg. HERE AT OUR cottage, the question most often asked of us by our neighbors is, "Why is a family from Miami on St. Petersburg Beach for a vacation?" The answer is simple and twofold. We wanted a change and there aren't many beaches left in Miami — at least not with reasonable cottages and as wonderful a beach for rent for a week. COMPARISONS with Miami — To show how less expensive living is here, haircuts at Webb's City are 65 cents all the time. King-size cigarettes are 23 cents a package —all the time... the streets are wider and traffic less congested... the west coast beach areas are having a big summer season. MORE COMPARISONS — Most out-of-state license plates are from Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and the southern states... In Miami, most out-of-state cars are from the east coast states, mainly New York... cafeterias get as much or more of the eating business here as do restaurants... the Miami newspapers are better than the St. Petersburg papers... On the beaches here, the accent is on cottages and small motels... There may be a lot of elderly people in St. Petersburg, but there are few on the beach.

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In just a few short weeks those precious hard-living little cotton-pickers of yours will be headed back to school. This means new shirts, new socks, new pants, new dresses, new shoes for them and an urgent need for lots of money for you. A painless way to raise ready cash is to run a one dollar classified ad in The Guide; offering for sale your unused appliances, furniture, clothing, piano, carpet or sewing machine. If you need money, call HI 3-1661 and the adtaker will fix you up!

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