Classic Passion: Origin
Copyright© 2026 by RedRambler
Chapter 2: Florida Welcome
June 14, 1962 - Florida Welcome Station
The Georgia-Florida state line appeared suddenly, announced by a large sign welcoming us to the Sunshine State. Grandpa, who’d taken over driving after my two-hour shift, pulled into the Florida Welcome Center without being asked. I suspected he needed a bathroom break as badly as I did.
“Fifteen minutes,” Grandma announced as we parked. “Not a second more.”
The welcome center was surprisingly nice, with clean lines and polished floors, and potted palms in the corners. People dressed in bright, flowered shirts milled around, collecting brochures and chatting with staff in matching polo shirts.
A smiling woman behind a counter offered small paper cups. “Fresh-squeezed orange juice, complimentary for our visitors!”
I’d had orange juice before, the frozen concentrate kind Grandma would mix with water, usually making it too watery to save money. This looked different, a vibrant sunset color with pulp floating in it.
I took a cup hesitantly and brought it to my lips. The first sip nearly stopped me in my tracks. It was like an explosion in my mouth, sweet and tangy and somehow bright, as if I were drinking liquid sunshine. I finished it in three gulps, looking longingly at the pitcher for more.
“May I have another, please?” I asked, remembering to make eye contact like Birdie had taught me.
The woman smiled. “Of course, honey. That’s what it’s here for.”
I savored the second cup more slowly, letting the flavor linger on my tongue. How had I never known orange juice could taste like this? It made me wonder what else I’d been missing.
While Grandpa visited the restroom, I wandered over to a rack of colorful brochures advertising beaches, theme parks, and something called Gatorland. I picked up several that caught my eye and grabbed a folded state map from a display labeled “FREE — PLEASE TAKE ONE.”
I was studying the map when Grandma’s voice cut through the pleasant background noise.
“Thomas! Put those back this instant!”
She marched toward me; her face pinched with fury. “We are not thieves! I raised you better than to steal!”
My face burned as other visitors turned to stare. “I didn’t...”
“Ma’am,” one of the center staff approached us, a young woman with a name tag reading ‘Debbie.’ “All of our materials are complimentary for visitors. The maps and brochures are free.”
Grandma’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing is free in this world.”
Debbie gestured to the display. “See? It says ‘Please Take One’ right there. We want you to have them.”
Grandma studied the sign as if it might be a clever forgery, then sniffed. “Well, they should make that clearer. Come along, Thomas.”
I clutched my treasures as we headed back to the car, carefully folding the map so I could follow our route. For the next hour, I traced our journey with my finger, matching road signs to their positions on the map. For the first time since leaving New York, I felt a small sense of control, knowing where we were, where we were going.
“Look at Silver Springs,” I said to no one in particular. “It says they have glass-bottom boats where you can see...
“We’re not here for foolishness,” Grandma cut me off. “This isn’t a vacation.”
I fell silent but kept following the map. When we passed signs for Gainesville, I noticed the University of Florida was marked nearby. The thought of Birdie hit me like a physical blow. Was her campus like this one, with its sprawling buildings and students lounging on green lawns? Was she making friends, sitting in cafés discussing books and ideas?
I pressed my forehead against the window, watching the university disappear behind us. The map in my hands suddenly seemed hollow. I could track every mile of our journey, but had no idea where I was really going.
Gainesville, Fl
The deeper we ventured into Florida, the more the landscape transformed. Endless pine forests gave way to something that made me sit up straighter in my seat.
“Orange groves,” I whispered, pressing my face against the window.
The trees stood in perfect rows like soldiers, their dark green leaves shining in the afternoon sun. Heavy with fruit, branches sagged under the weight of hundreds of bright orange globes. Some trees were so laden they needed wooden props to support their limbs.
“Don’t smudge the window,” Grandma snapped, but for once I barely heard her.
I’d never seen anything like this, acres and acres of oranges stretching to the horizon. The fresh juice at the welcome center suddenly made sense. No wonder it had tasted so different from Grandma’s watery concentrate.
“Do people pick all those by hand?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.
To my surprise, Grandpa spoke up from the driver’s seat. “Migrant workers, mostly. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. Hard work in the heat.”
Grandma shot him a look that silenced him immediately. But I kept watching, mesmerized by the geometric precision of the groves, occasionally spotting workers with long poles reaching up into the higher branches.
Beyond the orange groves, the landscape shifted again. The highway cut through vast flat expanses of open land, unlike anything I’d seen before.
“Are those ... cattle ranches?” I pressed my nose against the glass, forgetting Grandma’s warning about smudges.
Sprawling pastures stretched out on both sides of the road, dotted with dark shapes that had to be cattle. I’d always thought ranches only existed out west, Texas, Wyoming, places I’d seen in westerns at the theater with Grandpa when Grandma was at her church meetings.
“Of course, they’re cattle ranches,” Grandma said with that tone that made everything sound like a personal failing on my part. “Florida’s been raising cattle since before New York was anything but wilderness.”
I bit back a reply about how New York had been settled longer than Florida, remembering Birdie’s advice: “Sometimes winning means not playing the game at all.”
As we drew closer to the herds, I realized these weren’t the black and white Holsteins or the reddish-brown cattle I’d seen in upstate New York. These beasts looked prehistoric, massive, with pronounced humps on their shoulders and loose folds of skin hanging from their necks. Their horns curved upward like deadly weapons.
“What kind of cows are those?” I couldn’t help asking.
Grandpa cleared his throat. “Brahma cattle. They handle the heat better than regular cows. Originally from India.”
“They’re the same as any other cow,” Grandma cut in. “Just uglier.”
I watched the strange creatures grazing peacefully, wondering what other surprises Florida held. My answer came quickly as a large billboard appeared along the roadside: “SILVER SPRINGS - WORLD FAMOUS GLASS BOTTOM BOATS” with a picture of people looking down through the floor of a boat at fish swimming below.
“Can we...”
“No,” Grandma said before I could finish.
Another sign flashed by: “ROSS ALLEN REPTILE INSTITUTE - SEE THE SERPENTARIUM!” It showed a man wrestling what looked like an alligator.
“Did you see that?” I asked, unable to contain my excitement. “They have a place with snakes and alligators!”
“Disgusting,” Grandma muttered. “Just what you need, more dangerous influences.”
The billboards came faster now as we approached Ocala. One caught my eye that made me almost bounce in my seat: “SIX GUN TERRITORY - LIVE THE WILD WEST! GUNFIGHTS! SALOON SHOWS! TRAIN RIDES! Opening soon.”
The sign showed cowboys having a shootout in what looked like an old western town. I could almost hear the gunshots and feel the dust under my boots.
“Grandpa, did you see that? Six Gun Territory! It’s like a real western town.”
For a moment, something flickered across Grandpa’s gaunt face, interest, maybe even excitement. His long fingers tightened slightly on the steering wheel.
“Albert,” Grandma said sharply, and whatever had animated Grandpa’s features vanished instantly.
“Tourist traps,” he mumbled. “All of ‘em designed to separate fools from their money.”
I slumped back in my seat, watching as more attractions flashed by; Weeki Wachee Mermaids, Cypress Gardens, something called Gatorland. Each billboard was a doorway to adventure that was closing before I could even approach it.
“Why are there so many of these places?” I asked more of myself than anyone else.
“Because Florida’s built on taking advantage of northerners,” Grandma declared. “They put up these gaudy attractions to distract you while they sell swampland as prime real estate.”
I thought about the glass-bottom boats and how amazing it would be to see fish swimming below me, or watching cowboys have shootouts at Six Gun Territory. My hand slid to my pocket where I’d tucked the Florida map from the welcome center. Maybe I could find my own way back to these places someday.
The car began to slow as we approached another billboard, this one announcing “OCALA - HORSE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD.” Beyond it, I could see the outlines of a small city rising from the flat landscape.
“We’ll stop for gas in Ocala,” Grandpa announced, his first independent decision of the trip. “Then straight on to our new home.”
Lake Sebring
A sign announced we were entering Lake Sebring, our destination. The town appeared suddenly, a modest main street with low buildings painted in faded pastels. Palm trees lined the sidewalks, their fronds rustling in the afternoon breeze.
“There’s the high school,” Grandpa said, pointing to our right.
The building stopped my wandering thoughts in their tracks. Unlike the utilitarian brick boxes of New York schools, this one looked like it belonged in an old Spanish painting. Cream-colored stucco walls topped with red-tiled roofs surrounded a central courtyard. Arched walkways connected the buildings, and a bell tower rose from the center, topped with a weathered copper dome.
“Mission style,” I said, remembering a chapter from my art history textbook.
“What’s that?” Grandma asked, momentarily distracted from her complaints.
“The architecture. It’s called Mission style. Based on the old Spanish missions in California and the Southwest.”
For once, she didn’t belittle my knowledge. We drove past slowly, and I caught glimpses of students moving between buildings, wearing shorts, seemingly impervious to the scorching heat and humidity of a Florida summer. Must be summer school, I thought as a sign near the entrance read “Lake Sebring High School - Home of the Fighting Marlins.” I wondered what it would be like to attend a school where you didn’t need five layers just to walk between classes in winter.
Grandpa navigated to the real estate office, a small building with a cheerful blue awning on Main Street. While they went inside to collect our keys, I waited in the car, studying a folded brochure about the town that I’d picked up at the welcome center.
Founded in 1911 ... named after the lake ... citrus industry ... perfect climate year-round ... I read the promotional text without really absorbing it, my mind still on that beautiful school. Would I be going there, or to the strict Catholic school Father Donnelly had recommended?
Twenty minutes later, we were following the real estate agent’s car to our new home. We turned off Main Street into a neighborhood of modest houses shaded by massive oak trees draped with Spanish moss. The hanging tendrils swayed like ghosts in the afternoon light.
The agent, a woman with hair as stiff as her smile, pulled up in front of a single-story house and waited for us on the sidewalk.
“Here we are! Just as advertised,” she said, gesturing to the structure with an outstretched arm like a game show hostess.
The duplex stood apart from its neighbors, its style distinctly different from the ranch and Mediterranean houses surrounding it. Wide steps led to a covered front porch supported by tapered columns. The weathered-wood siding was painted a soft green, with white trim, and decorative brackets adorned the eaves.
“Craftsman style,” I said, recognizing it from a book Birdie had once shown me about American architecture.
“Aren’t you just full of information today?” Grandma muttered.
The agent unlocked both front doors and gave us a quick tour. The left side, which would be ours, was arranged like a shotgun house, rooms connected in a straight line from front to back. A modest living room opened directly into a bedroom, followed by a bathroom, another bedroom, and finally the kitchen at the rear.
“And this side could be rented out,” the agent explained, leading us through the right unit. It had a similar layout but with the kitchen between the bedrooms and a bathroom at the back.
Both sides had worn hardwood floors that creaked underfoot and plaster walls with hairline cracks spreading like spiderwebs from the corners. The windows were tall and let in streams of golden Florida light that illuminated dancing dust motes.
“It needs work,” Grandma declared, running her finger along a windowsill and inspecting the dust with disapproval.
“It has character,” I countered quietly, admiring the built-in bookcase in what would be the living room.
For a fleeting moment, I imagined filling those shelves with my books, making this unfamiliar place somewhat my own. I wondered which bedroom would be mine, and if I could see the Spanish moss from my window. Despite everything, a tiny spark of curiosity flickered inside me about this new chapter of my life.
House Cleaning
After the real estate agent handed over the keys and left with a final brittle smile, Grandma immediately began issuing orders.
“We need to clean this place properly before I set foot in it. Thomas, get back in the car.”
After unhooking the trailer, I got in the car and headed to a Publix on the outskirts of town, where Grandma loaded a cart with every cleaning product imaginable: pine-scented floor cleaner, ammonia, bleach, scrub brushes, rags, and a mop that looked like it might disintegrate after one use.
“You’re taking the bathroom,” she informed me as we checked out. “Be sure to use the bleach on those tiles. I won’t have mildew in my house.”
The next several hours blurred into a haze of chemical fumes and sweat. Florida’s humidity made cleaning feel like swimming through soup while scrubbing. I tackled the bathroom as ordered, scrubbing at decades of grime with a toothbrush where the tiles met the tub. The bleach burned my nostrils and made my eyes water.
Grandpa quietly worked on the windows, methodically spraying and wiping each pane until they gleamed. Grandma attacked the kitchen, muttering about “filthy people” and “disgraceful housekeeping” as she scoured every surface.
By mid-afternoon, my knees ached from kneeling on the hard tile floor, and my hands were red and raw despite the yellow rubber gloves that were too big for me. Just as I thought we might take a break, Grandma appeared in the bathroom doorway.
“Time to unload. The trailer isn’t going to empty itself.”
The U-Haul contained our lives compressed into a metal box: furniture from our New York house, boxes of clothing, kitchen items, and the few personal possessions we’d been allowed to keep. Grandpa and I formed a two-man assembly line, hauling items into the house while Grandma directed their placement.
“No, not there! The settee goes against that wall. The lamp table needs to be by the window. Thomas, be careful with that end table, it was my mother’s!”
I struggled under the weight of a dresser, sweat pouring down my face in rivulets. Birdie would have laughed at the absurdity of it all, me trying to navigate furniture through narrow doorways while Grandma rearranged everything three times.
“The lawn is your responsibility,” Grandma announced as we dragged in the last box. She gestured toward the overgrown yard, grass nearly reaching my knees in some spots. “You’ll need to take care of that tomorrow.”
I glanced around, searching for a lawnmower among our possessions. “Do we have a mower?”
“Don’t be impertinent. Figure it out.”
By evening, my muscles screamed in protest and my stomach growled with hunger. We ate cold sandwiches standing at the kitchen counter because Grandma hadn’t decided where the dining table should go.
The unpacking continued long after dark. I assembled my bed frame by the weak light of a table lamp, fingers fumbling with screws and bolts. Grandma insisted on unpacking her china and arranging it in the built-in cabinet, each piece wrapped in newspaper that crinkled in the quiet night.
“Thomas, help me with this bookcase. No, not there, over by the window. No, the other window!”
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