Floridians
pay very little attention to weather. A
Canadian friend came to Fort
Lauderdale for a visit in February. It was his first time in Florida. He was in his forties. I took the afternoon off to meet him for lunch. As we left the restaurant he exclaimed, “How
can you work when it is so beautiful?” His
question, and my answer, showed the vast difference between us. I work all the time. Unless there is a hurricane, the weather is
meaningless.
Almost
every day in February in
Fort
Lauderdale is perfect, January and March too. Sometimes it can get a little chilly, like a
cool Canadian Summer day. It’s rare to see
a Floridian in a swimming pool in January, but Canadians jump right
in. The January weather is perfect for
them.
Come July
and August, there is no better place than Canada because Canadians lap up
summer like a Labrador retriever drinks after a long game of Frisbee. A sunny day brings with it pure pleasure
pervading down
Front Street,
hovering over
Market Square,
spilling all the way to the lake. With
only a few short months of summer, maximum time is spent swimming, boating,
rowing, sailing, fishing, sun-tanning, wakeboarding, or for those who don’t
want to work so hard, tubing. Even the
dogs bound into the lake for refreshment.
Canadians summer at the lake where they sleep in a cottage, trailer or
tent. Everyone heeds the call of the
great outdoors.
Canadian
summer is celebrated in food. Berries of
all kinds are sold at the farmer’s markets and roadside. Butter drips down your chin while eating corn
on the cob. Children sport ice cream
mustaches. Dinner is frequently outside and
is barbecued, followed by fresh pie.
Children
watch with baited breath as the fair rolls into town, setting up its large,
fast, mechanical rides. When will it
open? Can we go? They want to spin like crazy, win a stuffed
toy and celebrate by eating fried delights.
One day I
was watching a parade down
Front
Street when I overheard one man tell another he
had been trying to contact him. He had
extra work. His friend responded he did
not want extra work. The weather was too
beautiful and he was spending time with his children. A Fort Lauderdalian would rarely admit taking
time from work to spend with children.
If we are not always working we must always appear to be working, to
maintain that competitive edge.
The
Canadian summer sun shines early in the morning urging everyone out of bed to
rejoice in this brilliant very short season.
It remains shining late into the night.
Canadian summer blossoms with new life everywhere, baby birds, bunnies,
deer and ducklings. If you live on the
lake the ducklings are counted and kept track of, to see how many the mother
was able to keep.
People move
to
Florida
for year-round summer, but after awhile it becomes blasé. Living in perpetual summer means you can
enjoy the weather whenever you want, and the result is you rarely enjoy it at
all. Its very sameness diminishes the
excitement.
There was an
arcade in
Belleville, Ontario that my daughter loved. An older lady worked there. One day she and I were talking. She told me that she could tell by my voice
that I was not from
Belleville. She didn’t ask where I was from, I don’t
think she cared. She proudly told me she
was a life long resident of
Belleville
where they had the best weather in the world.
Summers were beautiful and they had “just about the mildest winters in
Canada.” I don’t know enough about Canadian winters to
know if she was right, but she believed every word she said. I walked away from that conversation thinking
she was daft. I live in Fort Lauderdale
and she was telling me the best weather in the world was in Belleville,
Ontario! I thought she was so small
minded. I have grown to see the wisdom
in her words, particularly as they apply to summers.
