Open Writing

Route 17 in Florida stretches some 270 miles from Punta Gorda, on the south west coast, to the border with Georgia in the northeast. If you’ve never heard of it, don’t fret, you’re in good company. Most Floridians would have difficulty locating it without a map. It’s not a route you would follow if you needed to get somewhere in a hurry, and it certainly isn’t scenic. But if you were ever curious about the real Florida, away from its coasts, and the way it used to be pre-Disney, Route 17 has it all.

On its way north from Punta Gorda, the road passes through the sprawl of Orlando and Jacksonville, all but disappearing in the tangle of newer roads and major highways around those cities. But each time it seems to have been swallowed, it pops out at the opposite side and continues on its quiet way. Between the cities everyone is familiar with, it rambles through small towns and hamlets with more self-effacing names like Nocatee and Zolfo Springs, Meade, Windermere and Satsuma.

As you drive it, you know it’s an old road, for America that is. As it passes through each small town it invariably takes two or more 90 degree turns at intersections with a traffic light, a characteristic it shares with many English and European roads. No modern, self-respecting highway would tolerate this.

Rout 17 owes its existence to cattle ranching and the need to get the cattle to the railheads and processing plants. The ranches still border the road, and a single property may stretch for several miles. In these days of feedlots and cattle that are confined to an enclosed area, it’s a treat for the eye to see hundreds of Herefords and Friesians in a truly pastoral setting.

The land is flat, as is most of Florida, but the seemingly endless pastures are relieved by clumps of shade trees, which the cattle take full advantage of in the heat of the day. The shade trees are characterized by their mushroom shape. Cattle browsing on the lower leaves of the canopies during droughts have created the flat base of the trees’ canopies.

Many of the ranches are giving way to citrus groves, mostly orange trees, and these have granted a new lease of life to local towns through new jobs. The fruit from these groves is grown exclusively for juice, and the processing companies are spaced at intervals along the route, looking for all the world like chemical plants. Just about all the trucks on Route 17 are carrying either freshly harvested oranges or tanks of juice.

The dusty little towns and hamlets you pass through seem almost abandoned on a weekday. The older clapboard houses have sagging porches, peeling white paint and rusty tin roofs. Most of them don’t have even a room air conditioner, and probably no insulation either. The summer heat inside must be unbearable. A newly constructed building is a rare sight.

Though the residents aren’t in evidence, there are clues to who they are. Here a small bodega, there a stand with melons and 20 different kinds of hot peppers, offered for sale on the honor system. The residents are Mexican farm workers, most of whom came with the idea of staying only as long as it took to save a nest egg. But somehow the nest egg is always just out of reach, kept at bay by the rising cost of living and the needs of dependent relatives back home.

So here they remain, sometimes into a second or third generation. Mother and father are at work in the citrus groves or on the ranches; the children are in school. The old folk are doing what old folk do in hot climates, sitting still in the deep shade of their houses, under a ceiling fan that stirs the suffocatingly hot air. The ubiquitous, generic dog is the only living thing in sight, lying in the dirt hole it dug to keep cool.

Lest I give the impression that these places are faded examples of the glory that was yesterday, it’s likely they were never very different. Perhaps there was a little less clapboard showing through the flaking paint, and maybe the tin roofs were a little less rusty, but these are, and always have been, poor communities. It’s hard to keep up appearances when food and clothing absorb most of one’s income.

The one kept-up property all the towns have in common is a chapel, sometime no larger than the smallest house. A feature that all the chapels share is a signboard by the roadside. This is Jesus country, and God’s message is proclaimed on every board. “Repent ye sinners,” “Only the meek shall be saved,” “The end is nigh,” and on and on. If sheer repetition was all it took to scare up converts, Route 17 would be producing them by the truckload, and the tiny chapels would be bursting at the seams.

Not everything about Route 17 is poor, hot and dusty, nor is it all obscure. Many years ago, the original “snow bunnies” (those fortunate people from the American north who could winter in the south) created Winter Park, an area of many lakes, south west of Orlando. Winter Park today is a prosperous and thriving vacation spot, and a winter home to many people. And nearby is Cypress Gardens.

Most of us who are “of an age,” will recall seeing at the movies, either in a feature film or included in the main attraction, six or eight pretty girls in line abreast on water skis, performing a graceful display at high speed. The girls wore demure, one-piece bathing suits, and fixed, dazzling smiles. Their make up was as perfect as their permed hair and the execution of their routines. They always looked towards the camera, never where they were going.

If Cypress Gardens didn’t actually invent this attraction, it created a whole theme park around it. People flocked to see the performances and to walk the lakeside gardens with their dazzling displays of tropical flowers. Like many theme parks that didn’t change with the shifting tastes of their patrons, the Gardens gradually lost popularity, and the proximity of Disney World ultimately proved to be its nemesis. But after years of languishing under a succession of owners, a revamped Gardens is now making a comeback.

For years it has seemed that Route 17’s timelessness was unassailable, but as I drive it now I see signs that change is coming. Bypasses are being constructed around some of the small towns. Winding sections are being straightened and widened, and the maximum speed limit, which was 45mph for a good part of its length, is being increased to 65mph. The mega marketer, Walmart, is building a vast distribution center alongside one section.

As traffic flow improves, the availability of lower cost housing than can be found in Orlando, Jacksonville and Punta Gorda, will eventually give rise to commuter bedroom communities. Pretty soon, if you’re looking for redemption or some really hot peppers, you’ll have to take an off-ramp and stray off the straight and narrow.

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