Our Happy Place

Growing up, my sister and I had a “Happy Place”: Grandma and Grandpa Ricketts’ trailer at The End of the Road in Anglers Paradise. Every Easter, our family took the 2 1/2 days drive from Charleston W.Va. to Bonita Springs Florida to get there.

The adventure always started with Dad packing the car, but “packing the car” doesn’t do the event justice. It was much more intense than just putting the suitcases in the trunk. It was the stand off between the US and the USSR during the Cuban Missle Crisis, it was Bobby Fischer concentrating on the chess board. It was a headline in the Charleston Gazette that read “DAD PACKS CAR PERFECTLY OR WE DON”T GO”.

It was the only time in my life I ever heard my Dad cursing. He never used anything stronger than a Damn! It was usually “Dern Ninny” or something of the sort, but said with the tone of voice that meant “Do you want to go to Florida? Then let me pack.”

It was a time way before Google Maps so Dad used a trip tik from the Auto Club to get us there. Every year. Even though we ususally took the same route. It was an easy flip map with the route highlighted. Mom held it, but there were some mild arguments along the way as to how she was reading it. I liked flipping the pages to see how many more to go.

We stayed in motels along the way. A once disappearing breed, that has made a comeback, motels were usually a single story with your own entrance.

There were few amenities: no business center, no gym, and no continental breakfast. If we were lucky, however, there was a pool. This was a huge plus, unless of course, it was too cold to use it.

It was in one of these motels in Padukah, Kentucky, where my sister and I found a note outside our door, in a spent firework casing. “I think you two sure are purdy”. We were probably 9 and 12 and should have been mortified but I took it as a compliment and held on to that hillbilly love note for a year to study it for clues. What if he was a cute 13 year old boy and maybe we belonged together but I would never know.? Or maybe one day, many years from now, we would randomly meet at a college mixer and he would say “I am the one who left you that note, and you are just as purdy today.”

My sister and I made mixed cassette tapes to listen to along the way. To this day, when I hear Elton John sing Philadelphia Freedom, I am sweating in the back of a beige volkswagon bug with my sister and our beagle Penny on the dividing line.

My sister, Missy and I always split the back seat. We each had a side and there was trouble if you crossed over the imaginary line. Tempers flared sometimes on these long hot drives, and boundaries were pushed. “She’s on my side!” Then Bogus Threats were made from the front seat, “We will turn this car around, I swear to you!” and we usually calmed down.

Penny rode part of the trip in the space behind the back seat that we called the well. It got hot in the well so she would jump over and sit with us in the back seat, which made it more crowded. No one wanted to ride in the well, but it seemed a logical fix to me that my sister should ride part of the way in the well and let Penny and I spread out for a bit. She has never been that gullible since. Ever.

Along the way there were billboards for such things as SEE ROCK CITY or WEEKI WACHEE MERMAIDS, CYPRESS GARDENS , SUNKEN GARDENS or the ever popular ALLIGATOR FARM. We had no interest in anything but getting to Grandmas. Mom and Dad even offered to stop at Disney World one year and we just moaned. Bonita Beach was our Disneyworld.

The Big milestones were crossing state lines: Welcome to “North Carolina, The Nation’s Most Military Friendly State”, now entering “South Carolina, Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places” Leaving Georgia “Ya’all come back now, ya hear?” . Leaving Georgia meant we were now in Florida! Near Orlando we could start smelling orange blossoms and see a palm tree or two and we knew we were close. Here and there were the small souvenier stands selling little shell people playing bongos, sand dollar necklaces, little glass bottles of sand, mother of pearl windchimes and little orange shaped bottles of orange blossom perfume.

Then finally, what seemed like a journey across the Great plains in a covered wagon, we were turning in to Angler’s Paradise Trailer Park. We made it!

It never changed much, the many years we visited. We passed the docks where the small fishing boats were kept and the fish gutted and cleaned, passsed the rows of well kept trailers surrounded by green lawns, palm trees, and gardenia bushes, passed what looked like a jungle on one side and the Imperial River on the other, to the driveway at Grandmas.

In our Happy Place we could chase Armadillos at night, and pet the barnacled backs of manatees in the river by day. I remember waking up so excited for the day because it could bring anything! And it always included the beach and the River and my Grandparents.

Grandpa had a little fishing boat named the Sari Du. We donned our padded orange

life vests nicknamed Mae Wests while Grandpa, bigger than life, like Ernest Hemmingway, deftly manuevered The Sari Du along The Imperial River through mangrove islands and back waters, amongst trees dripping with Spanish Moss, spotting turtles, and the occasional alligator.

He seemed to know everything about the ocean, including the names of every shell.

He taught me how to bait a hook, catch and clean a fish. Grandma bought us orange blossom perfume and made us sundaes with peppermint stick ice cream and hot fudge sauce. She made sure we wore sunblock and never let us go outside between the hours noon and two.

The trailer park was mostly Snow Birds, retired people who spent winters in Florida

and summers at the family home up north in Ohio or Michigan. They spent their days riding their 3 wheeled bikes around, chatting to each other about this that and the other thing. The ladies all wore sundresses, showing off those lovely grandma arms, and the men wore bermuda shorts, no shirts and either a fishing cap from Master Bait and Tackle or a panama hat.

We spent our mornings at the gulf, toes in the sand, or riding our floaties out to the sandbar with Dad. Afternoons were spent on the screen porch or watching The Guiding Light with Grandma. Evenings were out to fancy dinner or to Doc’s Beach house for clam strips and a sunset.

I have traveled the world and have fallen in love with many beautiful places, but to this day, none compare. It was a time in my life I will always cherish.

Two years ago, while visiting our parents in Estero Bay, Florida, my sister and I returned to our Happy Place. We turned off Bonita Beach Road onto Imperial and drove to the end.

The trailer park was no more. Someone bought the land to build condos but never did.

A fence surrounded the area but the small harbour and docks remained, and through the tall grass, we could see foundations of what once would have been a screened in porch or lanai. We could see the ghosts of the residents riding the 3 wheeled adult tricycles, walking up to get the mail in the communal mailbox, or bringing a boat in with a catch of the day.

The river looked the same, windng it’s way into the jungle, oblivious to the million dollar homes that had cropped up on the opposite side of the river.

In some ways, it was perfect. Maybe one day it would disappear into jungle again. More likely, it would become Imperial Manor, a subdivision of fancy vacation houses used by the wealthy once a year.

But for now, our memories were intact here at The End of The Road in our Happy Place.