Craig Pittman's Oh, Florida!: How America's Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country
by Philip Booth
Truth be told, if the subtitle of Craig Pittman’s entertaining, eminently well-researched, occasionally freaky, and often laugh-out-loud funny book were a thesis, it’s one that the author only partly proves. Should we call it a half truth, like the come-ons issued by developers during the Florida land boom of the 1920s who offered sun-baked acreage on the cheap, failing to mention that the actual lots were located in alligator-packed, mosquito-infested swampland?
The Sunshine State, as Pittman, a longtime reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, handily demonstrates, in a book crammed full of Florida history and pop culture, indeed is demonstrably weird. And its people apparently have been proud of that home-grown quality from the start: the state’s first flag, in 1845, featured the slogan “Let Us Alone,” as Pittman points out in the prologue. That combo, “beauty and the bizarro,” has bestowed on Florida a special status, at home and even abroad.
But there’s not exactly an ocean of evidence that the strange and wonderful, and sometimes strangely wonderful, goings-on in everyone’s favorite gun-shaped state have greatly influenced the rest of America. California and New York historically can stake a greater claim to significantly more impactful social and political movements.
Pittman, arranging his breezy, 300-page book topically, with chapters variously titled “Trading Gators for Beer,” “The Gunshine State” and “God’s Waiting Room,” shines a light deep into the bowels of a region marked by a history that has long fascinated residents as well as tourists; the latter come south for the sun and fun at the staggering rate of 100 million annually, as the author points out. Ever warmed to the comic fiction of Carl Hiassen, Dave Barry or Tim Dorsey? Pittman offers a veritable fun-filled Florida studies course on the real-life incidents that sparked storylines in novels by those authors, and others.
Florida-bred trends may not have changed the world. But plenty of famous, soon-to-be-famous, or simply notorious folks have nestled at least temporarily on the shores or in the interior of the state, an oddly shaped land mass stretching 800 miles from Key West on the Southern tip northwest to Pensacola in the panhandle. A few of those real-life characters, as discussed by Pittman: Muhammad Ali (Miami Beach), Anita Bryant (Miami), Jim Bakker (Clearwater Beach), Edna Buchanan (Miami), Jeb Bush (Coral Gables), Ray Charles (St. Augustine), Walt Disney (Orlando), Billy Graham (Tampa), Ernest Hemingway (Key West), John D. MacDonald (Sarasota), Bettie Page (Miami), Tom Petty (Gainesville), Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Cross Creek), Terri Schiavo (Clearwater), Donald Trump (Palm Beach), and Aileen Wuornos (Port Orange).
Still, it’s the lesser-known people, places, incidents and facts that make for some of the most fascinating reading in Oh, Florida! (St. Martin’s Press, 2017). In the tradition of the listicles, the quickly digested factoid features created by Al Neuharth, the colorful newspaper man who created USA Today after starting Cocoa Today (later Florida Today, where I worked as a reporter in the mid-‘80s), here are a few of the weirdest:
Blessed, or burdened, with seemingly endless months of tropical heat and humidity, mosquitoes, sinkholes, sharks, unrestrained development, overpopulation, crowded roadways, subpar public transportation, often dysfunctional state and local governments, and the annual threat of devastating hurricanes, Florida may well not be for everyone.
Longtime residents, though, have made peace with the place, a land of extreme beauty, savage nature, and straight-up weirdness. Pittman gets it, and explains it all with an infectious mix of affection, sarcasm, and sheer wonder.
The Sunshine State, as Pittman, a longtime reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, handily demonstrates, in a book crammed full of Florida history and pop culture, indeed is demonstrably weird. And its people apparently have been proud of that home-grown quality from the start: the state’s first flag, in 1845, featured the slogan “Let Us Alone,” as Pittman points out in the prologue. That combo, “beauty and the bizarro,” has bestowed on Florida a special status, at home and even abroad.
But there’s not exactly an ocean of evidence that the strange and wonderful, and sometimes strangely wonderful, goings-on in everyone’s favorite gun-shaped state have greatly influenced the rest of America. California and New York historically can stake a greater claim to significantly more impactful social and political movements.
Pittman, arranging his breezy, 300-page book topically, with chapters variously titled “Trading Gators for Beer,” “The Gunshine State” and “God’s Waiting Room,” shines a light deep into the bowels of a region marked by a history that has long fascinated residents as well as tourists; the latter come south for the sun and fun at the staggering rate of 100 million annually, as the author points out. Ever warmed to the comic fiction of Carl Hiassen, Dave Barry or Tim Dorsey? Pittman offers a veritable fun-filled Florida studies course on the real-life incidents that sparked storylines in novels by those authors, and others.
Florida-bred trends may not have changed the world. But plenty of famous, soon-to-be-famous, or simply notorious folks have nestled at least temporarily on the shores or in the interior of the state, an oddly shaped land mass stretching 800 miles from Key West on the Southern tip northwest to Pensacola in the panhandle. A few of those real-life characters, as discussed by Pittman: Muhammad Ali (Miami Beach), Anita Bryant (Miami), Jim Bakker (Clearwater Beach), Edna Buchanan (Miami), Jeb Bush (Coral Gables), Ray Charles (St. Augustine), Walt Disney (Orlando), Billy Graham (Tampa), Ernest Hemingway (Key West), John D. MacDonald (Sarasota), Bettie Page (Miami), Tom Petty (Gainesville), Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Cross Creek), Terri Schiavo (Clearwater), Donald Trump (Palm Beach), and Aileen Wuornos (Port Orange).
Still, it’s the lesser-known people, places, incidents and facts that make for some of the most fascinating reading in Oh, Florida! (St. Martin’s Press, 2017). In the tradition of the listicles, the quickly digested factoid features created by Al Neuharth, the colorful newspaper man who created USA Today after starting Cocoa Today (later Florida Today, where I worked as a reporter in the mid-‘80s), here are a few of the weirdest:
- A man choked to death while winning a roach-eating contest at a Deerfield Beach pet store.
- A rhesus macaque, an escapee from Silver River State Park near Silver Springs, dubbed the “Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay,” was finally caught after three years on the loose in the area.
- A Fort Pierce woman was arrested for driving around at night while wearing only her undies, explaining to a cop that “it’s real, real, real, real, real, real, real hot.”
- A woman visiting St. Petersburg Beach was charged with a misdemeanor for riding an endangered manatee after bystanders snapped cell phone pictures of the woman’s adventure.
- A Seffner man disappeared forever when he and the mattress he was sleeping on vanished into a sinkhole that suddenly opened up beneath his bedroom.
- The number of accidental shootings in Florida is twice the national average.
- Waldo, a tiny burg near Gainesville, for years required its police officers to meet a monthly quota for handing out speeding tickets.
- A Tampa woman working a bogus tax refund scam was caught after calling herself “the Queen of IRS Tax Fraud” on Facebook.
- A Port Richey man was arrested for the crime of attacking his girlfriend with a banana.
- A study showed that Florida, during the decade ending in 2010, boasted more total convictions (781) of officials and staff who broke federal corruption laws than any other state.
Blessed, or burdened, with seemingly endless months of tropical heat and humidity, mosquitoes, sinkholes, sharks, unrestrained development, overpopulation, crowded roadways, subpar public transportation, often dysfunctional state and local governments, and the annual threat of devastating hurricanes, Florida may well not be for everyone.
Longtime residents, though, have made peace with the place, a land of extreme beauty, savage nature, and straight-up weirdness. Pittman gets it, and explains it all with an infectious mix of affection, sarcasm, and sheer wonder.
