Date: December 14, 1992
Age: 14
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Remember the last chance?
Love, Dad
Remember the last chance?
Love, Dad
Today is the 16-year anniversary of Hurricane Andrew making landfall in Florida. Poor Florida, it's been getting wracked by Tropical Storm Fay as of late. I love this postcard, perhaps one of my favorite in the bunch, it's such a powerful image.
My parents and I were making routine trips to Florida in the late 80s/early 90s--we had a condo in Key Largo and headed there for many spring breaks, Thanksgiving holidays, and summers. Hurricane Andrew did serious damage to the places we frequented the most. My dad traveled down not long after the hurricane and he was awestruck by what he saw--he even said something about helping out the Red Cross working with refugees, or something to that effect--I can't really remember. But whatever he saw lit a Good Samaritan fire underneath him.
My first trip back to Florida was the following spring. There was still visible damage, and my beloved Monkey Jungle was shut down for awhile. The beautiful mangrove trees that lines the waterways and sounds leading to the Atlantic Ocean were stripped. The seafood shack/biker bar Alabama Jacks was in disarray. The town of Homestead was leveled.
Every hurricane season, my brothers and I get email reports from my dad, telling us the projected path of hurricanes, when he's putting his hurricane shutters on the house, the aftermath. He's a veritable storm tracker, and while I feel bad for him and the rest of Florida about the damage that always comes about every year, it's pretty funny that it's with this subject that he chooses to be the most conversational with us.
As for his reference to the Last Chance--the Last Chancer Saloon is a biker bar in Florida City, which is basically the southernmost stop for a beer on the Florida mainland before crossing over into the Keys. I'm not sure why he's mentioning it--probably because it was a neat landmark. It withstood Hurricane Andrew.
My parents and I were making routine trips to Florida in the late 80s/early 90s--we had a condo in Key Largo and headed there for many spring breaks, Thanksgiving holidays, and summers. Hurricane Andrew did serious damage to the places we frequented the most. My dad traveled down not long after the hurricane and he was awestruck by what he saw--he even said something about helping out the Red Cross working with refugees, or something to that effect--I can't really remember. But whatever he saw lit a Good Samaritan fire underneath him.
My first trip back to Florida was the following spring. There was still visible damage, and my beloved Monkey Jungle was shut down for awhile. The beautiful mangrove trees that lines the waterways and sounds leading to the Atlantic Ocean were stripped. The seafood shack/biker bar Alabama Jacks was in disarray. The town of Homestead was leveled.
Every hurricane season, my brothers and I get email reports from my dad, telling us the projected path of hurricanes, when he's putting his hurricane shutters on the house, the aftermath. He's a veritable storm tracker, and while I feel bad for him and the rest of Florida about the damage that always comes about every year, it's pretty funny that it's with this subject that he chooses to be the most conversational with us.
As for his reference to the Last Chance--the Last Chancer Saloon is a biker bar in Florida City, which is basically the southernmost stop for a beer on the Florida mainland before crossing over into the Keys. I'm not sure why he's mentioning it--probably because it was a neat landmark. It withstood Hurricane Andrew.
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this is an actual postcard??!! WOW, its magnificent! Definitely something worth having!!!
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