Manaloosa Memories

I hope you enjoy your stay. Manaloosa is the source of a variety of amazing and amusing stories like those you'll read here. In fact, the entire Sunshine State is home to countless natural and manmade wonders. We have a host of sinkholes, retirement communities and lots of sand and water. Yes, manatees and dolphins abound. But it's the humans that remain wild and unprotected. Florida dangles enticingly from the east coast of the United States, exposed to water on three sides and suspiciously close to the Bermuda Triangle. The income gap between inland residents and shore-dwelling "Snowbirds" no doubt contributes to some interesting behavior. So grab your sunscreen, a comfy lounge chair and a cool drink. It gets hot down here.

The  Manaloosa Shade  hangs on by the barest of threads thanks to a subscriber base in which a spring chicken is a reader under the age of eighty-two. The old timers hang onto their traditions. Newspapers, landlines and boxy old cathode ray televisions provide a connection to the familiar past that a wireless or streaming device cannot. They love the thwock of a paper publication, twice wrapped in plastic, skidding across the driveway in the dark of morning. Its magical delivery at some unknown time before sunup is somehow satisfying. It means that some hard working youngster is kickstarting the day with a dose of good old-fashioned work ethic.  Out to retrieve the paper in slippers and a housecoat goes Mrs. Parker, shuffling down toward the street in the humid Manaloosa air, gun in hand in case of panthers, alligators or bears. None of these creatures has ever been seen in her neighborhood, but she knows better than to let down her guard. And Democrats might be lurking i...