Florida and California have been rivals for generations. Warm beaches, spring break, Disneyland vs. Disney World, retirement communities, oranges, avocados, etc. However, for me, there is no contest. The quality of life in Florida cannot compete with California.
Earthquakes vs. Hurricanes. People in Florida often say that they would never live in California because we have earthquakes. Well, we do have earthquakes in California, but over the past 100 years, fewer than 500 people have been killed in all California earthquakes combined. By contrast, in Florida over the past 100 years, more than 10,000 people have been killed by hurricanes and tropical cyclones. We don’t have them in California. We also don’t have alligators.
Alligators. There are over 1 million alligators in Florida. Yes! 1 million. Alligators are in every lake and river in Florida. People in Florida find alligators under their cars and in the crawl spaces under their homes, in playgrounds, and in their swimming pools. Below is a photo of a lake in Florida at sunset. Each pair of lights is sunlight reflecting off the eyes of an alligator. Of course, these are just the alligators on the surface.
Florida vs. Communism. Southern politicians sometimes talk about public school teachers as though they are trying to turn their kids into Communists. They are especially suspicious of American history teachers – like me. Many Southern politicians sound like they have still not accepted that both the Civil War and the Cold War are over, but Florida tops the list. Florida still requires high school students to take a course on the evils of Communism in order to graduate. (No. I am not making this up!) I know a Cal student from Boca Raton who had to watch movies in class in which they showed Fidel Castro delivering anti-American speeches and people being shot trying to get over the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall was demolished almost 30 years ago. This guy said that he had to watch the movie ‘I Married a Communist’, made in 1949, and write a report on it. If you want to see this movie, I can lend you a copy on DVD. Like many other movies made during the Cold War, the Communists in this movie are acting more like Mafia dons than Russian spies. The Reds make money by blackmailing people and employ hit men to murder the disloyal.
Florida’s war on Communism is not fading away. In May 2022; Governor DeSantis signed a new law declaring November 7 “Victims of Communism Day.” On November 7 of every year, public school students in Florida will spend the day studying the evils of Communism. At the signing of the new law, DeSantis said that this is a “blockbuster day for freedom.” Florida politicians sound like they are in a time warp about Communism.
Duck and Cover. My elementary school didn’t have anti-Communism classes, but we did have atomic bombing drills. When the a-bomb siren went off, we had to go into the hall and squat down against a wall. That’s what Bert, the Defense Department’s cartoon turtle, told us to do in the ‘Duck and Cover’ movies that we watched in class. Bert told us that we that we can all survive an atomic bomb blast if we duck and cover when the bomb goes off. The government stopped making these movies because of criticism that they were promoting a hoax. You can’t actually survive a nuclear bomb blast by falling on the ground and pulling a tablecloth over your head, which is the sort of thing these films told us to do. Here is one of them: Duck and Cover.
