The Houses:  L-R rear   Chris, Jodi, Kara, Dennis  L-R front Tommy, Matt, Julian and Helena

I’m back from a week in South Florida visiting my brother, sister-in-law, and their children.  They moved to Naples in December,  having had enough of  New England winters.     They are not alone.  We saw plenty of license plates from cold climate states, with Michigan taking the prize as the license plate we saw the most. 

We also visited Fort Lauderdale, where I went to Spring Break with my college buddies in the 1980s and lived briefly for a winter after college.   The old Spring Break haunts like Penrod’s and the Button are gone, along with the cheap oceanfront motels that lined the strip, including the one where we crammed nine people into one room   It was crowded, but the price was right.  Fort Lauderdale has since gone upscale, building luxury hotels and high rise condominiums.  The spring breakers have moved on to other locales.

We drove by my old apartment which is slated for the wrecking ball along with the neighboring Howard Johnson’s hotel that Kara visited during a vacation 20 odd years ago.  Truth be told, I kind of miss the old Fort Lauderdale. 

the old pad surrounded by chain link fence, overgrown trees,  and “keep out” signs