I Live Here

From mobile homes and minimansions to moss-covered oaks and orange trees, every day holds something new.

By MARIE RODGERS
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 28, 2003

If variety is the spice of life, then the greater Brandon area is a very savory place indeed. The place I call home changes from moment to moment, day to day, mile to mile.

A 5-mile jog takes me past yards where attention-grabbing azaleas share space with conifers, palms and night-blooming cacti. Moss bearded oaks, carved into macabre shapes to accommodate power lines, stand guard along black tar pathways that wind past berry fields and orange groves.

Subdivisions full of minimansions cohabitate peacefully with dingy mobile home parks along the same stretch of road. Farther down the route, orange trees have been unceremoniously uprooted, their tentacle-like roots frozen in a final helpless wave.

Roadside produce stands hawk fresh fruit and veggies and hot boiled peanuts, too. Nearby, weathered farm sheds stand, weak and vulnerable, next to massive machines building new dwellings for future residents. Here and there, creamsicle-striped barricades dot the landscape, heralding even more change.

While northerners shiver and gaze at bare-limbed birches dusted by yet another late-winter snowstorm, orange trees, flocked with tiny white blossoms, sweeten our air with their intoxicating perfume.

As months go by, blinding sun and plant-parching drought trade places with spellbinding thunder and lightning, tree-bending winds and torrential rain. Midwinter mercury dips turn strawberry fields into crystal fairylands and cause bizarre, sheet-swathed lumps to appear on neighbors' lawns.

Each day brings an ever-changing cacophony of bird song, mixed with dog barks, squirrel chatter, children's shouts and traffic rumblings. Amid the din, certain sounds stand out. Train whistles. Church bells. School buses.

Good-byes -- perhaps more frequent because of the many military families that call our area home for just a few years. Hellos -- maybe warmer here because so many of us are from "someplace else."

An ever-increasing variety of malls, boutiques, sports complexes and parks, along with a dizzying array of religious institutions, entice residents to spend leisure time shopping, playing and praying.

Citizens fill school boundary meetings, engage in lively debates about School Board candidates and pepper their lawns with campaign signs -- all testimonies to the community's vitality. That's why I live here.

Every mile, every day, every moment holds the promise of something new.

-- Marie Rodgers lives on Diehl Drive in Valrico.