thurdl's take on...

...St. Petersburg, Florida

This past week, I went back to St. Pete for the first time in several years. I think the last time I went there, I wanted to leave before New Years Eve, as I had plans with my girlfriend of the time. So yeah, it's been awhile. I was going there for a funeral. However, as I'd had, and acted on, the opportunity to say good-bye to my grandmother a little under a year ago, this wasn't so much an opportunity to say good-bye to her, as it was an opportunity to say good-bye to the city of St. Pete.

That's not to say I'm never going back. But I just don't know why or when. There's no real ties there anymore. I have relatives there, but none of a nature close enough to drop everything and go visit. I'd be more likely to head there if I was desperate to see a Devil Rays game, or if I get a chance to live my dream (or one of them, anyway) of doing an entire Spring Training with the Nats, as they'd have a few games in beautiful Al Lang Field.

St. Pete has changed in the time that I've known it. And thus, as the cliche goes, it has somehow remained very much the same. Two of the activities that my parents and I would always take part in while there (going to a St Pete Cards game, and visiting Sunken Gardens) are no longer possible. Many of the rest still exist. The Pier is still there, with the Columbia Restaurant, perhaps one of the finest Cuban/Spanish restaurants I know of. The Yacht Club is still there, and my great uncle is still a former Commodore of it, so we still get white glove treatment when we show up for a meal.

But St. Pete has decided that it needs to appeal to people slightly younger than retirement age. Thus has come about The Baywalk, a wonderful shopping destination witha few nice restauratns, some shops, and a beautiful Movico-run movie theater, where I went for my second viewing of Sith. However, the locals, the retirees, the older crowd, they hate it. Because it brings in the young crowd, with their hippity hop music, and their tendency to occasionally get into scuffles. The night before I arrived, there was apparently a knife fight at the Baywalk that started with an argument between two girls.

And the way the story is told is what makes me know that St. Pete hasn't really changed. Becasue, of course, it was two black girls. Which is made quite clear.

And the Yacht Club. Very much the southern institution, proper gentlemen having proper meals at a place that, until a half decade ago, still required ties for anyone over 18 who was eating there. Someone pointed out new members of the club. I'd never seen it before, but the club now had at the very least one black family who were now members. Or, as it was put, "see our new members? They've been out in the sun too long."

Now. I don't know. I realize that when I'm in St. Pete that I'm hanging around people of an age that these attitudes were, if not appropriate, were at least still quite common, quite the status quo. Still, it's quite a shock when this becomes quite apparent. I'm good about keeping my mouth shut, because these people are family, so I don't want to antagonize. Something my parents approve of (with my mom's side, I'm not allowed to talk politics, with my dad's, I just bite my tongue about stuff like this, and change subjects). I always feel just a little dirty about it, though.

The other problem is that St. Pete is quickly becoming too expensive to support itself. Having limited area to work with, what with being surrounded on three sides with water, there's no place to build out. And the underlying bedrock only supports so much building up. So what happens is that prices go up. And up. And up. Until there's now the big question about where the health care people will live. Where will the nurses afford homes to go to after a day of taking care of the eldery St. Pete population. Where will the waiters go, the waitresses, anyone in the service industry who cannot afford price tags that are just soaring. It's becoming too affluent for its own good. Eventually this will all crumble in on itself, and St. Pete will find itself full of people who need services, and devoid of people to perform these services, something that worries quite a few residents. But not nearly enough of them, as is evidenced by nothing happening to correct the problem.

And so it is that I flew out of Tampa on Wednesday, unsure if I would ever return, or under what circumstances I would if I did. St. Pete. I will miss your food. I will not miss your weather. I wish you luck.

posted by thurdl @ 11:52:00 AM