Monday, May 22, 2023

Not Facing the Past

The City of Tampa and my time there as a kid has been of real interest to me these past 15 years or so. Every so often I do a little more digging and finally, I am beginning to fill out the moments of note with some authentic background information. I have a short story about Tampa I have been picking away at for over a decade. To say it is like pulling teeth, well...........

When my family settled on San Rafael Street, our house looked nothing like the image to the left. There was no garage. The house was brand new and sat on a slab. It was surrounded by a newly sodded lot and barren of any other growth. The sod was still squishy and you could see the lines of the rolled out sections. 

Across the canal behind the house, was where Nature began. Mangrove swamps along the shore of Tampa bay gave way to palmetto and Spanish moss infused pucker, finally transitioning deeper inland to a landscape of pine trees and savanna. No houses or anything man made except roads all the way to the new Dale Mabry Elementary School and the ball fields around it. 

It should have been heaven for a young boy. It was for awhile, but then it wasn't. My parents having issues combined with several very ugly and traumatic moments in my young life made me grateful to see Tampa in the rear view in late Summer of 1963 when we moved to Tallahassee.

I sat down here today to write about my time in Tampa as a kid. I told myself, after so many years of denial and anguish, I would write an honest account of my time there. But today is not to be that day. I will once again do what I so often do, kick that can down the road some more. 

So, we'll just call this post a record of what I have found researching Tampa again and be happy I have some more filler for that part of my life story. 

Today, I have once again failed to face my past.

Later ....................................

_________________________

Today I found another tune by Disturbed that runs counter to their normal style. Here is "Hold onto Memories". .......... Awesome tune.


1 comment:

yellowdoggranny said...

I know about those traumatic life experiences, and I had to step out in front of them and just got them out there. remember 1974?