A Florida Winter Daze

Posted by: on Jan 25, 2019 | No Comments

A Florida Winter Daze

This past Monday, I was in Florida visiting my dad. At home in New Jersey, the morning temperatures hovered in the single digits. In Florida, the low reached 45 with a bit of breeze but if you saw the way folks were dressed, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between NJ and Florida.

When I’m visiting the shtetl (that’s Yiddish for a Jewish village for those of you not of the tribe), my daily routine usual includes a long walk. Not much traffic inside the gates of Hunters Run…but I admit to having a few close run-ins with some senior citizens in their golf carts. Honestly, those folks scare the crap out of me sometimes.

By the time I got out for my walk, the temperature had crept into the low 50s. On this particular morning, I was wearing sweatpants, t-shirt and a lightweight long sleeve golf shirt. As for most of the residents I encountered, it was gloves, wool hats and down parkas! And no…I’m not kidding.

It was a bit chilly (especially when you are not used to a slight chill) but you should have seen some of these folks. You would have thought we were in Siberia. Meanwhile I’m working up a sweat and had to remove my long sleeve top about half-way through my 3 mile walk.

Maybe the folks dressed for winter were looking at me with same crazed expression I had looking at them…only in reverse. Maybe they were thinking that guy is going to catch his death of cold. Or maybe they were just thinking it must be nice to be young enough to dress like that when it’s so cold outside. At least that’s what I hope they were thinking because some day, when it’s 50 degrees outside, maybe I’ll be in the guy in the gloves, hat and down parka. For now, I’ll keep wearing my t-shirt for as long as I can, especially on a Florida winter daze.