{"id":3084,"date":"2007-02-03T22:22:12","date_gmt":"2007-02-03T22:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/best-article-ever.html"},"modified":"2007-02-03T22:22:12","modified_gmt":"2007-02-03T22:22:12","slug":"best-article-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/best-article-ever.html","title":{"rendered":"Best article ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, not really. <\/p>\n

But an article crying out to be written, and one that will be completely enjoyable to anyone with knowledge of the Sunshine State. The graphic tells the story:<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

(click for a larger version)<\/p>\n

The story:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

IT takes a big state to absorb the entire North every winter, but once again, Florida is pulling it off. From Miami to Pensacola, the cold-weather escapees have been filtering in, completing the midwinter migration to the Northerners’ land of dreams \u2014 or at least, the land of polo shirts and khaki shorts. And with more than 50,000 square miles of territory, Florida has plenty of room for all of them \u2014 sun-hungry retirees, peripatetic second-home owners and seasonal settlers \u2014 to spread out. <\/p>\n

So why don’t they? <\/p>\n

It’s not exactly regimentation, and there are plenty of exceptions to be found, but Florida’s winter arrivals clearly like to settle in clumps. Even in the sunny South, they seem to want to be among their own \u2014 occupying turf in the company of their clans, their neighbors, their golf buddies and, in general, people who share the cadences of their accents and the colors of their license plates. <\/p>\n

That’s why the Miami area is called the Sixth Borough \u2014 and why Palm Beach County voters lamenting the weaknesses of the butterfly ballot in 2000 so often sounded like Long Islanders. <\/p>\n

It’s why Memphis families returning from spring break will be walking around with white sand from the Panhandle city of Destin (not Fort Myers, certainly not Miami) between their toes. <\/p>\n

It’s the reason two newspapers in French, with a Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois tilt, are published in the Fort Lauderdale-area city of Hollywood and a big Quebec bank, Caisse populaire Desjardins, has started three branches nearby, complete with French-flashing A.T.M.’s. <\/p>\n

New Englanders settle around Sarasota, and Philadelphians camp out nearby in Clearwater. Minnesotans congregate on Sanibel Island; Ohioans on the Gulf Coast east of Panama City. Carolinians find their own in Daytona. <\/p>\n

In the beginning, all of this segmentation was a function of the Interstates. From the Midwest, the most direct route to Florida, I-75, goes to the West Coast. From the Northeast, I-95 follows the East Coast straight down to Miami. From Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, it’s a comfortable drive to the Panhandle. <\/p>\n

Now, of course, you can board a flight to just about anywhere in Florida. But Northerners cling to the old patterns anyway. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Oh, I remember when I went to Hollywood and was so struck by the  Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois presence – the menus, even the beachfront take-out places, all assuring nous parlons Francais – <\/em>  all also featured roasted chicken, which must have been something particularly appealing to the French Canadians. I went to Sanibel Island a few times (not as often as I would have liked) and remember being intrigued by the many ads in various tourist publications advertising direct flights to and fron Dusseldorf from the Fort Myers airport. <\/p>\n

I’m sure some of us will have some additions and disagreements, but this article gives a great overview – with a focus on the New York angle, of course, since it’s in the Times. <\/em><\/p>\n

And, I should add…you’ll find a lot of Michiganders around Lakeland, in Polk County, as well. Why? Ask a Tiger. <\/a>(I wonder if spring training locales had any historic tie to migratory patterns, as well. At this point, Lakeland is one of the very few spring training towns that still has its original team, and it’s been steady since the 30’s.)<\/p>\n

And yeah, the time and temperature clock said -5<\/span> when we drove to Mass this evening…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, not really. But an article crying out to be written, and one that will be completely enjoyable to anyone with knowledge of the Sunshine State. The graphic tells the story: (click for a larger version) The story: IT takes a big state to absorb the entire North every winter, but once again, Florida is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nBest article ever - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/best-article-ever.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Best article ever - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Well, not really. But an article crying out to be written, and one that will be completely enjoyable to anyone with knowledge of the Sunshine State. The graphic tells the story: (click for a larger version) The story: IT takes a big state to absorb the entire North every winter, but once again, Florida is…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/best-article-ever.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-02-03T22:22:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/images\/2007\/02\/03\/travel\/escapes\/02florida-map.600.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Best article ever - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/best-article-ever.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Best article ever - Via Media","og_description":"Well, not really. But an article crying out to be written, and one that will be completely enjoyable to anyone with knowledge of the Sunshine State. The graphic tells the story: (click for a larger version) The story: IT takes a big state to absorb the entire North every winter, but once again, Florida is…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/best-article-ever.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2007-02-03T22:22:12+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/images\/2007\/02\/03\/travel\/escapes\/02florida-map.600.jpg"}],"author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/best-article-ever.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/best-article-ever.html","name":"Best article ever - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/best-article-ever.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/best-article-ever.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/images\/2007\/02\/03\/travel\/escapes\/02florida-map.600.jpg","datePublished":"2007-02-03T22:22:12+00:00","dateModified":"2007-02-03T22:22:12+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/best-article-ever.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/best-article-ever.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/best-article-ever.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/images\/2007\/02\/03\/travel\/escapes\/02florida-map.600.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/images\/2007\/02\/03\/travel\/escapes\/02florida-map.600.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/best-article-ever.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Best article ever"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}