Candid Florida

This female urinal in the Dairy Queen off the Kings Highway exit of I-75 at Punta Gorda was quite the surprise when I happened across it earlier this year. This visit, I brought my camera with me.  It’s not meant to be functional … anymore … but it was when installed.

The “She-inal” was created by Kathy Kidder Jones, who founded a company in Pensacola in the early 1990s to create and market her patented invention, where women are supposed to use the hose to stand while relieving themselves. Her idea got enough traction that these contraptions ended up in quite a few Dairy Queens around the country, and a few other places as well.

This is the only one I’ve happened across, and it’s now a modern museum piece. No, it’s not in any of my guidebooks.

Take aim, ladies!

While I mourn the loss of the Suwannee River Diner in White Springs, I’m pleased to report that the Stormant family is still cooking up the same great country vittles we know and love down at Fat Belly’s, their restaurant on the south side of White Springs near the blinker to Big Shoals.

Barbecue is the mainstay here but they open early for breakfast – 5 AM – for folks headed out early to enjoy the outdoors, and make great pancakes, eggs, and grits. Stop by and fill yourself up!

Ponce de Leon, it seems, was a short fellow. Or so the folks who crafted the statues (or are they statuettes?) of him at Ponce de Leon Park would have us think.

Now we know people centuries ago were short. Just take a look at antique beds and pioneer cottages. I’d be hitting my head on the lintel every time I ducked through the door! I had that trouble in Nepal, in fact, in every cab, bus, and shop. And I’m only 5’5″. Still. Ponce de Leon Park is Punta Gorda’s secret beach. It’s where everyone goes to see the sunset, to walk the short boardwalk through the mangroves, and to do a little fishing. It’s the home of the Peace River Wildlife Center – where they rehab injured birds and mammals – and a frequent field trip destination for CHEC, for wading out into the harbor to scoop up tiny critters.

But then there are the Ponces. They’re everywhere you look! I counted three, maybe four. All adorably sized, for a would-be conqueror. In 1513, the famed conquistador landed on these shores looking, as one did in those days, for gold. While he didn’t take any home, when he returned in 1521 to establish a colony on this coast, he suffered a wound at the hands of the Calusa, who understandably didn’t like the Spanish Armada snooping around their cities in the mangrove islands. Ponce died far from home in Havana, Cuba, in 1522, from complications related to that injury. And we have these pint-sized Ponces to remind us of his footsteps here.

On my way home from Pensacola, I had to stop in Bagdad to visit Florida’s last real Stuckeys.  When I was a kid and my family did road trips to Florida down the East Coast every year, we’d always stop at Stuckeys.  The distinctive yellow-roofed shops were filled with treats, had clean restrooms, and often included a snack bar, in later years typically a Dairy Queen where I could indulge in my favorite, chili dog! I’d save my allowance so I could buy pralines, which at the time were 3 for $1.

Did you know that in the 1970s, Stuckeys had the first real email system for travelers? I still have the brochure. It was a computer where you could leave a message for a friend and they’d stop into any Stuckeys, type in their secret code, and get the message. But over the years, the interstates crowded out the US highways and Stuckeys vanished, converted into less-glamorous uses.  There are only two “real” Stuckeys left in Florida – I don’t count the Stuckeys name slapped on a gas station to sell candy to be the same – and of those two, the one that still shows the genuine hospitality, cleanliness, and friendly spirit I remember from the 1960s is the Stuckeys at the Bagdad / Milton exit along I-10. It’s loaded with goodies and nostalgia items, and has a Dairy Queen to boot.  Do stop in when you’re on a road trip!