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    Florida Escape
    Florida Escape
    Florida Escape
    Ebook57 pages45 minutes

    Florida Escape

    By Harry I. Heller

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    About this ebook

    In 1935, Harry I. Heller and two fellow adventurers headed to Florida hoping to discover an idyllic paradise. Instead, they found boggy wastelands, rats and mosquitoes, sticks of dynamite, black panthers, rushing rivers, and skunks.

    An explorer at heart, Harry had already spent one summer hitchhiking 12,000 miles across the United States, which he describes in his book titled Thumbs Up. Not to be daunted, he and his friends persisted in exploring their environs until they came upon an abandoned log cabin on a deserted beach. Here they recreated their fantasy of a tropical paradise.

    This exciting journey will appeal to fans of Florida history, travel memoirs, and true-life adventure.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrange Grove Press
    Release dateJun 7, 2016
    ISBN9780997003826
    Florida Escape

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      Book preview

      Florida Escape - Harry I. Heller

      Foreword

      In January of 1935, my father and two friends drove to South Florida in the hope of finding an idyllic campsite. Instead, they found boggy wastelands, rats and mosquitoes, sticks of dynamite, black panthers, and skunks. An adventurer at heart, Harry I. Heller had already spent one summer hitchhiking 12,000 miles across the United States. He wrote his adventures in a journal titled Thumbs Up. His death-defying experiences on that trip fascinated me, and I was sorry to turn the last page.

      When I came across this manuscript, fully typed with accompanying photos, I once again became absorbed in my father’s world. Being a Florida resident, I was intrigued by his description of an era before the state’s building booms created beachfront high-rises and crowded city landscapes. I edited his work, divided it into chapters, and polished it to the best of my ability. Finally, I am happy to share with you my father’s account of another journey to the past.

      Excerpts from this true-life adventure are included in my mystery novel titled Facials Can Be Fatal, #13 in the Bad Hair Day Mysteries. While many of the passages there are direct quotes, others are fictionalized versions suited to the story.

      Nancy J. Cohen

      NancyJCohen.com

      Chapter One—The Journey Begins

      My friend Murray and I vacationed in Miami during the winter of 1935. Thoroughly fed up with civilization, its artificialities and complications, we were bored with the monotony of our existence. An overpowering desire for a new environment and for the freedom of unconfined space, for adventure, swept over us. Both Murray and I had experienced these symptoms of wanderlust before, and we'd usually found a temporary cure by escaping to the simple life of the outdoors.

      It was at this propitious time that Lester appeared from the north in a dilapidated Ford piled high with camping equipment. We questioned his presence and discovered another restless soul willing to do anything and go anywhere within reason, as long as it was away from people and the hustle and bustle of modern life.

      Our tropical surroundings influenced our imaginations. We remembered stories we had read as children about South Sea Islands and Robinson Crusoe, and we pictured ourselves inhabiting a similar small island.

      Our dream showed us living in a hut constructed from palm thatch and sunbathing on a beach with no other humans in sight and only scattered clusters of palm trees for company. Being severed from worries, toil, and turmoil that defined civilization would prove an idyllic existence. Such were the fantasies that passed through our minds, and so tempting did they become that we decided to make them materialize. We agreed to find our tropical paradise among the Florida Keys.

      As the days passed, we accumulated our equipment. Finally one morning, we found ourselves on a ferry headed out to sea. The boat ride took us to the town of Key West, a place haunted by the ghosts of early settlers. We left the southernmost part of the United States and started on our northward journey in search of an island such as Robinson Crusoe might have inhabited.

      Driving north through the Florida Keys, we noted the few anemic-looking palms and coconut trees did not meet our expectations and dampened our enthusiasm. We spent an entire morning in a fruitless search for nonexistent beaches on low-lying and swampy islands, which were nothing but breeding places for mosquitoes and other insects.

      Another afternoon spent repeating this experience left us feeling that such a place as our imaginations had conjured was not to be found anywhere in the state of Florida. And so we discarded the thought of an island from our minds and considered instead a desolate and wild spot that might satisfy our taste in this regard.

      By this time, we were covered with dust. Perspiration dripped from us in streams, and we were weary and disgusted. We wanted to escape from the insects, the prickly heat, and

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