I spent last Thursday in Aripeka with a friend. Aripeka is a very small community about 1 ½ hours north of Indian Rocks Beach where time has not managed to change much of anything in the last 70 or more years. There is Norfleet’s store and a post office, an overgrown, defunct, rustic fish camp where Babe Ruth is purported to have visited, grass flats, cabbage palms, fisherman, and a rare excellent breed of Florida natives who regularly gather along the sides of the bridge that spans a watery outlet leading to the Gulf and share a certain camaraderie that isn't seen much today in newer subdivisions. 
I have inherited 1/7 of a 1.6 acre homestead on the Gulf of Mexico that belonged to my Uncle who died a couple of years ago. We seven love the little place, its’ history and its’ remoteness, but we do not have the desire to live there, requiring, I suppose, closer proximity to modern amenities and modern entertainment.
Aripeka is the sort of place that a tourist could drive through and not know they had been there. There are homes tucked away on little side streets that are not seen from Osowaw Boulevard, the main and only street that runs though Aripeka, no traffic lights, no stop signs.
In recent years, a couple of large homes have been built which don’t seem to belong. I can only imagine that the owners have little appreciation of Aripeka, itself, but instead relish in their location overlooking the Gulf. Aripeka is a Wabi Sabi sort of place. To appreciate it, one must be able to appreciate authenticity, the rustic, the old, weathered wood, chipping paint, tattered clothes, nesting cormorants, red sunsets, changing tides, simple pleasures and modest beauty that waits to be discovered.
Donna and I walked along the crumbling seawall and blossoming orange trees that lined the western edge of Uncle Sy's property. We imagined what was and what could be. For the moment, we were grateful to be in such a place.
Afterward we went to Hudson Beach and had lunch sitting at a sunny table overlooking the clear Gulf waters while sipping beer and eating fried fish. We drove home slowly, because once you turn off Osowaw Boulevard onto US 19, the route doesn’t allow for more than a view of heavy traffic that paces itself at every stoplight. At about 4:00 PM we pulled off Alternate 19 at a vintage wayside stand in Palm Harbor, which has been operating since 1952, and where they serve chocolate vanilla twist soft ice cream in sugar cones. Back in Ohio, growing up, Donna and I would have called it a frozen custard stand. Kind of like a Dairy Queen, only more Wabi Sabi.
Just I and my friend, we Thursday spent till the end of the day.
I have inherited 1/7 of a 1.6 acre homestead on the Gulf of Mexico that belonged to my Uncle who died a couple of years ago. We seven love the little place, its’ history and its’ remoteness, but we do not have the desire to live there, requiring, I suppose, closer proximity to modern amenities and modern entertainment.
Aripeka is the sort of place that a tourist could drive through and not know they had been there. There are homes tucked away on little side streets that are not seen from Osowaw Boulevard, the main and only street that runs though Aripeka, no traffic lights, no stop signs.
In recent years, a couple of large homes have been built which don’t seem to belong. I can only imagine that the owners have little appreciation of Aripeka, itself, but instead relish in their location overlooking the Gulf. Aripeka is a Wabi Sabi sort of place. To appreciate it, one must be able to appreciate authenticity, the rustic, the old, weathered wood, chipping paint, tattered clothes, nesting cormorants, red sunsets, changing tides, simple pleasures and modest beauty that waits to be discovered.
Donna and I walked along the crumbling seawall and blossoming orange trees that lined the western edge of Uncle Sy's property. We imagined what was and what could be. For the moment, we were grateful to be in such a place.
Afterward we went to Hudson Beach and had lunch sitting at a sunny table overlooking the clear Gulf waters while sipping beer and eating fried fish. We drove home slowly, because once you turn off Osowaw Boulevard onto US 19, the route doesn’t allow for more than a view of heavy traffic that paces itself at every stoplight. At about 4:00 PM we pulled off Alternate 19 at a vintage wayside stand in Palm Harbor, which has been operating since 1952, and where they serve chocolate vanilla twist soft ice cream in sugar cones. Back in Ohio, growing up, Donna and I would have called it a frozen custard stand. Kind of like a Dairy Queen, only more Wabi Sabi.
Just I and my friend, we Thursday spent till the end of the day.
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