When You Need It Bad, We've Got It Good

There was a series of television commercials promoting Florida tourism during the 1970's (check out those old taxis!). They aired in heavy rotation here in the Northeast...remember when there were only 3 channels at the time (how easy the media buyers had it then!)...and hopping on a plane was exotic, not routine like today. Travel was for the rich and/or retired, not for the common folk like us, and those that did venture far afield (we rarely made it across the Hudson River to Albany) actually drove rather than flew. My brother drove 24 hours to Florida shortly after he got his first car.

I can remember sitting in the house all bundled up with the winter chill — we couldn't afford the oil to heat the house beyond 65°. When anyone came or went, Dad would yell, "Shut that door! Are you trying to heat the outside?"

The wind and snow would be whipping outdoors, obscuring the light glowing from the lamp post by the driveway, and these commercials would invade our northernly existence. A siren song from the south, and they would sweep my imaginative mind's eye to a far away land of warmth and sunshine for their 30 second duration of gorgeous sunsets and tropical trees.

Each year, a friend of my father would go to Florida and send us a big box of grapefruit and oranges for Christmas. That was such a treat; now people send Larry & David fruit baskets instead of a cardboard box full of citrus.

All this reminiscing serves as a reminder of how much things have changed in a couple of decades. How far we've come and how much living standards have improved.

Anyway, whenever I think of Florida I still sing this ad campaign's jingle to myself...

"You need the sunshine and palm trees of Flor-i-da! Flooor-i-daaaaaaa! When you need it bad, we've got it good. When you need it bad, come to Flor-i-da!"

I'm off to Florida and my brother is holding down the fort...see ya on the flip side!
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