After decades in Minnesota, they hear Florida calling

By Bruce Benidt

It comes down to socks, really.

My wife, Lisa, and I are moving to Florida. Even though heading south in one's sixth or seventh decade is a cliche, we've surprised a lot of friends by moving. And quite a few people have said we're brave, as if breaking up with Minnesota is hard to do.

But we're hardly alone. About 342,000 people moved out of Minnesota between 2005 and 2007, while 313,000 moved in, according to the Pew Research Center. Only 15 states lose a higher percentage of their population than Minnesota does.

I've been in Minnesota since I was 5. Winter was fun when I was a kid, ungodly long now. Sorry, Mr. Eliot, but November is the cruelest month, dead and dreary with the promise of four more months of darkness. Yes, there are beautiful summer evenings here -- several -- and pretty parks and lakes and good people and lively arts ... but in Florida you can wear shorts and no socks and ride bikes in January. Really. Every day. I want more of that.

Family and friends keep a lot of Minnesotans here. Like many people, I stayed in the town my parents lived in as they aged. Dad died in 1995, Mom two years ago. The kids are gone -- we helped raise a wonderful niece, who graduated from a charter school here just over a year ago. Still, not being able to call friends or my brother at the last minute for lunch will be hard.

But Lisa and I decided we won't let geography constrain our lives. We'll fly back when we need connection. And most of my clients are here -- I'm a communications coach -- and I will fly back whenever they need me. We're not retiring: haven't saved enough, don't feel old enough. Lisa has taught for years at the University of Minnesota, and will continue online. Work doesn't have to happen in just one place anymore.

This commuting by jet will help us keep part of our lives here. So will the family lake cottage near Annandale we share with my brothers. A lot of Minnesotans become snowbirds, keeping a place in the sun for winter and a home in the North Star State. Too much cost, maintenance and worry for us, so we're pulling up the tent stakes. And, sad to say, leaving Minnesota has become a little easier because my home state has been disappointing me lately.

The Minnesota I grew up in is eroding. Once an exceptional place with a government that worked and an electorate that would support the common good, Minnesota has fallen prey to the "No New Taxes" self-centeredness and is slipping to an un-Wobegon-like average or below.

Libraries, schools, roads, bridges, parks, police forces, snow plowing -- basic services, not "nice-to-do" programs - are all suffering because so few politicians are willing to honestly address how to pay for them. And it's not just the politicians -- it's us. They sell this "taxes and government are bad" line -- you can have something for nothing -- and we buy it. When they pander, we line up.

And things are falling apart. I expect more from Minnesota. Eugene McCarthy, Don Fraser, Hubert Humphrey, Al Quie and Elmer Andersen were extraordinary public servants who set standards not everyone can meet. But really -- the gubernatorial nominee of a major party says out loud that no federal law should take effect in Minnesota unless both houses of the legislature and the governor approve? This is old moldering antebellum South Carolina kinda stuff.

In Florida, at least there's no pretense. Government and public services have never worked very well. Florida has always been a speculators' paradise and government has always been the captive of special interests. So we know what to expect, and have actually been pleased with local government's response to our questions.

And we'll be closer to a wildness and natural world different from Minnesota. When you get away from Disneyworld and tacky sprawl and condo cliffs on beaches, Florida offers stunning beauty.

The air where we're moving has a slight salt tang from the nearby Gulf of Mexico. The air is heavy with water, but the mugginess feels more expected, less oppressive. We're surrounded by trees and salt marsh and tidal pools, and the breeze flows more easily through our screened porch than in the lined rows of streets and houses and alleys in south Minneapolis. Florida clouds are huge and active and sail in ranks stirred by the living Gulf Stream. They catch and project every wild band of the color spectrum as the sun sinks into the sea.

And then there's the house. You can get incredible deals in housing-market-collapse Florida, and we did. Our place is on a wildlife preserve; our back yard is a tidal pond connected directly to the Gulf. We see osprey, herons and egrets swooping by, a huge manatee gliding over the oyster bar off our back yard. The house was bought by a real-estate flipper on the brink of foreclosure and stood empty for a year. Now herons and cranes stand on the roof in the morning -- I believe they think our house is a huge dead tree left for them to perch on and watch the fish below.

Lisa, when she saw the pond behind our house, wanted to make sure it was living water, not something stagnant like the weed-choked urban lakes she knew. I told her this is a tidal pond, an ancient sinkhole, and the channel connects directly to the mouth of the Pithlachascotee River and the Gulf. And we watched. The tide flows in, the tide flows out, rippling across the oyster bar, left to right, then hours later right to left. Living water indeed -- egrets and plate-sized crabs feed in the shallows at low tide. I learned that oysters spit out water when the tide leaves them dry, and thousands of tiny fiddler crabs wave their claws in the drying mud, exploring.

This all adds up to different. Not better, just different. And that's what Lisa and I truly crave most. Change. Something new, to shake things up. So we're off, keeping a toe in Minnesota, but two bare feet in Florida. Come January, we may be seeing more Minnesota friends than we did in Minneapolis.

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Bruce Benidt is a communications consultant who blogs at thesamerowdycrowd.com. He is a source in MPR's Public Insight Network.

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