When people hear βFlorida Keys,β they might picture vacations, resorts, turquoise water and sunsets. When I hear Florida Keys, I think of home.
I was there as a baby, although my family moved away while my dad was in the Air Force. We eventually came back around the time I was in middle school, and Key Largo became home again. I stayed in the Keys until I was in my 40s.
I grew up mostly in Key Largo, but I had a lot of friends in Islamorada, so I spent plenty of time in both places. Looking back now, I realize what an incredible place it was to grow up.
By the time I was a teenager, I could take the bus down to Islamorada and spend the day roaming around with my friends. We’d hang out at the beaches, walk around and just enjoy being together. Some beaches weren’t crowded at all, and there were little places we knew about that most visitors didn’t.
We could even spend the day at Holiday Isle, swimming in the pool, hanging out at the beach and enjoying the water. At the time it was just normal life to me. I don’t think I completely understood how special it was to grow up somewhere other people saved all year just to visit.
Growing Up With the Water Everywhere
Growing up in the Keys meant the water was just part of everyday life. Some weekends my friends and I would hang out at the resort or spend the day at the beach, but a lot of weekends my dad would take us out on the boat.
We went water skiing, tubing, hydrosliding and fishing. Looking back, those sound like activities somebody might plan for a Florida vacation, but for us it was simply what we did on the weekend.
And yes, I was one of those Keys kids who went barefoot. π A bathing suit top, a pair of shorts and no shoes wasn’t unusual at all.
Even now, I’ll be at work and hear somebody comment about a customer walking in wearing a bathing suit or without shoes and wonder why someone would go into a store dressed like that. My first thought is always, βShe’s probably from the Keys.β π
I guess some things that seem unusual somewhere else don’t seem unusual at all when that’s simply how you grew up.
Weekends on the Boat With My Dad
Some of my favorite memories from growing up in the Keys are the weekends my dad took me and my friends out on the boat. Looking back, I have to give him credit for taking a boat full of teenagers out for the day β although I’m pretty sure he was having just as much fun as we were. π
One of his favorite things seemed to be trying to throw us off the tube. He’d speed up, make a sharp turn and send the tube whipping around so fast that sometimes we’d come around almost even with the boat. Other times he’d hit a wake just right and the whole tube would go flying into the air with us hanging on for dear life.
Somehow, we kept climbing back on and asking for more.
Fishing was a little different. I was usually the one who went fishing with my dad because I had the patience for it. I could sit there with a fishing pole all day, never catch a single thing and still consider it a good day. I think I loved being out there as much as I loved the fishing itself.
I still remember one time when my dad caught a catfish and one of its fin spines stuck him right in the hand. That may have been one of the few times in my life I ever heard my dad cuss. π
Those weren’t expensive vacations or carefully planned adventures. They were just weekends with my dad, my friends, a boat and the water. At the time I didn’t think much about it. Now they’re some of the memories I wouldn’t trade for anything.
Being a Teenager in the Keys
Being a teenager in the Keys came with a kind of freedom that I don’t think I fully appreciated at the time. My friends and I could take the mini bus for $1.00 between Key Largo and Islamorada and spend the day just figuring out what we wanted to do.
We’d get ice cream, walk through the shops at Holiday Isle, hang around the beach and play chicken fights in the pool. If we were hungry, Burger King was about the only fast-food choice around at the time. If we were in Key Largo, we might go to Dairy Queen instead.
Islamorada even had a bowling alley where we’d go bowl and play pool.
I started working when I was around 14 or 15, and because I made tips, I actually earned pretty good money for a teenager back then. So when we walked through the shops, I’d look for a new pair of shorts or another bathing suit β because apparently you can never have too many bathing suits when you’re growing up in the Florida Keys. π
When I think about it now, what stands out most is just how much freedom we had. We’d leave home, get on a bus, meet our friends and spend the day wandering around between beaches, shops, restaurants and whatever else we found to do.
Looking back as an adult, sometimes I think, βWhat were my parents thinking?β π
But we didn’t think anything of it. That was just life. We knew where we were, we knew people around town, and somehow we always made our way back home.
My First Job in Key Largo
I started working when I was only about 14 or 15. My first job was as a hostess at a Polynesian-themed restaurant called Tahiti Village, which was right at the end of my road.
I had only been working there for about three days when Bertie Higgins came to play. If the name sounds familiar, one of his best-known songs was Key Largo, so you can imagine what kind of crowd that brought in.
The restaurant was packed β standing room only β and somehow this 14- or 15-year-old girl who had barely started the job was responsible for seating all those people. π
I still remember the white dress I wore that night. I thought it was the coolest dress. Apparently it made me look older than I was, because I remember one of the men asking me out. He definitely changed his mind once he found out how old I actually was. π
What amazes me looking back isn’t only that Bertie Higgins was there. It’s that I was so young, only a few days into my first job, and somebody trusted me to handle a restaurant full of people on one of its busiest nights.
At the time, though, I don’t remember thinking of it as some huge accomplishment. I had a job to do, so I did it. That’s another one of those memories that seems a lot more remarkable to me now than it did when I was living it.
When the Keys Started to Change
As I got older, the Keys started changing. I think the first thing I really noticed was the number of people.
The beaches that had once been places where we could spend the day without thinking twice became so crowded that sometimes there wasn’t anywhere to park, nowhere to sit and barely room in the pools. Something that had always been simple and fun started feeling like work.
Then there was the traffic. Anyone who knows the Keys knows there’s basically one main road running through the islands, and as more people came, traffic could back up for miles. Even getting out on the water became harder. Boat ramps would be packed with people waiting to launch, and once you got out there, there were so many more boats on the water.
Things like water skiing that we’d done growing up didn’t feel quite as carefree anymore. More boats meant more traffic on the water and more things you had to watch out for.
Development changed things too. More and more houses went up, and they seemed to get closer and closer together. Eventually it felt like your neighbor was close enough to hear you cough. π
Places I remembered from growing up changed or disappeared. Holiday Isle changed. You couldn’t just wander into resorts and spend the day at the beach or pool the way we had as teenagers.
I understood why people wanted to come to the Keys. I grew up there β I knew exactly what made the place special. But eventually it felt like everywhere I went was crowded.
And I think that was the biggest change for me. When everything outside was crowded, you couldn’t even necessarily go home to get away from it anymore because the houses and neighbors were right on top of each other.
I still loved the Keys. I just started missing the Keys I remembered.
When Paradise Became Expensive
The crowds weren’t the only thing that changed. Over the years, the cost of living in the Keys changed dramatically too.
My parents bought the house I grew up in for around $40,000. It was a solid concrete house with a poured concrete roof β the kind of house that made you feel pretty secure when hurricane season came around.
Years later, when my parents left the Keys, they sold that same house for around $450,000.
That’s how much things had changed.
For people visiting the Keys, it’s easy to look around and think, βWouldn’t it be wonderful to live here?β And it was wonderful. I was lucky enough to experience that for a huge part of my life.
But living somewhere is different from vacationing there. As property values went up, so did the reality of what it cost to stay. Combine that with the crowds, traffic and development, and the Keys I had known growing up started becoming a very different place to live.
Eventually, the combination of the crowding and the expense played a big part in my decision to leave.
I didn’t leave because I stopped loving the Florida Keys. I left because living there wasn’t the same life I had fallen in love with.
The Keys I Remember Are Still With Me
Going back to the Florida Keys today doesn’t necessarily give me that same feeling of coming home. So much has changed that sometimes it doesn’t feel like the place I remember growing up.
What takes me home now are the little things.
Being out on a boat with the water around me. Sitting somewhere with a fishing pole even if I don’t catch anything. Walking barefoot. Feeling the sun and a breeze coming off the water. Spending a day at the beach without needing anything more complicated than somewhere to swim and people I enjoy being with.
Those are the moments that can suddenly put me right back in Key Largo or Islamorada when I was younger.
I can remember taking the bus to meet my friends, spending the day swimming, wandering around Holiday Isle, buying ice cream or a new bathing suit with money from my first job. I can picture my dad behind the wheel of the boat trying his best to throw us off that tube while we hung on for dear life. π
I didn’t know then that I was living in a place and a time I would someday miss.
For a long time, I think part of me associated that feeling with the Keys themselves. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized I don’t have to go back to Key Largo or Islamorada to find it.
I can find it on a boat with my son. I can find it sitting beside the water, walking barefoot on a beach, fishing even when nothing is biting, or feeling the sun on my face with a breeze coming off the water.
The place may be different, but the feeling is the same.
Maybe that’s what I’ve learned most from looking back. We can’t always go back to the places we remember exactly as they were. Places change. We change too. But we can pay attention to what made those times so special and find ways to bring pieces of that feeling into the life we’re living now.
The Florida Keys I grew up in may exist mostly in my memories these days, but what they gave me never really left. Every once in a while, I get back on the water, feel that familiar sense of freedom and peace, and for a little while, I’m right back there again.