Another Happy Day in Paradise?

ORLANDO – Since Daphne moved here in 2005 to take a job writing for the Orlando Sentinel, I’ve visited at least once a year and sometimes twice. I’ll admit to an odd type of affection for Central Florida, and bristle when friends assume I’m going to spend my vacation at Disney World or Universal – though Dennis and I have been to both just once. We’ve also done Cypress Gardens, quite a kick for an aging water skier who hasn’t skied in nearly a decade.

But to embrace Central Florida is also to admit to being fascinated by life’s seamier side. The fact that I see a bare-chested hitchhiker as I approach I-4 East, heading downtown to pick up Daphne, is unremarkable. What triggers the old cynic in me is his sign, “I have cancer.” It makes me think of one of my daughter’s old editors, Mark, who warned a reporter to be sure to ask a family of alleged Katrina victims for drivers licenses before buying their story.

This year we have returned to the Hotel Peabody Orlando, known for its twice-daily display of ducks in the lobby. For me this particular hotel’s allure is four-fold. The Olympic pool, where I swam a mile this morning in the pouring rain, is rarely crowded.

The gym, though certainly no match for Health Works, my all women’s gym back in Boston, has a working StairMaster, Concept II Rowing Ergometer, and some treadmills. Jim, an elderly but fit guy manning the desk, finds it difficult to absorb the fact that Dennis has a different last name than mine, and finds it necessary to attempt a joke I don’t find funny.

Because it’s so close to the Orlando Convention Center, I know the Peabody will offer good rates at Thanksgiving time. Finally I like the B-Line Diner, just off the lobby. The ‘50’s style jukebox, there on previous visits, has been replaced with a pleasant stream of all the Motown hits I’ve got on my iPhone.

Though horrified that the “plain” yogurt I requested actually contains corn syrup sweetener, I’m having a love affair with the blueberry and granola pancakes with Valencia orange syrup. If I have the latter with an order of Canadian bacon, this should tide me over until dinner.

The downside is that the Peabody is now under construction, poised for an illusory economic rebound. This means that the Venetian blinds in the B-Line Diner are closed tightly, ostensibly blocking out an ugly view of construction cranes. The fluorescent lights are barely adequate for Dennis and me to read our newspapers.

When I read the Sentinel, I see the seamier side of Orlando in full relief. Sarah Palin was in town yesterday, and some senior citizens camped out all night, just so they could be first in line to get the special bracelet that would allow them to have their Sarah Palin books autographed by John McCain’s running mate. Pass the emesis basin!

As I said, it’s Thanksgiving week, and a personal-injury attorney named Lou Pendas is giving away 1,000 turkeys to the first 1,000 people who show up at his office, not too far from the Barnes & Noble where people camped out for Sarah Palin. Yes, I do have compassion for the people who have to depend on a turkey giveaway. Lou is probably correct in thinking that if these people get in an accident, they will remember him.

Another item in the Sentinel… “Mom gets 2 years in son’s drowning.” According to the story, one Dorthea Bechard, a 36 year old mother of four, became a mother of three after her two year old, Sabastian, fell into the pool of her apartment complex. Mom was reportedly sleeping off a night of getting both drunk and high.

On a similarly sad note, a 25-year-old mom with four children ages six years to two months, perish when their mobile home in Ocala goes up in flames. I can’t imagine her life was any bed of roses before this tragedy.

The theme parks always provide news, and on this particular day I read that OSHA has slapped Universal with a $3,750 fine – chump change for a corporation that size – following the non-fatal injury this summer of an employee working beneath the Dueling Dragons roller coaster.

Things could be worse. This summer the Sentinel focused on a rash of groping incidents at Orlando water parks. At least one of those incidents led to a charge of open and gross lewdness, with the defendant claiming he was doing nothing more than adjusting his European style bathing suit.

Even Winter Park, Orlando’s immediate, very rich neighbor, has its share of malaise. Like many of its northern counterparts, the shop once featuring Rolex and Mikimoto is now blanketed with “Going Out of Business Signs.” Even the Lilly Pulitzer store, providing the wardrobe staples for rich matrons, is empty.

Another happy day in paradise?