Welcome to my two-year-old Cracker cabin and my present 100-year-old lifestyle. And I can thank the 'canes: Bonnie, Charlie, Ivan, Frances, and Jeanne for this "back to nature" experience.

You know why Florida is as crowded as it is? Weather? Location? The Great Mouse Kingdom? South Beach? Sure, all these contribute, but the reason our state is crammed with those above-the-Mason-Dixon-Line immigrants is one word: air conditioning. Alrigh, so that's two words. Don't be so picky with an old man trying to stave off the hungry hordes from harassing his humble home. And notice, since I have no electricity, I’m having to keyboard this with pedaled juice from my bicycle generator. And they make a big deal about Lance Armstrong….

I remember well the joys of lying nekkid atop the sheets and watching the sweat pool in my navel. And whoever told you terrazzo floors were popular in 50s’ Florida homes because of their durability was giving you the second reason. The first? They were the coolest place in the house. Before air conditioning, or BAC as it will be known for the remainder of my little epistle, lying on a cool terrazzo floor was the way to sleep on those hot summer nights...hot fall nights...hot spring nights in south Florida. Sure, we all developed heads that were flattened in the back, but that was part of the joy of growing up in Florida, BAC.

Another thing about those floors: you dropped something only once. In fact, the one thing I ever recall surviving a drop to the granite hardness of terrazzo was my brother. ‘Course he ain't been right since.

Dating in the Sunshine State, BAC, is why so many natives absolutely cannot tolerate nor ever forgive mosquitoes. We didn't need: condoms, the pill, those IUD things, Cycle Beads, shields (shields?), or diaphragms, 'cause we had little buzzing varmints that would spoil "the moment" before it got going good. Can you imagine getting all hot'n bothered, finally; the windows to Dad's '57 Chevy so steamed up it looks like San Francisco an hour after dark; the temperature 90 degrees; the humidity 103 %—and that's outside the car—you're suckin' lips like duelling toilet plungers...and then you hear it? That gawd-awful little hum?

It's difficult for wussie, climate-controlled, post-AC youth of today to understand how the faint sound of the wee winged demon sent spasms of fear and ordained disappointment in the hearts (and other organs) of couples in heat. And wouldn't you know it? It was the female mosquito that was the terror. The droning guy culexes didn't care much, wouldn't bite anybody, and just buzzed on their way. But not the vampiristic females. Those little wings flapping a thousand time a minute. That high-pitched whine. We knew we were doomed. Our evening was doomed. Our attempted love-making was doomed. And if we didn't get our clothes up, zipped, and buttoned quickly, our adolescently-pimpled butts were doomed. No wonder we were all born nine months after the first cold front.

Yes, there were some stalwarts who'd thrust to fruition despite the siphoning hordes surrounding them. These focused individuals were kind of admirable, like the Homecoming Queen and the Jock—come to think of it, that’s who they often were. But the next Monday back at school we all knew why their faces and every other portion of exposed anatomy—gym class showers were always so revealing—were welted. And if we knew, then their parents knew, and their neighbors, and their pharmacists...you get the idea.

The "dressing up" for church, BAC, was always a known end result—sweat-stained clothing. Underarm stains were so common we thought all dress clothes came with them. Leaning against the backseat of that un-air conditioned '57 Chevy was a real moisture creator. First thing one would do getting out of the car was to pull the back of the jacket away from the sweaty shirt stuck to the sweaty back of the wearer. And there's really no reason to discuss the condition of the underclothing in certain nether regions, is there?

Prickly heat was rampant. Plague-proportion, actually. We weren't sophisticated enough to have allergies, so hives didn't exist. Remember, this was also before HMOs. All those little bumps were prickly heat. The larger ones were from the mosquitoes the night before. Life was one constant itch. And it was not de rigueur to scratch in church, or school, or on a date. Maybe that's why dating involved such hearty rubbing.

And as if all these barriers to a functional sex life, with another person, were not enough, there was one more when I returned to the ‘States after a few years Keeping America Safe For Democracy—pantyhose! What Father of Perpetual Sperm Blockage came up with that? The first time I experienced the unknown garment I truly thought I’d lost all feeling. And then I suffered “rebound trauma.” It was not like making love on a trampoline but more like making love with one.

But, I digress. The lack, although temporary, so FP&L assures me when the trucks race by to install “important” people’s power, of AC has fomented century-old joyous experiences that simply do not exist in our cacooned existence:

Loretta, the lovely divorcee from the trailer…I’m sorry…modular home community down the road actually spoke to me yesterday evening. And after I removed the hapless indigo snake from her opened trai…modular home, she—Loretta, not the snake—smiled and offered to have me over for supper “when the power gets back on.”

Jim-Bob returned the battery-powered hedge trimmer he borrowed from me six months ago. Who would’ve thought lack of electricity would make him a changed man? Come to think of it, Loretta said if she didn’t get her power back on soon so she could charge up “Big Tom” she might have to come looking for me. What do you suppose she meant by that? Is life following art? Or at least TV’s desperate version of it?

Forty-billion amphibians have been singing their little froggy/toady hearts out every night. I guess this goes on all the time. Who knows? I mean with the TV on I’m usually lust…viewing “Desperate Housewives.”

And I’ll bet it’s only the female frogs that bite.

Ain't got no running water.
Ain't got no 'lectricity.
Got lotsa ammo.
Got lotsa skeeters.
Don’t want CNN to feel sorry fo’ me.

Obscure blues song by the Gnarled Geezer