{"id":176811,"date":"2026-03-03T21:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/176811\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T21:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:04:09","slug":"florida-man-forest-park-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/176811\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Man – Forest Park Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are fancier beaches than the ones I love.<\/p>\n

There are beaches with imported sand in Photoshop White and beaches with DJs and bottle service and a dress code for sunscreen. Florida has those, too. God bless them. But give me a slightly run-down boardwalk town on the Gulf Coast any day \u2014 the kind of place where the wooden planks creak like arthritic knees and the air smells of coconut oil and fried grouper.<\/p>\n

Spring break in Sarasota was the one sacred week of my childhood. It was the only time I got my grandparents all to myself, none of us burdened with my heinous cousins and their mother, who is a breathtaking asshole and the only person I know who I\u2019m certain is a sociopath. My cousins were the sort of children for whom board games were pleasurable opportunities to cite violations of the rule book and gloat about winning, two values they picked up from their Dementor of a mother. \u00a0<\/p>\n

But in March, they were gone. It was just me, my brother, our grandparents, and Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you grow up in Chicago, the large body of water is gray and angry. It slaps. It threatens. It files complaints. The first time you step into the Gulf as a kid and discover that the water is warm \u2014 not \u201cbracing,\u201d not \u201crefreshing,\u201d but actually warm \u2014 it feels like you\u2019ve uncovered a clerical error in the universe. No one told me the ocean could feel like bathwater. No one told me fish could be neon.<\/p>\n

The wildlife alone was a revelation. Pelicans are feathered pterodactyls. Lizards doing pushups on stucco walls. Hermit crabs engaged in quiet real estate negotiations. Manatees. Dolphins. Fruit trees. Palm trees. For a kid used to pigeons with nicotine addictions and dead branches five months a year, Florida was Jurassic Park with sunscreen.<\/p>\n

And then there was miniature golf.<\/p>\n

The courses were always a little chipped, a little sun-bleached, with fiberglass pirates whose swords had seen better decades. You\u2019d putt through a plaster volcano or under a windmill that squealed like it needed a lawyer. It was perfect. No one kept score. My grandfather would line up a shot like he was at Augusta, then miss by three feet and blame \u201cthe grain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afterward, we\u2019d walk the boardwalk \u2014 not the glossy, corporate kind, but the kind where the ice cream stand had three employees and one of them was clearly someone\u2019s dealer who just needed a cover job. Arcades full of skee-ball machines that felt like they\u2019d survived the Eisenhower administration. Sunburned tourists. Retirees in sandals that had given up trying.<\/p>\n

Paradise.<\/p>\n

Now spring break looks different. Now it\u2019s con leche in the morning, a cigar in the afternoon, playing golf on a course that requires a collared shirt, and a rental convertible that makes me look like I have better credit than I do. The towns are still a little frayed at the edges, but so am I. We match.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the thing: it\u2019s still important.<\/p>\n

Spring break is less about debauchery and more about interruption. It\u2019s the deliberate act of stepping out of the grinding machinery of your life and sitting in the sun long enough to remember who you are when no one needs anything from you.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re a kid, spring break is escape from school and cousins and the bureaucratic cruelty of winter. When you\u2019re an adult, it\u2019s escape from email and news alerts and the endless low-grade hum of responsibility. It\u2019s a reminder that time can stretch. That an afternoon can be wasted on purpose. That you can walk a boardwalk going absolutely nowhere and call it a day.<\/p>\n

The slightly rundown beach towns get this. They don\u2019t rush you. The paint peels at a leisurely pace. The palm trees lean like they\u2019ve heard it all before. No one is in a hurry because hurry feels ridiculous in 78-degree air.<\/p>\n

I loved those towns because they gave me my grandparents without interference. I love them now because they give me myself.<\/p>\n

So yes, it\u2019s cigars and convertibles now. It\u2019s golf swings that creak louder than the boardwalk. But it\u2019s still spring break. It\u2019s still sacred. And every year, when I step out of the terminal and into the humidity, I am once again a Chicago kid discovering that the world can be gentle \u2014 at least for a week.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n

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