ROB URBAN / A COLLECTION OF FLORIDA LIFE
Florida Stories.
Humor and other
weather events.
Florida is less a setting than a recurring character with terrible judgment. It interrupts plans, introduces wildlife without an appointment and treats humidity like a personal service.
This is the home for Florida as it is lived, not merely visited. Family, towns, restaurants, roadside discoveries, weather, animals, neighbors and the small daily negotiations required when the air itself has opinions.
Start with an ordinary day.
- Florida Gardening
Plant cuttings take over the garage. Under the jokes is a story about Melissa’s kindness and the people she grows those plants for.
- DeLand Car Show
Old friends, muscle cars and a Toyota 4Runner with considerably more equipment than its driver can explain.
- Parva, a Colombian Restaurant in DeLand
A Colombian bakery, café and restaurant becomes part of the daily rhythm of a town.
- Anchored in Silver: Why I Fell in Love With Adamo Metals
A collector’s affection for silver art begins with a domestic disagreement about where to display an antique diving suit.
- Florida Is Funniest Between the Attractions
The parking lots, weather and interruptions between the famous destinations supply their own entertainment.
- Why Every Floridian Becomes an Amateur Meteorologist
Radar, patio furniture and the confidence of a neighbor holding a rake.
- Publix Is Where Florida Becomes a Community
How an ordinary grocery run becomes a small public event.
- Carrabelle’s Tiny Police Station and the Stories a Town Chooses to Keep
A phone booth, a practical local history, and the decision to keep a small landmark’s story visible.
Further reading
The Venetian Pool: A Different Second Life for a Place
A quarry helped supply a city’s buildings. What happened to the space left behind became a story of its own.
How a place becomes a story.
These essays follow the choices behind the jokes: what to notice, where affection belongs and how to keep a familiar place from turning into a collection of clichés.
The book behind the collection.
As Florida As It Gets is a funny, affectionate collection about family, wildlife, Publix, heat, storms and the everyday chaos that makes us feel less alone. It is not a visitor’s guide, although it may explain why the visitor is sweating through a shirt they considered reliable in Ohio.
Bring it to the table.
For a book-club evening, an interview or an honest review, these pages give the conversation somewhere useful to begin.
- An As Florida As It Gets Book Club Guide
- How to Interview a Humor Writer Without Asking Where the Ideas Come From
- How to Review a Humor Book Without Explaining Every Joke
- Review copies and creator conversations
What was the moment Florida became Florida for you? That invitation belongs to anybody with a story the state has already helped write.
The people beneath the punchline.
Some pieces come from the world of the book. Others are local discoveries and notes from a state that can produce a breathtaking sunset, a parking-lot argument and a reptile-related insurance question before dinner.
The story needs a human detail: something somebody wanted, tried, misunderstood or quietly did for someone else. Florida has plenty. It keeps leaving them on the porch.
If a story makes you laugh, recognize somebody you love or check the lanai for movement, you are in the right place.
For a closer look at local institutions, restaurants and traditions, continue into Volusia County Stories. For a much longer view of the state, the Florida Memory program opens selected photographs and documents from the State Library and Archives. There are many ways to pay attention to a place.
Places worth a closer look
Three art institutions offer different ways to look: the public invitation at A.E. Backus Museum & Gallery, the working life preserved at the Albin Polasek Museum, and the carefully unfolding views at Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens.
- A.E. Backus Museum & Gallery: The Art Was Always Meant to Meet You Outside
- Albin Polasek Museum: Leave Room for the Work Becoming
- Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens: A Monument Can Arrive Quietly
The county stories also reach beyond the initial five collections. LEGOLAND Florida in Winter Haven puts the child’s perspective first. Busch Gardens Tampa Bay connects major thrill rides with a slower wildlife visit. Old Town Kissimmee gives cars, conversation and recurring traditions their own evening.
There may be a story in what you’re trying to explain.
A book, a business, a place people misunderstand, or a piece of your own experience that will not quite settle onto the page. Tell me what you’re working through. You don’t need to have the project or the problem neatly defined before we talk.