Category: History

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Driving Food History Movies Television Travel Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

Every Tuesday night the world listens to me. Hear me now:

1.  Aside from the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida the entire rest of the free nation from coast-to-coast and from border-to-border is shivering in a deep icy freeze. Even much of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas is socked-in to a deep freeze. Here in Homestead we’ve got fast-moving tropical showers moving in from the Caribbean. It’s December in Paradise !

2.  The 17TH season of “Survivor” held in Gabon Africa is now done and over with, and it was quite the entertaining season finale this past Sunday night on CBS-TV. I’ve seen every single episode ever made since it became an overnight sensation back during the Summer of 2000. The 18TH season has already wrapped-up its filming up in the Brazilian Highlands. It premieres in February 2009.

3.  Yesterday I was on a portion of Campbell Drive that is off-limits to most vehicular traffic. It’s located on a secluded portion of Homestead Air Reserve Base east of the South Dade Labor Camp neighbourhood. The original road surface of Campbell Drive still exists. It’s not in very good shape though. Once upon a time the main gate to the base was right there at the intersection of Campbell Drive and Tallahassee Road (now Speedway Boulevard). Today’s Labor Camp was once part of Base Housing.

4.  Gas prices just keep on dropping. It’s in the $1.40s and $1.50s across much of the free nation. There are actually some analysts out there who state that gas prices could actually drop below $1 per gallon in 2009. These are the same analysts that forecasted gas to reach $10 per gallon earlier this year.

5.  I’m eating at the Outback Steak House this Friday night for the first time in recent memory (many years). I’m totally looking forward to that. Afterwards I’m heading off to see a movie – “Yes Man“. It sounds like someone is dating again !

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Driving History

Monday Night Countdown

This week’s countdown is only of interest to those of you who are my fellow citizens of Homestead Florida. For the rest of you I’ll have something special for you later.

Here are my TOP 5 favourite east-west streets that I drive on a regular basis:

5.  SW 344TH St. / SE 24TH St. / Palm Drive
If Homestead had a perimeter road or a loop or a beltway then this would be the southern segment of it. Every Johnson that I know lives within several yards of it. 😀

4.  SW 304TH St. / NE 15TH St. / Kings Highway
It’s the ‘less-stressway’ alternative to the Campbell Drive concrete jungle, and it’s how I get to the church office from the movie theatre.

3.  SW 312TH St. / NE 8TH St. / Campbell Drive
It’s the new Kendall Drive. It’s our ‘Strip’. It’s the modern commercial downtown district of the city. If you’re in a hurry then avoid it.

2.  SW 288TH St. / NE 31ST St. / Biscayne Drive
I bet that you didn’t know that Biscayne Drive marked a small portion of the northern city limits of Homestead and is our NE 31ST St. just north of the Waterstone Plaza. This is how I get to work every weekday morning.

1.  SW 328TH St. / SE 8TH St. / North Canal Drive / Lucy Street
It’s the road that I’ve travelled on more than any other road here in the city. It’s been my personal ‘Main Street’ for the past 13½-years. At its widest point Homestead is six miles across, and this is the only street that you can drive at that wide point.

South Dade County In January 1947 - Goulds To Florida City
South Dade County In January 1947 - Goulds To Florida City
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Animals Computers Driving History Life Music Radio

Saturday Night Retro

1997. It’s the year that I turned 30-years-old and celebrated my 10TH anniversary of living and working here in Homestead Florida. I ditched my longtime 1989 Geo Spectrum (bought brand new) after over 96,700 miles, and I joined the Saturn family by buying my first of three fine cars from the company. I lost my original 486-SX desktop computer system due to a catastrophic hard drive failure, and when that happened ‘MANx CAT BBS’ died after four years. That original classic bulletin board system spun-off ‘MANx ON THE NET’ which evolved into ‘MASSIVESMASH.COM‘ which inspired my MySpace blog of 2007 which morphed into this WordPress blog that you know and love right here.

Boots was my feline buddy and roommate, and I was a loyal and devoted Y-100 TOP 40 radio listener at home, at work, and in the car. Last Saturday night on the ‘Retro’ I presented Reunion’s “Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)” from 34 years ago. Tonight for your ‘Retro’ review I present to you one of the biggest smash hits on the radio from 1997, and it’s kind of like a modern update to Reunion’s classic track from 1974. It’s “I Want You” – the debut smash from the multi-Platinum-selling Australian duo known as Savage Garden.

Check it out:

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History Shopping

Monday Night Countdown

TODAY – the 01ST of December – is my 21ST anniversary of living aqui en el Sur de Florida. I arrived at Homestead Air Force Base during the wee early-morning hours of the 01ST of December in 1987. Aside from the 19 months immediately following the destruction of the Homestead area by Hurricane Andrew I’ve been here ever since. This is my home. This is where I belong. These are my TOP 5 favourite shopping malls of all-time here in South Florida:

5.  Cutler Ridge Mall / Southland Mall
It’s much nicer (and safer) today than it’s ever been. It’s officially the first shopping mall I ever visited here in South Florida back in December 1987. I had been going there a few times a year over the past 14 years or so. I’ll be visiting more often since they have a nice movie theatre there now.

4.  Miami International Mall
Before the Dolphin Mall ever existed this was the shopping mall to visit on my way to the airport, the Flagler Dog Track, Miami, or the Beaches. This is your basic standard neighbourhood Simon mall. Sometimes you just need to go back to basics and shop the simple life.

3.  Dolphin Mall
If I lived in the neighbourhood then I’m afraid that I’d be there every single day shopping, eating, drinking, and watching movies. This is as close as it gets to Downtown Disney West Side. It’s a good thing that I don’t live in the neighbourhood. There could be trouble.

2.  The Falls
A stroll through this luxurious outdoor shopping mall is like a stroll down memory lane for me. This was the cool place to hang out a generation ago. When I was a kid I used to hang out there. Of course for me ‘kid’ means early-20s. 

1.  The Shops At Sunset Place
I watched this jumpin’ joint get built a decade ago, and once it opened for business in 1999 I planned entire Saturdays around it. If you couldn’t find me in Homestead on any given Saturday from 1999 to 2005 then I was probably hiding out at the Virgin Megastore, the Barnes & Noble, or the AMC-24.