Pride Of Place

New York City: The Flower District

Posted: 7 years ago | By: Christine Somers | In: Pride Of Place | Read Time: 3 minutes, 4 seconds
{Dutch Flower Line}For years I imagined the NYC flower market to be a large warehouse type building with stalls for vendors; an imagining solely based on my experience with the farmer's market of my youth.  As I learned the New York City flower market is really more of a district and is located on West 28th between 6th and 7th Avenue. This past Wednesday I took a crowded, early morning tra...
Continue Reading

Pride Of Place

Carl Hiaasen: The Funny Man Crusader

Posted: 7 years ago | By: Christine Somers | In: Pride Of Place | Read Time: 4 minutes, 1 second
Hello one and all. I have returned to New York to finish up this round of writers and schedule my calendar with the next group. As I was contemplating what to say about Carl Hiaasen I was struck by the notion that each writer in this series has his or her compelling differentia. Michael Chabon is a world builder, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is an anthropologist, Padgett Powell is a risk taker and Car...
Continue Reading

Pride Of Place

Plantation, Florida

Posted: 8 years ago | By: Christine Somers | In: Pride Of Place | Read Time: 3 minutes, 48 seconds
Writer Carl Hiaasen and Plantation, Florida are the next subjects on my Pride Of Place Tour. I drove from Cross Creek to Plantation in only a matter of hours but the distance between the two places was not limited to only the number of miles. If Cross Creek is a glimpse of Florida's southern past, then Plantation, Florida is the quintessential representation of Florida today. Plantation is one of 3...
Continue Reading

Pride Of Place

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: Oranges, Snakes & Hammocks

Posted: 8 years ago | By: Christine Somers | In: Pride Of Place | Read Time: 3 minutes, 48 seconds
The thesis is simple, place crafts and molds the individual generally and writers and artist specifically. Of all the writers I've studied to date, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is the one most influenced by a place. Cross Creek, Florida touched her soul and out of her love affair with the place and its people she composed a Pulitzer Prizing winning novel. The Yearling was required readin...
Continue Reading

Pride Of Place

Cross Creek: A Trip Back In Time

Posted: 8 years ago | By: Christine Somers | In: Pride Of Place | Read Time: 3 minutes, 57 seconds
I love Florida. There I said it. And just like a teenage girl defending her bad boy sweetheart to her skeptical parents, I declare to you, you don't know Florida. The Florida of my youth can be found today but one must get off the beaten path and venture beyond Orlando and the coastal cities. Our next author, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings moved to Cross Creek, Florida in 1928 well before my fam...
Continue Reading


Pride Of Place

Gainesville, FL-Football, Red Brick & Padgett Powell

Posted: 8 years ago | By: Christine Somers | In: Pride Of Place | Read Time: 3 minutes, 54 seconds
I rolled into Gainesville on one of those days that the Chamber of Commerce highlights when trying to convince new business to set up shop in its town. Glorious weather and spring break coincided making Gainesville the perfect place to spend a couple of days researching writer Padgett Powell and leisurely strolling the grounds of the University of Florida. Folklore has it that the University of Flor...
Continue Reading

Pride Of Place

Rocky Mount, NC

Posted: 8 years ago | By: Christine Somers | In: Pride Of Place | Read Time: 3 minutes, 46 seconds
As with most things in life, traveling alone has its pros and cons. I have come upon people and places on this journey that caused me to wish Marty were with me to share the moment. Conversely, alone I am able to do what I want, when I want and that freedom is what led me to stop at Rocky Mount, NC for the night. Rocky Mount is at exit 138A at US 64 on the I-95 corridor between Roanoke Rapids and Lum...
Continue Reading


Pride Of Place

Will-To-Bigness

Posted: 8 years ago | By: Christine Somers | In: Pride Of Place | Read Time: 4 minutes, 51 seconds
The trees are bare and the landscape is brown in February in Columbia, MD and yet, the buildings still recede into the background. I arrived to open spaces and wide roadways that are immaculately maintained by groundskeepers dressed in matching green uniforms that mirror those of suburban mall groundskeepers. That should come as no surprise since Columbia was manifest by developer James 'Jim' Rouse...
Continue Reading