Originally published in the Tampa Bay edition of Creative Loafing.
When I was 8 years old, my father moved the family from Montgomery, Alabama, where he was stationed at Gunter Air Force Base, to Homestead, where he’d been assigned to the AFB there. (If you’ve heard of Homestead, it’s likely due to its being demolished by Hurricane Andrew in ’92 — it’s now an Air Reserve Base.) During our very first night in our new house in the Miami suburb of Perrine, someone broke into our RV. Welcome to South Florida!