Florida - Number Three (when it comes to being happy)

Florida is the third happiest state in the United States, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (from results of a survey by 1.3 million people in the US). 

Florida is known as the Sunshine State, so it's no surprise that the people there are happy with all that sunshine. Just tonight I ate a Florida orange, and the orange alone made me feel happy. It was fresh and juicy and it tasted like the sun filled that orange up with it's sunny magic. That's because Florida's got it goin' on when it comes to sunshine.  It's as if a different sun shines over Florida. It's much brighter than the sun that the rest of us in the Continental US live under. The Florida sun is the twin of the Hawaii sun. It makes palm trees grow and tropical flowers bloom. It makes the ocean water warm most of the year. It inspires decor and clothing in different shades of sherbet. 

If you take a look at these vintage Florida postcards in the video, you can see that Florida has a history of one happy scene after another. 

If you think sand in your hot dog would be unpleasant, you haven't had one on the beach in Florida. Sure it's gritty, but gritty doesn't matter when you're on the beach in Florida. 

Sunburn doesn't seem to matter when you're on the beach in Florida either. That is, until later that night when you're lying in bed and the soft sheets scratch you like sandpaper. Okay, that can happen anywhere, but at least if you're sunburned in Florida, you can think to yourself, "Man, this BURNS... but at least I'm in Florida!"

Thank you to unclecr for creating the video and posting it to YouTube. It made me all sentimental. The video coincidentally starts with vintage postcards of Clearwater, Florida, which happens to be where I lived as a girl. It made me wonder about a place where we used to watch oranges go down conveyor belts in a factory, beginning their journey to be shipped off to the rest of the country. I looked online to find information about that place and I found this: http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/30/Tampabay/Last_orange_grove_fad.shtml     Bummer!