Big Move to a Suburb David E. Hubler

A Big Move to a Suburb Named for the Man Who Made Frozen Orange Juice Drinkable

By David E. Hubler

When he was quizzed by his hosts at dinner why he had “come so far” from New York City to a small college town in the Pacific Northwest, Sy Levin, a man with a past in Bernard Malamud’s novel “A New Life” says, “When the offer came, I was ready to go.”

“What’s there to say that hasn’t been said?” Sy adds. “One always hopes that a new place will inspire change – in one’s life.”

We had been thinking half-seriously for several months about making the move – to Florida not to the Pacific Northwest. Our primary question was Florida’s East Coast or West Coast? We were far more familiar with the former, having visited the latter only once years earlier. Although we’d been in our Northern Virginia home for 45 years, staying there was not really an option once my editor’s job at an allonline university was abolished. My wife, Becky, planned to continue her career as a professional interior designer once we were settled in our new address, working with new clients as well as with some she was still involved with in the D.C. metro area. Besides, the notion of a new, warmer life sounded so appealing. Like Sy, we were ready to go.

To reconnoiter the Sunshine State, Becky put her car on the Auto Train and after an overnight rail trip, she was off on her expedition. A week later, when she boarded the train for her return trip home, she had narrowed the search neither to East nor West Coast, but in a Solomon-like choice she opted for Central Florida with Orlando as its hub.

Becky’s second visit a month or so later ended with the purchase of our new home. The endeavor, aided by a real estate agent friend of our son’s, established us in a bountiful, lakeside suburb of homes, shops and a plethora of ethnic restaurants known simply as Dr. Phillips.

Philip Phillips was an early 20th century entrepreneur who owned thousands of acres of citrus trees around Orlando that made him a very wealthy man and a major funding source for many charitable organizations and cultural entities across the middle of the state. At their peak, Phillips’ groves stretched over 18 square miles of aptly named Orange County. As a result, just about everything in the area today, from the elementary school to the high school to the boulevard and the local hospital, as well as many private businesses and amenities bears his name, including the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. (According to the Florida Citrus Hall of Fame, “From 1929 to 1931, Phillips directed a project designed to improve the taste of orange juice in a can.” He developed a “flash” pasteurization process which greatly enhances the taste of orange juice. Without the aid of TV or social media, “Phillips

undertook a massive marketing campaign to promote the new juice. He placed the tagline ‘Drink Dr. Phillip’s orange juice because the Doc says it’s good for you’ on the labels of all of his juice products.” For his efforts, Philip Phillips was inducted posthumously into the Florida Citrus Hall of Fame in 1986.)

The success of his orange juice helped to pave the way for the overwhelming success of concentrate in the 1950s, when we children accepted as an article of faith that our daily breakfast juice would come from a frozen can of Minute Maid – just add water and stir. (The company actually did purchase Phillips’ business in 1954.)

For us, fiction became reality on November 2, 2021, when Becky and I and our aging beagle Flora got into the Toyota Camry and headed south. We, too, were ready to go. In our case, our “new place” is also home to The Mouse (aka Mickey) and perhaps the most tattooed population on the East Coast.

Three days and nights later we arrived in Orlando. We were greeted at our new address by a full day of heavy tropical rains, forcing the movers to back their truck against the open garage door to unload. After they departed, we were left with having to sort out a garage full of cardboard boxes of varying sizes and distribute the contents to their proper place, a job we only recently completed.

The months-long chore was made lighter by the knowledge that while we were unpacking in 50-60 degree and mostly sunny weather, our old neighborhood in Northern Virginia was experiencing a harsh winter of snowstorms that blanketed the northeast through February 2022.

Having previously lived for seven-plus years in Britain and then in Panama, we were accustomed to relocating to a foreign land with a formidable climate and a distinctive population. Florida turned out to be no exception. After only a few days in the area, I could not help thinking of Alexis de Tocqueville’s seminal 19th century work, “Democracy in America.”

The helter-skelter manner of driving in the Sunshine State brought to mind the astute Frenchman’s warning against the creation of a “tyranny of the majority” when “every citizen, being assimilated to all the rest, is lost in the crowd.” This tyranny of the majority is most often evident when motoring Floridians change lanes or make a turn without ever thinking of using their turn signals beforehand. Why give advance warning when, according to the governor, we are living in the freest state in the nation? If I want to make a turn I damn well will, and I don’t have to tell anyone either!

What tends to induce further chaos is a system of traffic lights that is excessively slow to change, not synchronized, and on many roadways so ubiquitous that stop-and-go traffic reigns on each street corner. If it weren’t for the symbiotic relationship with The Mouse and Disney’s vast holdings here, which rival those of the late Dr. Phillips, newcomers and tourists might label the motoring habits of the natives as Mickey Mouse stuff; no worse perhaps than traffic in Los Angeles, New York City or even Washington, D.C. As proof, here the majority of roadside billboards hawk Orlando attorneys ready to take your accident case to court and get you big bucks for their efforts. And they won’t charge you a penny if they don’t win. What a deal!

Once out of their vehicles, however, the folks we’ve met are friendly, gracious and eager to be of help. They make our new life all the more pleasant. We are indeed happy here, especially since the trash removal truck has hauled away the last of our cardboard boxes.