The Compound

the main drag of the compound

The Compound feels exotic, in its total lack of the exotic.
It feels like a cross between other manufactured communities like Levittown in New York and Celebration in Florida.

There are about 240 homes/trailers, some of them very tricked out, and a few with what might be called architectural details. The streets are tiny: narrow, short and without curbs or sidewalks, except for Boulevard Seven, which is the main drag in and out.

All the streets except for Canal and Sunset are numbered Boulevards – going up to 15. (Sunset is a boulevard also.) All the street surfaces have been covered with a very black coating and so retain heat nicely and stand in contrast to the homes, almost all of which are white. The trailers (I believe mobile homes is actually the correct term) are all one story tall, so there is lots of sky and the palm trees tower above everything. There is an overwhelming sense of order, which has an appeal.

Most places are assiduously kept up: grass trimmed or done away with all together, in favour of white stones or red bark mulch. There is an unappealing assortment of lawn ornaments, starting with the aquatic.

dolphin on dolphin sex is celebrated

These include lighthouses and interspecies sexual cavorting (which I am in favour of).

Cutie pie animals are often featured.

There is a melting pot of jockey statues, black, white and double double. One jockey had been painted black and white, the division running in a vertical hard edge line from the center of his hairline to his chin and then continuing on his arms. When I went to take a picture of it, he had been repainted all dark brown, the shade of 72% chocolate. Something to do with the changing season perhaps.

It’s very quiet. No more than a quarter of the homes are occupied just now; apparently in the new year more and more people arrive, many from Canada.

Traffic is light and mostly composed of geezers on two or three wheeled bicycles or in golf carts. The tiny wheels of the carts fit in nicely on the tiny streets between the tiny houses. Some of the carts are are decorated with seasonal light displays; others feature carpeting and glass votive candle holders. The two wheeled bikes are mostly fixies: one-speed clunky cruisers in nice light colours.

The speed limit is 10mph. Twenty miles per hour is considered pedal to the metal and jarring to those wafting away on Floridian dreams.

chez moi

renegades grow food in their yard

Water surrounds the compound on three sides. Two are canals, with tiny docks for some tiny, and some really not so tiny, watercraft. The third is Tampa Bay.

a warm welcome awaits at the back gate