degrees of green

IN WINTER PARK

I’ve often heard it observed that people typically name the places they develop for what they have displaced, and where I live I’ve found that true.

A block up my street is a brick-walled residential community called Quail Hollow. Though I’ve frequently walked my dogs along every street and cul-de-sac of Quail Hollow, we’ve never flushed a quail, and the ground is now quite flat.

I live in Orange County, which has lost most of its orange groves to developers. And adjacent Seminole County has its share of McMansions and starter castles, but I’ve seen no chickees.

In our little city of Winter Park, where there’s a commerce-endangered park downtown, it’s late March. The crispy brown leaves of our live oaks and laurel oaks have just finished falling, ejected by the fresh gold-green leaves of spring. We have summer, then fall, then spring, but no winter in Winter Park.

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