12 Things Florida Kids Did in Summer Before the Internet

Florida summer nostalgia comes out picture-perfect, with lazy afternoons and heat that wasn’t so bad.

The real version came with sandspurs underfoot and love bugs smeared across every windshield by July.

But ask any grown-up Floridian, and they’ll tell you summer was the best.

These are the things Florida kids did every summer, long before the internet.

1. Beating the 3 O’Clock Storm

Florida averages 82 thunderstorm days a year, more than any other state.

Kids playing outside learned to watch the color of the sky, not check a weather app.

The wind picked up first, then the light went flat and gray. That was the signal to grab bikes, pull the wet laundry off the line, and beat the first drops home.

Miss it, and you ended up drenched halfway up the driveway.

Every Florida kid knew the signs by looking at the sky before there were even smartphones vying for their attention.

2. Racing Anoles off the Screen Door

Green anoles covered every screen door and porch rail in the Florida summer heat.

The common backyard name for them was “chameleon,” even though a true chameleon has never lived wild in Florida.

Catching one took patience: Creep up slow, then grab fast behind the front legs before the tail let go.

A brave kid would let one clamp onto an earlobe and wear it around the yard like jewelry.

It barely pinched.

3. Sleeping on the Screen Porch

A screen porch did the job in many Florida houses before central air conditioning became popular.

Some nights meant dragging a sheet and a pillow out to the porch, chasing whatever breeze existed.

A box fan, aimed at your feet or your face, was the only thermostat in the room.

You learned to sleep through cicadas, sprinkler timers, and the occasional bug thudding against the screen mesh.

That was just July.

4. Riding Silver Springs’ Glass Bottom Boats

A trip to Silver Springs, near Ocala, meant gliding over water so clear you could count fish from a glass bottom boat.

The boats had been running since the 1870s, and by the early 1960s, the springs pulled in more than a million visitors a year.

The boats weren’t the main draw for many kids.

That honor went to Ross Allen, whose reptile institute at the springs milked rattlesnakes onstage for antivenom labs, alligators and all.

You watched from a bench a safe distance back.

The whole bench stayed put until the handler finished the show.

5. A Dip at Wakulla Springs

Wakulla Springs, south of Tallahassee, kept its water an icy, spring-fed chill no matter how hot the air got.

Florida families climbed the old diving platform and dropped straight into water so clear that Hollywood crews filmed several Tarzan movies there in the 1930s and ’40s.

Glass bottom boats had been gliding over the spring since 1875, longer than almost anywhere else in the state.

The cold hit you all at once, then eased off after a few strokes through the water.

6. Drive-In Double Features

Drive-in theaters dotted Florida by the dozen, from the Ocala Drive-In to the Silver Moon in Lakeland.

Families packed the station wagon with pillows and pajama-clad kids and paid by the carload.

The show didn’t start until well after dark, since Florida stayed light so late into a summer evening.

Kids ran the playground under the screen until the cartoons started, then climbed back into the car for the feature.

Half of them fell asleep before it ended.

7. A Bag of Oranges off Route 27

Citrus groves used to stretch for miles along routes 27, 41, and 301 before developers cleared the groves.

Roadside stands like Boyette’s Grove sold bags of oranges straight off the trees and poured free samples of fresh-squeezed juice for anyone who stopped.

The Citrus Tower in Clermont let you climb up for a view over the treetops in every direction.

The smell filled the whole car on the ride home.

8. Vacation Bible School Crafts

Vacation Bible School filled a week of Florida summers for many kids, usually at the Baptist or Methodist church down the road.

Mornings meant songs, a Popsicle-stick craft table, and paper cups of grape Kool-Aid poured by volunteer moms.

Bikes and sneakers got you there in the heat, since nobody's parents were driving twice a day for a week straight.

You went for the friends, not the sermon.

9. Skating at the Rink

A Friday night at the roller rink was the closest thing many kids had to a night out.

The Sweetheart Roller Rink outside Tampa packed a wooden floor full of kids skating to whatever was on the radio that summer.

On Merritt Island, the Starlite Skate Center did the same for the Space Coast crowd.

You saved allowance money for rink fries and a locker key, then skated until your ankles gave out.

Most rinks kept the lights low and the music going right up until closing time.

10. A Free Cookie at the Publix Bakery

The bakery counter was usually the first stop on a Publix run, good for one free cookie.

You had to choose between chocolate chip and sugar while mom worked through her list at the other end of the store.

Publix has kept the tradition going for generations, long enough that grown adults still ask for one out of habit.

Most kids grabbed the sugar cookie first.

11. Mermaids at Weeki Wachee

Weeki Wachee Springs, north of Tampa, has put on the same underwater show since 1947, staged six feet below the surface of the spring.

Performers swam in tail costumes, breathing through a hidden air hose while they smiled the whole time.

They'd eat a banana or take a sip of Grapette soda underwater just to prove the trick was real.

Kids pressed against the theater glass to catch it.

12. Hunting for Shark Teeth in Venice

Venice Beach, south of Sarasota, spent decades earning its nickname as the Shark's Tooth Capital of the world.

Millions of years of fossilized shark teeth wash up from the Gulf floor and settle into the sand and shallows just offshore.

You waded in with kitchen strainers and mesh scoops, sifting through the surf for a black, triangle-shaped tooth to take home.