13 Things Florida Grandparents Do That Baffle Their Kids

In The Villages, a grandfather backs his golf cart out of the garage at 4:15 to make a dinner reservation two miles away.

His kids, down for a visit, assume his old Buick has finally died.

It runs fine.

He just prefers his golf cart, and the early bird pricing ends at five.

These are the things Florida grandparents do that baffle their kids.

Shrugging at the Alligator

Florida grandparents live with alligators the way other people live with squirrels.

A gator suns itself on the bank of the pond behind the house, and grandpa waves at it on the way to the mailbox.

The state is home to about 1.3 million of them, living in all 67 counties.

They turn up in canals, on golf courses, and now and then in a screened pool.

Grandpa is unbothered.

His kids, in from Ohio, want to know why nobody is calling anyone.

The answer is that someone who’s shared the neighborhood with gators for forty years knows the rules: keep your distance, never feed them, and let them be.

Golf Cart Instead of a Car

Given a perfectly good car and a golf cart, many Florida grandparents pick the cart.

In The Villages, the sprawling retirement community north of Orlando, the cart is the main way to get around.

Residents run to the pharmacy, the doctor, and dinner without touching a gas pedal, crossing town on dedicated cart paths, bridges, and tunnels.

They take it seriously enough that they once rolled 3,321 golf carts into one parade for a Guinness World Record.

The car stays parked.

To their kids, a grown adult puttering to a restaurant at ten miles an hour looks like a phase.

It isn’t.

It’s cheaper, easier, and far more social than driving.

Dinner at 4:30 Sharp

A Florida grandparent eats dinner while the sun is still up.

Retirees built a whole culture around the early bird special, planning the afternoon around a 4:30 reservation.

Get seated by five, and the same grouper plate costs a few dollars less.

A few dollars every night.

By six, they’re home, and the dishes are already done.

Their kids, used to sitting down at eight, can’t picture eating dinner in the afternoon.

One visit to a packed Sarasota dining room at 4:45 usually explains it.

Ruled by the Cone

Come June, Florida grandparents turn into part-time meteorologists.

The moment a storm spins up in the Atlantic, they study the cone of uncertainty like a stock ticker.

The garage fills with cases of water, a generator, batteries, and enough canned food to outlast a siege.

They’re ready.

They text the whole family the latest forecast track, usually before the kids have finished their coffee.

To someone up north, it looks like panic over a storm still five days out.

To a Floridian who sat through a few bad hurricanes, it looks like a Tuesday.

Hunting Down Bealls Bucks

When it comes to a bargain, Florida grandparents shop with a discipline that would impress an accountant.

The name to know is Bealls, the department store chain that opened in Bradenton in 1915 and still hands out coupons called Bealls Bucks.

A grandmother will save a stack of them, wait for a sale, layer a percent-off coupon on top, and walk out having spent almost nothing.

The system works.

Her kids order the same shirt online at full price and never think twice.

She thinks about it plenty, and she keeps the receipts to prove what she saved.

Out on the Lanai

Florida grandparents keep a vocabulary that stops their kids cold.

The screened porch out back is the lanai, and the screened cage over the pool is the birdcage.

The spare room with the pull-out couch is the Florida room.

The words come standard.

The kids who grew up calling it a patio need a translation the first few visits.

Give it a summer, and they’re asking to eat out on the lanai too.

Feeding the Sandhill Cranes

Some Florida grandparents have befriended the local wildlife, whether the state approves or not.

A pair of sandhill cranes, four feet tall with a red crown, strolls up the driveway most mornings, and grandpa has a name for each bird.

He also has a bag of cracked corn, even though feeding them has been illegal since 2002.

He knows the rule.

He feeds them anyway.

Wildlife officials say fed cranes lose their fear of people and start pecking at windows and cars.

His kids point that out every visit, and the cranes keep showing up at the same time he does.

The All-Caps Text Message

A Florida grandparent texts in a style all their own.

The messages arrive in all capital letters, signed at the bottom with a full name, as if they were telegrams.

The FaceTime calls open on a close-up of a forehead or a ceiling fan.

Say hi to the ceiling.

There's a running game of Words With Friends going, plus a Facebook feed full of birthday posts and minion memes.

Their kids keep offering to fix the settings.

The settings are fine.

Grandma just likes to sign her texts.

Air Conditioning Set to Arctic

Step into a Florida grandparent's house in August, and you might want a sweater.

The thermostat sits low enough to hang meat, humming around the clock from May to October.

Sixty-eight and holding.

The kids grumble about the electric bill and the goosebumps.

Grandpa points out that he spent forty summers before central air, and he's earned every degree of it.

There's a blanket on the couch in July, and nobody finds that strange.

Bags of Backyard Citrus

Many Florida grandparents have a citrus tree out back, and they won't let you leave empty-handed.

Every visit ends with a grocery bag of grapefruit or oranges pressed into your hands at the car.

Take the fruit.

It's a point of pride, and it's getting harder to manage because citrus greening has hit groves across the state and reached backyard trees too.

A tree that gave two hundred oranges a few years back might give a sad handful now.

So when grandma offers you a bag, the kids have learned to say yes and mean it.

Out of the Pool by 2

Around the daily thunderstorm, Florida grandparents plan the whole afternoon.

Almost every summer day, the clouds build by early afternoon, and the rain comes down around two or three.

The state is the lightning capital of the country, and they've watched enough strikes to respect it.

Out of the pool.

They unplug the television, pull the cars under cover, and wait it out.

Their kids, mid-swim, think the sky looks fine.

Twenty minutes later, the rain comes down right on schedule, and the sun is back before anyone has toweled off.

Pickleball at the Clubhouse

A Florida grandparent's social calendar would tire out a college student.

The clubhouse runs pickleball in the morning, water aerobics at noon, and mahjong or bingo after dinner.

In a place like Sun City Center, near Tampa, there's a club for everything from line dancing to ham radio.

Retirement is busy.

Their kids call on a Wednesday and can't get through because grandma is out on the court.

When she calls back, the excuse is that she had a doubles match and couldn't exactly walk off.

Calling Up North in January

Florida grandparents can't resist a weather report in the dead of winter.

When January hits, the family up north is scraping ice off the windshield, and the phone rings.

It's grandma, out on the lanai, mentioning how nice the 75 degrees feels.

She's not sorry.