A man says to me, “How do you like that car?” I’m standing by a little green Kia. “It’s not mine, it’s a rental,” I say. I’m in the town of Okeechobee, Fla., parked on the main drag in front of Nutmeg’s Cafe. “Where you from?” he says.
“Minnesota.”
“I hear they just got more snow up there.”
“How do you like that car?” is a classic opening of a casual conversation between two men who don’t know each other and it can lead in various directions, if the two have the urge to talk.
He’s from Connecticut, I find out, and has lived in nearby Fort Pierce for several years. He thought when he moved to Florida that he’d be spending a lot of time on beaches but he hasn’t been on a beach much at all. He drives a 1947 Packard convertible that he fixed up himself. He moved here because Florida is better for the Packard and also to see to his father who is 87 and also to get away from a broken romance. He and his dad have breakfast together every Thursday morning. He misses the North, the big winter storms, the bracing chill in the air, but Florida is OK. He is thinking of buying property in Okeechobee. He likes small towns. He recommends I see Fort Pierce and drive the Indian River Highway down the coast.
He offers all of this in one brief encounter standing on the sidewalk and when we say so long, I have no idea what his politics are, if he attends church, what he does for a living, how he feels about climate change, but I do feel warmly about Okeechobee.