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Post #725762 by Hurricane Hayward on Wed, Aug 20, 2014 1:59 AM

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No offense to my adopted home state. I've been here since '75 and I'm not regretting my parents' decision. My intention was to highlight the longstanding conundrum we have here in this land 'o plenty in which the term "Tiki" is so misunderstood. Some 99.9% of the population couldn't care less. But I must quote from "Tiki Road Trip" ...

"The Sunshine State has 1,300 miles of coastline, and 800 of those miles are beach. Exploring the vacationland along this lengthy coast, the excitable Tiki hunter will spot something labeled as a Tiki bar approximately every 1.23612 miles. That's about 1,053 Tiki bars in Florida ... Don't get too excited, however, since the vast, vast majority of these pretenders ... are not precisely what most Tiki worshippers have in mind."

"Floridians have quite a different definition of a "Tiki bar" than the rest of the country seems to. As far as they're concerned, any open-air bar with a thatched roof near the water is a Tiki bar. ... I am sure that these "Florida-style" Tiki bars are a lot of fun and that plenty of people are having a great time at them as you read this. ... Perhaps The Mai-Kai sucked up all of Florida's available Tiki mana, leaving nothing left for the other bars to share."

I don't take any of this as seriously as Mr. Titelbaum. It's just one of those many quirks that we learn to live with as Tikiphiles in perhaps the quirkiest state in the union. It doesn't hurt to laugh at ourselves from time to time. Now, pass me a Corona and crank up the Jimmy Buffett :>)

[ Edited by: Hurricane Hayward 2014-08-20 02:03 ]