Florida sign - Short story Florida

FLORIDA: A short story by Max Reif

Last updated: March 26th, 2019

I’ve tried to tell the story of my family’s motor trip to Florida, which I believe was in 1959, when I was eleven, many times before. One time I must have done fairly well, because Mothering, a pretty big magazine at the time, wrote me that they were very close to publishing it. At the last minute, they chose to use something else instead.

Writing down that version had all the magic of conjuring with a wand. It embodied the miracle of writing, the capacity of strange little black lines to bring forth a vision completely intact from within one person, and put it inside another person. Everyone who read the piece was able to experience the thrill of our three-day adventure through the kudzu-choked pine forests of the South, in the days before interstates, and then of the drive all the long, green way down the Florida peninsula.

Subsequent efforts to tell the story, after that first manuscript got lost during one of my many moves in the ‘80s and ‘90s, were duds. But the trip, my first impression of the world outside the womb of our hometown and its environs, still lives a mythic life in me. It is forever cut into my psyche in very bright, bold relief, beginning with my getting the earth-shaking news that it was going to happen.

Read the rest of this story in Max Reif’s book, Toward an Interior Sun: Awakening by a Master, and the Difficult Journey Toward Discipleship»


image 1: DonkeyHotey (Creative Commons BY—no changes)
  1. Max Reif has captured a moment in time, its history, irony and significance. I can hear his voice in this piece.

    David Handsher

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *