Flatland Road
"Flatland Road" is about arriving in Clearwater, Florida in 1992 — specifically Webb Drive, Palmetto Street, Glenwood Avenue, Crest Lake Park, Gulf to Bay Boulevard, and the strange, wide-open feeling of standing on ground that doesn't climb.
I came from Northwestern Pennsylvania, where the land has weight. Where every road either climbed or turned back around. Then one day I was standing under a burning Florida sun, looking down streets that ran level as far as I could see, under a sky that just kept opening.
I've arrived / Burning sun / Biking on roads / No sidewalk fun
Florida had its own rules for a kid on a bike: bikes stay on the street, riding right there with the traffic. No sidewalk fun. So that's how I learned my new town — down in the road itself, sun on my back, rolling past what I knew.
New story. New life. New old friends. New strides.
The route became a ritual, on foot or on two wheels: out from Webb Drive, off Palmetto, up Glenwood — the high road — over to Highland's two lanes, crossing Gulf to Bay to the IGA and back again. Crest Lake Park was a baby back then, barely a park at all, but the trail felt right.
Glenwood the high road / Highland two lanes / Taking that road / To the IGA again
And the whole way, a Walkman on my hip, turned on the Led. Zeppelin II and Zeppelin III were the soundtrack of every one of those trips. "Tangerine" so sweet, running through my head under the Florida light. "Celebration Day" pushing me toward whatever was waiting up ahead. And "Friends" — because that's exactly what those flat roads were leading to: new old friends, friends up ahead. Behind me, back over my shoulder, the old world shaking loose — a flatland release, when the levee breaks.
A Walkman song / In an old new place
Florida taught me in small lessons too. Nobody said pop. It was soda, and I was learning slow. The heat was its own language. The palm winds blew where the hill winds used to. Nothing there felt like my street — and somehow, some of it felt familiar anyway. Like I'd walked this road before, mistakes and all, chasing sun through a brand new day.
And between every trip, there were the drums.
Couldn't wait to get back / And hit the skins / Beat that flatland heat / Out from within
That was how I sweated the strangeness out. Came home, sat down at the kit, and turned a new life into a pulse.
I didn't know it then, but those flat, flat roads were carrying me somewhere. Forward. Toward everything that came after.
Lost and found.
On the Clearwater side.
That's where Floregon begins.
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