Mango Madness

In search of the elusive Florida mango

Mango madness has arrived again in South Florida. I awoke to find this post from the local  NextDoor Century Village site in my email:

Just letting you know, watched this car go down the street in our neighborhood stopping at any property with a mango tree and picking. I finally said something to them and they said they had just got permission from one house (I watched them when they were at that house - they did not). Not cool.

When I checked back a couple of hours later to see the comments on the above post, I found it had been removed.  I can only imagine how inflammtory the comments got.

It’s mango season in South Florida and therefore mango theft season.  There will be more and more of these posts as the season goes on.   Along with posts from mango tree owners who have too many mangoes and want to get rid of them, inviting the mango deprived to come on by.

There will also be posts from me and other desperate mango lovers pleading for mangoes from neighbors, and posts from neighbors saying stuff like “If you walk around such and such area you will find them on the ground.”   I have looked and never found one mango on the ground.

I fell in love with Florida mangoes years ago when I lived in cold, dreary upstate New York and my father-in-law, who lived in Tamarac sent us mangoes from his tree.   Huge, green, hard-as-rock mangoes would arrive and turn into soft reddish-yellow fruit, dripping with sweetness.  Friends would beg for those mangos; they were more delicious than anything you could buy in the store. 

I thought moving to Florida would mean I could actually buy those mangoes and eat as many as I wanted.

  No such luck.

 For some reason the dearth of mangos for sale—like much of life in Florida—is hidden in the mists of irrationality that blanket this state.  You can find mangoes in the supermarket-- from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras-- but none from Florida.   Those elusive delights are hanging on trees on someone’s private property—someone who probably has a gun.

I have asked locals why this is and no one has an answer.  I asked the local farm store which carries mangoes from Guatemala and they have no idea.

 They grow other produce in Florida so why not mangoes?  It can’t be that they’re too fragile to ship.   Those big green babies last for weeks and ripen slowly.  

It can’t be the price.   Floridians are willing to pay good money for mangoes.  The one farm store in Boynton Beach that does sell them has a line out front when they’re available.  They go fast and they’re not cheap.

The only explanation for Florida mango madness is…. duh…Florida.  This is a banana republic that also imports bananas even though they grow here.  Where you can’t buy a whole coconut in the supermarket even though you could knock one off the tree in front of your house.   Where whether or not you’re allowed to shoot iguanas is hotly debated.

Most of what goes on in Florida is totally inexplicable.   From Matt Gaetz to Stand Your Ground laws to Burmese pythons to Publix’s supermarket monopoly.  

I was on the phone last night with friend who retired to Belize.  She is bored to tears and thinking of returning to the States, but can’t afford to go back to NYC, her home.   She loves living in the tropics near the ocean but hates Florida.  “I swore I’d never move there,” she told me.

 Of course, I once said this as well.

So, what is there to love about Florida?   Dave Barry explains it best in his book: Best. State. Ever. A Florida Man Defends his Homeland.    He provides many reasons including the weather, the gorgeous women and the low taxes but my favorite is:

It’s Not Boring

 “Florida is one of the least boring places on the planet,” he explains …. things keep happening here. Granted many of those things are bizarre, or stupid or dangerous.  Often drugs are involved.  Or alligators.  We cannot rule out the possibility of alligators on drugs.   We cannot rule anything out because we never know what will happen next in Florida.  We only know that, any minute now, something will.  That’s what makes Florida more interesting than states such as, no offense, Nebraska.”

Case in point, mango theft.   Someone may threaten to use a firearm against mango thieves.   Someone may be arrested for mango theft.   Someone else may offer free mangoes.  There may be a mango lottery that I can enter.

 Whatever happens I will not be bored.  I will be riveted, in search of the elusive Florida mango.