It is mundane Wednesday and it has been raining here in western NC for the last couple of days. It rains a lot here in this part of the Appalachians. For years, like many other flatlanders I called these mountains the AppaLAYchians, but the natives pronounce it AppaLATCHians. It is one of the quickest ways to identify yourself as an outsider or a "come here" or even worse, a "Floridiot."

My husband's aunt and uncle lived in Richmond, Virginia most of their lives, but way back in the late 1940's, they hand built a small concrete block cabin on the Rappahannock River at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in a small town of Deltaville, Virginia. When they retired, they moved to Deltaville full time. At that point, they had been there on and off for nearly forty years and knew everyone in town, but yet they would always be "come heres." They could never be anything but "come heres" in Deltaville. Only those born in Deltaville were considered "been theres."

The difference between "come heres" and "been theres" depends upon the community. In some communities, even the first generation born there is still considered part of the "come heres" whereas in others, it only takes a short while to be a part of the "been theres."

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_XpA8z1XPk]

All my life, I have been a "come here" regardless of where I have lived. I was born in another state, but have lived most of my life in Florida. I guess that automatically makes me a "Floridiot" until proven otherwise, as well as a "come here." I grew up in St. Petersburg, a city on the west coast of Florida. It was always St. Pete to us, not St. Petersburg, but it is still legally St. Petersburg. Its nearby cousin, once known as St. Petersburg Beach, changed its name to the more casual sounding St. Pete Beach several years ago. But St. Petersburg continues to hold on to its formal given name.

The story we were told when growing up there is that St. Pete was named after the city in Russia as a result coin toss between two men, both of whom were "come heres." If the loser had won, St. Pete would have been called Detroit. I always thought this story was fiction, made up to make plain jane, old St. Pete appear to have a more colorful history, but then I went to Wikipedia and much to my shock, the story was there, so it must be true or somewhat close to the truth. Could it be that truth sometimes outshines fiction?

St. Petersburg was founded in 1888 by John C. Williams, who purchased the land, and by Peter Demens, who brought the railroad industry into the area. As a part of a coin toss bet, the winner, Peter Demens, named the land after St. Petersburg, Russia, while Williams opted to name the first hotel built which was named the Detriot Hotel, both named after their home towns respectively. St. Petersburg was incorporated as a town on February 29, 1892 and re-incorporated as a city on June 6, 1903.

When I was growing up in St. Pete, the entire downtown was heavily populated with old people who had come there to retire die. Many of these "come heres" lived in one of the many rotting old hotels downtown where the rooms were rented by the month. These hotel rooms were definitely not luxury rooms but closer to dingy, tenement rooms. I had a great aunt who had been widowed three times and lived in one of these decrepit hotels. She was once apparently a real looker, but two of her husbands committed suicide and she had no children. She was close to penniless. So she moved to St. Pete as a "come here" to be near my mother who looked after her.

The once luxurious Vinoy Hotel located on the waterfront was one of these old hotels that fell into extreme disrepair during my youth. Now it is a fancy resort complete with golf course and yacht basin after having been restored by the Renaissance group. It is said to be haunted by ghosts who like to play supernatural tricks on the "come heres."

Back in those days, St. Pete was famous for the green benches in its downtown which were always heavily occupied by the nearly dead. As a teenager, I and my peers used to call St. Pete "the town of the newly wed and nearly dead." St. Pete, in those days, was more the town of the nearly dead than the town of the newly wed.

And St. Pete was the poor relative to its more refined and cosmopolitan neighbor, Tampa. St. Pete's main claim to fame was the number of days of sunshine it had each year and it became known as Florida's Sunshine City which why retirees would flock there. As a publicity gimmick, the local afternoon newspaper, the Evening Independent, used to give away free papers on the days when the sun did not shine at all. They gave away very few papers each year. And the nearly dead kept coming.

When I was in my teens, someone donated a huge, maybe fifteen foot tall, sculpture of the head of Peter the Great to the city. It was white, stuck out like a sore thumb, and looked like it was made of plaster of Paris. The city was stuck trying to find an appropriate place to locate this god awful monstrosity. The south side of St. Pete, where I grew up, was also the wrong side of the city. So of course, the city found a spot to locate the statue on the south side. There was a traffic island at an intersection of a main road south and another road that led to the Boyd Hill Nature Park which was a beautiful nature preserve on located along the south shore of Lake Maggiore.

In my youth, Lake Maggiore was the home of the Southeastern Regatta power boat races. Years later, I learned that one of my Facebook racing friends had been a powerboat (hydroplane) racer many years ago. Since he was not from Florida, I asked him if he had ever raced on Lake Maggiore. He said that Lake Maggiore was his favorite venue and that of many of his contemporaries because the surface of the water was so smooth. The powerboat races ceased years ago and now any form of motorized boating is prohibited. And since Lake Maggiore is brimming with alligators, no swimming is allowed either.

Anyway, back to the statue of Peter the Great. It was here at the intersection of these two major roads, one of which led to a gorgeous nature park, that the city fathers decided to place the ugly statue of Peter the Great. This location was also on the route that I and my family drove nearly every day to and from school or work. And every day, we would be visually assaulted by this ugly monstrosity. Eventually, some time later and after much public out cry against the statue, it disappeared. Perhaps, it was after the donor had died, I do not know. I tried to find out about the statue via Google, but nothing came up. Perhaps that is because everyone who ever saw it wanted to forget about it. Like "come heres," things that are free are not always good things. And often a "come here" is definitely not welcomed which is what happened with this ugly statue.