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Over Coffee
Before I moved to Hillsborough County in late 1979, I lived in Bradenton. I remember watching the foundation being dug for the first building in what is now Bradenton’s busy DeSoto Square Mall. It was the Sears store. That was in 1970 when much of Bradenton was still traveled on gravel and dirt roads. Before Interstate 75 was built, there were just two two-lane North-South roads along our Gulf Coast - U.S. 41, then commonly referred to as the Tamiami Trail, and U.S. 301, along which in many places you could drive for more than an hour without going through any town.
Just east of U.S. 301 were winding dirt roads that bypassed the nearby destinations of four-corner communities like Samoset and Oneco that used to be marked by a gas station and a general store. But these roads led to inland wonders like the rope swing we used to jump in the cold, cold water at the Rye Bridge swimming hole, and the wooden docks around Lake Parrish and Fort Hamer- all places we used to fish, camp and swim. On longer weekends, I took the kids to Myakka River State Park where they could wander through the campsites visiting with other campers never worrying about safety- other than straying too far from the campfires and ending up somewhere in alligator country.
When I moved to Ruskin to marry into a third-generation Hillsborough County family, I never pictured the same thing happening here that took place in Bradenton 30 years earlier, once that first Sears store broke ground. Once in Ruskin, my kids, older now, devised makeshift rafts from old wood and tires to scoot around the edges of the Little Manatee River and played hide and seek in the orange groves, making trails and climbing trees, reminded by me every time they left the house to “be careful and watch out for rattlesnakes.”
As Ruskin began to grow, the surrounding area was still very open. Driving from Ruskin to Brandon, where we had to go for practically everything in the early ‘80s, we were surrounded by rows of tomatoes, peppers, squash and miles of orange trees. I remember seeing the first Summerfield Crossings sign on decorative rock borders just east of U.S. 301 and wondering why on earth anyone would put a development “way out there?”
Since then, I’ve bought a house in Summerfield and at first, we had to drive to Apollo Beach or “downtown” Riverview to buy groceries or go to a pharmacy.
But Riverview- once called a bedroom community for Brandon- has finally claimed the title of a community in its own right. National chain stores, mom-and-pop businesses, I can’t think of anything you could want that doesn’t have some kind of foothold here now. I not only have two large grocery stores within two miles of my house and a choice of pharmacies, but also dozens of eateries and specialty shops from which to choose.
Just last week, I talked at length with Kitty Cunningham, executive director of the Riverview Chamber of Commerce, and found that chamber membership has grown to more than 450 members who are heavily involved in the area’s 22 schools. “Next year it will be 23, there’s at least one new school opening every year now,” Kitty said.
Kitty, who has been director now for about two years, is in between hosting the annual Riverview chamber Hog Roast, from which profits are split between the chamber and Shriner’s Children’s Hospital in Tampa, and the chamber’s annual Teacher’s Breakfast.
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| KITTY CUNNINGHAM |
It’s hard to believe Riverview is big enough that its children can be zoned into 22 different schools, depending on the location of the family home, but Kitty says that’s so and she’s the one who knows.
It’s even more mind boggling to imagine the chamber’s Education Committee running a Teacher of the Month program at all those schools. It’s hard enough just to keep their telephone numbers and addresses straight without keeping track of who’s Teacher of the Month at 22 schools. But somehow, they do, and every month from August through May each school’s “best” teacher gets a certificate and a gift from chamber members to show their appreciation for what teachers contribute to this community.
The chamber is now planning for its third Teacher Appreciation Breakfast which will take place in August and focus on teachers new to the Riverview area. To get an idea of how many area residents are affected, last year’s attendance at the breakfast was 250 people. With from 15 to 20 children in each teacher’s class, just think how many families are affected by these teachers.
This year’s breakfast will be the first held at the International Independent Showman’s Association, 6915 Riverview Drive. The showman’s association, with its history of long-standing community involvement in the South County area has just become a chamber member this year and immediately took on the job of hosting the breakfast. That’s just one example of the involvement area businesses are taking in betterment of the community, Kitty said.
But sometimes, because of a quirk I’ve found with Riverview residents, including myself, Riverview doesn’t get all the credit it deserves.
One thing I see happening here is that when asked where they live, most Riverview residents are more apt to give the name of their subdivision than to say “Riverview.”
It’s a lot like Brooklyn and Queens are to New York City- just ask a New Yorker where they’re from and most likely you’ll get “Manhattan” or some other borough for the answer instead of “New York.”
Earlier in this column I said I moved to “Summerfield,” not “Riverview.” It’s not that I don’t like Riverview, or like saying I’m from there, it’s just that “Summerfield” is different from “Boyette” or “Alafia Crossings” or “South Pointe,” all of which carry a Riverview address.
Sometimes I think differentiations between the communities takes credit from Riverview that as a community, it deserves. Riverview has come a long way from being known as a bedroom community for Brandon, or as “that place on U.S. 301 you drive through just south of Brandon.”
I’m sure the American Indians who first named the Alafia River Al-u-feah, which means River of Fire for the phosphorus content that sometimes shows up as sparks in the air over the water at night never dreamed Riverview would become what it is today, just as in 1979 I never dreamed Bradenton’s Sears store was the beginning of something much greater.
As we move deeper into the 21st Century, we can all be thankful to have such a place to live, work and grow. I have to remember to drop by for coffee with people in the business community more often. Many times, they’re the first to notice community trends.
* Perhaps you have something you’d like to share. Or maybe you’d rather tell the community about your favorite charity or cause; or sound off about something you think needs change. That’s what “Over Coffee” is about. It really doesn’t matter whether we actually drink any coffee or not (although I probably will). It’s what you have to say that’s important.
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