SIDE SALAD - Everything crunchy is good.

DATED SUNSHINE

I have an odd fascination when it comes to vintage photos of Florida. Not the 30-foot-dead-alligator, mosquitoes-so-big-they-could-carry-off-a-man vintage type, just the kitschy kind. I grew up in and around St. Petersburg, St. Pete Beach, Pass-a-Grille and Gulfport and I'm old enough to remember when women wore bathing caps, when certain bridges were still intact across the mouth of Tampa Bay and when you could still see the Gulf of Mexico instead of condos when you drove down Gulf Boulevard.

My favorite trinket: a Florida alligator sitting up on its haunches with a glass snow globe in its stomach and two water skiiers on a teeter-totter inside.

So every so often, I'll throw some of my favorite old Florida photos on the site from the Florida Memory Project and give you a glimpse of how truly weird-to-the-core this state has always been.

First up (with the original caption):

Mr. von Moser (right), an unbathed German "nobleman", said he had captured the largest python in the world in Brickell Hammock. Hundreds naively paid a dime to gawk at the snake while it gradually starved to death. A Miami News reporter revealed that von Moser had bought the snake cheaply from a New York zoo because it refused to eat.