NOTE:  This is part 1 of my blog notes written in Seaside, Florida on Memorial Day. For part 2, see the next blog post after reading below !

Last night in Seaside, an idyllic upscale family beach community in the Florida Panhandle, groups of neatly dressed teenagers clustered in the streets. In flip flops and shorts, of course. Beautiful casual teenagers.

I watched them actually talking to each other. Well, in between looking at their phones. They were figuring out if they wanted pizza for dinner or something more exotic like a grilled cheese sandwich from one of the food trucks.

(They did not see me. If you are over the age of 25 they do not see you. I am well over that age. Invisible, like cellophane.)

Seaside is a small planned village 25 miles down the coast from Pensacola. If you saw “The Truman Show,” the 1998 movie starring Jim Carey, you get a flavor of it. The utopian town was as much a character as was Carey. Locals were extras in the movie.

Seaside was envisioned by Robert Davis. When his grandfather purchased the land, his associates mocked it as a “worthless 80 acres.” Years later Robert proved them wrong.

Begun in 1981 with two beach homes, Seaside now has roughly 350 homes along the purposefully narrow brick streets. It was named as the world’s best beach for families by Travel + Leisure magazine in 2013 and by the Travel Channel in 2015. PBS featured Seaside as one of “10 towns that changed America.” If you want to vacation in Seaside, you need to book a year in advance.

The speed limit on Seaside’s two-lane road next to the sand dunes is only 15 miles an hour. And traffic rarely even moves that fast. Cars go slow and people interact. Even time is required to slow down here.

Yes, even for teenagers. More on that in my next blog post from Seaside, Florida.