“I hear that a hurricane blows off roofs, uproots trees and puts the snatch on people, and they all go flyin’ around in the sky together. Is that right?”
— From “Key Largo,” 1948

It’s 12 p.m. in Waterville, Maine. It’s sunny out on my leaf- covered lawn, and that makes me feel happy. Happy that I’m still alive and able to walk, do the breakfast dishes and laundry, clean Ms. Kramer’s cage and wait for Florida to survive Milton’s beating.

Remember Florida? It hasn’t always been such a problem, a “Pain in the Palms,” has it?

Wasn’t it the “place to be” for those of you girls in summer dresses, of a certain age, the golden spot where “the boys were” when kids made their way through proms and then drove six to a car, and made promises in the moonlight that broke hearts and faded in the morning sunlight? Ahh. Movies were full of those moments with Bogie and Bacall.

And then came Cuba and Fidel, movie gangsters and scary rocket threats.

Yes, but some of you remember a promised land of oranges, tequila bars, taco stands and romance. Today, our televisions are full of “Milton” churning and growling over our romantic Florida.

Oh yes, “Milton.” What does that name bring to your old dialup mind? The economist Milton Friedman? The gentle English poet John Milton? Nice try. If you’re over 50, it’s probably Milton Berle. “Uncle Milty,’ the awful comedian of your long-ago youth.

Well, I’m paid, it seems, to sit down and write something that will make you laugh and feel glad that you are still alive and haven’t yet left for the winter in Florida as is your custom.

This may be, for all of us, a long winter of discontent, with storms aplenty and ballot boxes.

This month is, as we wait for an election, darker than any storm. We have interesting “characters.”

This November will give us either the red-capped “Godzilla” or Kamala “Joan of Arc” Harris.

Despite the political sign on your lawn, who would you rather have a beer with and then go dancing to the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”?

Florida — that sun-drenched vacation spot that I have always had the good sense to avoid — is having a nervous breakdown.

It’s getting worse. As we watch and pray, there is a cloud of seniors adorned in flowered shirts and black socks clenching their bags of food and fleeing north from a killer storm the size of Texas, tearing around the Gulf of Mexico to drown the Wonderful Magic Kingdom and Lido Beach.

Remember moonlight on Lido Beach?

Tonight the mayor of Fort Myers said if all the souls aren’t gone by nightfall, they may die.

He and the mayors of all the tiny towns spoke with frightened voices and lowering eyes fastened to the script.

Well, if you’re lucky to be here where the leaves have grown bright under a fall sun this weekend, and folks are hanging out Halloween pumpkins and tall witches and ghosts, consider this. There’s a chance you’ll get to see the northern lights in Maine this week … maybe?

Stay tuned. This is just the beginning.

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.