Editor’s Note: Students in the Fall 2020 Advanced Reporting class produced stories about Tampa Bay neighborhoods, people and other places for a series called On the Street Where You Live.
Stretched along the edge of the Indian River lays the foundation of what Brevard County natives know as River Road. Typically, lovers say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, but for them, River Road is merely a memory they wish they could hold onto longer.
The road was involved in their daily lives, connected to everything they did. They lived on it, went to school on it, ran on it, drove home on it. They dangled their legs off of Valencia dock, admiring the river.
The police called his mom six or seven times—out past curfew sitting on Valencia, watching the bioluminescence. It’s like real-life magic, he says.
Her goal became owning a house of her own here when she’s older, not because it shows wealth, but because of the history. Because of the memories. The atmosphere.
“I don’t live there anymore,” says Sadie McLaughlin. She can go back as many times as she wants, but always has to drive away. She knows her home is somewhere else now.
“I see my childhood when I look at the river,” says Zac Newsome. It makes him feel nostalgia, more so than anywhere else in the town.
After 8 years of calling River Road home, his entire family says goodbye in only a month’s time.
He takes the knowledge of growing up next to the water with him. He applies his protectiveness over the river to his degree in environmental science.
She takes a piece of the road with her by connecting her conceptual art to where she grew up. Her inspiration comes from the attachment she has to River Road.
Its where our roots are, she says. Dug deep into River Road, just like the twisted mangroves that line the shore.
