U.S. 41

MAYBE IT'S JUST A PARADOX, NOT A contradiction. But whatever it is, the statistics and the street evidence don't jibe.

Florida's unemployment rate in June stood at 11 percent, the worst in 34 years. In Lee County, the rate didn't level off until it hit 13 percent: 35,700 people were running on empty, zeroed out and unemployed, according to the state's Agency for Workforce Innovation.

So why does business appear to be booming — or at least robustly colorful — on U.S. 41, the Tamiami Trail, heart of the City of Palms, where the dollar is still king and the parade is 24/7?

It doesn't make sense, unless you consider the famous comment attributed to 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (later borrowed by Mark Twain): "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Never mind those state agency stats. If you can't find it here in a Cleveland Avenue roadhouse, or scrape up the money to buy it on the cheap on 41, you're probably either blind or jailed, suggests the insistent array of road signs, storefronts, painted vehicles, tied-down banners, neon blazers and tethered balloons posted by small and big business owners alike, as they compete for attention — the attention of roughly 43,500 drivers per day, according to one estimate.

COURTESY PHOTO Whether you call it Cleveland Avenue, U.S. 41 or Tamiami Trail, the main road through Fort Myers and Lee County is always colorful.

Florida Weekly bore witness to a few short miles of that mercantile parade last week, speaking to merchants and observers alike about the brawny, bold, brash, sometimes vulgar and always riotous musculature of U.S 41's road economy — recession or no recession, summer or no summer.

The words and colors alone can be breathtaking, a storm-surge of information capable of swamping the unwary driver: Pets, pub, beds, nails, motel, hotel, hardware, software, kitchenware, cars. Roses, clothes, chairs, couches, fast food, slow food, good food, $1. Buy, rent, custom, $5.99, $6.99, $197,000. Deal, debt, loan, payday, open, open house, open Sunday, open 24 hours, opening soon. Discount, markdown, 15 percent off, 50 percent off, 70 percent off. Closed, closeout, buyout, bazaar, thrift, complete, special, happy hour, all day, red, white, blue, pink, tropical, patriot, music, live, proud, paint, pool, wine, drinks, beer, waxing, wrapping, fixing, shading, tinting, tires, tuneups, repair. Instant oil, instant service, "dedicated to a sense of honor." Fresh. American.

In that river of words, drivers on 41 look for business the way fish look for food in the lazy drift of a broad midday current, the experts say. They seize upon something only if it delivers an immediate and appealing promise.

"TROPICAL HARDWARE, July is for Patriots 'n' Paint, Buy Paint Be a Proud American," trumpets the appealing red, white and blue sign owned by Jack Lurie, on the northern end of the road.

Mr. Lurie spent 18 years in his store, where traditional blues music is a common anthem, then tried to retire for two years. But when he couldn't rent out the location, he came back in March — and now he's open seven days a week, "for which my wife almost divorced me," he admitted cheerfully.

HAMMEL

His sign — easy to read without running off the road, for drivers — certainly draws in customers, he says, especially because Mr. Lurie sells paint at below retail prices. He figures buyers will pick up other supplies if they purchase paint.

But he can stay in business in tough times not just with razzle-dazzle signage, but by providing more substance and service than anybody else, he says.

"What pulls people into a store like this is we provide better service than the big chains, and we have unusual items — washboards, galvanized tubs, galvanized trash cans, a big selection of cast-iron cookware," he explains.

"And we're extremely oriented toward items made in the U.S. If we have any choice at all, we buy stuff made in America, even if we have to go out of our way to procure it."

Towering over Tropical Hardware as if to punctuate the point is a massive billboard of mostly black and white, facing north, picturing a Marine holding his rifle at port arms, wearing uniform dress blues.

"Dedicated to a sense of honor," the caption reads.

Down the road a ways stands another eye-catching color for another honorable endeavor — bright pink.

"We have people driving south, and they even swing around and come back north just because of that pink van, and that's something with this traffic," declares Nora Harmon, president of the Auxiliary (volunteers) for HealthPark and Lee Memorial Hospitals, which manages the Pink Bazaar Thrift Shop on the east side of 41, south of Page Field.

The store, like the auxiliary, provides money for special equipment the hospital can use to help patients who do better

at home, but can't typically afford the care required there, Ms. Harmon explains.

Her other favorite sign on 41 (besides the pink van), is the one at Sam Seltzer's Steakhouse — because nearly everybody can afford such a luxury once in a while, and she likes the product, she admits.

"12 lunches, $5.99 - $6.99," the big gold letters announce from a sheet-size red banner out front, visible to drivers moving north or south.

"Yes, that sign is really working," says Ted Fields, the general manager (Sam Seltzer's is a six-restaurant chain based in Tampa that happens to be attached, in this case, to the Clarion Hotel).

"Our lunches have increased since last year, although other sales are down. We used to be only an after-4 p.m. place, but we started lunches and we had to get the word out. People are always looking for a good deal, and the sign shows that."

For the money, he says, you can get a filet mignon kabob, chicken marsala, a chicken Caesar salad, blackened tilapia, all-you-can-eat soup and salad, or a lot of other things.

Not only that, but also visible from the road nowadays — a shady outdoor retreat under thatch and live oaks that may look nearly irresistible to overheated afternoon drivers — is a real road house, Sam Seltzer's Tiki Hut.

"We trimmed the bushes and now you can actually see it from 41 — I think it's been the best-kept secret in Fort Myers," Mr. Fields proclaims. "There are half-priced appetizers and happy hour all day every day, so word is really starting to spread to the getting-out-ofwork crowd. You can really have a nice cost-effective drink."

On a recent afternoon, most of the drinkers surrounding the bar appeared to have gotten out of work for the last time, with retirement arriving in the form of a cost-effective glass of golden ale, or an amber whiskey cocktail.

But bigger-ticket items sell along the road too, if merchants can get the customers in, they say.

"People get curious and they pull over and come inside and ask questions, and pretty soon they buy," says John Cornelio, owner of R-sport Complete Auto Repair.

His store sports high-flying ribbon flags on its roof, a blazing red-banner display of jazzed up silver hubcaps out front, and a full-panel painted mural, in which a flaming car roars through a surreal landscape and seems to burst from the parked trailer where it appears in the parking lot next door.

The black letters on the mural advertise vehicle wraps, signs and graphics, by wrapinron.com.

Given the dismal employment statistics and the tight economy, why in the world would people buy customized auto effects?

"Because they want to get away from the bad news, and treat themselves to something nice," says Mr. Cornelio. "The economy might be bad, but it's stable, and business here is continuous."

That may be the same reason people buy flowers, and especially roses, says Phil Dickinson, manager of the lemon yellow shop, Fort Myers Flowers.

"We get comments from people all the time who notice our windows and our color," he says — along with the van parked nearby where somebody has spread a huge white sheet. On it, the artist has painted a red-letter deal: "2 dozen roses, $16.95, 1 dozen roses, $9.95, 'Cash & Carry.'"

Not everybody likes the road, or the way it looks nowadays, suggests David Hammel.

The widely celebrated artist and sixth-generation native, now 45, grew up almost literally on the parade route — right in the middle of U.S. 41 on occasion, near what is now the parking lot of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church.

"It's a ridiculous notion now even to think of it, but when I was a little kid, in the summer, traffic almost disappeared. So we could go out and play baseball or football right in the middle of the road," he recalls.

"We'd ride our bikes out there because to us 41 was just a big playground."

Memory — the memory passed along in a family like Mr. Hammel's — could provide some real humility to any who claim that today's U.S. 41, bound by summer and recession, is somehow either sluggish or dormant.

"My dad would tell you stories about it being a two-lane road," Mr. Hammel says. "My grandpa used to tell stories about a dirt road there, and my great grandpa could have told you what it was like when it was still a cattle trail."

Mr. Hammel, himself, is no slouch as a roadhouse storyteller.

Although Jack Lurie has had Tropical Hardware (where Mr. Hammel's artwork is sometimes on sale) for about 20 years, Mr. Hammel remembers when the building was Rainbow Records. "It was very black, with a big rainbow, back before rainbows meant what they mean now."

And before that, he recalls Biff Burger: "Glass all around, and they sold these big old hamburgers — after school it was always crowded."

But what really marks Mr. Hammel as a roadhouse old-timer, perhaps, is his memory of a place called The Chicken Coop — a bar where the Time Out bar is now located.

In those days, it was right next to the Greyhound Bus Station.

"It's where a lot of the old-timers hung out," says Mr. Hammel. "You could go anywhere in the country from that bus station, and come back home and walk right into the Chicken Coop."

Mr. Hammel pauses, then offers this reflection: "I feel like a real old man, sometimes."

And perhaps he is — but only if age is defined by change.

Both he and the many small-business owners or managers of roadhouses who slug it out on the Tamiami Trail in Fort Myers, through good times and bad, through all the change, would then merit this bumper sticker, resurrected from the early 1970s: "I survived U.S. 41."

Perhaps that's all anybody should ask of a good roadhouse.