Winter Weary?

Yesterday I hung my winter clothes back in the closet.

Yes our eight or ten days of Winter here in north Florida proved grueling, (Remember that photo I took on Feb. 6^th?) but Ginny and I survived.

Now cold weather appears to have passed; tv weather guy predicts mid 80s temperature by Saturday; so I packed away my parka and mukluks.

This morning I put on my swimming trunks and began cleaning the pool.

I haven’t cleaned the pool since November; King Algae reigns.

If the tiniest bit of algae remains in the water, it spreads green slime on walls and bottom. In a few weeks it turns our pristine pool into thick green soup.

I should have kept it down.

But I didn’t.

Some spiritual lesson here? Yes, for several weeks now, I’ve had algae of the soul. I need a good scouring—with the Christian equivalent of chlorine (whatever that is). My filter is clogged.

I’m reluctant to read the Scripture; just don’t have the energy for it. I neglect prayer. I’ve waste time looking at naked internet ladies again. I find even the thought of church attendance loathsome. I avoid witnessing to people I previously intended to talk with about their souls. I’m ignoring my diet. I regard the poor as a nuisance.

Spiritual algae—I wallow in it.

Maybe it’s just the doldrums of Winter. I’d like to think so…

But come right down to it, I’m me just being me.

Lord, have mercy on John Cowart… Green pastures, not green algae, please, Sir.

Here’s Jon’s take on the matter:

Different subject:

Tuesday night, Feb. 24^th) President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress.

Concerning education, he said that learning is not just for kids.

“Tonight,” he said, “I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training… this country needs and values the talents of every American ”.

In the light of that, Ginny and I have been discussing how to enhancing our own education. Certainly not by going back to a classroom; I hated school when I was there. Maybe something on-line. I’m considering advanced rescue training, Latin, computer stuff, or some subject altogether unfamiliar. We’ve even talked about square dancing. We’ll settle on something soon. But we do plan to do it.

Another thing the President encouraged was for Americans to express consumer confidence in the economy. So, this morning I bought two books I’ve been hesitating to buy for six weeks.

I didn’t vote for either of the two major candidates (see my November 2008 postings in the blog archive if you really care about political stuff more than I do), but once a President is elected, I’ll do what little things I can to support him and the nation.

I always pray that politicians know more about what’s going on than I think they do.

Hummm… Can you get a billion dollar federal grant for a scaled-down algae eradication project (i.e. Fight unemployment by hiring a pool boy).

Would that qualify as one of those Green Projects the President was pushing?

Last night Ginny and I stayed up way too late watching Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange in Titus, a DVD film version of Shakespeare’s first play, Titus Andronicus. We watched the play for hours, then stayed up even later talking about it. Vengeance, rape, murder, mutilation, manipulation, betrayal, and Roman Legionaries on motorcycles--Great fun!

Worth staying up late to watch; But I’m paying for it this morning.

Time On My Mind

My poor beautiful wife!

Yesterday her job required that my poor Ginny attend an all day-loooong strategy meeting across town.

Management required meeting participants to turn off cell phones.

Time dragged.

She could well have taught the whole seminar, but she had to just sit through it and listen.

Ginny got so bored she just had to check the time; she turned her phone on to look at the digital display—It was not even 10 a.m. yet!

She endured.

While Ginny was at that interminable meeting, our friend Barbara White and I enjoyed breakfast at Dave’s Dinner where we discussed the nature of time.

Barbara takes some sort of class at her church.

Voluntarily taking it.

Beats me why.

Anyhow, she explained that the word past refers to things that have already happened; that the word future refers to things that have not happened yet; and that we live in the present, right-now moment.

She compared time to the thin line cursor on my computer screen moving from left to right. That spider-web-thin line is the present moment. As it moves, it constantly creates the past.

She quoted the Psalm that says our times are in God’s hand. And she said we tend to remember the wrong things from our times past. We easily forget things God told us to remember, but remember--and dwell on—things best forgotten. We forget the good God has done for us, and remember the bad times in our lives.

I ventured my deep understanding of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity; that the faster we move, the closer we are to being in two different places at once. The quicker you move from here to there, the closer you get to being both here and there at the same time.

Therefore, God must be very fast indeed because He is omnipresent, in all places at all times.

I love and find great comfort in St. Paul’s observation about time, “Now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face”.

What a delight and wonder to look forward to!

Once years ago my youngest son, Donald, while a physics student interning at Los Alamos Nuclear Labs, tried to explain Chaos Theory and String Theory to me; I vaguely recollect that those theories have something to do with time’s nature.

And, in his February 18th post, my e-friend Jon in Great Britain (and the 27 people who comment on his posting) all discuss Christian concepts of time exhaustively; you’ll find them at http://asbojesus.wordpress.com/

I didn’t contribute to that discussion.

Thinking makes my brain hurt.

Like Charlie Brown’s dog Snoopy, all I need to know is suppertime.

At present, all this reminds me of one of those rejected New Yorker cartoons:

Also, all this thinking about time eases me into remembering with a deep hearthunger longing what I consider the single most beautiful passage in the whole Bible, the words of King Solomon in Ecclesiastes:

To every thing there is a season,

And a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born,

And a time to die;

A time to plant,

And a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill,

And a time to heal;

A time to break down,

And a time to build up;

A time to weep,

And a time to laugh;

A time to mourn,

And a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones,

And a time to gather stones together;

A time to embrace,

And a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get,

And a time to lose;

A time to keep,

And a time to cast away;

A time to rend,

And a time to sew;

A time to keep silence,

And a time to speak;

A time to love,

And a time to hate;

A time of war,

And a time of peace. ...

God hath made every thing beautiful in His time:…
And He hath placed yearning in the hearts of men…

Mules Wearing Snowshoes, a fascinating (to me) but long posting

My Aunt Hazel, God rest her, collected family ephemera from way back.

She kept these papers in an old candy box.

Years ago, she showed me an 1880s receipt for the sale of alligator hides.

My great-great-great grandfather shot gators in the swamps of South Jacksonville and sold the skins to a local leather company. He earned $50 selling the hides for five cents each.

Looks like my ancestor single-handedly put the Florida alligator on the endangered species list.

I’d forgotten about my aunt’s ephemera collection until this week when I finished reading James Hammond’s book Florida’s Vanishing Trail.

In the midst of his comprehensive history of south Florida, focusing on the area around the Tamiami Trail ( the road which runs east/west across the Everglades between the gulf coast and Miami) Mr. Hammond told me a lot about alligators which, although I’m a Florida native, I never knew before.

“Explorers in the 1700s report thousands of alligators and crocodiles filling every river and stream on Florida’s east coast. These hungry predators line the shores awaiting their abundant prey. The annual mullet run brings great swarms of fish literally swimming into their open jaws, and turning peaceful tributaries into ‘pots of boiling water’ rising 25 feet in the air,” Hammond said.

In 1898 at Roberts Lakes during the dry season 10,000 alligators gathered in the shallow water; when hide hunters began firing their rifles, “the shooting caused the alligators to stampede like cattle”.

Today in Jacksonville if a single alligator shows up on a golf course, or in a storm drain, or in somebody’s swimming pool, the incident makes tv’s 6 o’clock news.

Time has not only diminished Florida’s alligator population but our water resources as well.

The geology of South Florida forms the Everglades as a state-wide slow seepage of water moving south; the abundant marshgrass laced with hammocks above the swamp, give the area the name A River Of Grass.

Hammond says early visitors to this watercourse noted this about the River of Grass:

“Florida’s water supply - then seemingly endless - rises from a reported 2,000 first-magnitude springs, each capable of producing over one million gallons of water per day.

“Historical records by eyewitnesses of the era describe a sudden trembling ground, and a rushing sound like a mighty hurricane, followed by a phenomena that quickly starts spurting great fountains of water, rapidly covering all the available ground. Days of such a flow form a broad river and eventually a lake.

“Modern travelers no longer witness this magical process. Canal dredging, extensive cutting into natural aquifers for roads, drainage ditches, retention ponds, and thousands of miles of irrigation culverts crisscross the entire face of Florida.

“Only 27 such springs remain”.

For five years author James Hammond spearheaded a research project for State of Florida’s Division of Historical Resources; this project was designed “to assemble all relevant data on the Army Forts of Southwest Florida during the Second and Third Seminole Wars through books, journal accounts, State files and records, and historical archives. A survey project to assemble all periods maps from 1835 – 1858 including civilian and military with landmarks, compass and transit recordings with a view of verifying locations, trail junctions and site recorded locations into an accurate map with GPS coordinates to identify ten (8 Army Forts and two (2) army camps in and around modern-day Collier County…to place this information on the Florida Master Site File”.

The project captured Hammond’s interest so much that he exceeded those perimeters into a comprehensive 170-year history of the entire area including information about the unique flora and fauna.

Great reading!

It’s got everything.

Hammond begins by telling about the three Seminole Indian wars from 1817 to 1858. He includes eye-witness accounts from U,.S. soldiers, army records, pioneer memories, and contemporary interviews with Seminole chiefs.

In 1842, one soldier wrote:

“Every leaf seemed to bear some poisonous insect as dangerous as the serpents under foot, and still more dangerous than all the rest, the cunning redskins had slowly retreated before the United States Army; for this war had been going on for years, and they had penetrated the jungles deep, and here and there cleared the hammocks of timber and built themselves comfortable homes from the bark of the cypress tree; and they defended those homes with that fury that only men driven to desperation can do. Concealing themselves under the dense foliage, covered with Spanish moss, they were indiscernible until they revealed their position by a rifle shot. This, of course, was often too late for some poor comrade who was pushing his way determinedly through the tangle, and with death lurking on every hand.

“The night was made hideous by the howl of wolves, the scream of the panther, the bull-like bellow of the alligator and dismal cry of the loon, interspersed here and there by the sweet notes of the whippoorwill, or the song of the American nightingale, that most beautiful of all songsters, the mocking bird.”

In 1850 a band of U.S. soldiers “stumbled into the camp of Chief Hollata Micco, better known as Billy Bowlegs. It was unoccupied at the time so the men took it upon themselves to destroy the gardens and fruit trees just to see, in the words of one soldier ‘how old Billy will cut up’. They slowly removed some of the fruits and journeyed a short distance away before setting up camp for the night”.

Bowlegs cut up by attacking at the start of the Third Seminole War.

“The Army’s scorched earth policy of capturing the women and children, burning villages and crops, taking all the livestock including cattle and hogs to the nearest depot, and if it was not practical, destroy them. The policy to “shoot warriors on sight” began to take its toll and led up to one of the last battles of the 3rd War…. (On November 28, 1857)

“The Indians, indeed, soon found that in open fight they were wholly unable to cope with the whites. They adopted the true policy of scattering themselves in small detachments, striking a sudden blow upon some exposed point, and then taking refuge in the almost inaccessible swamps”.

One army veteran said, “Of all my experience of hardships in three wars, that which I experienced in Florida was the worst”.

As the Third Seminole War wound down, white pioneer families, hunters, trappers, preachers, and farmers, entered the area.

In 1900, planter Walter Langford brought in a special hybridized grapefruit strain. Seedless, tasty and fast growing, Langford’s grapefruit changed the face of South Florida.

To get his crop north to market, Langford lay down 14 miles of rail line between his grove and the town of Everglade. Soon 17,000 wooden crates of grapefruit moved over those rails each season.

“In 1911, land in Southwest Florida was considered swamp overflow lands. The average price going for an acre of land was between 12 and 30 cents”, Hammond says.

In 1915 state legislators along with business men from the east and west coast of Florida formulated a plan to put a highway through the Everglades from Miami to the west coast of Florida. It would be called the Tamiami Trail.

Hammond says, “When the Tamiami Trail was completed in 1928 not enough culverts were placed at the bridge built over the river, and the Turner River Road, Birdon Road, and Wagon Wheel roads built later, reduced the river’s flow and according to one report ‘resulted in several undesirable hydrological and biological consequences affecting about 18,000 acres of wetlands.’

“The report, completed in 1981, went on to state that construction of Turner Road and Turner canal severed the Turner River from its upper drainage basin. Surface water, which normally contributed to the River’s natural stages and discharges, bypassed the River, making much of the natural stream virtually unusable.

“River waters became shallow and stagnant. The stream bed began filling with detritus, promoting the growth of emergent thickets of giant cutgrass. By cutting off much of the Turner River’s water sources, the channel’s depth was decreased. Shallow waters experienced higher temperatures, less dissolved oxygen, and different successional processes in and along the River. All of these consequences also influenced the River’s aquatic fauna’”.

Yes but, transportation availability also opened more agricultural vistas.

For instance, swamp logging operations increased.

In 1926, lumberjacks cut down single bald cypress tree so large it took ten railroad to carry that one tree’s lumber to a sawmill.

Hammond’s book includes photographs of this logging operation as well as photos from all phases of south Florida history and detailed maps contemporary with each era.

One logger, Captain Jaudon, sometimes called the father of the Tamiami Trail, discovered that sugar cane flourished in the rich, drained soil of the Everglades. He intended to distill rum and export sugar to the north. By 1935, his plan included planting 75,000 acres under sugar cane cultivation.

The thick mud and marl of the fields bogged down the mules pulling harvest wagons so Jaudon’s workers outfitted the mules with modified snowshoes to keep them from getting stuck.

Tomato plants also flourished in the drained marl. During the 1930s over 1,200 workers earned $1.25 a day while working in area tomato fields. They were paid in company-issued money called “babitt or Jigaloo,” which was good only for purchases at the company store

Over the years different people entertained different ideas about how South Florida land should be—developed, protected, exploited, preserved—these different ideas generate different tensions which Florida’s Vanishing Trail examines.

Why, in 1902, virtual war broke out between game wardens and plume-hunters who killed birds in Everglades rookeries to sell the feathers to northern milliners to decorate ladies’ hats.

That year, one ounce of gold sold for less than one ounce of feathers!.

I could wish that Hammond told more about the 1928 Lake Okeechobee Hurricane in which over 1,800 people drown in the town of Belle Glade, but maybe my geography is hazy and that area lies outside his criteria for this book.

“On December 6, 1947, President Harry S. Truman speaking to the whole nation by radio, dedicated with great fanfare, Everglades National Park from Everglades City, to the people of the United States,” Hammond says.

Everglades National Park was the first Park in the United States established to protect biological resources instead of the usual geological ones.

Hammond says, “Collier County is surrounded by the Picayune Strand State Forest, the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve, the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, the Big Cypress National Preserve, and, along the entire southern border, the Everglades National Park”.

Florida’s Vanishing Trail tells about the largest complex of Indian burial mounds ever found in Florida, about pioneer homesteads, outlaw hide-outs, 1800s fortifications, and many other historical and archaeological sites…

But…

Hammond also says that, “Almost no historic structures or sites on the National Register of Historical Places today can be visited by the general public in 5 of the largest State and Federal Parks in South Florida. This encompasses a vast 21,000 square-mile area that can best be described as ‘historically threadbare’. It should also be noted that there is no historical district (an area to incorporate any past place or communities) between Miami on the east coast and Naples on the west coast….

“It is also interesting to note that no development company has ever found any archaeological sites where they were required to look for one by Florida law in Collier County, where eventually a historical marker was placed.

“Most historians familiar with the process of developers hiring “out of town” consultants to do their archaeological surveys before beginning any development see the process as a fast food operation. Opinions are strong in the belief that instead of being paid to find any historical sites some are actually being ‘paid to not find them”.’

Hammond says that in December, 1988, the Tamiami Trail was approved by the State of Florida as a designated “Florida Scenic Highway.” In June, 2000, a 50- mile stretch of the Tamiami Trail was designated on the Federal level as a “National Scenic Byway.”

Yet, he says, “Certain vested interests” without the knowledge of all the people and groups involved, came before the M.P.O. (Metropolitan Planning Organization) Board in early 2005 and requested the State and National designations be removed.

“In May of 2005 the M.P.O. Board voted to remove the Scenic Highway designation. When the State and Federal Authorities received the request to remove the designations they were astonished …. The battle to keep the designation intact was still going strong when on September 14, 2007 the M.P.O. reiterated its position at a public meeting, and proceeded with the motion to “dedesignate” the stretch of highway on the Tamiami Trail. It was not without protest on the part of a large group of organizations.

Yes, James Hammond’s book describes many types of conflict—plume-poachers vs wardens, Indians vs soldiers, loggers vs farmers, developers vs conservationists, mules vs mud—and yet the swamp remains.

But sometimes it looks like the gators—of one kind or another—are winning.

James Hammond’s Florida’s Vanishing Trail is available at http://stores.lulu.com/jameshammond7

You may not have guessed it, but this book really captured my interest.

Florida history interests me.

But, for tomorrow’s posting, I’ll write my critique of Tolstoy’s War & Peace.

More Medical Information

During my doctor’s appointment last Friday, other than that pin holding my leg on, Dr. Woody said I’m in fine shape—almost:

Big Belly, Poor People

While downtown Saturday, Ginny and I spotted a new garbage can.

We’d never seen one like it before.

We didn’t have a camera with us, so we drove downtown again Sunday just to snap a photo of this garbage can in Hemming Park. The marquee in the background is the entrance to Jacksonville’s City Hall.

Yes, it is a Big Belly solar powered garbage can which compacts the trash put in it. According to the manufacture’s website each of these solar garbage cans weighs 300 pounds and costs $3,750.00

Now in all fairness, I do not know if the manufacturer put this fine product in Jacksonville’s premier park as a promotional gimmick, or whether our wise city government paid for it with tax money.

Wouldn’t surprise me either way.

Being a cynic, I imagine taxpayers bought this much-needed device to replace the park’s static garbage cans with plastic liners which cost about $5 for a box of 25.

Jacksonville can afford Big Belly. After all, I understand that last week President Barack Obama introduced a $750 billion economic incentive plan to help financially strapped cities.

But, the all above rant is just background, not the actual subject I want to think and write about.

I’ll get to that now:

On tv, in personal conversation, and in overhearing strangers talking—I hear a tone which disturbs me.

It scares me.

This tone rings harsh, mean-spirited, critical—but also somehow right.

I mean, it is sounds justified, like righteous indignation, but it’s doesn’t ring deep-true. Yet, what is being said probably is superficially true—but it’s not the only thing that’s true.

All over I’m hearing people voice bitter resentment toward poor people, toward sick or injured people, toward unemployed people, but especially toward people losing their homes.

I hear the term “personal responsibility” thrown out as though it were a curse word.

Ginny and I have never been late with a mortgage payment in the 15 years we’ve lived in our home. Many of our friends and neighbors say the same. Yet all over the country thousands of other home buyers face foreclosure. TV news says 10% of the homes in America are in default.

The federal government is instituting a program to help these people pay for their homes.

Last week President Obama signed a $75 billion dollar homeowner relief program.

"The plan I'm announcing focuses on rescuing families who played by the rules and acted responsibly," Obama said, announcing the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan, or HASP. He explained this would be done by "refinancing loans for millions of families in traditional mortgages who are underwater or close to it, by modifying loans for families stuck in subprime mortgages they can't afford as a result of skyrocketing interest rates or personal misfortune, and by taking broader steps to keep mortgage rates low so that families can secure loans with affordable monthly payments."

A noble effort?

Yet all around I hear a lot of resentment about helping people whose own poor judgment and lack of responsibility put them in this fix.

I agree, the poor people ought to be like me. My poor judgment and lack of responsibility never got me in… Well, I’d be lying to say that.

I’ve screwed up so much and so often that the president ought to declare me a one-man federal disaster area. Heck, if President Obama knew me, he’d send in a helicopter.

But my point is I’m disturbed by the antagonism and resentment and bitterness I hear directed toward people who need taxpayer money to avoid being homeless. Or indeed against any person who can not afford the price of a ticket—like that woman with the eight embryonic implants. I’ve heard good people say, “Let the little bastards die; she should never have had ‘em in the first place”.

Part of me is inclined to agree; her actions were not very bright.

Problem is God’s a realist.

He deals with us on the basis of what is, not what should be.

Now I’m sure that if a hungry kid stood in front of a guy who expresses harsh criticism of the poor, that same guy would buy the kid a burger. We can all slough off starving children at a distance, but when we hear the kid next door hungry, we react differently.

That’s natural.

But I’m not thinking of individual charity here, but of tax dollars.

And, I’ve been reading Leviticus where God says:

If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee.

Hummm.

Relieve him … that he may live with thee.

What kind of bailout program is that?

It’s as though God made some of us self-reliant so we can help people who aren’t. He made some of us responsible so we can rescue the irresponsible.

Yes, they were stupid to skate out on thin ice, but once they’re in the ice water, my duty is not to stand by the fire saying, “What you should have done…” but to risk my own life trying to pull the stupid SOB’s frozen ass out

Yes, that carload of teenagers acted irresponsibly when joy-riding they smacked into a telephone pole. Dumb of them. Stupid. No accepting of personal responsibility. But even at the risk of getting burnt, my responsibility is to jerk as many as I can of them out of the fire.

Warn beforehand, rescue afterwards.

It’s like God saying that even the dumb should be saved whatever the cost.

The apostle John wrote about this same idea:

Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

Now the government is going to take tax money from you and me.

That’s a given.

That’s a shame, but that’s a given.

Remember the old saying about death and taxes being the only sure things.

And the government is going to spend that tax money on something.

Wise or wobbly, that tax money is going to get spent on something.

Which something?

Helping someone who waxed poor and fallen in decay and facing foreclosure…

Or on solar garbage cans and their ilk?

Important Medical Information

Friday, Dr. Woody entered the exam room laughing with my x-ray in his hand.

“I’ve found the trouble,” he said, “Your right leg is being held onto your body by a safety pin”.

Oh, Crap!

What happened is… 60 years ago my mother told me to always wear clean underwear in case I was ever in an accident and had to be taken to the hospital.

I do wear clean underwear… but I wear it a long time. In fact some underwear in my dresser hangs in tatters. So what? Who in the world is ever going to see my underwear?.

However, I keep one newish pair which I never wear except when I go for a doctor’s appointment. I wash that pair immediately after each doctor’s visit to keep it whiteish, To mark this pair in the washer and separate it from all my others, I keep a safety pin in the waistband.

For my x-ray, I had to dress in this frontless/backless hospital gown thing. Ladies were present so I kept my underpants on.

I heard the doctor and the x-ray technician out in the hall laughing like crazy.

My safety pin showed up brilliantly on the film.

Ever notice? The Lord Jesus may save us from our sin, but He does little to protect our dignity.

At Dr. Woody’s office I encountered three physicians, the x-ray technician, and six or eight nurses.

And I learned one important bit of medical information:

One of the sweet young lovelies who worked on me wore this smock, material printed with cartoon characters.

Her smock gapes open a tiny bit at the neck.

She wears a fetching black lace bra.

No Blog Posting Today

I wrote today’s extremely clever and creative blog posting as a Word Document.

I was about to paste it into this space when I realized that what I had to say was neither uplifting, helpful, kind, nor even particularly funny.

I chose not to post it.

Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing.

Drat!

Sometimes being a Christian cramps my style.

A Soon-To-Be Billionaire

By this time next week I intend to be a billionaire.

Yesterday in Denver, Colorado, President Obama signed a $737 billion economic stimulus bill giving cash to deserving, but broke, companies.

I qualify.

You see, in today’s economy my books have not been selling all that well.

But, I have an economic restructuring plan.

I’ll equip each of my books with little rubber wheels and attach a windshield wiper to the cover.

I’ll re-name my company Bluefishbooks Motors.

Then I’ll apply for a government bailout loan—as an auto company.

Hey, it worked for Chrysler, GM and Ford Motor Companies, why not for me?

Congress gave billions to failing car companies. So I’m sure they’ll subsidize my carbooks.

As a dollar-a-year CEO (not my idea, I assure you) of Bluefishbooks, I think I’ll give me a bonus. Oh. Oh. Oh, I can’t use the word bonus.

The government bailout people say the billions can’t be used for bonuses; I’ll have to do like the other CEOs do and give myself an Retention Incentive package.

We do that to keep our Best People, us, employed.