It was around 1950 that the Wanderer appeared in the streets of many Florida towns, crying out a grim vision of the state’s future. Afterward, no one could say exactly what she looked like, but all agreed that her hair resembled Spanish moss. She demanded attention:
O Floridians, beware of drilling wells not for drinking water but to irrigate grass! Do not water your Bahia, St. Augustine, and Centipede with the tears of dying springs!
O Floridians, I see a time when your phosphate ore will be uprooted from the ground and used to grow ornamental grasses and unnecessary Midwestern corn!
O Floridians, you will grow immense quantities of sugarcane in the Everglades but no one will be able to say why that is a good idea!
O Floridians, your politicians will sing hymns about how valuable Florida water resources are but continue to give it away! For free! To all!
O Floridians, you will build one of the nation’s best park systems and put in charge people who think that it will be even better with logging, cattle grazing, and hunting!
O Floridians, woe unto the lowest state if a political party denies the science of climate change and the sea level rise, ocean acidification, and other evils to come! I am talking about you Floridians! Yes, you!
Heed me, O Floridians!
Not so much then but maybe the Wanderer’s message is received better today.
LOL 🙂
And don’t forget using our State Parks for military training, Blackwater River and Tate’s Hell State Forests. We already have hunting and logging in Blackwater.
‘Fraid not! Ignorance blissfully makes them more money😕