CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT: SEMINOLES UP, FLORIDA WATER DOWN, AND Break Out Another Thousand FOR SLOW MOTION

CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT: SEMINOLES UP, FLORIDA WATER DOWN, AND Break Out Another Thousand FOR SLOW MOTION

Chapter Fifty Five of this Blog was entitled “How about them ‘Noles?” The Admiral said that not everyone knows what ‘Noles’ stands for. It stands for “Seminoles”, of the Florida State University variety. And long-time football coach Bobby Bowden always asked: “How about them ‘Noles?” after a particularly satisfying win. So I plucked it out of the football context and put it back into the historical context of the Seminole Indian tribe, a tribe that refused to move, refused to lose, and refused to die. As a consequence, they have thriving casinos all over Central Florida today. They have other, less garish testaments to their survival as well. I just checked their website, and they are very proud to have established their first “smoke shop” in 1977, which sells lots of tobacco products and brings in lots of revenue, along with the casinos. That’s not what I meant by “less garish testaments”. However, the smoke shop revenue is helping them achieve their goal of economic independence – at the cost of how many lungs, I don’t know. On the more positive side, they provide $1 million dollars a year to education for Seminole tribe members. I can hear Dr. Evil saying “One Meellion Dollahs”. Still, it’s not chump change. And they added two new reservations (that’s good, isn’t it, sort of?) to increase their total federal trust land in Florida to 90,000 acres. The land has to be pretty valuable, even if it’s not along any of Florida’s coasts. At any rate, the descendants of the Seminoles who survived the Removal Act and the 3 Seminole Wars appear to be doing pretty well in Florida today. According to their website, they employ more than 7,000 employees (not known if they are Seminoles) in their casinos, hotels and other businesses, and they buy more than $130.3 million in goods and services every year. I wonder how much they take in every year.

I have not been to a Seminole casino or smoke shop, so I can’t personally vouch for their financial well-being. It would be nice if I could relate that the Seminoles have invested in alternative energy sources, like solar or wind power. But there is no indication that they have. That doesn’t make them any more or less progressive than the rest of the political groups in Florida, as far as I know. I have not read or heard much about alternative energy sources while in the Sunshine State. There was only that 1931 quote of Edison: “I’d put my money on the sun and solar power.” Eighty two years later and we’re still driving around in those darned internal combustion machines which Edison’s buddy, Ford, mass produced for us, and which continue to deplete the oil and gas resources around the world.

Not that I’m down on Florida for our oil and gas dependency. We can all share that problem. But I can be down on the Governor of Florida (Scott) and his business cronies for decimating the State clean water programs. We are docked at Legacy Harbour on the Caloosahatchee River, and this river is really, really filthy. There was a recent article in the local newspaper about a guy who went fishing on this river and got a small cut in his thumb, when a fish hook snagged it. There was a little bleeding at the time, but nothing to raise concern. Then as the days and weeks passed, the thumb got really red and started to throb. The fisherman (also an environmental law attorney) went to an ER to get his thumb checked, and it was severely infected by a bacterium from the Caloosahatchee River water. He nearly lost his thumb, but the doctors made heroic efforts to save it for him. According to the photos, the thumb required lots of stitches, once the infected tissue was removed, but it appears on its way to recovery. I don’t know if he has any feeling or mobility with this thumb. The rest of the story was about how Governor Scott has reduced the size of every clean water agency under his power, particularly in Southwest Florida. He has also replaced any agency head who is an environmentalist with a businessman, who just might have a conflict of interest between his business goals and the goal of cleaning up the rivers of Florida. These actions of Governor Scott appear to be so short-sighted. What is Florida, or any state, without its natural resources, starting first and foremost with clean water?

We now are very wary of the “murky dismal” waters that surround Slow Motion. The other night, as I was getting back on to the boat, the Admiral’s polarized sunglasses, which were hanging from my T shirt, dropped into the water. Yikes! I reached in without thinking and pulled them out. As I looked at them, right before my eyes something, I don’t know what, but something was eating through the glass lenses, destroying the polarizing layers. It was really scary to behold. I washed the glasses off as soon as I got to the galley, but to no avail. The damage had been done in less than a minute in the river water. Then I thought about my hand that had retrieved the glasses. I washed it again and again with anti-bacterial soap, and I checked for any cuts or open wounds. That was a few days again, and I’m still washing. The Admiral had his own scare when he jumped off Slow Motion in the night two nights ago and slipped and one leg fell into the river. He came back in and tore off his jeans and washed them down with city, non-river water. I washed them the next day with lots of detergent. Fortunately, he did not cut himself. But this is no way to live – in fear of the water that supports your boat, takes you to the places you want to go, and supposedly provides food and shelter for a variety of fish and other animals. Wake up, Florida, clean up this river! Do you want it to catch on fire like the Cuyahoga River in Ohio did several times between 1952 and 1969? I didn’t think so. Put the money back into the clean water agencies and put people in charge who will work tirelessly to clean up the Caloosahatchee and all the other polluted rivers in Florida. Please. Trust me, tourists love, love, love clean water.

Okay, here it is, a Super Bowl mention. The ad with the guy chasing the cheetah who was chasing the gazelle – high five! Do I remember the product? Some kind of running shoe, but no, I don’t remember the brand name. I remember the guy and the gazelle winking at each other after the guy hog-tied the cheetah. Oh, and the game – all you would hear from me would be sour grapes about the officials who lost control of the game early on by not throwing flags for all the pushing and punching, and who apparently missed the classes on pass interference, both offensive and defensive. Hats off to the Ravens, who won despite the poor officiating. Joe Flacco is for real. Both teams had too many glory-seekers pounding their chests and extolling their own virtues ad nauseum, after a routine tackle or a gain of a few yards. Yuck! I understand that this game is driven by testosterone (probably some of it artificially high), but so are most sports. At least, as of yet, we don’t see a golfer running around the edge of the green pounding his chest and screaming and high fiving bystanders when he makes a par. Or a tennis player doing these shenanigans after hitting a 130 mile an hour ace. Or a soccer player who scores doing a stupid dance for 60 seconds next to the goal. Or a baseball player hip hopping around the bases after a home run. (True, Kirk Gibson limped around the bases and pretended to be pulling on a chain saw engine, as he miraculously hit a homer for the Dodgers against the A’s in the World Series. But what do you expect from a Dodger?) And don’t get me started on the praying in the end zone. Whatever you believe, whoever your God is, please don’t belittle Her/Him by praying to Her/Him for a win in a sporting event. I beg of you, please don’t do that.

As to our stay at Legacy Harbour, it is being prolonged by the most recent problem that the Admiral discovered in his frequent check of all the equipment on Slow Motion. That is the generator. We need the generator, and the Admiral found out that it had not been maintained properly, so the water cooled exhaust system parts corroded and developed leaks. Sounds serious, and it is. We could use an entirely new generator, but that would cost about $18,000.00. So we’re going to replace the failed parts with used ones, as new ones are not available for at least 8 weeks. Not that we don’t want the best for Slow Motion, but we don’t have 8 weeks to spend in Ft. Myers waiting for parts. I’ve been to the Edison Ford Museum three times. It’s wonderful, but enough already. We’re ready to move on to Key West. And the weather is perfect today for traveling. The forecast is for perfect weather for the next few days. We should be off to Marco Island, then going 100 miles in one day to Key West from Marco Island. But alas, we wait for the generator repair person, quite impatiently at this point. What do you want to bet that as soon as we get the generator repaired the weather turns ugly, and we won’t be able to cruise to Key West? I know, I know, some of you are still dealing with real problems – working 60 hour weeks, slogging through sleet and snow, changing diapers and wiping noses for germ-laden toddlers, paying your bills and having enough left over for a night out once a month at a pizza parlor. Sorry to bother you with our minor troubles in paradise. The pity party is over.

I know you have gorgeous sunrises and sunsets wherever you live. Still, I never cease to be amazed every day by the sunrises and sunsets over the water. My iPhone has practically run out of space to store anything else, because I have hundreds of photos of these natural beauties. And no matter how lovely the photo is, the actual sunrise or sunset is at least ten times lovelier. We just can’t catch all the colors on the iPhone camera. If you are not doing this already, do yourself a favor and watch your own sunrises and sunsets every day for a week. This should be a great natural mood elevator. And take a few photos and send them to me. If you’re in a location where you don’t see the sunrises or the sunsets, then by all means come and visit us. We’ll fix you up right away. There is no seasonal affective disorder (SAD) on Slow Motion. Don’t go another day without the palliative power of the sun as it rises and sets.