My childhood is filled with dreams of the Gulf Coast of Old Florida. It was a land diverse in its life and rich in sustainable opportunities for the human populations. My father was a fisherman and my mother was a hardy soul who would fish with my father if her work with her children was done. Our home lay on the tip of a coastal island easily within sight of the mainland. Boats propelled up where we had to go. Mainly to the fish house to sell the fish or to trade for something special like a steak, but that did not happen often. The sea fed us, its gentle tides cleaned our shores and its fury humbled us.

I wore no shoes until I was thirteen when I was forced to go to school on the mainland. School did not provide me with the discipline I lacked nor did it fill my head with knowledge. Generally it served to alienate me particularly due to my ragged attire and my tendency to gaze out the window until I was sent to the principal's office. There were a few other Island kids and we all were treated pretty much the same. Kids thought we were unkempt, stupid, and generally of a lower class. I once asked a kid who was taunting me, "you like fish?", thinking he would say yes. I was surprised and confused when he said he liked frozen fish! Days when I skipped school, in the summer and on weekends I dived into the crystal clear water of the gulf. The sea creatures fascinated me. I had no desire to dissect or tame these creatures, only to live in harmony with them. I remember fishing one day and while casting I snagged a pelican in the mouth. Usually this disturbs the pelican tremendously, however this poelican had been circling our house, fishing in the nearby waters, and catching our scraps for as long as I could remember. He did not fight while I pulled the kinf toward me, he calmly flapped his wings to steady himself. He would not let me remove the hook for an intrusion of this sort breaks the barrier between our worlds too vastly; however he did stand still so that I could remove the burden of the lure, weights, and bobber from his mouth. The hook found its own way to the ground a few weeks later.

Days were guided by the light of the sun. Sunset was a special time. The view from our dock overlooked the pass between two islands, the gap allotted us a pure glimpse of the sun free falling over the horizon. Manatees and dolphins were an everyday occurrence. The water was plentiful and fed us righteously. However things were by no means a utopia. Days were filled by hauling water, cutting fire wood, and using a pit toilet. These modern "inconveniences" were normalcy to me. I think many of our new living standards are nothing more than a convenience at best. The price one pays for this life is too great for me. Hurricane Maude destroyed our dock, flooded our home and tore my father's pointer finger clear off when he was tightening the lines of our boat. The men of the community and the women too perhaps drank a little more rum than need be. A pirate mentality was deeply rooted in our community and the lure of ganja in far away shores took many a man (whoever had a boat without holes) to jail, or the bottom of the ocean.

Some fishermen with greed and Yankee dollars in their eyes wanted to over catch the fish, stone crabs, lobster, turtles or whatever. The community had a built in response to these sort of abuses of our natural heritage. We would take care of our own. Without federal protection, or interference, we managed to protect our environment through land or water ethics. Which is why it is surprising that we did not have the foresight to defend outselves and our fellow non-human sojourners from what was a devastating intrusion into our culture and land.

My father came home one morning when I was sixteen muttering to himself "progress, progress." I asked him what was wrong and he said, "Some developer from the North has bought the south end of the island." Amazed I said, "Why would someone buy that? the mangroves are so thick ants have a hard time walking through them!" My father said "Son, these people aim to cut down all them mangroves and build a sea wall." In my mind this was impossible. I had only been to Tampa twice and the mainland town was still very rural. "It would take more people to do that job than we got on the Island and the mainland combined. It would take years, and besides why would someone want to do that to the island anyway?" "Son you learned in school 'bout slavery an all the work that bloody instituion got done? Well these people up there in the borth got another kind o slavery, one that will someday come and git every man, woman and whild. These people are dependents they got nothing essential or necessary to do. They left the cave son, don't ever forget they left the cave. Human beings find food and raise children, our art, beauty and culture come from the land, from stories of the past. Things you can't put in no museum." Having heard my father espouse his anarchist views many times before and not understanding the relevancy I interjected "Yeah dad but why they doin it?" "They're doin it to fill our home up with civilization. Lawyers, doctors,contractors, accountants, assistants to assistants, psychologists, Generals and engineers are goin' to come to our home on the advice of their degenerate psychiatrists to relax, drink wine, and live in an airconditioned metropolis. If it rains they will watch television in their god damned jail cells." (Smoke another joint dad I said to myself.) I kind of understood what my father was saying that day although I never thought he would turn out to be so right.

One year later half the ialsnd was stripped of its mangrove forest. Two years later a sea wall was going up around the entire island. The barefoot fishermen fought the best they knew how to stop the construction. The greatest blow came three years later. I was at school at the University of Florida when the news of a bridge between "the pass made by the sun" came to me via my mother. Father who was actually educated at Phillips Andover and two years at Harvard (to get him to say anything except "don't remind me of those schools for wimps" was like pulling teeth) had carried the whole action against the sea wall on his back and was tired and bitter. When my mother called he was on the water screaming at a bottle of rum. All I wanted to do was come home. At school I was learning about Martin Luther Kind and Malcolm X, Fidel Castro and Che Gurvara. I read Silent Spring by Rachel Carsons and cried hoping that would not happen to my home. I read Dostoevski and learned that modern man is paralyzed in the face of his own weakness. Henry David Thoreau and John Muir represented to me the American culture I yearned for. What's more American than loving green places? than protecting vast expanses f untouched beauty? I was young and optimistic, I thought I should quit school and go home to fight. One year later I was at school the day the bridge was completed and dedicated to progress and Cortez the killer. A week later my father 11 miles out at sea drowned coming home from fishing with his fellow fishermen.

Today the island is overrun by condos and Yankees, we are completely dependent on tourism, bridges connect all the islands and mainlands, flounder are gone, manatees are virtually extinct along with the friendly sea turtle. Tampa Bay is now like any other northern harbor polluted and marred by the travel of oil tankers barges and tug boats. The kids wear shoes when they play and the movies are more popular than a day looking at the osprey nests filled with baby ospreys. Traffic is everywhere and erosion is threatening the land due to mangrove destruction. We the people however have an infinite variety of fast food and malls to waste away in. This story is the history behind where I am right now. At this moment one month after the death of my mother and on my 37th birthday I am crossing the border in the trunk of a Chevvy Monte Carlo from Canada to Alaska to hide out and live for a while. Hopefully the institutions of law and humankind will now come for me. Calling on me to answer questions about a deceased bridge on th gulf coast of Florida which once connected two Islands. A bridge which allowed lawyers, bankers, developers, engineers to drive from the frozen yoghurt joints of one island to the Holiday Inn of another.

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