A few weeks ago my online friend and fellow blogger, Patsy, posted a 1992 song I'd never heard before. I loved it instantly and downloaded it from iTunes after listening to it only once. The piano and violin music at the beginning and end of the song are hauntingly beautiful, but it's the lyrics that capture my imagination. They tell a story about the changes that have occurred in Florida's Everglades as a result of man's intervention. That story immediately evoked this memory:
When we lived in Florida in the early 1970s, my husband, our two daughters, and I took a day trip into the Everglades. That was the first time we'd ever explored a real swamp, with its cypress knees sticking up out of the water and Spanish moss hanging from the trees. We walked above the water on a wooden boardwalk, a welcome safety feature that didn't detract from the sensation that we were in a place time had forgotten. The air was hot, damp, and thick with an almost mystical wildness.
We stopped at one lookout point and studied the nature that surrounded us. Directly below us was an alligator, one at least ten feet long, lying perfectly still. We watched a number of big fish swim back and forth in front of the gator's face, fish we thought might make a good meal for a hungry animal, but the alligator didn't blink an eye. We watched for several minutes. Just as we began to wonder whether the gator might be fake, another tourist standing near us opened a cellophane snack pack of peanut-butter-filled cheese crackers and dropped one over the railing. Before the cracker sandwich hit the water, the huge alligator began to roll. Roiling the water with the speed of its movement, it opened its mouth and caught the snack easily, then slammed its powerful jaws shut and settled once again into its own lookout point under the boardwalk. So much for a place untouched by time.
With a nod of thanks to Patsy for introducing me to this song, I'm choosing it for this week's Saturday Song Selection:
The song is "Seminole Wind" by John Anderson.
Thanks to morgan7852 for posting this video on YouTube.
Click here to read the lyrics.
Fascinating tale... I've seen similar with the squirrels that live along the ocean here. They live in trees full of berries and nuts but will do anything to get their paws on the hunk food from the boardwalk!
ReplyDeleteHolly, junk food is a cross-species problem. It'll be the ruination of all of us if we aren't careful.
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