Florida Revisited: The Day of the Dolphin

My love for and attachment to Florida and it's true natives goes way back: to when I was six years old, in fact, and my dad got pneumonia. His company--then a global telephone monopoly--while perhaps unaware of the irony of themselves being the cause of his illness (second-hand smoke)--felt sufficient guilt, it seems, to send him to Florida for six months to recover. I, being at the time a footloose five year old, had little choice but to leave my safe home in suburban New Jersey, along with my kindergarten schoolmates and white middle-class neighborhood gang (another story) and tag along to experience, for the first time, an alien world. I might as well have been a (really) young Luke Skywalker on Dagobah. Nothing was familiar: not the empty dunes on the coast of the strange teal-blue sea that didn't even have real waves except sometimes (I was accustomed to the Jersey shore, which had real waves on which I'd later learn to body surf). The dunes were protected by a sea wall, and then leveled off where our new rented home stood; then a wild grassy wilderness ran further than I could see to the empty road, and beyond that was a jungle, with a river called the 'Inland Waterway' my dad explained, full of terrible and wonderful fishes and creatures, and beyond that more jungle to the end of the world, although I was told there was a school beyond there somewhere, where I would have to attend (all I can remember now is the big spider on the ceiling which kept my attention the whole day long) and the occasional snake in the playground.

But it was the Gulf I fell into—and in love with. It was crystal clear and brimming with the coolest most beautiful creatures I'd ever seen including shells which I collected by the wheelbarrow-full and fishes of every size and color you could imagine. I'd already learned to swim after falling off the dock into Lake Memphromagog in Vermont the year before, and I could just lie there and float on the surface all day, while dolphins swam and danced all around me, and took care of me, even protecting me from the sharks that came around sometimes (my dad caught one once in our boat, much to his regret and my enjoyment). My parents were too involved with each other and my dad's health issues to pay much attention to me, so my friends were the dolphins, and the birds, and the other creatures that I could find.

There were no people there, at the time, that I encountered, although there were a few other houses and an occasional motel further down the beach in either direction. It was just me and my wonderful friends, and that clear, beautiful Gulf.

Then one night a tidal wave came. It was Christmas, as I recall—maybe Santa had a rough landing. I don't know why it came, but it did. It smashed the sea wall, flipped every boat for miles, filled the first floor of our house with water, and woke us up. My parents couldn't believe it, but for me it was just another adventure. The only bad part was there were wires in the sea wall for the beach lights, and when I jumped across the steps to the other side I was nearly electrocuted. My dad had to knock me off the wall with a boat oar that was laying there (luckily he was with me that day, surveying the damage).

I revisited that beach recently. It's called Indian Rocks Beach, and has a busy, ugly thoroughfare full of motels, souvenir stands, gas stations, hotels and motels, and condos. The dunes were still mostly there, and the grasses, which are being protected, and likewise the river. I found a parking space and walked to the Gulf. It's still blue, mostly. But the water was yellowish, murky, and turbid. No oil slicks yet, but surely they are coming. There was floating debris. There were no beautiful creatures other than the occasional summer beach bunny (although yes, I know, the dolphins, fish and crustaceans do still exist out there, in dwindling numbers). But even though I'd witnessed this slow dissolution during the years I'd lived not far from there raising my own son much later on, I couldn't bear it. I turned away and walked back to the car.

Maybe I'll try Dagobah next...