From The Editor
Happy Labor Day!
Fall is upon us at last, and Fay — our most recent tropical storm at the time of this writing — has left her mark on the Sunshine State.
I visited the Santa Fe River with my son a week after the storm hit and was impressed by how fast the water was rising. The month before, the river was low and choked with water hyacinths.
“Where’s the river?” my 8 year-old son had asked that day. It was there, under all that growth, but it looked like a pasture.
Now the vast majority of the invasive hyacinths have been washed away.
A father and son were casting into the rapidly moving currents. The father said the river had visibly risen since they started fishing that afternoon.
Everything changes. The older I get, the more I realize this. I don’t always like it, but it is the one thing we can count on.
I won’t be here when the river crests. A much-needed mountain vacation is in order, and we are taking the kids north, just like my parents and grandparents did before me. This time we won’t be staying in a condo with air conditioning, Jacuzzis and televisions in every room. We will stay in an old farm cabin built over a century ago. This is the family homestead my grandparents bought in the 1930s, their summer retreat in retirement, a wonderland from my youth that still resonates in my heart to this day, despite all the changes.
I can only imagine how my family felt when road crews carved Highway 105 right through the middle of their property, between the river and the mountain. I didn’t know this land prior to the highway, but I’ve seen pictures. The property was vast, ranging from the middle of the river to the top of the mountain. There was nothing man-made for miles except a country store precariously perched on the mountainside, a couple of cabins and a small winding road that ran along the Watauga River. Nevertheless, the cabins and mountains, rivers and streams were like nothing we had ever seen in Miami — this was a magical place of river tubing, mountain hikes and crawdad captures in the stream.
One year, a flood took out the highway above my aunt’s home. The cabin slid off the hill and into the road below. The home was undamaged and the dishes were not disturbed, but it blocked the only road through the area. The road crew demolished it to let the traffic through. Years later, the expansion of 105 took her second home.
I am reminded that nothing stays the same.
I hope and pray that damaging flooding does not happen along the Santa Fe River as it continues to rise, as other storms brew. Florida has seen more than its fair share of natural disasters, and hopefully everyone will fare well in coming months, while I’m away with my family — and my laptop (deadlines, you know).
