Feeling afloat in Florida.
According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife's National Wetlands Inventory, my house sits between two segments of "freshwater emergent wetland." Our neighborhood, Groveside at Ormond Station, sits between two segments of "freshwater forested shrub wetland." It doesn't take too much imagination to know that, before Groveside, all this wet land was connected.
I live in former wetland in Flagler County but my roots are beachside in Volusia, a few-hundred yards from a very wet ocean.
But now, Flagler County. Just the other day, returning from a podiatrist's appointment in Daytona, I passed a trio of Flagler Sheriff cars, the sheriffs meeting at the side of Airport Road, discussing something important. A quarter-mile to the east lies Ormond Beach Fire Station No. 22. My house sits in Ormond Station on former wetlands claimed by Flagler, the county named after the railroad robber baron who often visited his RB chum John D in Ormond. My address is Ormond Beach 32174.
I voted at the Korona Fire Station in Flagler, permanently closed but open to voters on Nov. 3! Korona is an old Polish community near Bunnell. My parochial high school was named for the first Spanish priest to say mass ashore in Florida. We used to play Bunnell in basketball. The Father Lopez Green Wave vs. the Bunnell Bulldogs. Sometimes we city-based Sanctimonious Catholics won. Sometimes, the Holy Rollers rolled.
I now vote in Flagler County, as I blogged on Aug. 19. We get mailed and e-mailed notifications from Kaiti Lenhart, Flagler County Supervisor of Elections. A banner reminds us that YOUR VOTE COUNTS! Remember this on Nov. 4 when another pack of lunatics is elected because you didn't vote on Nov. 3. Lenhart's e-mail reminds us of upcoming deadlines. You can vote now. Do it.
I grew up in Daytona. I graduated from Father Lopez in 1969. We lived a half-block from the beach. It was open to us 24/7. In 1964, men and women in bathing attire rode horses in the shorebreak. Our dog Shannon hunted the shallows for anything edible. We surfed. Tossed frisbees. Tried very hard to engage teen girls strolling by. We worked evenings at the Village Inn Pancake House or Murphy's in Bellair Plaza or as clerks or bellhops or room cleaners at the Mom-and-Pop motels along the beach. We were pool lifeguards or gremmies who sold suntan lotion to cadaver-pale visitors from Michigan.
I'm now a septuagenarian living on former wetlands. Wetlands were named for a reason. They don't care what they are called. As we say in Ormond Station, wetlands gotta do what wetlands gotta do. We don't say that but we should. The annual late-September high tides got a lot of attention. The roads in Tomoka State Park flooded. Miami streets flooded. The Pacific Ocean was angry. Beachside California houses were swamped by big waves.
None of the many houses and apartments I lived in in Daytona/Ormond/Holly Hill have flooded. I grew up in two houses, each a half-block from the beach. They are still there, still dry.
I wonder about 100 years from now. This will be the land of our great-great-great grandchildren.
Or will the wetland reclaim its territory?
