Maybe the oil will bypass Tampa Bay, go visit itself on the east coast. Maybe when the panhandle and east coasts are destroyed, the rest of us in Florida will be not be affected. Maybe Key West will survive -- you don't need clean white sand to drink a Margarita and sing Buffett tunes off key
Maybe the economic recovery that never really ignited in Tampa will somehow flare up when the oil obliterates stretches of the Gulf shores. Our stretches. Maybe the housing market will skyrocket as ghouls buy front-row seats for the worst environmental disaster in history. Something to tell the grandkids: I was there when the world ended for a billion living things. Maybe people will stop leaping from the Skyway Bridge, put off by the slime they will be diving into.
I have been a Floridian for 21 months. For the first time, I feel like one. It feels bad.
Maybe we've seen the worst of this. Maybe this season, for the first time in memory, no hurricane will enter the Gulf to fling oil everywhere.
I stood on Indian Rocks Beach tonight with tourists and natives and transplants like myself to watch the sun set. Not a drop of oil in sight. Maybe I'll stop by the beach more often now to watch a miracle that may not happen again for a long time after this summer.
Newt
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At least humanity hasn't screwed up the sunset. Or at least not today.
ReplyDeleteNot that it can't. It's an odd perversion of nature that the more we screw up the air, the prettier the sunsets get.
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By the way, Pam, I finally got around to adding a link to your great Horse Pucky blog. I don't know a lot about horses, but I do understand pucky.
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