A Certain Kind of Bias

I hope last week's holiday went well for everyone. As you can tell, I didn't post, for which I am sorry. I didn't get to it because I was busy working. On Labor Day. The irony was not lost on me.

A few weeks back I drove up to see Lake Okeechobee. I've lived in this state for most of my life and never seen its largest lake. That made me feel like I'd failed as a Floridian.

So I crammed the family in the car, rode I-75 west and when it became Alligator Alley I took a turn onto US 27 and hurtled north through sugar cane country under a clear blue sky. You might expect the road here to be small and poorly maintained, but you'd be wrong. The highway is wide and smooth, a massive artery pumping semi-trucks full of sugar and sod down to the glittering coastal sprawl of Broward and Dade counties.

Lake Okeechobee proved underwhelming. The southern rim of the lake looked surprisingly similar to the Everglades. I wasn't expecting an inland sea or anything (okay, maybe I was), but I wasn't prepared to breathlessly climb that berm just to see...more sawgrass.

Here's a picture if you don't believe me. That open water you see is only there because it's a dredged channel for boats.

It's a sad lake that lets a palm tree grow in it.

The trip wasn't a waste, though. I had a nice picnic by the quasi-lake and, although there wasn't much open water, there was still a cool breeze, something to be appreciated this time of year in Florida.

Besides the picnic, I was glad for the drive. Seeing those cane fields laid out horizon to horizon reminded me the role sugar has played in South Florida's history, and its hard not to be impressed by the pump houses and canals which keep this marsh dry, even if they have screwed with the ecology.

I hate to end on a dark note, but it was also educating to see some of the trailers up there. They occupied a narrow band between the cane fields and the town, crammed together along narrow one-lane roads so close together that if someone wanted to borrow a cup of sugar (which they probably helped grow), they'd only have to open a window and reach over into the neighbor's kitchen. All of this just miles from a posh hacienda which belonged, no doubt, to the owner of the plantation.

Am I the only one who notices this stuff?