Florida Parks, Recreation, and the Playground Mentality

August 26th, 2024

Currently Reading: Death's End by Cixin Liu

Currently Watching: Three-Body

Currently Listening: Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell

My homepage features the weather for the southeastern United States for two reasons:

Florida is one of those states that is recognized internationally. Sure, Europeans, you have a better geography education than us and could probably name all 50 states and their capitols, but the only states you've actually been to are New York and Florida.

My introductory conversation with people from outside of the US usually involves Mickey Mouse.

And yes, Walt Disney World is one of the largest private employers in the state of Florida. Our economy revolves around out-of-towners eating turkey legs and snowbirds flying south for the winter, of COURSE we are known for the three O's: Orlando, Oranges and Old folk. That is, when they're being polite. Now we're probably more known for MSG: Meth, Syphilis, and Gators.

This isn't to say any of that is wrong. (Except maybe the oranges part as the groves faced a blight and orange juice manufacturers have decided to cut Florida orange juice with juice from oranges abroad in cheaper countries.)

North Florida is more swamp than beach, Central Florida is the Mecca for theme park enthusiasts, and South Florida is the rehab capital of the United States. Plus somewhere in the state is your grandmother who is enjoying her newly single life at 73 in all the ways healthy adults should.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good rollercoaster and I can't ignore the revenue theme parks bring to our state. I know as well as anyone that it's easy to catch "vacation brain" when you're in a theme park bubble. You forget when you're surrounded by so much artificiality, that the weather is not manufactured to sell ponchos to tourists.

Florida is not here to service you, even if you are concierge club level.

Our politicians want you to forget. Our corporations want you to forget. Forget that you're spending real money. Forget that you're even in Florida. But Floridians are asking you to remember.

Remember when you go to the beach, your trash is part of the real world. I remember when I was a child I would snorkel right from the beach. There used to be coral and colorful, tropical fish. It used to be beautiful.

Now, I go to the same beach and am told not to swim in it. That there's red tide at dangerous levels or bacteria breeding in the water. I'm told to grab a bucket at the entrance and collect all the plastic on the sand before leaving. The coral is skeletal. Dead from years of tourists carving into these animals like they are trees and bleached from higher water temperatures.

It's just a vacation for you, but that reef protected us from storm surge — the most dangerous part of a major storm, causing, essentially, a tidal wave.

When you get belligerently drunk in Florida and start destroying our beaches and businesses, you WILL be arrested and your crime WILL be public, thanks to our Sunshine Laws. We don't have the same slogan as Vegas for a reason. What happens in Florida, will be read in tomorrow's oddities section of the AP. These Sunshine Laws will embarrass you, but they are vital for life here in Florida as our politicians continue to sell us out to the highest bidder.

Ron DeSantis, the current dictator of Florida, has been reversing our Sunshine Laws by using his executive privilege. Think this is a Florida issue? Florida isn't full of animatronics. This man is very real and he really wants to be President of the United States.

I could write a book about everything Ron DeSantis has done to undermine local governments, but I'll let John Oliver give you the summary:

So what is Ron DeSantis up to now? Developing our state parks. In a move called the Great Outdoors Initiative, nine state parks are in the works to receive disc golf courses, pickleball courts, golf courses, and resort-style hotels. The park closest to me is slated to receive two 18-hole golf courses and one 9-hole golf course.

They argue that they'll be reallllly careful with the development as to not destroy habitat, but that is impossible. The land slated to become golf courses are the scrublands. The scrub is home to gopher tortoises, pine snakes, Florida mice, Florida scrub-jays, indigo snakes, scrub lizards, and rosemary grasshoppers. Most of these animals only live in Florida and some ONLY call this stretch of scrub their home.

I don't know if I really need to explain the effect of golf courses on the environment, but it's not great. Sure, in areas without much biodiversity, golf courses can improve biodiversity, but they take so much maintenance to run and so much water…is it even worth it? The scrub was made to survive in that land. The native root system helps prevent erosion of the area in ways lawn grass does not. Plus there are so many golf courses in the area already. Do we really need three more? Three more at the expense of the habitat?

It's not just environmentalist groups up in arms. At the time of writing, the Protect Jonathan Dickinson State Park Facebook group has 46.5 thousand members, by far the biggest group in the state shouting to protect our parks. Our outraged has caused the developers to back out of the golf course plans, though it's easy to find a new person to do Ron DeSantis's dirty work. We would like to hear it from his mouth. Hold a press conference and tell people you will find a new way to get people outside, like fixing the bathrooms that are already in the parks.

Florida is complicated and messy and real. Our government officials don't claim our land as their land. They look at it like something to sell to tourists. What will the tourists like? Can we find a place for the tourists to sleep? Will they be entertained by golf? Pickleball? Who cares what our citizens want. They're poor.

Floridians aren't dumb. People send us their addicts and grandparents and other people they don't want to deal with and then blame us for caring for them. Yeah, yeah, Florida is a hellhole. We've heard your jokes. But if you're going to come here to play, you've gotta be respectful or we won't invite you back.

I get it. You don't want to think about politics on your vacation. That's totally fine. Be a good tourist and clean up after yourself. And if you come year after year to visit our parks, whether state or theme parks, invest a little more than money into a handful of companies in Florida.

Take the time to learn about our culture. Learn about our languages and art. Learn about our history and the history of colonization and immigration and how that shapes our culture. Visit places outside of Disney. Take the Brightline down to Miami or drive north to St. Augustine. Visit our state parks and don't leave them full of trash and for the love of God, don't touch the wildlife.

If you'd like to help the fight to preserve a piece of Old Florida, express your opposition to the FDEP's proposals by telling Gov. Ron DeSantis that you're opposed to the development of Florida. Call (850) 717-9337 and tell him that Florida is not a playground for campaign backers. Florida is the people who live here and the land they live on.

--Beacon