A Land Remembered – My Community, the Environment, and Me.

A Land Remembered – My Community, the Environment, and Me.

In at least two or three paragraphs, describe Southwest Florida to someone who has never been to your area. If you live outside this area, write about your own area. What was this area like in the past? How has the area changed over the years? Include specific examples of both good and bad impacts of environmental change and development. 

Copy your response and put it into a word document.

Although I attend school in Southwest Florida, I grew up in Southeast Florida in the Port St. Lucie/Fort Pierce area. Even though I have lived in South Florida my entire life, the two coasts differ from eachother greatly.

Growing up, I lived in a heavily wooded area, and my house was the only one on the block. There were woods on every side of my house, and a little pond behind my house. I can remember my dad waking me up one morning extremely early to show me a bobcat in my backyard, just feet away from my back porch. There are pictures from when I was very young (I don’t remember this actually happening but the pictures are proof enough for me!) of a hog tearing up my back yard and knocking down my dad’s banana trees. There were otters in the pond behind my house that my brother and I fed hotdogs to. There was so much wildlife literally in my own backyard that I had a wonderful childhood.

I went to the closest elementary school, which was about 30 minutes from my home. My middle school and high school were in the next town over, about 45 minutes from my house. There were only a few schools in the area, and I attended these schools before the school district starting “zoning” children to schools closer to their homes. My town was so small, there were two parks to play at, one soccer league, one football league, Wal-Mart was 40 minutes away, and if you went to any of these places you knew at least 75% of the people there.

I can remember when the lot across the street was sold, and ever since that day the lots started going faster and faster. At one point there were seven houses being built on my street at the same time, as well as a high school less than two miles from my house, a gas station, a brand new Publix, Wal-Mart, a gymnasium, and an entire housing community.

At first it was fun thinking about having new neighbors. But when the bobcats stopped visiting, and my brother and I could no longer feed the otters out back, we knew the life we grew up having was about to change.

My town was then hit by Hurricanes Frances, Jean, and Wilma. The wooded area I once knew was now a popular place to raise a family in a house with a “blue roof”. Those hurricanes sent my town for another spin.

My family and I sat inside my home. It took all four of use to push against the front door as hard as we could just to keep it from blowing in. We sat inside as the ply wood was ripped off the windows. We watched from inside the cars sliding up and down the street, and my RV tip sideways off of our driveway. My good friend’s house down the street was burnt down by a generator malfunction in his garage. The lot across the street from mine caught fire because of a lightning bolt in a storm following the hurricanes. Tornadoes hit my place of work. My school’s library was flooded and robbed. Many places were without power for over two weeks, some people had no power for up to six weeks. There was no gas to fill any vehicles and there were power lines everywhere.

Those hurricanes could have either been the worst or best thing that has ever happened to my ever so quickly growing town. Although it tore apart the town physically, it brought us together as a town emotionally. Businesses reached out to other businesses. Schools were helping other schools. Neighbors helping neighbors and so on. (Not to mention the housing market slowed…who wanted to buy or build a home in a state that was so devastated in just a matter of months?) Even though it was tough for my town environmentally and 

economically, we pulled together and managed to make it through.

Reflect on these changes and make connections between what is happening in Southwest Florida and how this impacts you personally. Write about your own area if you live outside Southwest Florida. Copy your response and paste it into a word document.

Going back to my town now for visits, it is slowly becoming a “city”. There is a Walgreens on every corner and a CVS Pharmacy adjacent to it. There are stoplights everywhere and terrible drivers. There is almost no wooded area left. To someone who had never seen my town prior to the economic boom, they wouldn’t even know it used to be covered in trees and only had one stoplight.

My town has changed more than I ever expected it to. Living there for 18 years, I have seen it go from calm and quiet to loud and bustling. I miss what my town used to be, but I have always been told change is good…we will see about that.

Using insight from your readings, discussions, and field trips, focus attention on the future of Southwest Florida. Focus on your own area if you live outside Southwest Florida. Envision how place might look in years to come if no change is made. Compare this with how place might be if its people were to make decisions through an ecological perspective. Support your argument with references from the literature. Copy your response into a WORD document.

In the years to come, I see my town becoming more prosperous than it already is. That being said, I definitely don’t think there is enough being done to protect the environment in my community. Already there is almost no real “nature” left, which is extremely heartbreaking to me. In Southwest Florida, I can see that at least part of the community is striving to reach a more sustainable way of life in their community. There are “go green” slogans everywhere you look. In my town, there is close to nothing being done about the ever so quickly growing community. Resources are being wasted everywhere and there is (close) to nothing being done to stop it. If people were to make decisions through an ecological perspective in my town, I really do hope that change could be made. Obviously bringing back all of the nature that used to exist in my town is extremely unlikely, but it is something that could happen over time, little by little. If people lived more sustainably in their own homes, I think it would greatly impact the ecological successes in the area. In A Land Remembered, the MacIvey family didn’t have much. They didn’t have the option of going out to eat every night and polluting the air with the exhaust from their cars. They didn’t have the option to go to the store and buy food for each and every meal. They certainly didn’t have the luxury of shopping whenever they pleased. They waited on the steamboats for only the most basic supplies that were needed for survival. They weren’t picky about the food they ate. At some points, they had coon and cabbage for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for days and days on end. I’m not saying that our society, and more specifically my town should act just like this, but we should learn from the MacIvey family. We shouldn’t take what we have for granted. If we don’t absolutely need to pollute the air with our car exhaust, then don’t. (or carpool if we have to). Everyone should learn to be a little less picky and a little more grateful. We have more than the MacIvey family ever dreamed of having…except they had a wonderful environment to live in, and we have a polluted one. In that sense, we should try and live a little bit more like they did, and try to experience and appreciate the environment a little bit more like the MacIvey’s.

Conclude with what might happen if you as an individual were to make a few changes. What would these changes be? How would they impact the area and why? How likely are you to make these changes? What would prevent you from making changes and why? Reflect on this and conclude. There are no right or wrong answers - be authentic and truthful with yourself. This is a reflection, not a dictate. Copy your response into a word document.

If I as an individual were to make a few changes, I would probably start with cutting back on the amount of fuel I use in my car (and the amount of exhaust I put into the air). I would also like to start recycling basic things, such as paper and plastic products a little bit more than I do now. Maybe I could even spread the word, or encourage my neighbors to do the same. Since these are simple changes, I don’t think it will be difficult to just start with these. I can then maybe move into bigger service projects to better serve my community and the environment. The only thing that may prevent me from making these changes would be laziness and busyness. I am always running around from school to work and back to school again. By the time I am done with my day, I am ready to fall asleep, only to repeat the entire process over again. That would be where the laziness kicked in. Hopefully that doesn’t happen, and I make the time to conserve a 

bit more, and live a little more sustainably.

Citation:

Smith, Patrick D. (1984). The Land Remembered. Sarasota, FLA: Pineapple Press.