Editor’s Note: The Four Corners Adventure begins. Stay with this series. Marlow makes “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Riding” look like an amateur effort! This is a loving portrait of a man and a Nation in transition.

-Vic

Life and Island Times: Day 1
Coastal Empire

After a nice empty-road ride along US 1, Marlow veered westward onto the roads of old Florida. These 800 series county roads took him through Indian reservations, sugar cane, cowboy and cattle countries well west of Dade and Broward counties up to Lake O and along its eastern shores.

He loved these roads, since they were a magic carpet ride to the Florida of long ago. In some ways, these highways and their places were like old live oak trees. No matter how many times they were struck by tropical lightning, they refused to die.

He had taken many a slow, unhurried ride on them and their landscape of farms, sugar-cane fields, ranches, citrus groves and a handful of mom-and-pop businesses that had changed little over many decades. Many of these marks of man were vanishing like wind-blown, sand-covered desert artifacts of human existence – cracker houses with washing machines on the porches, banana and papaya trees, and hand painted “Bad Dog” signs in the front yards.

Exiting the cane fields, he motored through Clewiston on old route 27 at the southwestern tip of big Lake O. Somewhat tattered billboards proudly announced the town’s official designation as “America’s Sweetest Town.” U.S. Sugar Corporation had been here for decades. Big sugar loved the rich soil, the willing immigrant labor force, the plentiful water and the compliant state and local governments. Floridians and their fellow southerners depended upon them for their daily rations of sweet tea.

Marlow had ridden through the town repeatedly during explorations that crisscrossed the backroads of the Everglades during the past eight years. Today, he found the pedestrians’ gaits slower, almost a slumped shuffling. They wore sad looks on their faces.

He wasn’t surprised since the Miami papers had printed the previous month’s announcement that U.S. Sugar would be closing down its plantations and refinery. Over 70 years of steady employment for the town’s 7100 inhabitants was about to end. Clewiston was about to be whacked by globalization and cheap subsidized South American sugar.

As Marlow stopped at each of the well-timed stoplights, he envisaged the town fathers would attempt to wean the town onto tourism since Lake O is the second largest fresh water lake in the United States. The town possessed a certain mid 50s Florida, strip mall charm. It was easily accessible to the well-heeled folks of Fort Myers on the west coast and Palm Beach to the east.

The state was planning to convert the surrounding farmland into reservoirs and water-filtering areas as part of the ongoing restoration of the Everglades ecosystem. Mosquito and assorted other flying insect numbers should skyrocket. The local black bass, crappie and bluegill populations should enjoy these menu fortifications. As he crossed the city’s eastern boundary I wondered how many tour airboats and charter fishing skiffs it would take to replace all the lost jobs.

Since the roads in this part of the state weren’t straight — lots of hard right and left turns — and the speed limits in the Everglades sea of grass averaged a shade under 40MPH, this part of day #1 took almost 8 hours. He jumped onto I95 at Stewart, engaged the FatBoy’s warp drive and made a direct course to Ormond Beach.

This night’s stay would be in a fleabag motel with a bargain price of $35 per night, tax included. The Red Carpet Inn room provided me with adult palmetto bug companionship at no extra charge. There were no red carpets.

Across the street, Marlow considered taking that evening’s meal at the Whistle Stop Café. A yellowed newspaper article scotch-taped onto the cash register said the place was owned by a local granny. That kind of marketing was all he needed to make his decision.

For $11, it was all you could eat, including grilled to order steak. This cafeteria style restaurant employed a legion of sweet tea-serving waitresses who had to be older than Marlow’s mother. He consumed two plates each of salad, steak and assorted meats, and dessert along with four glasses of sweet tea. He left a $5 tip.

While Marlow paid his motel bill the next morning, the 80+ year Pakistani immigrant proprietor informed him that the Whistle Stop had recently enjoyed some brief notoriety. It seems that a 43-year-old shirtless woman was found playing Truth or Dare with teenagers. Upon driving into the Whistle Stop’s parking lot, a police officer spotted several teenagers running from the rear of the restaurant about 2:30 a.m.

Ms. Russell, wearing only a bra and jeans, was also seen running while attempting to put her shirt back on. The teens, ranging in age from 15 to 18, claimed that they had dared Russell to expose her breasts, but she had only removed her shirt when the officer arrived on scene.

The story teller blushed when he told his audience that the woman had explained that her shirtlessness was due to her “getting hot.”

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