Loose Change

Furlongs of Florida’s modern highways follow the military trails built by Gen. Zachary Taylor for the mule teams that hauled supplies from one fort to another. (One of these forts was Fort Vinton, which stood near the site of Vero’s outlet mall on Route 60.) General Taylor, in turn, built his log-corrugated roads on ancient pathways cut by the Indians.
The forts are gone and so is the indigenous population. Everything changes. The Dodgers have disappeared, isthmuses become straits, nations rise and fall – as do livelihoods – and the ocean is washing away our beaches.
Erosion is a sore point with me. I like to wade in the shallows as the sun rushes in from the east, waking pelicans and jellyfish before it warms the sands. During World War II, the Coast Guard patrolled these beaches on horseback. Perhaps they saw the colossal fireball created when a German U-boat torpedoed an American oil tanker somewhere near Melbourne. I wonder if the $24 million needed to replenish our eroding beaches will also be torpedoed.

Read the entire article in the Summer 2009 issue