Feel free to read, to laugh with me, to cry when appropriate, and to, as Lil’ Abner (whom I quote often) says “angrify” if it fits.
Iguanas On My Mind
Today we shall meander through history, geography, politics and dip briefly into zoology and the life and perils suffered by fine and upright fellows yclept iguanas.
I was lured into writing about iguanas by a nice lady who occasionally recommends a topic that she believes I should pick up for the enlightenment or, perhaps, confusion of my readers.
She informed me that green iguanas have moved into southern Florida, which is not really Southern in the sense of politics but only in direction, and these little fellows, who did not want to come to Miami and Fort Lauderdale to begin with, have been falling out of trees recently and lying prone upon the ground.
This only happens when temperatures fall below forty degrees. Being cold-blooded, iguanas go to sleep and relax their grips on trees and plop onto whatever surface is beneath them. Then some newbie from Yankeeland, thinking to do a random act of kindness, picks up a carload with the intent of disposing of the carcasses properly, and lo the “Chickens of the Trees” begin wriggling and crawling about within the confines of the BMW or Tesla or whatever. The newbie panics and oftimes runs off the road into a canal.
So now we have newbies and green iguanas and cold weather that upsets both. What shall we do? First off, we must examine the political implications. If you are at least an octogenarian you have studied the admission of Texas and Florida into the Union in the Year of Our Lord 1845. But there was one misprint in our history books.
It was not Texas that would be allowed to bust up into two states…it was Florida. Don’t believe it? Florida is made to divide. If you try to divide Texas, it will look like an amoeba.
So we are going to divide Florida into two states: “Occupied” and “Unoccupied”. Occupied is that land and/or water south of a line drawn from Anclote Key into the Ocklawaha River somewhere near the mermaids of Weekiwatchee over to the St. Johns River and thence nearunto the east coast and out into the Atlantic until it bumps upon the Bermuda Triangle. It includes Disneyworld and the Mouse House.
Unoccupied Florida starts there but meanders upwards to the Georgia line and westward across the Suwannee and the Apalachicola Rivers, scoops up Tallahassee after sending the elected representatives down to Orlando to pretend to be princes and princesses and to sing: “It’s a Small World”.
Eventually our Florida will end up crossing several great rivers and many first magnitude springs a(which means that they look bigger than they really are) and butting up against half of the FloraBama Club on Perdido Key. We will elect our own representatives and send them to Tallahassee and feed them barbeque once a year.
What will the representatives in the Mouse House get? Why, roasted green iguanas, of course. What do roasted green iguanas taste like? They taste like roasted alligator tail or roasted rattlesnake or roasted anything that falls out of trees. And we shall go to our Capital and pass laws against iguanas moving north into Unoccupied Florida. It worked for armadillos, so why shouldn’t it work for iguanas?
Lagniappe: “I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage To start all over again.” F. Scott Fitzgerald
Did you enjoy my story? Please forward to your friends and family to SIGN UP.
