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Take Action Instead Of Taking Paradise For Granted

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 19, 2008

I enjoy living in Florida now more than ever.

I'm not sure whether it's this season of my life, the amazing people I know, the perfect weather or that my son, Andrew, is stuck in Watertown, N.Y., learning the finer details of concepts such as "subzero," "blizzard" and "lake-effect snow."

Even the Tampa area's traffic snarls fail to sting so much when I can open an e-mail from Andrew featuring a photograph of his new Subaru buried under fresh snow.

I've lived in Florida since 1976, and to say it's growing on me would be an understatement. Say what you like about the hurricanes or heat: We live in paradise.

That's why I had to chuckle recently when I heard someone at the grocery store complain about "the bitter cold outside." That morning, it had been 45 degrees when I walked the dog. By noon, I was standing on the fourth fairway at the Diamond Hill Golf & Country Club in Dover enjoying 65 degrees and sunshine. You can bet I pulled out my cell phone and called New York.

Complaining about a March cold snap in Tampa is on par with looking for sympathy because you gained a couple of pounds circling the 600-item smorgasbord on your Caribbean cruise. Suck it up, people: There are millions of shivering Midwesterners who would love to switch places about now.

All this is by way of prelude to a more difficult observation. This life we love so much is in jeopardy, and if we don't take a hard look at ourselves we're going to ruin much that has made Florida such a great place to live.

We have gotten lackadaisical about our responsibilities as individuals. We want the government to do this for us, we want the schools to do that, we want Tallahassee to ante up, we want Washington to bail us out, we want someone else to make our troubles go away - but we're not interested in underwriting the cost.

But what about us?

•We could start by picking up some of that trash we keep throwing on the street.

•We could save water instead of running our sprinkler systems four days a week.

•We could recycle, reduce waste and conserve energy in our homes with more enthusiasm.

•We could stop piling debt onto our credit cards.

•We could hold our children accountable instead of blaming the schools.

•We could give away at least 10 percent of our income instead of complaining that somebody do something about the homeless, the indigent, the hungry, the sick.

We're turning paradise into a huge, half-empty strip mall. We spend money we don't have, live in homes we can't afford and complain about fiscal irresponsibility in people other than ourselves.

I fell in love with a Florida that is hard to remember, and when I do remember I'm slightly embarrassed about my personal excess. Let's not throw away our future just to gain a few baubles in the short term.

If we all pitched in, we could clean up this place in a heartbeat.

Columnist Derek Maul can be reached at derekmaul @gmail.com.

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