Florida Native

Ever try to fix a problem and it doesn’t work? Well, in the 1920s Richter Clyde Perky, the largest landowner in the Florida Keys, tried to do just that when it came to marsh mosquitoes. Supposedly there were so many of them back then that an entomologist caught a record-breaking 365,696 mosquitoes in one trap in one night. Um…that’s a lot. So in 1929 Perky dreamed up a way to get rid of the pesky insects by building a 30-foot-high unpainted bat tower down an unmarked dirt road in a quiet area of Sugarloaf Key. Believe it or not, bats cannot easily be relocated from one home to another so it was stocked with special bait, a mixture of bat guano with ground-up female bat sex organs. But unfortunately the bats never took to Perky’s tower. They simply flew off and never returned (or according to some, never migrated to begin with). But the tower survives, and today the bat tower is a beloved local landmark (while the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District does what the tower failed to do). You can say Perky was “batty” for building a useless tower, but at least he tried to do something to control the mosquito population. I probably would have just sat in a lawn chair complaining about the heat and the bugs. “Can’t somebody do something?”

Morning at the Bridge  of Lions

HARRIET TUBMAN WAS HELD CAPTIVE AND BOUND TO UNPAID, BACK-BREAKING LABOR SINCE BIRTH UNDER PENALTY OF TORTURE OR DEATH. SHE MANAGED TO ESCAPE THAT LIFE, AND SHE TURNED THE FUCK AROUND AND WENT THE FUCK BACK TO GET EVERYONE ELSE WHO WAS STILL TRAPPED IN IT. AND THEN SHE DID IT AGAIN EIGHTEEN MORE TIMES.

WHEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS UNSURE WHETHER OR NOT HE WAS PREPARED TO MAKE A STAND AGAINST SLAVERY, HARRIET TUBMAN BASICALLY SAID HE SHOULD STOP BEING SUCH A DIAPER BABY AND THAT GUYS WHO ARE TOO SCARED TO END SLAVERY DON’T DESERVE TO WIN WARS.

NOT ONLY DID SHE SECRET OVER 300 SLAVES TO FREEDOM ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, BUT SHE ACTED AS A SPY FOR THE UNION ARMY DURING THE CIVIL WAR, AND BECAME THE FIRST WOMAN TO LEAD AN ARMED ASSAULT IN THE CIVIL WAR. THAT RAID BROUGHT FREEDOM TO OVER 700 SLAVES IN ONE GO.

SO I JUST WANT YOU TO STEW ON THAT FOR LIKE A MINUTE. ACTING IN THE SHADOWS, SHE WALKED INTO HELL ON EARTH 19 TIMES TO SAVE HER FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS FROM THE TORMENT SHE ENDURED, AND THE SECOND SHE WAS GIVEN EVEN A MODICUM OF POWER, SHE MANAGED TO FREE SEVEN HUNDRED SLAVES IN ONE DAY.