Let's Vac

Today's Stuart News headline reads, 'Storms Slam Martin', "97-mph winds recorded; planes and buildings at Witham Field damaged...". Major roadways were flooded with rainwater at a depth to reach moving crankcases, within this formidable watershed of river, lagoon, and Atlantic Ocean.

The storm gave new meaning to the phrase "Don't feed the wildlife", appearing during an outing drive toward Lake Okeechobee carrying an open bag of potato chips. A brief stop at a canal park marked on a through-road straightaway past farmlands confirmed loud thundercracks accom-panying the lightening bolts searing the sky. Turnaround and return to mid-Martin County revealed what might have been a waterspout attempt in the South Fork of the Saint Lucie River that runs into Lake Okeechobee; tornado activity was reported in local journalism.

During the 1960s, a rainstorm would occur precisely at 2:00 p.m. each afternoon in the region, as tourists and other travellers learned. The balance of nature was tipped in favor of weather extremes in a later year when a local business was initiated using old household stoves to support the start-up building in near-river swampland (so another story printed in the Stuart News tells us, published about a year ago); the stoves rusting apparently attracted regional wildlife that yet glean iron from any metal not meticulously maintained, and generated the kind of outrage and takeover attempts that only the steel industry can galvanize.

The airport described above, Witham Field, has at its north side 55+ condomium complexes arrayed near drive-in-only local medical malls cum retail store outlets. A health-scare has become widespread, which is fear of gastro-intestinal bypass surgery, such that one-celled creatures seem to appear in larger human form, restricting their diets to avoid carry-away after years behind household PC terminals learning to use the Internet.