There Are No Dragons on Cloud 9

There comes a day in every person’s life they will remember for as long as they live as vividly as if it were only yesterday, a day when something happens that alters the course of their life forever.  It may be something seemingly inconsequential at the time, or it may be a distinctly major occurrence; but, whatever it is, it marks that day as a turning point in their life, a point from which all subsequent events are measured.  It is a day they think about often over the passing years, wondering what might have happened if the events of that day had been otherwise, and very often they ask themselves if, knowing what they know now, they would go back and change it if they could.

For me, Friday, September 7, 1951, was that day.  I was less than three weeks away from turning twenty-three and filled with all the self confidence, cockiness, and spirit of adventure common to that age, when you stand on the threshold of what you’re sure will be a great and glorious life and every day is just a prelude to all the wonderful things yet to come.  Life is exciting simply because it still holds so much promise.

So I was feeling pretty good that day, and I remember clearly what a beautiful day it was too, with the temperature in the low 80s and not a single cloud in the brilliant blue Florida sky.  It was the kind of day they always show in Florida vacation ads that makes everyone want to go there, one of those days of late summer that beckons you to come outside and enjoy it.  And I was looking forward to doing just that with my friends.

Johnny Buckhalt, Ken Little, and I had decided to take Ken’s new air boat for a ride through the Everglades.  The three of us had been best friends since the first grade, but after high school we had gone into different fields; Johnny was in sales, Ken grew exotic orchids, and I was a diesel operator and air conditioning technician.  But we still got together whenever we could, usually going hunting or fishing.

We were all excited, but especially Johnny and me since neither of us had ever been on an air boat.  Now, an air boat is a flat-bottomed boat about 18 feet long driven by an aircraft engine and a propeller on the rear instead of the conventional outboard motor and rudder.  The driver sits on a high seat toward the front, and there’s a passenger’s seat in the middle. 

Back then air boats were homemade affairs, and those who had one were always doing something to it.  Since Ken had only recently bought the boat from a fellow he knew, there were several modifications he wanted to make, among them encasing the propeller in a wire cage.  But today he just wanted to show off his new boat to Johnny and me and check out the 90-horsepower Lacombe aircraft engine which was supposed to be very powerful.

I can still see the Everglades as it was that day when Johnny, Ken, and I drove into it: looking like a prehistoric paradise; teeming with over 350 species of birds and waterfowl, including wood storks, great blue herons, and white-plumed snowy egrets; deer, alligators, snakes, turtles, frogs, and fish in abundance; tidal bays, lakes, and connecting waterways just a few feet deep honeycombing the wilderness of swamp, savanna, and virgin forest; cypress, palms, live oaks dripping with Spanish moss, and lush vegetation covering the numerous islets, called hammocks, scattered throughout the water; the short, smooth protrusions of the cypress roots, known as knees, jutting up around the water’s edge, looking like a gathering of chubby, bald-headed gnomes; the growth of saw grass rising up to ten feet tall above the water’s surface, so dense that when the water