Screen House Residency: SunFest

I'm heading down to West Palm Beach for SunFest in an AmTrak train.

OK, now use your imagination...

You're on a train, you don't have to drive, you just have to look out the window. Out the right side of said train: flat-as-a-pancake land. In the distance, small collections of oak trees with tiny little mini palm trees surrounding them (in the industry, we call them palmettos). Out the left side: orange groves. Row after row of sweet delicious citrus (but that's usually in the winter season...). It's beautiful. Brings a tear to the eye.

Now, I must confess: not long ago I was living in a place pretty similar, except you'll need to substitute mini palm trees for...umm...grass. And get rid of those heavenly sugar-delivery systems we call fruit and put in the Backbone of the U S of A...corn.

I'm not saying one is better than the other. I'm just saying I know what I like. And if you could have been on the train, pretending to smell the sweet swamp grasses and orange blossoms instead of the recycled stale air-conditioned air of the train, I tell you, you would agree that Florida Prairie is something to behold.

And don't get me started on the thunderstorms that sweep across land like that. You can see the lightning, but it's too far off to ever hear it. The rain gets to thick you can't see where the horizon stops or starts. (I think I may have gotten myself started, though.) Brings a tear to my eye and song to my breast. Ok, maybe not the song part. In fact, if it were to bring a song to my breast, the only song that seems fitting is "Shenandoah," and that's not even close to Florida. In fact, the one song that's a claim to fame would be "Way Down Yonder on the Swanee River," and unless I've only heard bad renditions of the song, it's not nearly soulful enough.

Can you inherit a song for any time and place?

Oh FL prairie

I long to see you

Away you rolling...swa-amp

Oh FL prairie

I long to see you

Away, I'm bound away

Across the wide

Okeechobee

So maybe it's not the same. But I think if the pioneers had started here instead of Virginia, I bet that song would have been a little different. I betcha they stole the original tune from Ponce de Leon.