That's Marjorie Stoneman Douglas I'm sitting with in the photo accompanying this blog. For you non-Floridians, she's the lady who single-handedly saved the Florida Everglades when in 1948 she wrote a book titled "The Everglades: River of Grass".
Marjorie (the bronze sculpture that is, the real lady died at the age of 108 in 1998) is a regular stop on my tour when I serve as a new tram guide at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens. I mostly do Thursday mornings,with Jeff Kaplan as my driver. Both Jeff and Benard drive and talk for their own tours, but as I have written in the past, Fairchild wisely refrained from asking me to also drive, not wanting to unnecessarily maim visitors and wantonly kill exotic plant life.
Benard was my very patient mentor while I was learning the fact-filled 45 minute spiel that makes up the tour. He's been a Fairchild guide for some 12 years and I am a newbie. At the end of three tours. . all guides do a three-tour shift, mine this morning was for 10am, 11am and 12 noon. . .I am totally pooped. You try talking without stopping for three hours, not to mention trying to remember endless botanical tidbits like the baobab tree somes from Africa and the albizia tree is native to Indonesia. (A low bow to Jeff for not flinching when I screw up my continents every now and then.)
With less than 15 minutes between tours I make a fast run to the ladies room, repair my lipstick and make a stab at smoothing down my hair which is at total odds with the cordless head set mike that I must wear so that the passengers on the three car tram can hear what I have to say. Benard tells me that driving the tram is like driving one of those huge semis you see on the highway. Is it any wonder I'm not behind the wheel, much less capable of even seeing over the wheel at my towering 4' 11" height.
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden is truily an amazing place and I am enjoying my new role as tram guide. At the end of my last tour this morning I actually got a round of applause. If I wasn't a volunteer, I would ask for a raise in pay.
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