# Paradise (Lost)



## Gadaboutgaddis

Great job on the adaptation. I am just now finishing Grunwald's "The Swamp.." an excellent book.


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## Salt

+1 on The Swamp. Working my way through it now and it’s great.


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## fatman

awesome. JP would be proud.


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## Scott

DBStoots said:


> John Prine’s classic song “Paradise” is about the devastating impact of stripmining for coal, where the top layers of soil are blasted off with dynamite or dug away with steam shovels to reach the coal seam below. The song is also about what happened to the area around the Green River in Kentucky because of strip mining. The song references the Peabody Coal Company and a town called Paradise in Muhlenberg County, KY, where the TVA operated a coal-fired electric generating station.
> 
> In a similar fashion, the natural Everglades ecosystem, which once covered Florida from Orlando all the way south to the Keys, has been decimated by the “progress of man”. As late as 1900 or so, few White men had ventured into the ‘Glades. But around that time, the efforts to transform this area began with plans to “drain the swamp”. The massive water control projects changed this area for ever and launched the spectacular postwar development of South Florida. The city I now call home, Plantation, once was Everglades wetlands (as was Pembroke Pines, Weston, Wellington, Miami Lakes and others). Only in recent years have we started to question whether the creation of this man-made “paradise” was worth the destruction of one of the most spectacular natural ones in the world.
> 
> The passing of John Prine last year (one of my favorite singer-songwriters); fishing, boating and camping in this area over the past 17 years; and recently reading “The Swamp, The Everglades, Florida , and the Politics of Paradise” by Michael Grunwald prompted me to write a revised version of Prine’s classic, “Paradise”.
> 
> Paradise (Lost) (With Apologies to John Prine)
> 
> When I was a child, my family would travel
> Down to Southwest Florida where my parents were born
> And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
> So many times that my memories are worn
> 
> And daddy, won't you take me back to Chokoloskee
> Down by the Turner River where paradise lay?
> Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
> Mister Broward’s dredges have hauled it away
> 
> Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Chatham River
> To the abandoned old shell mound down by Watson’s mill
> Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
> But empty pop bottles was all we would kill
> 
> And daddy won't you take me back to Chokoloskee
> Down by the Turner River where paradise lay?
> Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
> Mister Broward’s dredges have hauled it away
> 
> Then the rail company came with the world's largest shovel
> And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
> Well, they dug their canals 'til the land was forsaken
> Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man
> 
> And daddy, won't you take me back to Chokoloskee
> Down by the Turner River where paradise lay?
> Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
> Mister Broward’s dredges have hauled it away
> 
> When I die, let my ashes float down the Rogers River
> Let my soul roll on up to the Flamingo dam
> I'll be halfway to Heaven with paradise waitin'
> Just five miles away from wherever I am
> 
> And daddy, won't you take me back to Chokoloskee
> Down by the Turner River where paradise lay?
> Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
> Mister Broward’s dredges have hauled it away
> View attachment 173772


Take a listen to JJ Grey & Mofro “Lochloosa” especially the one recorded live in Atlanta. He hits the nail right on the head.


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## KCTim

Scott said:


> Take a listen to JJ Grey & Mofro “Lochloosa” especially the one recorded live in Atlanta. He hits the nail right on the head.


One of my favorites!


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## Tom DeBruin

JP would love it and I do too. The politicians in SW FL don't do a damn thing about water quality and seem just clueless. I am in Port Charlotte and will be surprised if we ever have decent fishing again. The red tide and Mosaic continue to kill fish. This all breaks my heart.


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## Backcountryangler

ENP is one of my favorite places in the world. More needs to be done so future generations can feel what I feel when I am there. Marjory Stoneman Douglas' River of Grass is a must read.


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