Pied Piping through Arcadia Mill, 'A Pleasanter Spot You Never Spied'

Flora and fauna like azaleas and bees easily win favor with me at this time of year in Florida. They both seem to understand their places in a delicate dance of beauty and utility.


Last week, the Secret Aging Man, Daughter, and I took some time out from our busy (or not, as the case may be) schedules to visit a fabulous tribute to Florida's history located quite near our home. The name of the place stops you in your tracks. Arcadia Mill. It evokes images of Pan cavorting about the rivers and forests, having a fine old time chasing nymphs and exploring nature. That is, until he meets up with a woodcutter, intent on having his own way with the trees and rivers.

The University of West Florida, Division of Anthropology and Archaeology, has done a fine job of coordinating the preservation of Florida's first industrial complex. You can tell that a lot of thoughtful interpretation and hard work have gone into building this place, for which "no maps, drawings, or photographs that would provide clues about the site layout or methods of operation are known to exist." The preserved site exists as a bridge--tenuous at best in this land of hurricanes and shrinking budgets--to span that fluid river which connects the past and the present.

Swaying bridges will keep generations of visitors like us intent on maintaining their balance. I can't wait until Micah comes of age to join us on this trail. When he is old enough to be trusted to follow the path without constant redirection, his voice will be heard ringing through the woods, just like ours were last week. Residents of a nearby posh neighborhood might not be too happy about the whole noisy business. The road to the site passes by a whole slew of fancy dwellings.

As for me, I prefer a fancy slough, complete with blooming shrubs like this wild blueberry bush. I hope I can return in mid-May to find a few berries left on it. The ones I planted in our garden a month ago have a few blooms too, but they aren't old enough to provide very many berries yet.

You don't have to worry about getting stuck in the muck at Arcadia Mill. Brand-new boardwalks keep you high and dry, unless you prefer straying from the main path like we do to find blooming bushes.

Timelines like this one fascinate me. I do wish, though, that they would start at the end (present) and work backwards (past). Robert Browning, it seems, favored a similar approach in his poem "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." In his travels, he came across the German town of Hameln by the river Weser and found some artifacts around which he constructed his elaborate poem. I suppose that he found something significant in the fact that Germans refer to a town-council chamber as a "Rathaus." The thought of politicians gnawing away at citizens' hard-won earnings (a common scenario in any society) must have inspired lines like these:

"Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats,
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats..."

I find beauty even in things that have chewed up our resources in the past. The UWF experts have had to contend with the fact that "very little of the site complex is above ground," precisely because of the chewing and gnawing that has taken place in Arcadia. Termites know their purpose in the scheme of things. Nothing goes to waste where they thrive, and it's a good thing that they do. Otherwise, all of us would be buried under a mountain of carefully constructed and contrived mistakes and regrets.

"...At last the people in a body

To the Town Hall came flocking:

'Tis clear,' cried they, 'our Mayor's a noddy;

And as for our Corporation--shocking

To think we buy gowns lined with ermine

For dolts that can't or won't determine

What's best to rid us of our vermin!

You hope, because you're old and obese,

To find in the furry civic robe ease?

Rouse up, Sirs! Give your brains a racking

To find the remedy we're lacking,

Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!'

At this the Mayor and Corporation

Quaked with a mighty consternation...."