From 1967 to 1969 I was part of the Hydrobiology Research Team of the Water Resources Division of the United States Geological Survey of the United States Department of the Interior (Thank you John Wesley Powell!). Our mission was nothing less than coordinating and adding to the knowledge and understanding of the complete ecology of Everglades National Park. For two years of my very young life I got to live a real wilderness adventure.  

After I left the Interior Department, I dedicated 1969 through 1970 full time to environmental activism. I became well known. Miami Dade Junior College approached me and asked me to create an environmental studies program. At the time I was a 22-year-old college dropout! We called it Man and His Environment (see brochure).

I took my students out to the Big Cypress Swamp once each term so they could experience what I was telling them in words. To me the highlight was taking them to a thick stand of Cypress trees with a pool of deeper water in the center. Imagine wading in. Suddenly in the middle of the day, it becomes dark. And Silent. More peaceful than any man-made cathedral I have ever been in. Thinking back on it, it was one of the deepest religious experiences of my life. We sat there in silence. And Wonder.

One time driving the Sanctuary roads scoping out a place to take my students, I discovered there were oil derricks in the Everglades. Shock? Dismay? No. Action. A friend of mine, Jon Nordheimer, was a sports- writer for the Miami Herald. I called him and gave him the story. By then he was a staff writer for the New York Times. We stopped the drilling.

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