Although I was born in Mobile, Alabama, and spent part of my earliest childhood in New Orleans, Fort Lauderdale is where my memories truly begin. The older I get, the more I realize how fortunate I was to grow up in a place where the Atlantic Ocean was on one side of town and the Everglades were on the other.
Where My Memories Begin
A Little Pond Across the Street
One of my earliest memories is living on Southwest 3rd Street. Across from our house was a small circular pond that seemed enormous to me as a child. I spent countless hours there with a little dip net, trying to catch minnows and tiny fish, watching for turtles, looking for frogs, and wondering what else might be living beneath the surface.
Looking back now, it seems entirely appropriate that so much of my later life would revolve around water. I eventually became a field biologist and hydrologist, spent twenty-one years with the U.S. Geological Survey, paddled rivers all over Florida and beyond, scuba dived tropical reefs, and built much of my life around lakes, springs, bays, creeks, beaches, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Maybe it all started beside that little neighborhood pond.
South Florida in the 1960s
An Amazing Place to Be a Kid
The South Florida of my childhood was very different from the South Florida people know today. There were fewer people, lighter traffic, open land, orange groves, undeveloped areas, and canals that seemed to go on forever. Much of what is now covered by subdivisions, shopping centers, and broad highways was still open country.
As kids, we never thought twice about going outside for most of the day. Our parents generally knew we would come home by supper, and that was often enough. We explored, built forts, caught animals, rode bicycles, visited friends, and learned how to solve our own small problems without an adult standing nearby.
That freedom was one of the great gifts of growing up when and where I did.
Independence
Freedom on Two Wheels
Our bicycles were transportation, adventure machines, and independence all rolled into one. We rode to school, to friends' houses, to neighborhood stores, to the library, and sometimes nowhere in particular. If you wanted to find your friends, you did not call them. You rode around until you found a pile of bicycles lying in somebody's front yard.
Dad taught us how to patch inner tubes, straighten bent fenders, adjust brakes, and fix the kinds of small problems that came with riding everywhere. Those lessons were about much more than bicycles. They taught us that when something broke, we could often figure out how to repair it ourselves.
After we moved to Plantation, I attended St. Gregory's Catholic School, about three miles from home. Six or seven of us often gathered along the route and rode together in our school uniforms. One day, without telling my parents, I even rode all the way to Fort Lauderdale Beach, a long trip across busy roads that would probably horrify most parents today.
Curiosity
The Library Changed My Life
The public library was only about half a mile from our house, and I must have carried home hundreds of books over the years. I was drawn especially to nonfiction: wildlife, science, space, weather, nature, exploration, and books that explained how things worked.
One favorite was the old Tell Me Why series. Those books were filled with answers to the kinds of questions that occupied my mind. Why did animals behave the way they did? How did weather form? What was beyond Earth? How did machines and natural systems work?
Long before I studied biology, ecology, meteorology, or hydrology in college, the library had already trained me to ask questions. In 2026, I returned to that same Plantation library for the first time in decades. Standing there, I could almost see that curious little boy walking through the doors with an armload of books.
The Atlantic
Every Weekend Was the Beach
Fort Lauderdale Beach was not a vacation destination for us. It was simply where we went. The beach was close, parking was easy, and an entire day there cost almost nothing. Mom packed sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, potato chips, cookies, and canned drinks into coolers. Dad sometimes cooked barbecued chicken on the public charcoal grills, and we might stay from morning until late afternoon or sunset.
We children spent hour after hour in the water. We body surfed, rode waves, dug in the sand, built forts, collected shells, and played until we were exhausted. All of us learned to swim before we were two years old, and the ocean became as familiar to us as a playground.
Our parents could sit and read while we remained in the surf for five or six hours. We became strong, confident swimmers at a very young age because water was simply part of everyday life.
Beneath the Surface
My First Underwater World
The rock jetties along Fort Lauderdale Beach were especially fascinating. Tropical fish gathered around them in numbers and colors that seemed almost impossible. Sergeant majors, angelfish, parrotfish, wrasses, needlefish, and other reef fish moved through the rocks close enough for children to watch from the water.
Even before I owned proper snorkeling or diving equipment, I wanted to see what was beneath the surface. Those simple afternoons around the jetties planted a seed that later grew into a lifelong fascination with marine life and scuba diving throughout Florida, the Caribbean, Mexico, Honduras, Belize, and other tropical places.
My love of the underwater world did not begin on some distant reef. It began at home, along the jetties of Fort Lauderdale Beach.
Canals and Docks
Fishing With Dad
Fishing was everywhere. We fished neighborhood canals, bridges, docks, and waters leading toward the Everglades. Sometimes we fished from the docks across from Fort Lauderdale Beach with my parents and grandfather. You did not need a complicated plan. You grabbed a pole, found some bait, and went.
I still remember catching a catfish and feeling enormously proud until one of its sharp spines went through my shoe and into my foot. The swelling and pain taught me a lasting lesson about handling catfish carefully.
Those fishing trips taught patience and observation. They taught me to watch the water, understand where animals might be, and appreciate the fact that every canal or shoreline held a hidden world.
Out West
The Everglades Were Right Next Door
The Everglades were not some distant national park that required a major expedition. They were simply “out west.” A short drive brought us to canals, sawgrass, wading birds, turtles, fish, alligators, and landscapes that seemed to stretch forever.
Dad and I explored those canals and looked for wildlife. I remember seeing Native American families fishing along some of those waters, and even as a child I understood that these places had supported people for generations long before our neighborhoods and roads appeared.
For a child fascinated by nature, the edge of the Everglades was paradise. It was wild enough to stir the imagination but close enough to become part of ordinary family life.
A Young Naturalist
If It Crawled, Slithered, Hopped, or Swam
If something crawled, slithered, hopped, or swam, I wanted to find it and learn about it. I caught snakes, lizards, turtles, frogs, fish, insects, and almost anything else that crossed my path. Some became temporary pets, while others were observed and released.
Over the years, our home included fish, hamsters, mice, rabbits, and various creatures my parents were willing to tolerate. I was not thinking about a future career. I was simply fascinated by life in all its forms.
Yet those childhood habits clearly pointed toward the future. Decades later, I earned degrees in biology and ecology, worked as a field biologist, collected and identified insects in the Amazon, surveyed rivers, studied aquatic systems, and spent much of my professional and personal life outdoors.
Family Adventures
Camping in the Florida Keys
Some of our best family trips took us south to the Florida Keys. We camped at places such as Bahia Honda State Park and Long Key State Park, using a tent, Coleman stove, and lantern that my parents had earned through Raleigh cigarette coupons.
At night, we sometimes hung the lantern near the fishing pier while my younger sisters and I fished into the darkness. We swam, explored beaches and mangroves, watched sunsets, and experienced a quieter, less developed version of the Keys than most visitors see today.
Those trips left such a strong impression that I kept returning throughout my adult life. The Keys have remained part of my personal geography for decades, a place connected not just with coral reefs and tropical water but with some of my earliest family adventures.
What Childhood Looked Like
Learning Outside
Much of what shaped my future was not learned inside a classroom. It happened outside, where curiosity was immediate and every day offered something new to investigate. We built things, broke things, repaired things, caught animals, explored neighborhoods, watched storms, read books, fished, camped, and wandered.
- Building forts and exploring undeveloped places.
- Launching homemade rockets and learning basic electronics.
- Putting on neighborhood magic shows and small fundraisers.
- Visiting the library and reading everything that sparked curiosity.
- Fishing canals, bridges, docks, beaches, and the edge of the Everglades.
- Learning that independence came with responsibility and practical skills.
The Thread Through My Life
Seventy Years Later, I Am Still Following the Water
Sometimes people ask why I kayak so much, why I stop to photograph birds, or why I remain happiest when I am hiking, paddling, diving, fishing, and exploring. The answer is that I have been doing these things for nearly my entire life.
Growing up in Fort Lauderdale did more than give me a collection of happy memories. It quietly shaped my education, my career, my values, and the way I still choose to spend my days. The curiosity that began beside a neighborhood pond eventually carried me to mountain summits, tropical reefs, Amazon forests, rivers throughout the country, and thousands of miles of paddling.
I could never have predicted where all those childhood adventures would lead. Yet when I look back now, the path seems clear. It began with a little dip net, a bicycle, a fishing pole, a library card, the Atlantic Ocean, and the vast wetlands just west of town.