Way up on the list of things I am almost, but not quite, sorry I won't be around to see, has to be the fiasco that will ensue if anyone tries to push a proposed plan to pipe North Florida's water to Central and South Florida's thirsty developments.
I always wanted to be a combat correspondent.
It will be just like the decades of disputes between Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties, only it could get even nastier.
And the local skirmishes have been pretty nasty.
Years ago I spent months trying to run down a rumor about the pipeline carrying water south out of Pasco County. The rumor was that someone had put a dead horse in the pipeline. I never could find anyone who would confirm the story on the record, but, more interestingly, I never found anyone who thought it was a bad idea - true or not.
I made another run at confirming it Monday and talked to former Pasco County Commissioner Sylvia Young, another veteran of that era, who said, "Hmmm ... I always heard it was a Volkswagen" put in the pipeline, and then coyly refused to speculate on who might have been involved one way or the other, meaning, if you know Sylvia, that she probably has a pretty good idea.
Walt Voorhees, the chairman of the Pasco County Commission back in those days, was buried in effigy on the courthouse lawn after the election in which he was deposed, and people who used the term Water Wars may have thought they were speaking more figuratively than they actually were.
And it was only eight years ago that a Hernando County commissioner said (and I'm not kidding): "I'm prepared to form a militia - armed militia," to protect that county's water.
Again, when Hernando County commissioners say insane things, it isn't always a good idea to treat it as if they were kidding.
And if South Florida thinks folks up here get antsy about water and anything else territorial, wait until they deal with some of those panhandle types ... or has everyone already forgotten the Dixie Mafia?
A friend pointed out the other day that they have been sharing water in California for years, but in a state where Arianna Huffington, Peter Ueberroth and Larry Flynt are even in the polls for the gubernatorial race - way behind the Terminator - the question isn't where the water comes from, but what they are putting in it.
The problem with the idea, presented to Gov. Jeb Bush by a statewide business group which includes, among others, one of my big bosses, is that it is completely logical.
Logic and politics hardly ever mix, especially in a state that considers pregnant pigs a constitutional issue.
The rationale is that North Florida needs money for many things, including its school systems, which some feel have been ravaged by the current state administration's policies - and the central and southern areas need water to feed their seemingly unquenchable thirst for barely controlled growth.
So it seems simple. Let's take the money from the richer counties and use it for education and let's take the water from the poorer counties and send it to the richer counties.
Simple, huh?
Better you should ask for their firstborn children.
A lot of Floridians are wondering where all of that lottery money, which they were promised was earmarked for education, went. They aren't likely to bite on the "do it for the kids" hook again.
And issues about water, one of the basic stuffs of life itself, hit some folks on a visceral, almost Freudian emotional level. If you don't believe me, ask the folks who used to swim at Crystal Springs and ask them when was the last time they drank a bottle of Perrier, or said the word without spitting on the ground.
The governor, who will be job-hunting in three years anyhow, reportedly, "has no objections" to anything proposed by the Council of 100, which isn't exactly what I would call an "Oh, goody! Let's do this quick!" endorsement.
Here's my guess.
The next thing they will do is propose that a joint right-of-way acquisition committee be formed to represent both the necessary pipelines for the water transfer - and the bullet train.
