Most of them rang the front doorbell. But a knock at the back door raised curious eyebrows of the family members gathered for the moment in the kitchen.

Outside the door stood one of the most familiar faces ever to grace that farming hoe. A tall, elegant woman who carried her head and shoulders high, she refused to let her demeanor reveal the troubled years of her life.

“I heard about Mr. Ernest,” the woman said. “I’m so sorry. He was a good man, good to me and mine.”

The woman was ushered into the house enthusiastically, gratefully. She’d come a long way to pay her respects, taking public transportation as far as it would carry her and walking the rest of the way.

How she’d heard about Mr. Ernest’s death was never made clear. There had been a short newspaper piece about it but Mattie couldn’t read – she never been given the chance to learn. Rather than schooling in her young years, she was working.

Her handsome and dark brown face radiated the sight of seeing so many old and familiar faces, some of which she’d seen mature from childhood to adulthood. Her face, now framed by graying hair, broke into that bright smile that for so many years was an integral part of that farmhouse.

“Mr. Earnest,” as she always called him had, indeed, been good to Mattie and her family – in his own way and in a way dictated by the social mores ofFlorida’s old, white society.

Mattie and her husband, Jimmy, lived on the farm for many years. Mr. Ernest gave them the old family house when a new one was built. Jimmy worked in the pasture and groves alongside Mr. Ernest. Mattie worked in the house with Miss Mary.

Mr. Ernest had been employer, benefactor, even arbiter when the need arose. He tried to treat his employees with respected and dignity, the way he treated everyone – but with Mattie and Jim, the attitude was actually one of benevolent paternalism, the social mores of the day.

It was a different era, a different time, one best left behind but not forgotten for fear of it being repeated.

The times had changed greatly by that balmy spring morning when Mattie stopped by the old farm house to pay her respects. Martin Luther King, Jr., had preached, led, taught, suffered and died trying to make sure the discrimination and paternalism of the past gave way to a new dignity, new self-esteem and a new sense of independence and social advancement.

Although he’d never been to this part of ruralFloridato lead a campaign, he’d been to the big cities. His message and his mission touched the lives of everyone gather in that farmhouse that morning.

But still, Mattie came to the back door. Granted, it was the door used by nearly everyone in the family. Hardly anyone actually used the front door. Mattie had no doubt seen other people arriving at the same time and going to the front door. But this was Mr. Earnest to whom she was coming to pay her respects. She chose the back door.

It has been almost 60 years since Martin Luther King began the campaign that would transform this nation. But the transformation is not yet complete.

Had the scene repeated itself today, Mattie might have chosen the front door. But Mattie was still a prisoner of the social mores of the time. Mattie died in aTamparest home. She was practically penniless. Mr. Ernest’s family might have done more to ease her comfort in her last years but they didn’t. We have still not reached the social midnight about which Dr. King frequently talked.

The dawn is closer but it hasn’t yet arrived. Faith, however, is inching the hours closer to a dawn where everyone is judged “more by the content of their character than by the color of their skin” and front doors are there for everyone.

“Ho, ho, ho,” she said, surprising her parents. They didn’t realize she knew so much at 17 months.

People find Christmas in many different places but I see Christmas in the smiling eyes of that little girl.

I relive the miracle of that first Christmas night with each gleam of unconditional love that springs from her sweet and tiny face. She’s an adult now or nearly so. I still see the unconditional love and I still see the small child each Christmas.

Christmas began, of course, with the birth of a child.

Born in a barn and laid in a manger, that tiny infant was a gift to the world; a gift intended to relieve the world of its slavish attachment to itself, to relieve the world of its meanness and self-seeking; replacing those worldly constrictures with hope, love and peace.

That is quite a burden to place on the soft shoulders of a baby child and, yet, it is only a baby child who has a chance at fulfilling that promise.

Each child carries within her or him the steadfast love, the trust and the undated yearning for peace and universal understanding.

It is in the eyes of each child that we see the hope for peace and harmony and the promised of a new and brighter day. It is in the eyes of all children, no matter their color or the color of the skin around those hopeful, yearning eyes.

The promise of children is not only found in the eyes of Christian children, either. It is also found in the eyes of Jewish children and Muslim children and Buddhist children and Hindu children and in every child of every religious, social and cultural stripe.

Christmas lights may sparkle and add luster to the season but the sparkle in a child’s eyes is as powerful and as moving as any bright star in the east.

There are, at this Christmas, still too many children of hope and promise suffering from the cynicism of adults.

Although it is but a dim glow, the light of hope sparkles even in the eyes of the children of Syria, of Somalia, of Nigeria and too many other places where children suffer.

Even inAmerica, where the promise of hope is woven into the basic fabric of civic life, 15 million children suffer from poverty and society’s neglect.

Until each child has a chance to realize her or his own promise of hope and peace, the Christmas story will remain incomplete.

A little know but dramatic narrative describing the birth of the Christ Child was probably penned at least 200 years after that birth. It’s called the Arundel manuscript of a Latin Infancy Gospel.

“The child himself, like the sun, shone brightly, beautiful and delightful to see, because he alone appeared as peace, soothing the whole world,” reads the translated manuscript. “…and opening his eyes, he looked intently at me and suddenly a great light came forth from his eyes like a great flash of lightening.”

It is the power of Christmas that puts that light into each child’s eyes. The Christ Child was born to all people and children everywhere are born to all people like him.

As long as children are being born into this world, the hope and promise of that first Christmas will never end.

Merry Christmas to all sleeping children of hope and peace, wherever they rest their heads.

It’s the time of the year when nearly all Floridians are hailed by their temporary Yankee neighbors with the traditional greeting, “Geez, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas inFlorida.”

(You can if you’d like alter that slightly, of course, to say, “Geez, it just doesn’t feel like Hanukkah inFlorida.” But truth be told, most Jewish folks are smart enough and reasoned enough not to associate the great triumph and resilience of the Maccabee children with bone-crunching cold, life-threatening conditions and enough snow piled on the roof to cave it in, crushing the Christmas tree…or Menorah, whichever.)

But if you’re a Floridian, born or adopted, you’ve no doubt run across at least one moron every year who will complain about the warmth of the December sun, the gentle Gulf breeze, the tranquil surrounding nature, the moderate nights filled with jasmine and remark that, somehow, Christmas just shouldn’t be spent in such idyllic and temperate latitudes.

They seem to think Christmas just “isn’t right” unless they are buried under three feet of snow in sub-zero temperatures, battling frozen water pipes and hoping to the Baby Jesus electricity doesn’t go out again because they only have enough fire wood for one more night.

I blame Currier & Ives. I also blame Charles Dickens. Perhaps these folks would be happier at Christmas if we didn’t have child labor laws, environmental regulations or systematic care for the infirm. I don’t know.

Some folks just can’t bear the thought of a Christmas Day sail on warm waters or a Christmas Eve stroll on the beach at sunset. They are, frankly, demented.

This malady can even run in one’s own family. My very own Florida-girl darlin’ daughter used to think she just had to be in the mountains of Western Carolina at Christmas because, who knows, it COULD snow!! (Okay, let’s recall…two Christmases ago stranded without power for three days under nearly four feet of snow, couldn’t even get there last year because of the snow…hmmm…she may have changed her mind.)

When she was a child, I took great delight in pulling out the globe (remember those?) and drawing a line west, right along the latitude of old Bethlehem to…to…to…well, I’ll be darned, NOT to a point that would ever be immortalized in a Currier & Ives print.

Nope. Old Bethlehemis just a skosh north of the 31^st parallel, which places it on exactly the same latitude as one of the many hick towns in South Georgia (USA) between Jacksonville and Savannah.

And given the moderate, Mediterranean-warmed climate of Palestine, I’d be willin’ to guess there were palm trees just outside that stable on that miraculous night.

Maybe the cattle were lowing because they feared getting bopped on the head by a falling coconut. No, probably not.

In any event, the point is Christmas is not about cold and snow and sleigh rides and stealing someone else’s maple syrup. Nope. Christmas is about the greatest gift every given: the reconciliation of humankind with our God. That, my friends, can be celebrated any-dang-where you feel the spirit – especially in Florida.

Bein’ born to a Florida-girl mother but raised as a mountain child, I can testify that it was never, really, truly Christmas until we reached the orange groves and palm-lined yard of my cracker grandparents. Suckin’ down a fresh cut temple orange or playin’ football on that spongy Floratam lawn was always the single best annual gift. It was the Floridian my soul.

So, the next time some crank wanders up to you and says something really stupid like, “It just doesn’t feel like Christmas in Florida,” you just turn to them, smile and hand them a Honeybell orange. They’ll be tradin’ Currier & Ives for Clyde Butcher before you know it.

410,000 companies inFloridasaw payroll taxes cut in half?

We invested almost $1.6 billion to improveFlorida’s highways and transit system and, in the process, created 20,500 new jobs?

We invested nearly $1.7 billion to save and additionally support nearly 26,000Floridateachers, police officers and fire fighters?

We spent nearly $1.3 billion to upgrade Floridaschools to 21^st Century standards while, in the process, created over 16,000 new jobs?

We spent $2.7 billion inFloridato refurbish and retrofit foreclosed homes?

We spent nearly $300 million to augment the job creating work ofFlorida’s community colleges?

We put the 498,000 long-term unemployed workers inFloridaback to work?

We placed 8,800 adults and 35,600 young people inFloridainto jobs through training in growth industries?

We cut the taxes of a typicalFloridahousehold – earning $46,000 a year – by $1,430 through an expansion of the payroll tax cut passed last December?

Let’s see, doing the math…okay, carry the one…that’s about $7.6 billion additional dollars flowing into Florida and almost 600,000 new jobs.

Somehow, I think we’d all say, “yes,” to such a bold investment in ourselves, our communities, our economy, our future.

The good news is we can say yes to these kinds of investments and more. They’re all part of President Obama’s American Jobs Act.

All we need is for the Congress of theUnited Statesto say, “yes,” and pass this bill.

The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple, according to President Obama: “put more people back to work and put more money in the pockets of working Americans. And…do so without adding a dime to the deficit.”

Sure, you say, “but how would we pay for such a clearly beneficial project? We don’t have any money.”

Actually, we do have money –  or could have the money. President Obama challenged Congress on Monday to cut $4.4 trillion from current spending and press forward on deficit reduction.

The single largest piece of these cuts – approximately $1.5 trillion – will come from tax reform. Everyone agrees the nation’s tax code is in need of reform.

The president wants Congress to lower tax rates, cut wasteful loopholes and tax breaks, reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion and enact the “Buffett Rule” raising taxes on people making more than $1 million a year to bring their tax rates in line with tax rates paid by middle-class families. (That’s the Warren Buffett rule, not the Jimmy Buffet rule…although he, too, will probably see taxes go up.)

Democratic leaders in the Senate have indicated they favor a tax surchage on incomes above $1 million.

The president wants Congress to allow the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 to expire, which will raise $866 billion. He wants to limit the deductions and exclusions of people earning more that $250,000 a year to raise $410 billion. He wants Congress to close loopholes and eliminate special interest tax breaks to raise $300 billion.

He also wants Congress to move forward with the $1.2 trillion in discretionary cuts enacted in the Budget Control Act; approve $580 billion in cuts and reforms to a wide range of mandatory programs; save $1.1 trillion from the drawdown of troops inAfghanistanand transition from a military to a civilian-led mission inIraq. Add to the mix, as well, $430 billion in additional interest savings.

Granted a one-time investment in the American Jobs Act adds to the deficit in 2012 – a bold and risky proposition for a president running for re-election in 2012 – but the project is fully paid for over 10 years and deficit reduction begins in 2013 as the economy grows stronger. Spending cuts-to-revenue ratio for the entire plan (including discretionary cuts) is 2 to 1.

Is it complicated? Sure. Is it bold and courageous? Without question. Can it pass the Congress? It can if the Congress puts our nation ahead of partisan politics.

Watch the President’s Speech to Congress, read more about the American Jobs Bill. 

Published July 20, 2011 in the Naples (FL) Daily News:

From Teddy Roosevelt’s Bully Pulpit to President Barack Obama’s embrace of social media, presidential communication tends to define communication as a cultural phenomenon.

The public — and policymakers from Capitol Hill to nearly every other level of government and society — tend to listen when a president of the United States communicates. The way in which a president communicates has also become nearly as important as the words written or spoken.

Former presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson set a tone for our early days with their letters — hand-written and usually hand-delivered. Abraham Lincoln’s speeches defined our nation in its most troubled times.
The first telephone was installed in the White House in 1877 by Rutherford B. Hayes, a single line running only to the Treasury Department next door.

Regular and frequent telephone calls into and out of the White House would have to wait another 50 years until Herbert Hoover installed the first telephone into the Oval Office.

The age of mass communication between the White House and the American public began famously with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats on the radio. Embracing the earliest form of mass communication, Roosevelt’s effectiveness and success is legendary.

Both FDR and, later, presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson knew how to work the phones effectively and all three effectively used off-the-record conversations with journalists as part of a mass media strategy.

President Johnson famously had three televisions set up in the Oval Office to monitor all three — at the time — major television news organizations.

Perhaps no form of presidential mass communications compares in its effect on the body politic as greatly as the 1960 televised debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. The medium became the message and helped determine the outcome of the election.

Live televised speeches directly to the American public have become almost routine for presidents from Kennedy to Obama. And the annual State of the Union address to Congress has become an evening of great television theatre.

Obama’s uses of the “new” forms of social media in 2008 are widely credited with propelling a relatively unknown senator from Illinois to the White House. (Lincoln used trains and debates with Stephen Douglas.)

The Obama administration continues to employ many forms of social media in its daily communications. With a few quick keystrokes, millions of Americans are able to occupy front-row seats in the White House and Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

From its primary Internet portal at www.whitehouse.gov/engage, visitors can subscribe to a wide range of electronic newsletters and blogs, can visit and engage with other Obama administration initiatives like “Let’s Move” or “Joining Forces” or the new “Champions of Change” initiative.

From its Facebook page and Twitter account to its presence on LinkedIN to its White House channel on YouTube and Vimeo, constant uploading of photos to its Flickr account and podcasts on iTunes, the Obama White House is communicating online constantly to millions of Americans just about every aspect of this historic presidency.

“This White House is committed to being the most open and transparent in history,” said Katelyn Sabochik, director of online engagement for the White House Office of Digital Strategy.

Her title and office pretty much says it all. Social media is the message for the Obama administration.

Read more about it here.

It’s a short document, amazing considering its consequence. Its second paragraph is without a doubt the most elegant statement of human rights ever penned.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That means everything in that paragraph ought to be obvious to everyone.

That all men are created equal;

Now, in those days, they meant what they wrote – “all men” – are created equal. ‘Course, nowadays we know it’s a matter of justice to include all women, too, and all people, no matter the color of skin or walk of faith or country of origin or sexual identity or anything else: all people. It just took us a while and way too much violence and bloodshed to realize that particular self-evident truth. Some folks still can’t understand it.

That they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights;

That word, “inalienable,” means that endowed rights can’t be changed or altered by anybody, for any reason. We forget that sometimes.

That among these (rights) are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;

That passage right there is the cornerstone of these United States of America. It can be a controversial passage today because some folks try to twist it to their own political purposes. But is seems clear to me: ALL FOLKS, ALL PEOPLE have an automatic, God-given right to live their lives free and happy. It is the simplest, yet most compelling argument ever given for dignity and human rights.

It does not, however, give us a “right” to pursue our own “happiness” on the backs of others; exploiting them for our own selfish purposes. “Pursuit of happiness” means, just as the ancient Hebrew prophet Micah suggested, we should all have an even chance at sitting contentedly, peacefully under our own fig tree.

It is an idea borne of the Enlightenment, of Locke and Descartes; the notion of the supremacy of the individual above all else. “I think, therefore I am.” “Don’t Tread on Me.”

It is a uniquely Western thought, taken to its limits by the American experiment. There is, alternatively, the African concept, “Ubuntu,” which suggests supremacy is not found in the individual but, rather, in the community. Perhaps we could better practice that concept through this next part:

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Anarchy can’t secure rights. Governments must do that. It is an idea as old as Plato. Beware of so-called leaders who belittle a government’s authority to protect the rights of the otherwise unprotected.

The American experiment added the concept which suggested the only legitimate government is the one that gets its power from the people it governs. That was a radical idea back in 1776, given voice by the likes of Thomas Paine debating Edmund Burke. Given the present state of government in the U.S. of A., it’s almost as radical today – at least to many of the men and women now in Washington.

That when any government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

If we don’t like the government, we can change it – so long as we continue to hold those to those basic, self-evident truths and irrevocable rights.

That’s it, isn’t it? We have a God-given right to revolt if our government is interfering with our rights…to happiness…to privacy…to health?

Does that mean government is bad? Most certainly not. Those who would tell you today government is an evil do not understand history nor our American experiment nor the inherent goodness is diverse people coming together to organize themselves into a nation state and a society.

It’s hard, sometimes, for our elected to remember they are in office because we sent them. We may not have contributed thousands of dollars to their campaigns. But we voted for them. They work for us. The very small minority who gave them hundreds of thousands of dollars should not control them. They work for us: the people.

It is hard being an American democrat, sometimes. We tend to get set in our ways; protective of the power that comes with elective office and lazy when it comes to standing up for our rights. It is far easier for politicians to listen to those who bankroll them than to the faint voices of the governed.

It is We the People who have the inalienable rights, not exclusively we the wealthy people or we the large corporations. It is We the People.

Elected officials govern only with our consent. It is to us and, therefore, to the preservation of the government and its integrity to which they owe their most important allegiance.

Relax, you ain’t goin’ nowhere today, anyway, so you might as well settle back, get out a map of Florida and see if you can find some of the spots about which you’re fixin’ to read.

The reason for little quiz is that while many folks like comin’ down here and spendin’ a little time in our sunshine many of those folks just don’t think of our home as home. This is but a place to hang out for a few months in the winter after they will return home.

Even if they move here fulltime, many folks still think of home as “that place back up north.”

If you are in either of these categories let me explain to you; the very best way to make us Floridians completely ignore any piece of wisdom or advice you feel compelled to pass long is to begin every sentence with the phrase, “the way we did it up north was…”

This leads to what scientists at the University of Gators refer to as, “IFAS,” or “Immediate Floridian Aural Shutdown,” and is not to be confused with the university’s agricultural extension service of the same acronymity. It means, “we ain’t listenin,’ don’t give a ding-dang how you did it Up North.”

Anyway, back to the reason for this little quiz. Until folks who move here from some other place begin to think of our place as home they can never fully develop a sense of community that is essential to our community’s well-bein’.

Folks who don’t think of our place as home are more likely to throw trash out the car window or use way too much water or complain they pay too much in taxes.

Folks who don’t think of our place as home are less likely to participate in civic affairs (and explain how much better things were Up North) and are less likely to make a contribution of their talents and energy to the community.

So, in any effort to make you more familiar with your region here’s a little geography quiz you can take by yourself or share with a loved one.

We’ll start out easy:

On the map, find: Immokalee, Chokoloskee Island, Bonita Springs.

See? That was easy.

Now, find: Ochopee, Palm River, Lake Trafford.

No problem. Piece of cake.

You’re probably feelin’ pretty good about yourself by this time.

OK, try: Deep Lake, Miles City, Copeland.

Hey, impressive. Maybe you know more about this place than you think you do. Those last three communities, by the way, were built by Barron G. Collier when Naples had but a few homes and was only that swampy spot on the beach.

Back to the quiz.

You’re probably battin’ ‘round 1,000 so far.

Let’s get a little harder.

Find: Matlacha (and pronounce it correctly), St. James City, Bokeelia.

Did it? Think you’re pretty sporty, I’ll bet.

Try these: Big Hammock, Rice Straw Stand, Coconut.

Hah! Got you on those, unless you’re a real old-timer.

Still interested?

Find: Curry Island, Fish Trap Bay, Quakenassee Hollow. (Clue here: not all islands are surrounded by saltwater.)

For the intrepid, find: Rock Spring Island, Bear Island, Monkey Joe Key.

Still with me? Bonus points for finding: Catherine Island, Cowbone Island, Charlie Key.

If you can identify on a map all those spots, congratulations! You can now official qualify as a Provisional-Cracker, pending your willing acceptance to full Floridian and with it the responsibility to love and cherish this unique peninsula.

The quick, the expedient, immediate gratification.

“I want it all and I want it now!”

New, bigger, faster; MORE SUGAR!!

I don’t care where it comes from. I don’t care who made it and how little they were paid. I don’t care how much fossil fuel it took to get it to me and how much extra carbon goes into the atmosphere because of it. I don’t care where the trash goes when I done with it. I don’t care how much someone else lost to give it to me. I just want it!

A crisis of imagination; a crisis of moral imagination.

The same fellow on the radio was recalling an essay by Robert Louis Stevenson, written of course a little over 100 years ago.

Y’all remember Robert Louis Stevenson: Treasure Island, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped. It seems appropriate to be quoting Stevenson right about now.

In Stevenson’s essay quoted by the feller on the radio, he questioned his friend, a banker and with whom he was having an imaginary conversation, about why he was a banker.

The banker replied, “It is my business. It is my duty.”

But Stevenson, who rejected the family business of engineering lighthouses to become a writer and explorer, suggested his friend had mistaken duty for simply his desire to make money. Making money, Stevenson deftly suggested, is not a duty.

No, Stevenson suggested, perhaps we are called to a higher duty.

Christians will end Lent today and celebrate Easter on Sunday. Jews are celebrating Passover. Muslims celebrated only weeks ago the birth of the Prophet of Islam.

All three celebrations by the descendants of Abraham have something in common: they are all celebrations to relinquish that which binds us and look to a time of liberation, of hope.

And if you think it’s purely coincidence that all three occur in the spring (at least in the northern hemisphere) you would be mistaken.

Christians often mistake the time of Lent, the time of preparation for the Cross, as a time for masochistic self-denial; suffering through the absence of chocolate because we love so much chocolate. That misses the point.

Lent is a time to prepare for the liberation of the Cross, which in one of the world’s greatest ironies was originally a tool for cruel capital punishment.

It is the time to reflect on that which keeps us from the Cross’ liberation and set about to remove those barriers so we can be freed. The Cross was death. Easter, Christ’s resurrection is victory over that death; victory over the world’s unending oppression.

Passover, too, celebrates the liberation of the ancient Jews from their Egyptian captors.

Mawlid, the celebration of the birth of the Prophet of Islam, also celebrates liberation from the old order for the liberation to a new enlightenment through the revelation of God’s word. Our Muslim brothers and sisters celebrated Mawlid back in February, this year in the Gregorian calendar.

No doubt we are in a different time than we were just an astonishing short time ago. Physicists might suggest a quantum leap; other scientists a paradigm shift; sailors a sea change. The Latin-to-English word, “cross,” also stems from the same root word as, “crux.” It is a crossroads.

Do we hang on to the old or do we reach for the new, the hope? I will reach for Easter’s victory, for hope and liberation.

Birds that dive to the bottom of a pond in search of fish, frogs that live in trees and bark like dogs just before a rain, mammals that never come out of the water – all seem like ecological conundrums.

So it happens nearly every spring that one of South Florida’s oldest trees decides to shed its leaves.

Northerners expect leaves to fall from trees in the autumn when the air is crisp and the sky is becoming a bold blue. They are sometimes perplexed to find mahogany trees dropping their leaves in the late April and early May.

Get a stand of mahogany trees all shedding their leaves at the same time and the ground below them can look like a New Hampshire hillside in September.

Throw in a brief cold snap following on the heels of the last sweeping frontal system and one could swear a bizarre climate exchange had taken place; that somehow South Florida ended up in the middle of a Somewhere-Up-North autumn.

Some people think the mahogany trees are a little screwy, arboreal dyslexics that can’t properly distinguish the seasons. As a result, they think, they trees drop their leaves at the wrong time of the year.

Other people see the trees shedding their leaves in late April and think a plague of Biblical proportions is springing through the canopy.

None of this is true.

The mahogany trees are doing exactly what genetics tells them to do: drop their leaves in the spring and reflower immediately.

A native to South Florida, the Caribbean and Central American, the mahogany was once harvested from the hardwood hammocks to make furniture. Mahogany trees were among the first to be explanted by the early white settlers of the Florida Keys during the 1820s. They not only sold the timber but also used the trees for firewood and charcoal.

They mahogany is what botanists call a “deciduous” tree, meaning it sheds its leaves at a certain time of the year.

The mahogany, being a true tropical species, sheds its leaves in the spring because the spring also signals the end of the dry season. Wet winter seasons sometimes play havoc with the mahogany’s annual leaf drop. A winter that is wetter than normal will inhibit the trees’ ability to shed their leaves and reflower.

People who think all trees in South Florida remain green year-round have another think comin’.

South Florida actually has very few evergreens. The slash pine is the most common example. Even the mighty bald cypress, among the most ancient of trees, sheds its leaves and turns brown for a while in the winter.

Willows lose their leaves in October and flower and leaf out in December and January.

Very few of the tropical hardwoods, cousins of the mahogany, lose their leaves at any set time of the year.

Several tropical hardwoods – Jamaica dogwood, for example, gumbo limbo, pond apple and wild tamarind – will drop their leaves gradually during the winter. The rate at which their leaves drop depends on the dryness of any particular winter. They will usually begin to flower and grow new leaves by April.

But the good ol’ mahogany sticks right to its well-defined schedule. Within a period of three to four weeks each spring, the mahogany has completely shed its canopy and is growing new shoots and sprints of tiny red-tinged leaves.

So the next time some Northerner express dismay over a shedding mahogany, just tell them the tree is nature’s way of reminding South Floridians what autumn is like Up North.