Yesterday, I took my two younger kids to the headwater spring of the
Wacissa River in Jefferson county, FL (about 20 miles east of
Tallahassee) to go canoeing and fishing. Years ago when I went there
as a kid a lot, it was beautiful with crystal clear cold spring water,
ideal for a hot summer afternoon.

We got there and it was packed with seemingly every redneck within 50
miles. Fortunately, most of em were well behaved and mostly sober.
What struck me was that most of the girls were overweight and all of
them except one good looking redhead had "Tramp Stamp" tattoos on their
lower backs. Do white trash rednecks really think tattoos look good?
I really can't be too hard on em cuz I am probably related to half of
em in a complicated way (being a local myself). My kids were apalled
and amazed at such redneckism, I think they lead a much more sheltered
life than I did since they go to upper income schools whereas I went to
the worst local schools.

What did **** me off was the airboats, there were about 8 of them. The
Wacissa River is very shallow in places and is covered with hydrilla
(invasive non-native plant) and some floating native plants so is not
easily navigable by most boats. I can understand why some people have
them for getting to fishing holes in shallow water but I wish they'd
avoid being around other people cuz they are so loud they hurt your
ears at 300'. These guys were not doing any fishing but were only
running up and down the river making noise and spoiling it for everyone
else. Every one of these airboats was piloted by a guy with a huge
beer gut, control stick in one hand and beer can in the other.

In spite of the airboats, the kids had a good time. My 15 yr old son
tried to impress his gf but he has no skill in canoeing. My 10 yr old
daughter loved the whole thing. We all watched a smallish gator
stalking a wading bird (it got away). I am trying to get my kids
familiar with the canoe so they will do more outdoors stuff instead of
wimpy computer games but watching my son trying to tie a knot makes me
want to beat my head on a tree. I thought he would just learn these
things like I did without being taught but I s'pose its a different
world.