Louis Roney: Who owns what, anyhow?

In the last while Americans have been involved in unending blather re: “terrorism,” Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, Hillary’s emails, all while playing tag with Russian leader Putin’s takeover of Crimea and annexing the Ukraine. When Hitler marched into Poland in September 1939, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin carried out his threat for England to declare war on Germany. WWII was on. People seem always ready to fight and die for pieces of real estate and things they “own” that have changed hands countless times in the distant past of human history. No individual lives long enough to own anything for very long, and none of us can take anything with us even though we may go down fighting for it with swords in our hands. This transitory ownership of the world’s goods has proved to be no more than a proprietorship that doesn’t last long, and proves well-nigh useless to us over the long haul. Still, in war, greedy old men often find obedient young men ready to lose their lives fighting for real estate which they will never actually own.

Ownership is a name used loosely about material possessions. My b.w. and I own a house in Winter Park – oh yeah? Unfortunately, we shall not live forever, but the land will continue to exist as long as our Earth is around. If you go back enough generations, our homestead was surely in the hands of Seminoles or other Indian tribes who were on it and used it for living, hunting and agricultural purposes.

Modern man plants pine trees where earlier forests grew – trees that are tapped for rosin and cut for lumber. We are all caught up in an evolutionary line of settling and using land. Have other prehistoric civilizations lived here without any recorded history? How can we say for sure? Land that has been “used up” can be regenerated by leaving it alone to renew itself over long periods of time.

Different elements of our culture have drawn their names from the language that they spoke on a new continent: German could have been the American language had the Germans been more industrious in first settling America. One can speak French or English in Quebec, but only English in Alberta and British Columbia.

In Louisiana, many of the laws are drawn from the Napoleonic Code, and therefore draw their legal heritage from France rather than England.

It has often occurred to me that our pasts do not deserve the attention we pay them, despite the well-meaning efforts of such as the Daughters of the American Revolution. I had a distant elderly relative who reputedly had been the head of the DAR, and I remember once at the very beginning of my long musical career singing in a hall the DAR controlled in Washington, D.C. – Constitution Hall.

And so, ‘round and ‘round we go playing tag with our jocular past. People first reached Florida at least 12,000 years ago. Written records about life in Florida began with the arrival of the Spanish explorer and adventurer Juan Ponce de León in 1513 near present-day St. Augustine. He called the area Florida, (land of flowers). Pedro Menéndez de Avilés arrived in 1565 at St. Augustine and established the first permanent European settlement in what is now the United States. In 1586 the English captain Sir Francis Drake looted and burned the tiny village of St. Augustine. However, Spanish control of Florida was not diminished. Britain gained control of Florida in 1763 in exchange for Cuba, and Spain evacuated Florida after the exchange leaving the province virtually empty. Florida remained loyal to Great Britain throughout the War for American Independence. However, Spain captured Pensacola from the British in 1781 and regained control of the rest of Florida as part of the peace treaty that ended the American Revolution. Spain formally ceded Florida to the United States in 1819, according to terms of the Adams-Onís Treaty. Established in 1824, Tallahassee was chosen as the Capitol because it was halfway between the existing governmental centers of St. Augustine and Pensacola.

Orlando was settled in 1875 and incorporated in 1885!

I guess all we can hope for is that the best of our lineage is alive, above ground, and still enjoying beautiful sunny Florida!