A BRIEF HISTORY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA’S LAKE APOPKA

For a very long time, people have inhabited the area around Lake Apopka. These people were what civilized man referred to as, “primitive”. Those primitive men called the lake, “Oomic gagagic ga goomba”, or in the white man’s tongue, “The beautiful lake that will last forever or until some pale face comes along and screws it up.”

Primitive man, having no experience in the fine art of screwing things up had little or no impact on the lake for thousands of years. Those early inhabitants considerately allowed themselves to be totally decimated by real neat European diseases, until, by the year 1730 Florida was virtually depopulated of its original inhabitants.

Over the following few decades other “primitive” people moved into the area but the white settlers took advantage of a real neat law known as, ‘The law of imminent domain’ and these people were made to feel, well, in the white man’s tongue, unwanted, which means, unwanted.
And the white man said, “It is good”.

Those early settlers took homesteads under what was known as, “The armed
occupation act”, which entitled them to steal land from the primitive natives. And the white man said, “WOW, this is darned good!”

One of those early settlers was a fisherman by the name of Jake. Like all fishermen Jake prided himself in his ability to not only catch fish but to stretch fish to unbelievable proportions. The fishing on Lake Apopka was so good that Jake found himself in the uncomfortable position of not having to lie about the humungous fish he was catching.

People actually BELIEVED him!

His reputation as a liar ruined Jake eventually became one of the first citrus growers. And he said, “It is good.”

More time passed and the Mediterranean fruit fly came, saw the citrus groves, and said, “It is wonderful.”

Lake Apopka had always been a shallow lake but due to its size those early citizens could not imagine it ever being anything less then a fisherman’s paradise however if enough people impact an area hard enough and long enough an interesting thing called, “negative impact,” occurs. ‘Negative impact’ in the case of our lake can be explained by the principle of what we will herein refer to as ‘accumulated waste’. What that means is, if enough people dump enough nasty stuff into a beautiful lake long enough it becomes a receptacle for accumulated waste.

At its prime, Lake Apopka had numerous fish camps. Fishermen came from great distances to fish Lake Apopka. These fishermen caught vast quantities of huge bass. The fishing was so good that the fishermen, like Jake before them, ended up as broken men, after all, when people began to believe a fisherman his reputation as a liar comes into question and once this happens fishing loses its allure.

The only thing that was left for these early fishermen to do was, as Jake before them, become citrus growers. Soon there were so many ex-fishermen turned citrus growers that the lake could not endure the effluent, (nasty stuff ) from the myriad citrus groves on its shores. It quivered, moaned, gave off a few bubbling gasps, and died.

This all came about as a result of a wonderful thing the white man refers to as, progress”. Progress is good, money is good, and growth is good. Let’s have more growth! Let’s have more citrus processing plants, more fertilizer, and more insecticides so we can have even more citrus.

Oh, don’t worry about the lake, it’s been here for thousands of years!

Man in his infinite wisdom, about the same amount of wisdom as that of the average Mediterranean fruit fly, said, “It is good” and continued to plant new citrus groves.

Growers expanded while effluent, as smelly stuff usually does, continued to dribble and ooze downhill into Lake Apopka, which had by now become Florida’s largest open cesspit.

Fertilizer runoff, along with lots of other neat nasty stuff flowed from what was, and is, aptly called the, “Zellwood drainage district.” The key word here is ‘drainage.’

The lake lost at least two feet of its depth as the corruption, otherwise known as toxic waste, accumulated on its bottom.

By the 1960’s non-game fish outnumbered game varieties. Liars could again come and fish and tell their lies without losing their status as liars. “Man, I caught this fourteen pound bass in Lake Apopka!” And his audience would unanimously shout “LIAR!” for they knew there was no fourteen pound bass left. Thus there are and ever will be a vast number of lying fisherman in the Lake Apopka area.

The Mediterranean fruit fly was eradicated by the use of a wonderful chemical discovered during W.W. 2. This nice, friendly chemical is called DDT. Which stands for Damned, Dirty and Toxic. How many Thousands of gallons of D.D.T. mysteriously ended up in our beautiful lake?
And man said, “Oh, it could be worse!”

Today people make jokes about weird, two headed alligators, and fish that crawl from the water to breathe. And then there is the joke that claims that our Lord could have walked on Lake Apopka WITHOUT a miracle.

It’s a wonder that somebody hasn’t suggested that the lake be given back to the Indians, but then, they probably wouldn’t want it, its not quite solid enough to support a casino.

Who can figure?

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