7 Questions with Florida Author Craig Pittman

 

Craig Pittman is a native Floridian. Born in Pensacola, he graduated from Troy State University in Alabama, where his muckraking work for the student paper prompted an agitated dean to label him "the most destructive force on campus." Since then he has covered a variety of newspaper beats and quite a few natural disasters, including hurricanes, wildfires and the Florida Legislature. Since 1998, he has covered environmental issues for Florida's largest newspaper, winning several awards for journalism. He's written several books about Florida and Floridians, including New York Times  bestsellers Cat Tale  and Oh, Florida!   This year will see the publication of his latest book Florida Men, Florida Women, and Other Wildlife. For more information about his projects, here is his website: http://craigpittman.com/Home_Page.php   You can also hear Craig and his podcast partner Chadd Scott on their weekly podcast called "Welcome to Florida." The concept is that 900 new people move to Florida every day but nobody tells them what they've gotten themselves into, so they're  trying to do it. So far they've interviewed a python hunter, a gator wrangler, a guy who wrote a book on The Villages, a cockroach expert, a shark biologist and Carl Hiaasen, among others. Find it at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1169570 or wherever you listen to podcasts.

1.          How and when did you get  hooked on history?

History was always my favorite subject in school because of the last five letters -- STORY.  I'm hooked on stories, and history tells us how people used to live and how we got to where we are today. What could be more interesting than that? Plus some of the stories -- especially the ones in Florida -- are just so bizarre! The War of Jenkins' Ear, for instance, or the "Reign of Terror" in Cedar Key that resulted in President Harrison sending a Navy cutter to arrest the mayor. You couldn't make that up!

2.          What role does history play or has it played in your personal life?

I thoroughly enjoy reading and researching Florida history and mining it for stories I can write up for magazines or books. I also enjoy chatting with such distinguished Florida historians as Gary Mormino and Jim Clark. Both gave me good suggestions for topics to address in Oh, Florida!

3.          How will history play  a part of your professional life/career?

For 40 years I have worked as a journalist, and as Bob Woodward once observed, journalism is the first draft of history. Plus I have written five books so far that are all built on a foundation of history. Paving Paradise went all the way back to George Washington's work as a land surveyor to talk about changing attitudes and regulations regarding wetlands. Manatee Insanity delved into the 1890s in South Florida and the first effort to pass a law protecting manatees, and followed that thread to a pair of 2000 lawsuits filed against state and federal government agencies by the Save the Manatee Club.  The Scent of Scandal features the history of Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota and the history of humans' fascination with orchids as a backdrop to a bizarre flower-smuggling case that led to a criminal indictment against Selby. Oh, Florida! contains big chunks of Florida history in every chapter, ranging from how Panama City ex-con Clarence Gideon changed the legal system with help from a murderous ex-judge to how protests in St. Augustine led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (This is the book that made the NYT bestseller list and five years after it was first published I am still getting royalty checks from its sales -- yet another reason why I am a fan of history!) Cat Tale begins with a look at how Native Americans and early Florida settlers regarded the panther and then proceeds to tell how they were rescued from the brink of oblivion. Plus I've occasionally paid my mortgage by writing stories about figures from Florida history such as Ross Allen, the snake man of Silver Springs:

https://www.flamingomag.com/2021/03/16/ross-allen-floridas-own-reptile-wrangler/

4.          Why is studying/knowing history important?

A: If you don't know where you came from, how can you tell where you're going? And how can you avoid the errors of the past if you don't know what they are?

5.          What is your favorite period or aspect of history to learn about and why?

The stories of Florida's 1920s land boom are simply mind-blowing, as are the ones about the post-WW2 housing market here. I am particularly fond of the tales of the shady operators who ripped off naive Northerners buying swampland sight unseen. We're still trying to deal with some of the mistakes made in those days, such as finger canal construction of waterfront homes. Here's a column I wrote about that for the Florida Phoenix:

https://www.floridaphoenix.com/2020/07/09/continuing-to-build-in-vulnerable-areas-does-not-make-sense/

6.      Your two most recent best-selling books are Cat Tale and Oh, Florida!. What are they about? And what’s your next book?

Oh, Florida! takes the position that Florida is the weirdest state in the nation, but also the one that wields the greatest influence over the other 49. I tried to explain why those things are true and give some side-splitting examples. It is by far my funniest book, although it also delves into serious issues such as civil rights history and the evolution of LGBTQ activism here. Cat Tale explains how the Florida panther became our official state animal, very nearly went extinct and then was saved by a ragtag band of biologists who pulled off an unprecedented scientific experiment. I wanted to write that one for 20 years because it has such a twisty plot and odd characters, but I didn't have an ending. Finally, about four years ago, something happened that gave me a good ending -- not a happily ever after ending, but a hopeful ending. My next book is a collection of stories and columns I have written over the past 30 years: The State You're In: Florida Men, Florida Women, and Other Wildlife. It will be published in September but is available for pre-order now.

7.      You’ve written a whole book (Oh, Florida!) to answer this question, but can you give us a short answer:  What is it about Florida that makes it so unique?

You find weirdness wherever you find people, but Florida tends to produce more weird news than anywhere else, and it tends to be weirder. This is in part because we've undergone a wrenching demographic change -- going from the least populated Southern state in 1940 to the third most populous state as of 2014, when we surpassed New York. Plus, look at who makes up our population: gator wranglers, python hunters, avid nudists, professional mermaids, uniformed Scientologists, monkey breeders, spam kings, strip club moguls, retired South American strong men -- and we've got 29 electoral votes in every presidential election! Add to that the fact that we're not evenly spread over the whole peninsula but crammed into that 30-mile wide swath along the coasts and along the Interstate 4 "theme-park" corridor, and you can see why we're constantly ramming our cars into each other, chasing each other with machetes and arguing over whose dog pooped on whose lawn.