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there's some flamingos walking about and some Indians camping
there. Wild Bill camped there sometime--that's a job. You
go into town and camp out, cook, and pay no attention to
anybody, and live there for a month or two and get pretty
well paid. They go up to alligator villages, which are
tourist attractions. At one time I used to see a lot of
Indian boys parking cars in Miami. They're great at,..
love parking cars. I see fewer in town now, 'cause they're
making' more, a better living airboating off the Trail.
K: Why do you suppose they particularly got into parking cars?
R: They're mad about it. Alice married a stock car racer. All
these Indians are expert...you know, they drive airboats.
They can make a living driving airboats,
K: You mean taking passengers, and...?
R: Yeah, and they make their airboats run.
K: How much do they get for an airboat ride?
R: -$2.50 per person for ten minutes. They're really quite good
at motors. They do their own motors. They're mad about motors
of cars and little ole airboats.
K: How old is the airboat in the Everglades?
R: The airboat was invented in the Everglades in the 1930s. It
is a vehicle that is shaped like a mortar box in which you mix
cement. It has no keel, it has a small old airplane engine,
and it is powered by a propeller which is in the air, and
steered by a rudder which is in the air. The thing will go
over that wet grass, the saw grass of the Everglades, at
thirty miles an hour. I have heard people tell me that they
went out on the dew at dawn--it goes better over damp grass
than it does in deep water--went out over the dew at dawn,
and got stuck when the dew dried.
K: Ohhh. And so airboats are...?
R: A product of the Everglades.
K: Right, and they are owned by a tribe, or owned by individuals,
or both?