FGCU, Phi Alpha Theta, Community History Interviews, (Spring, 2014).

Name: Clyde Butcher Birth Year: 1942. Name: Niki Butcher Birth Year: 1944.

Keywords, Descriptors: Environmental activists, photography, politics, Everglades, Ellen Peterson, nature, FGCU.

Location: Phone Interview, Cape Coral, Florida, and Venice, Florida.

Collection Summary: Clyde and Niki Butcher, originally from California self-identified hippies and environmental activists. The Butchers discuss their many years in political activism on environmental preservation education and legal actions. Personal histories include connections to nature, artistry, and the loss of their son Ted Butcher. Professional histories include art, photography, and ecotourism swamp walks.

Clyde and Niki Butcher Photographer and wife

Christopher Harrison Student

Interview date: October 18, 2013

Key: CH: Christopher Harrison CB: Clyde Butcher NB: Niki Butcher

Cristopher Harrison: So today, we are talking with Clyde and Niki Butcher and the date is October 18, 2013. The time is 10:08 am and I would like to start off by asking some general identifying questions if I may. Firstly, if you could, state for the recording your names.

Clyde Butcher: Clyde Butcher.

Niki Butcher: I am Niki Butcher.

CH: And what year were you born?

CB: I was born in 1942.

NB: And I was born in 1944.

CH: Thank you. And how would you both describe yourselves?

NB: [Laughter].

CB: Probably hippies. 1

NB: Yeah, we are probably from that generation. We are from California, grew up doing all of the marches and all of that stuff, so yeah.

CH: Very good.

NB: Raised our kids on a sailboat, not inside the box.

CB: Well, completely outside.

NB: [Laughter].

CH: Very good.

NB: As with Ellen

CB: Yeah, boxes are to be indoors.

CH: That's quite funny because I'm actually using a box to prop up the recording equipment so I'm staring right at a box as we're talking so that’s very good

CB, NB: [Laughter].

CH: So, excellent. Thank you. So are there any perhaps professional or official titles that you might be able to use to identify yourself for others who will be listening in on the recording later on?

CB: I am a black and white landscape photographer since 1961 and doing the same thing for the most part for 50 years.

NB: We make our living being artists and selling Clyde's black and white landscapes. We have two galleries and a few galleries outside of the state and we have lived in Florida since 1980 and Clyde has photographed Florida since that time.

CH: And where do you live at the present moment?

CB: We live in Venice, Florida about a mile and a half away from the dark room and gallery so we can bicycle to work.

CH: Very good. So the first question I would ask is...we have been talking to some of the Happehatchee Center of Estero, Florida. Would you be able to discuss your connections to the center, or specifically to Ellen Peterson, the late founder of the center?

CB: I would say we are both connected to Ellen, not the facility. We're really not into...we're basically just going with the flow. I don't know how to describe what we are.

NB: We're real busy (laughter) We live in Venice which is about an hour and a half maybe from Happehatchee and maybe if we had lived in Fort Myers we might have gotten there occasionally but mostly when I was with Ellen, she is who she is or was who she was. She was not a pretender and so it 2 didn't matter if we were a part of the thing she created or not. Her vibes went beyond that and we are not particularly joiners of organizations and stuff because we don't have time. So, no, we weren't part of Happehatchee.

CH: Okay, thank you for that. Stemming from that, what would be your strongest memory about Ellen?

CB: Oh, actually, probably...I remember the time we were celebrating her rescuing Fisheating Creek and going down the eastern part of the creek and in the water, getting in the water, and photographing her memorial tree. That was probably the tree where she wants to be...that was her life...in her later days [00:05:00] at least in Fisheating Creek. She really loved that area there.

NB: I've got so many memories. My goodness! We would get together... have you interviewed Brenda Anderson? She, Brenda Anderson and Ellen and one other girl, which is whoever had time, and I would get together every year for about four or five years in a row, I can't remember, once a year and go on kayak trips. And Ellen, who was quite a bit older than me, could out kayak me like crazy! I could not believe the strength that woman had and she would tell stories about her life and I really wish I could remember all of them. But we… on a bicycle trip, we would take kayaks and bikes...we did both for the three days we were together. After this is over, I can give you the information for Sandra Friend, who actually went on one of these trips with us and brought video equipment and Ellen talking about her life and the things that she did and was a fun conversation was well worth the conversation and worth to add to your repertoire here.

CH: Well, thank you.

NB: But, stories or memories of Ellen were when we went kayaking to Silver Springs...excuse me...yeah, Silver Springs and it is a long way from the launch to the spring itself. So we were, and not being as strong as Brenda or Ellen, taking us other two girls quite a long time to get up there and then we had to turn around and come back and I was absolutely exhausted and so Ellen got in my kayak. It was a was a two-man kayak so we traded people and Ellen got in with me and Melanie got in with Brenda. And Ellen took off in that kayak and it was like a motor was attached to that kayak. I could not believe that this woman, who died two years later, that she could do this. It was just amazing. So that was one of the strongest memories and how physically strong she was and in such good shape.

CH: So, you mentioned it was two years before her passing...would be 2009, I believe.

NB: I think so.

CH: Very good. When would you say you first met Ellen? What year and what circumstance?

CB: [Laughter]. Well, she also came down to fix up our gallery in Venice of a swamp walk events. I think that was probably 2000-

NB: Right, right.

CB: And the swamp walks, she just loved anything that had to do with the environment. I think around 2000 is when we really got involved with her.

NB: Right, right. We meet her when she was doing the Fisheating Creek thing in the late 80s I 3 believe...in the early 90s, somewhere in there. We met her during that, but we did not get to know her until later. And the way we really got to know her through Brenda Anderson and Brenda...I don't even know how that happened. We got to open our gallery in Big Cypress which is in the middle of the Everglades ecosystem and surrounded by a million acres of wilderness and one of the things we wanted to do was to get people to love the swamp and the only way to do that is to get them into it so we started doing Swamp Walks and Ellen and Brenda would come out and help lead swamp walks. So we got to do that once a year and we got to know both of them very well and from there, Brenda, Ellen, I, and Melanie for a while would go on out and do the kayak trips together. That was really fun. The other fun thing...the other fun memory of hers, a story of hers at a very young age, she decided she wanted to bicycle across the United States and this is not something that women did [00:10:00] in her age group...it was probably in the 40s. Then she would go clear across the United States, a single woman, by herself on a bicycle. But she did it and that is what Ellen was. She just did what she thought she wanted to do and thought what was right and she would do it. She was just a really determined woman and very, very much admired. I'm 70, almost 70 and I told her when I was in my late 60s that I would like to grow up to be just like her.

CH: Very good. I was going to, at this point, ask if you were present with her passing ceremonies, the get-together at Happehatchee or at Fisheating Creek?

NB: Yes, both of them. I was. Clyde was unable to attend.

CB: Fisheating Creek.

NB: Yes he was at Fisheating Creek, he did.

CH: And, yes…

NB: The one at Happehatchee was...before she died, they put her in the center and it was the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. And I thought how wondrous it as that the people whose lives she had changed gathered around to let her know they loved and cared about her before she died and not after she died. Most people do, most people have great big funerals parties after a person dies and the whole family comes from all over, and relatives and everything, and they talk about how wonderful the person was. Well it would be nice if they did that before the person died so that the person would get the feeling pf it, you know? We've got this thing mixed up. We've got it backwards and thought that was truly the most wonderful event that I have ever experienced in relation to death and positive and uplifting and then Fisheating Creek was a very, very nice memorial for Ellen. It was not even close to the what the one at Happehatchee was but it was a very, very nice memorial and I had photographed her when we had went on a couple canoe trips with Ellen in Fisheating Creek and every time we went pass that memorial tree she would say “That's where I want my ashes.” Well, we weren't able to go out with the group who did put her ashes there but when Clyde was with Ellen...and we were on the creek with her, he did stop and photograph the creek for her and then gave her a photograph of the tree so we were very pleased to know that her ashes are there so we titled that picture “Ellen's Memorial Tree.”

CH: Thank you. Now a few things you mentioned briefly were your gallery and your business here. Now is it correct to say that you have lived in several towns and cities in Southwest Florida and South Florida?

CB: Well...kind of. 4

NB: Well, we came to Florida in 1980 and lived…

CB: Fort Lauderdale

NB: In Fort Lauderdale for about a year and then we moved to Fort Myers and from Fort Myers we began...Clyde was at that time doing his black and white and it was becoming more and more popular and we decided to open up a gallery. We wanted a gallery in an area that would represent his work. We found a piece of property and of course this could be another two hour interview [laughter]. But we found a property in Big Cypress to make it short and were able to purchase it and opened a gallery there and that's where we lived. It was 13 acres in the middle of that million acres of wilderness.

CB: Then we moved...after we got a little older and needed a functioning dark room and our daughter became part of our business we moved to Venice where she was and her dark room was and that's where we are now and probably will be for, you know, until we meet Ellen somewhere.

NB: [Laughter].

CH: Very good. So the healing circle that was held just before Ellen passed, [00:15:00] have you had any other connections to those types of groups or types of communities?

CB: We are always connected because we are so involved in the environment. We go to all kinds of different meetings with people all over Florida to celebrate the environment. So not quite like that but we are always associated with people who are interested in the environment like Ellen was.

NB: Yeah...we are not joiners and so we have never....we have been married for 50 years and we have never really joined any kind of organization and but when we meet people and we meet so many people all over the state as well as from outside the state but mostly in Florida who love this state and want to see it preserved. 99.9% of them are on a very spiritual level, whether they are the same way as the people at Happehatchee, I really don't know because I don't know those people but they are people who care about people and care about the environment. So they are wonderful to be around because they have a positive belief in the world about them so we're real fortunate to have those people in our lives and when we meet them, we encourage them to carry on that effort even though at times it seems fruitless but to carry on and keep up the good work.

CH: So you would say perhaps that you are definitely supportive and advocates but you're not necessarily activists on environmental…

CB and NB: Oh yeah…

NB: We are definitely activists.

CH: Okay.

CB: We're more vocal than anybody in Florida. We do talk to environmental groups, civic groups, library groups, museums.

NB: They send us to Washington D.C to give presentations to the Senate. So we are...you might look at 5 us as an organization that people would join if we were the kind of people to have an organization people would join.

CH: I understand.

NB: We would be one of those organizations. But we aren't joiners so we don't encourage people to join us. We just are very outspoken and we gather facts and figures so that when we speak, we know what we're talking about. So it isn't...

CB: We work with the Corp of Engineers, we work with the Sierra Club...

CB and NB: The water board, water management…

CB: Governor Graham, Governor Chiles, Vice President Gore, Senator Nelson. We...We're very, very active in Florida and in the United States.

NB: Which is probably why we don't have time to be part of an organization. We are it.

[Laughter].

CH: I'm understanding it now. So there is no Butcher Incorporated or Associates but you turn up and do the actual discussion and talk...I see.

NB: Right and I believe the reason that we are given these opportunities so often is because Clyde's photography is extremely dramatic and magnificent images of Florida so he's been in just about every museum...all but 2 museums, actually, in Florida. His work is very well known and he's well known as a spokesperson. So he's often invited to speak at different events and speak before the government and all that. So it's like his work is speaking for him a lot. And so his work has opened up doors that other organizations may have a hard time getting a door to open. So that's how it kind of happened, it was not planned. It just happened.

CH: So there was some spontaneity. Perhaps, Clyde, could you give an example or talk maybe about the first time or a very significant time?

CB: There are all kinds of times. But what I think was really kind of neat was the federal government was thinking about selling homestead so they could put an airport [00:20:00] in there and the airport would have been a mile and a half from the Everglades National Park and we did a lot of work on that and we ...one of the things that kind of helped shut it down is we have an airport about 5 miles from our gallery in the middle of the Everglades which was gonna be for the SST so that they could break the sound barrier over the Everglades and Niki had a video camera and one day they used it for testing and 747 airplanes…

NB: I'm sorry. Go ahead...I just wanted to back up before he goes on. They had said that airplane just coming into homestead...one every 2 minutes sort of like Miami International Airport would not bother any kind of animals or anything with the noise of the jets flying low over the Everglades to land. Go ahead Clyde.

CB: So she photographed the 747 as it was landing and how much noise it made and after it landed the 6 whole Everglades was quiet. Nothing was speaking until probably an hour later when the Everglades would come alive again. So the noise made quiet a difference. Then there was a big deal in Miami where we brought that video with a TV set to a Sierra Club meeting with the news media and the news media used that video to explain what was going to happen because it was visual and sound and I think that was one of the breaking points of stopping that particular project.

CH: And what year was this?

CB: My years are so confused.

NB: [Laughter] we have so many things that going on.

CB: It was when Gore was Vice President so it should have been probably in '98 or '99 I would think.

CH: Right so toward the end, end of the Clinton administration.

NB: Yeah

CB: Yeah during Clinton.

CH: Right, excellent thank you. I'm not looking for the exact day or year but these recordings will be transcribed and so if anyone would like…

NB: Yeah we worked on the trash burning plant in Fort Myers which was the very first learning experience of how to speak to the newspaper in sound bites and then when Everglades issue came to be Clyde got very, very involved in that and did a lot on that as well. Those, you know…

CB and NB: [Inaudible].

NB: Yeah, and if you know anything about the environment in Florida it is right now...there...excuse me...I'll be polite...our governor is perhaps one of the worst governors Florida has ever had and he's now put on the block several state park properties and…

CB: For sale.

NB: For sale… that are going to be for sale. Not a whole park but parts of the park.

CB: Parks that we paid for.

NB: Yeah, the state had put together a fund for when a developer develops land, a percentage of that money goes into a fund to save other properties and then properties were saved. This...this bill has gone through Democrats and Republicans who all are governors, who all agreed with it but this governor eliminated that and took those properties which are...which that money was set aside for, to sell that property so that other properties can be saved. Those properties were saved for a reason. So we're trying to figure out how is it, what can we do to stop this horrible thing from happening? So these are the kinds of things, you know, that really irritate us and other Floridians who believe that this state should be protecting its property.

7

CB: The state of Florida...it's very fragile. It's not like a lot of states like Missouri. It's...everything here is connected. The under body of it is like a big giant coral reef with holes where the water flows everywhere. Just because the canal runs east and west doesn't mean the water doesn't go south to north. So, people don't realize how fragile it is and how if you [00:25:00] pollute something in one place it's going to get to another place. So it's not an easy sell because people are coming here from all over the country to live here and they don't understand the fragility of Florida and basically right now the government in Tallahassee is destroying the last thirty years of work we've done to try to preserve the state of Florida and it's very discouraging and I just don't understand people's lack of seeing the future.

CH: Well, hopefully this testimony about the past will help with that. But, I would like to go back to kind of a key moment...if you can think of a key moment in your thirty years of conservation work where there was a very clear move in one direction, whether it be for or against preserving the natural environment. Let's say there was the Fisheating Creek event but is there any specific administration or any specific corporate element that you could cite?

CB: Yeah, I think...I'd think to say this but I think one of the turning points in saving the Everglades was Governor Jeb Bush really started putting the state money into restoring Kissimmee, fixing up the western part of the Everglades...He really spent a lot of money doing that…

NB: Yeah, the Kissimmee River, in case you don't know, was… The Everglades starts in Orlando and the Kissimmee River was a meandering river until they canaled it and they did one long ditch that dumped into Lake Okeechobee and this basically...sent... it did not allow the water to clean itself as it went south. So it would go into Lake Okeechobee and come out dirty to go into the sugar fields and come out even more dirty on the other side. So cleaning up Kissimmee at the head of the Everglades was the first thing that should have been done and Bush did that...our Governor Bush did that…It had started before that but he put money into it...more money so that it could be completed. It was recently completed. That section of the Kissimmee River now has more birds than it has ever had. It has more fish than it has ever had and it has become a key clean up...what do you call it?

CB: A model project.

NB: A model...right...a model for the world. People come from all over the world to study how we did that. How we took that thing that was so filthy and dirty and cleaned it.

CB: Well, it's still cleaning. It’s not done yet.

NB: Oh no, it’s not finished cleaning because it just got finished. But even in the process of breaking apart that canal and making it meander again, a huge number of birds have started coming back because we now have marsh land there. This is a phenomenally successful thing and it shows that if we care enough we can make a huge difference to the [environment]...

CH: So in relation to that in your direct experiences, was there a specific meeting or event that you attended personally that supported that effort or was there a conversation or a connection that you had with someone that made a difference?

NB: We...We did a...in conjunction with Elam Stoltzfus [laughter]. S-T-O-L-T-Z-F-U-S. Stoltzfus [laughter].

8

CH: Thank you.

NB: He is a videographer. He's done many documentaries on Florida and we've been in a majority of them. He did the documentary on the Kissimmee River and we were part of that documentary, we, Clyde, we were part of that documentary and as he, Elam, moved through the system...all the different kinds of people and everything that were involved in putting this together Clyde was the thread...his photographs were the thread that held it all together. It gave it [00:30:00] continuity to the whole thing. So that was aired on PBS in Florida and then it went all over the country and that was a cele… that documentary happened toward the end of this and it was a celebration of people, not only, we're talking about the Air Force that had to okay this because there was an air base there, communities along the river, ranchers, farmers, environmentalists, water management, the Corp of Engineers. All those people who never, ever get along had to come together to make this happen and they did. It was truly a miracle.

CB: I started working with the project in 1989. When I would get into the water up there to photograph, it was really nasty stuff. Now...you have to realize also I learned most about the environment from the water management district and the Corp of Engineers. It wasn't the Sierra Club. But, last time I was there at the reservation I'm standing in the water in the middle of an old cow field and it was clean. I can't tell you how much I itched that first, in 1989, after getting in that water and getting out because I usually have to get in the water to photograph with my tripod. It was really a real physical change between '89 and I guess it was 2012 or something like that so it was really exciting to see actual progress. There are not a lot of things we would like to see happening but that was probably the biggest success story I think in Florida.

NB: Yeah, and let me mention here while we're talking about photography. What Clyde does is he does large format photography so he photographs with an 8x10 view camera so it isn't snapshots.

CB: You can't take it from the boat. You’ve got to get in the water.

CH: Well, I recognize a piece of your work that's actually hanging up in the FGCU library.

CB: Right.

CH: So I would like to thank you for that. And I would also like to say quickly if we could talk about FGCU. There was the somewhat contentious founding of the university?!

[CB and NB laughing].

CB: I would say very contentious.

NB: We lived in Fort Myers at the time and let me tell you, yeah!

CH: Yes, please. So…

CB: That was the stupidest place you could ever put an environmental university. They got the property for zero and I think they've spent several million dollars on fill. That was…

NB: I'll tell you where I wanted it to be! We lived in east Fort Myers at the time. I wanted it to be in 9 east For Myers on the piece of property that ran along the Orange River because I wanted FGCU to have a rowing team and they could practice on the river. That property was already disturbed, it was solid land, it had been cattled. It had already been disturbed.

CB: Four-lane highway…

NB: A four-lane highway already to it. It came right off the freeway, easy access. And you know, it didn't happen, but what was your question? [Laughter].

CH: Well, to get your comments on those events. So, now, yes, go ahead…

CB: I did a talk there on Earth Day and I gave those comments and I don't think they've invited me back since.

CH: [Laughter], oh dear. Hmm...Well there are several questions that come up from that, but I may have to ask them about that. But I would like to ask... so specifically the foundation...the establishment before it opened its doors took place in 1991 and you're talking about other sites. So are you talking about before 1991 or after?

CB: Well there were like four or five sites being considered and they chose the one that was free. I think you’ll find....I think Griffin was hunting pals with Governor Chiles so I'm not sure...you might have to research that...if that was the connection.

CH: And so how...did you actually go to any town hall meetings or how were you involved in the discussions in the community at the time?

CB: Well, I think we went to one meeting and we saw...I saw [00:35:00] it was fruitless and there was an inside track going and sometimes in politics there's something happening under the table that you can't deal with and why waste my time with something that's already been decided?

CH: Okay, thank you. So when the university opened its doors in 1997, what was the reaction at that point? With regards to conservation and…

CB: Well, it was the same thing. It was stupid.

NB: Still think it's stupid.

CB: It's still stupid.

NB: Well we think...let's rephrase that. We think having a university in Southwest Florida was a phenomenal and wonderful idea. It was greatly needed and we are very proud of what the university has been able to accomplish and what it is doing for the community. It’s just most unfortunate that it was placed, uh, in a place that’s just not environmentally…

CB: Well, it was a water storage area…

NB: …sound. Yes, and when it started calling itself an environmental college, it was like a joke, because of its founding. I felt sorry for the people in the university because they had to, fight against 10 that when they, when it was obvious that, that you can’t call yourself an environmental university when you are, well you know…

CB: It was the most contested environmental area of the five choices and it was there.

NB: Yeah, so, but the idea of the university was, and, and still is today, the essence of the university is dynamite and it’s a great university. It’s just unfortunate it was placed where it was placed.

CB: That was a bad, bad start.

CH: Okay. We as students, I should let you know…

CB: You know, see…

CH: No, I understand. We’re told about some of the issues that go on within an actual colloquium class, but I can tell you that hearing your comments will certainly enlighten several students and probably the faculty as well…

[Laughing].

CH: I suppose that have come in after the event, so…

CB: Well they weren’t, they weren’t there when it started.

CH: Right

NB: They were probably in kindergarten

[Laughing].

CH: Precisely, and, and we have a lot of faculty that have come on the campus from years after, and, you know without the testimonies and without the record here, it may not necessarily be talked about going forward, so, I appreciate your comments for sure.

CB: It’s important, it’s important, that’s why history is so important.

NB: We just wish our elected officials read history.

CH: Well, you never know, maybe they’re reading a different type of history and seeing those skills and…

NB: [Laughing].

CB: I don’t think, that they actually really read anything because the, corporations tell them what to talk about.

CH: Well that’s a very strong theme here and I’d like to follow up on that if I may. Specifically in the local community, is there a battle with any actual corporation that you can relate, that you can talk 11 about within your own history?

CB: Well the biggest one was and I guess, what was it Bechtel? The trash burning plant?

NB: Oh yeah.

CB: Yeah we had a real, we were afraid that we might get [laughing] assassinated. We were working against the trash burning plant because it was… what the problem was, the nuclear power plants were being… you couldn’t build those anymore so these corporations would build these mechanical things. [They] decided to go into trash burning plants instead of nuclear power plants so it was… the thing is I, we, Niki and I did such a thorough job investigating it that the guys that ran the corporation had real respect for us because we actually used facts and figures to fight it instead of emotional stuff. So, I think that was one of our main actual head-to-heads with corporations. But now, you know, in the national politics, in the Sierra Club magazine we were actually just reading an article on if you believe in global warming you don’t get funds. If you don’t believe in global warming you get funds.

NB: And we’re talking a significant difference. Those senators that believe in global warming…

CB: $300,000 a year and ones that don’t [00:40:00] get $140,000 a year. So yeah the corporations are basically running our country now and people don’t understand that though. We have hardly any say because of the money involved in politics and reelection or whatever or however they’re doing it.

NB: But on a local level I don’t know, there probably is some…

CB: Ray Judah is probably one of the best politicians that Lee County had.

NB: Oh, excellent.

CB: …and then they voted him out because the Tea Party decided that spending money wasn’t a good idea. Ray Judah was really a brilliant asset to the community. That’s one politician that I actually knew and dealt with that I felt was a real person.

NB: Right. He was a fantastic Republican and he was just a… he was what I would call a real Republican instead of a Tea Party person and it was very sad to hear that he lost his office to a Tea Party person. I don’t know. I don’t understand how it is that you can have two parties inside one party. It’s just a big mystery to me that you can have a Tea Party and Republican Party in the same party. I don’t get it.

CH: Well, well that taps into very relevant issues today and you’ve mentioned figures such as Governor Bush and Representative Judah? I’m not sure if that’s his correct title.

CB: He was a county commissioner.

CH: County commissioner, thank you.

NB: In Fort Myers.

CH: And also Vice President Gore, so today the ideology would be totally inconsistent, you couldn’t 12 imagine those titles, Democrat and Republican on either side, being able to do something together. But it sounds like in your experiences you have seen that. You have seen a coming together in moderation.

CB: And the thing that I don’t understand is people…there’s in society… they call it four-letter, dirty words. Now there’s a four-word dirty situation that every politician says when you ask them about something. “It costs too much.” Now that’s like, it seems like a theme that’s running around the whole nation today. When we do… when the nation decided to do something, or a city or a state, they have to pay for it, and otherwise you shouldn’t do it. Now when we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was… we didn’t fund it. When we established Homeland Security, we didn’t fund it. And now they’re all complaining because there’s a big deficit. Well... when you decide to do something and you don’t pay for it… what would happen, if I went and bought a car and I didn’t pay for it? They’d take it back. I mean I don’t understand these government officials. I just don’t understand if you decide to do something, it has to be paid for. I mean, I’m a very conservative person and I just don’t understand what is happening because the only thing I can think of is people don’t understand that this is a large society, a complex society, that has a lot of problems and it costs a lot of money to run a huge society and it’s just the way it is, so…

NB: You’ve got to raise taxes.

CB: You’ve got to raise taxes.

NB: But on this issue, the ability of different parties to speak to each other and come to compromise, when I see our government not being able to come to compromises it frightens me because the very essence of Democracy is compromise.

CB: Well, we don’t have a Democracy, we have…

NB: That’s what I’m afraid of.

CB: …we don’t have one now because corporations are telling these guys what to do and if they don’t toe-the-line, they don’t get money for their next campaign. It’s just the way it is, I mean we don’t have… there’s no ability to compromise because corporations are trying to run the country and that’s where the problem is. And that’s why we’ve got to eliminate this huge amount of money going to politicians for campaigns, so I mean, that’s real. A politician… if he does a two-year term, then fine. If he wants to do more than a two-year term [00:45:00] then he’s got to do what his donors tell him to do. That’s where we’re at.

NB: Yeah.

CB: So that’s… students should know that things have changed because of money and that’s not gonna change, there’s not gonna be any compromises unless you get the money out.

CH: So to follow up on that, I’m gonna ask two branches of questioning. One will be about whether you’ve seen yourselves the compromise between the political divides on a specific issue so, both sides coming together in the past and that you have related to, and the…

CB: Oh gosh, well uh…

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CH: And then the second one will come back to the money and politics, but…

CB: Yeah…

CH: Yep…

CB: Clinton had a big, big thing to do about money in his administration and basically by doing all the compromises they balanced the budget. I thought that was a great equaling.

NB: Yeah he worked, the Democrats and Republicans worked together to come to compromises…

CB: Civil rights.

NB: Civil rights, on women’s issues. On the Vietnam War… I don’t think there was compromise. I think there was…

CB: There was too much aggravation.

NB: Yeah and…

CB: But see, Civil Rights. Johnson started that out and, well, Reagan and uh oh…Who was the guy after that? In the House…?

NB: Yeah.

CB: Which administration are you talking…?

CH: They were a very, ideological…

NB: Ideological…

CB: Yeah separated, but they’d sit down for lunch and talk about things, and they’d work it out. You know, I mean, that’s what even with Reagan… almost every president has been able to work out what, with both parties, because the whole concept it’s always been is that the country was the important part and that’s what the compromises were for… to make this a better country to live in. And now there’s no… that whole thinking’s gone because most of these politicians are young and haven’t been through all this stuff and don’t understand where we’re coming from and how much this has… even with the environment. Back in the sixties, fifties and sixties, there were rivers burning in the United States. There was smog so thick that you couldn’t breathe. Our President Nixon and his administration created all the environmental laws that we have today in our whole country. The EPA, clean water, endangered species, superfund… it goes on and on with what the Nixon Administration did to create laws so we can solve our environmental problems and now these people are, the companies are, trying to get rid of these laws so they can throw their waste away because it’s cheaper to throw it away than it is to clean it up.

NB: And if they can’t do it here they’ll do it somewhere else.

CB: Yeah, it’s just, you know, it costs too much stuff, I mean it’s just that whole phrase that is just 14 embedded in politicians. Instead of being creative and figuring out a way around it, they just say it costs too much.

CH: So I know you’ve been involved with the Save Our Rivers program.

CB: Oh yeah.

CH: Is it fair to say that there was political compromise and there has been?

CB: Oh yeah until now.

NB: Until now.

CB: With this governor.

NB: Yeah, he stopped that.

CH: So let’s talk about the history there. How far back would the compromise have gone? So you’re saying it’s at the beginning of Governor Scott’s…?

CB: Well,

CH: … tenure…

NB: Well… our old brains [laughing].

CB: Well, basically, it was actually… yeah, it really shut down with Scott. I mean there was… it was being revived by, first of all, by Crist…

NB: Crist.

CB: Crist was actually on the on the road to… I was uh in a meeting with him and Schwarzenegger and it was very exciting, the enthusiasm that they had about stopping global warming. And that really stopped with Scott, I mean it completely stopped.

NB: [00:50:00] I think what Crist did on the rivers, if I remember right, or maybe it was Bush…?

CB: He was huge about buying land for sugar to filter the Everglades, and that was shut down by Scott.

NB: Right. But, on the Save Our Rivers project I think, though I’m not sure if Bush or Crist…

CB: They started it.

NB: Let me finish. He... one of those guys proposed that the money going into the Save Our Rivers project needed to also fund the maintenance of them. So he stopped buying rivers and that sort of thing and put the money towards the maintenance of keeping rivers in tact. So, you know, that was a wise decision.

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CB: What happened is, you know, part of your doc stamps, when you buy a piece of property you have to get it doc stamped. The portion of money was going to Save Our Rivers and so it wasn’t the tax, an extra tax on anybody, and when they, when the republicans got in they started using that money for the general fund and stopped using it for what it was supposed to be for.

NB: You mean Scott’s people.

CB: I think Crist actually started it so…

NB: Oh, okay.

CB: Uh, it was, it was actually a fund. Now there’s a petition going around today trying to get that happening again. We’re trying to get it on the 2014 ballot, but I’m not sure how successful it’s going to be, you know. It’s a tough world because environmentalists don’t have… we don’t make money on the things we do, we just try to save the planet, whereas the corporations, they can throw all kinds of money at it because they’re doing it to make money.

NB: I know, they definitely make money from building the development on the edge of our river.

CB: Cutting the mangroves down.

NB: Yeah, because who makes money if you don’t do it, you know? So it, it’s like, you know… money again.

CB: It’s a challenge. It’s… and you see this. There’s $3 billion spent on lobbyists and that whole environmental all together is $1 million instead of $3 billion, so, environmentalists have a tough battle.

CH: So let’s go, if I could, go back to the change through the money in politics, and, within your own personal and professional experiences, was there a specific era or legislation or event that really did turn the corner in one way or the other?

CB: I think it was the Reagan administration.

CH: For yourselves?

CB: For the country.

CH: For the country.

CB: Yeah.

CH: So in your… how would that have related to your own history?

CB: Well, what you do as a nation relates to my history. I mean, I financially haven’t been hurt myself too much. I was, you know, well it was back in the Nixon administration we had price, what do you call it, you couldn’t raise prices on anything so that kind of hurt, but, I think the Reagan administration was where it started… corporations started really starting to control politics. Corporations have always had a hand in it but, I think with Reagan, they really did it, you know. That was the last Republican I voted 16 for.

NB: I just have to say something about any of this affecting us financially. We’re starving artists, okay? We’re used to being affected by financial disabilities [laughing]. So, we have learned how to live within our means whatever those means are because we’re artists and always have been.

CB: No, we’ve always learned to live under our means.

NB: Yeah.

CB: I can live on our total existence on social security which is between the two of us is $1500 a month. So we’re not one of those people that have to earn $100,000 a year to stay afloat. So, you know when you only happen to have $1500 a month to live on. We can survive almost anything.

CH: Very good, excellent. Well I’d like to go back to something I found when I was researching your work and there was a piece you did for a publication called “Guideposts.”

CB: Okay.

CH: And it’s talking about [00:55:00] how you transitioned to your black and white photography.

CB: Right.

CH: And there’s this specific uh piece you call “The Moon Shot.”

CB: Right, right, “Moon Rise.”

CH: I was wondering if you could elaborate on that for us.

CB: Well you know, in my… I’ve always loved nature, uh, I’ve always been out, photographing, and it was nice that we eventually… we started making a living with photographing nature and unfortunately in the 70’s to sell a photograph, it had to be color. You’ve got your gold couches and your avocado refrigerators and uh shag carpet and that sort of thing. So, I went from black and white in the 60’s to the 70’s and early 80’s to color to make a living and then, because I was… when I was doing photographing in Florida I was probably… well, I would go to an art show, people would see my photographs, they would ask me, “Is this Africa?” and a bunch thought it was the Amazon. I said, “No, it’s Florida.” People didn’t have any idea what Florida was. It really… I thought the color was really taking away from the images, but I wanted to make a living so I stuck with color. And then in 1986 our son was killed by a drunk driver in Fort Myers and I decided that, you know, I think black and white is what will really illustrates Florida because the color takes away from the texture, it takes away from the feeling. If you like blue you see the sky if you like green you see the grass, but black and white makes a oneness with nature. So I decided to… I took all my color work, which is probably somewhere between in retail $300,000 to $400,000 worth of stuff and took it to the dump… watched the tractor run over it. I went out and bought an 8x10, I was shooting 5x7, so I went and bought an 8x10 shot and went out to the woods to recover from Ted’s death and Moon Rise was probably my most famous shot. It’s one of the first shots I did after Ted was killed and I… Niki thought, well you know I’ll give up on this black and white stuff, and it won’t sell so I’ll go back to the color. The first art show I did was in Disney at the villages there and I got three awards. I got, I sold a bunch of colors and I was just amazed that the 17 black and white was telling the story of Florida.

NB: I have to tell you, we’re from Florida, I’m from northern Florida, north, excuse me we’re from California, I’m from northern California so when Clyde said he was going to do black and white swamp pictures I thought he had, you know, gone off the edge a little bit and… because who would buy a black and white photograph of the swamp? Um, you know if you think about it… if you tried to make a business plan, people would probably not invest in you and [laughing]… but the people of Florida obviously love Florida. They must really love Florida because they’re buying black and white photographs of the swamp of Florida and not only in Florida, but all over the country there’s people buying them.

CB: Well, in Europe…

NB: In Europe, and…

CB: Japan… Russia.

NB: So we are, Russia right, we’ve got a gallery representative in Russia, Moscow.

CB: In China.

NB: In China, yeah. So it is for us a very humbling experience to have this… such an unusual kind of photography be so much in demand and its, and I wonder sometimes what… the bad things that happen in life… if something had not gone on, would Clyde have ever done this? I don’t know. It was Ted’s death that spurred him to do this, and so you kind of wonder about the connection between things even though they’re horrible the outcome is that Clyde has been extremely active in saving some of the parts of Florida, and making people aware in helping save those things. So, I… it just makes you wonder, you know.

CB: You’ve got to go.

NB: I’ve got an appointment at 11 so I have to take off. So I am going to say adios, but you can keep… Clyde’s still here, so… [01:00:00]

CH: Okay, I appreciate your time. Thank you ever so much.

NB: Yeah, I thank you for inviting us to do this.

CH: I will email you back Niki, thank you.

NB: Bye.

CH: So Clyde…

CB: She’s the, she’s the email person. I don’t know how to do that.

[Laughing].

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CH: I understand. I’m still learning as well. I would like to go back to the “Moon Rise”…

CB: Right.

CH: …experience?

CB: Oh yeah. That was quite an experience! It was… I’d just bought an 8x10 camera. I bought a used lens. I’d been sitting out there. I was out actually in the middle of Big Cypress. I had set up the camera tripod and things were starting to happen… looks like things were starting to happen. So I went up to just take some pictures, just to you know make, because I… you just never know when the right shot’s gonna be there. And the shutter wouldn’t work on the camera. That was really… [inaudible] me off. I made a slight comment to nature which I don’t think is repeatable [laughing], and so I was able to with the large format camera you could actually take the lenses apart. I was able to take the lens apart, physically open the shutter and the lens manually, put it back together, and then I took a…one of the slides, well I put in the camera. It is like an 8x10 x-ray holder and I took the dark, the slide that protects the film out and then took another holder and put it in the camera and put that over the camera lens. Then I pulled the slide out and then I just lifted my hand over the slide up over the lens and counted for about four seconds and put it back and that was the exposure. So people ask me… well it was about like that for the exposure, and it was just probably one of my best shots, and I think it’s because I had no preconceived ideas of what I wanted to photograph. I just wanted to let people see what Florida was all about, and I… it was… there was no thinking about, it was just doing. And that was really… the whole season… in fact the two shots I did in that period with that choppy and they were probably my most successful shots that I have had since I have been shooting.

CH: Well, it sounds like nature certainly did the talking at that time.

CB: Well, it always does. People just don’t let it come into their hearts. I mean, if you go out to… one thing I like to find is places that uh really haven’t been touched by man, and they can talk to you, you know, I mean it’s really… I have artists that come out to the gallery and want to see, and experience it. So I take them out and we start walking around and walking around, and so I go and get a chair and I put the chair down and I say, “Sit here, don’t move for an hour, and experience it.” And then when the hour was up they say, “I see what you mean.” Nature comes alive when you stay there and just don’t move and you let it come to you. It’s amazing. We’ve been doing this now for twenty years, and it was amazing how you could come in tune with it by living in it. It’s an amazing place. The best way we could save it is don’t do anything to it [laughing].

CH: Now it sounds like maybe, am I correct in thinking that the moon rise experience was the inspiration for your work Nature’s Places for Spiritual Sanctuary?

CB: Oh yeah, well that’s why… that’s the reason I called the title of the book that, and if you look on the back of the book it says, “Art comes from the heart,” and it doesn’t come from logic. That’s what that shot was all about. It was from the heart, and I had no preconceived ideas. I hadn’t taken a black and white picture… well, the last time I took a black and white picture was 1970, and this was 1986. So it was, you know, it was just one of those… it just came, it just came to me. It was really interesting how… you let things come and it will come and if you open the door… if you have doors that can open up, and go through them things will happen, but most people see the door opening [01:05:00] and they say well that’s… that might be too dangerous to go through that door so I like, I like to do that.

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CH: Well, I think that’s an excellent place to begin to wrap the interview up. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

CB: Well, it just would be nice that if people could understand how important nature is in their daily life… where does oxygen come from? It comes from nature. Where does water come from? It comes from nature. I think that the city folks have to get out of the city and the young kids… when I was young there was no television. We had no television. I was out walking around in the woods. Today kinds are behind video games or television all the time and they rarely get to experience nature. It’s, it’s… I’m just hoping that families will start taking their kids, you know, out to play and not with a video, but outside where they can experience the real world. I think that’s where we’re really hurting now because the real world now is television.

CH: Well, I can say I’m a father of two young boys and whenever we can we get the family out maybe it be Cypress- Six Mile Cypress here or um, the Veteran’s Park, wherever we can and uh, we definitely feel it as well.

CB: Ray Judah is the one responsible for Six Mile Cypress.

CH: Well I’m…I may get my son to write a letter of thanks at some point in that case.

CB: He protected that, so…

CH: Well, I appreciate your frankness and sharing here, Clyde. Thank you very much.

CB: You’re welcome.

CH: If I can wrap up by just kind of maybe priming some future activity, and I can talk to Niki as well about this, but generally my project for the Happehatchee and conservation in Southwest Florida is wrapping up within the next few weeks… but as you can see, through our conversation here, there are many other tangents that students might want to follow up on.

CB: There are a lot of tangents for people to follow up on.

CH: So it sounds like the experience with nature and the oneness that you talk about, that may well be an interesting project for someone to take up at some other future time, especially within the artist community.

CB: Oh sure, sure.

CH: So, if I may offer, and obviously I’ll ask Niki as well, your contact to any student that may want to investigate the people that you have known in the area and interview them with regards to that oneness and that sanctuary that you have experienced.

CB: There are a lot of neat people around, a lot of neat people. A lot of neat people… One of the important ones is… Ed Carlson… ran Corkscrew Sanctuary… since he was in high school…not ran it, but he was working there since he was in high school and he just retired from Corkscrew a year ago, and he has had an awful lot to do with the community in Collier and Lee County. That would be a really interesting guy. There are so many interesting people… there’s just, there are normal people that 20 really need to have their information that they have recorded so that… how many people know that rivers in the United States were burning from pollution? How many kids know that?

CH: Right. It may come up in one day’s class in a specific environmentally framed course so I can say it’s a minority of students for sure.

CB: See what the problem is… global warming... when we had smog you could see it and you could smell it. With carbon dioxide, you can’t see it and you can’t smell it, and if it’s not tactile it doesn’t seem to come across to people. I guess one of the main reasons we are having problems with carbon dioxide is because you can’t see it and you can’t smell it.

CH: Very good, well it sounds like [01:10:00] the work will continue, and I appreciate your comments and taking the time to talk to us and have your words recorded.

CB: Are you into the “Ted Talks?”

CH: I have seen some, yes.

CB: Uh, there’s one really good one, it’s…if you go on “Ted” it’s called “Ted’s Icons,” and Bill Gates does a great one on how to use nuclear waste to power the country. You’ve got to go see that. It’s so impressive! I mean, it’s the solution to global warming, and it actually came out in a newspaper the other day. It’s because it deals with radiation, they don’t want to talk about it I guess, but take a look at that if you can find it. It’s called Bill Gates, Ted’s Icons.

CH: Okay, I will do so, thank you Clyde.

CB: I think you’ll enjoy that. It’s fascination.

CH: Excellent, thank you. So, yeah, I’ll email Niki and we can talk about maybe next semester if anyone wants to take up the lead and continue with regards to the artist community here and conservation perhaps.

CB: I think that would be really a good thing because it seems like artists have a different way of looking at things and the problem is we got a bunch of lawyers running the country.

CH: Well, yeah, absolutely. Any diverse perspective would be very valuable for the record.

CB: You know the Czech Republic…all their money…the faces on the money are all artists.

CH: Well… do you ever see a time when that will happen here?

CB: I don’t know. Thomas Jefferson was a relative of mine and so I guess that’s, you know [laughing]. I think they like the…the government guys you know, people that save the world who don’t really realize that most of them are destroying the world. Thomas Jefferson is the one that actually started dividing the country up to sell it [laughing]. So, you know. What do you know? It’s interesting. Okay, well I’ve got to go.

CH: Well, thank you ever so much. I appreciate your time. Take care. 21

CB: I hope it was useful. We’ll see you.

CH: Thank you again. Take care, bye bye.

CB: Okay, bye.

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