Page 142 - a-columbia-county-boys-recollections-and-memories-of-columbia-county-florida-(2012)-lenvil-h-dicks

A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

ranch where there was no road, 1 would simply flag trees and bushes where 1 wanted the road to be and
then send the man out there with a bull dozer to clear a sort of narrow right of way and make a sort of
jeep-trail road, and ended up with approximately 1 1 miles of these interior unimproved roads. They
were sufficient to traverse in a Lincoln automobile, and although they were sort of crude, they were all
real good roads. I really used to enjoy making a new road where no road had been before, and that place
was sort of my toy for many, many years.

1 had thought I would never sell that tract of land, and really hated to consider the idea of selling it, but
when the Obama Recession was just beginning 1 realized that I might be wise to convert that tract of
land to money, and I was able to sell it for cash. At the lime 1 sold it, I told my friends that a year after I
had sold it I would either be saying that was the dumber thing I ever did, or that it was the smartest thing
I ever did. As it turned out, it was the smartest thing I ever did due to the fact that I could not sell it
today in the year 2012 for anywhere near what I sold it for almost 3 years ago.

1 try not to let myself look back and regret selling it, but 1 confess that I do miss going out there and
spending a half day just riding around through those woods, or getting in my old two- seater aluminum
boat and going fishing in the lake. However, what is done is done, and 1 have no regrets.

Incidentally, during the time I owned McClellan Lake, there was one occasion when 1 was fishing in the
lake on an extremely windy day, but I discovered that out in the lake there was no wind at all. I was
somewhat surprised at this, and then it dawned on me that the reason there was no wind on the lake was
that the vegetation, trees, bushes, and natural features around the lake were such that the wind could not
penetrate, and therefore acted as a wind screen around the entire lake.

The gentleman I sold the land to has cleared much of the land around the lake now, and built a very nice
home on the south side of the lake. I will have to admit that it does look a lot better than it did when I
had it, but I wonder what he is going to think the first time he wants to go fishing on a windy day.

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