Swamp. We all pretty much know what a swamp is. Boggy, muddy, wet, stinky, dangerous.
Swamps are lands that are pretty much useless. Can’t do much with it, not a lot to do in it and honestly, they creep us out.
Lately, our Nation’s capital region has been known as the swamp. Well, it is, literally and figuratively. The land that DC is on was once Potomac River swamp land. It was marshy and flooded a lot.
Little know fact, DC has floodgates and a levee system, just like New Orleans, only smaller scaled. Even a Metro stop is called Foggy Bottom.
DC is also known as a swamp for some of the slimy creatures that inhabit it, the fact that governance gets bogged down and the place stinks of corruption.
One thing I noticed after years of living in New Orleans. They could take a swamp area, cover it, fill it in, grade it out and build a beautiful community of houses or shops on top of it. But one thing remained.
The roots. Cypress tree roots. And then trees. Years later, you could tell the communities that were built on swamp land by the cypress trees. They only grow one place. Swamps.
You see, here’s the thing. No matter how much clean fill dirt you brought in, no matter how nice the buildings you built, no matter what fancy southern name they gave it, there were the sentinels of the swamp, the cypress trees. And when it rained, those areas would flood sometimes and yes, you could still smell the swamp at times.
So, you can certainly drain the swamp. You can bust your ass and put everything into it and you may have some success. You may change things.
But in the end, the fact remains, and the so do the original trees. It’s still a swamp underneath.
Do the best you can, but know somethings will never change. You don’t have to drain the swamp, just build over it and move on. Or be the strong cypress tree and survive it.
Lead from the front.
Semper Fortis
Chief Chuck