River of the Golden Ibis

Gloria Jahoda:

To numbers of Americans far from Florida, Hillsborough River and Tampa Bay country are also heaven: a heaven to be strived for, a distant goal. As heaven, the river and the bay bear an awesome responsibility. They draw a wide American cross-section, and so they affect much more of America than their mileage or even their winter fruits and vegetables which America savors would indicate. The story of river and bay is the story of what heaven is really like, how it got that way, and whether it has lived up to its reputation -- if, indeed, a landscape must bear the onus of human dreams.

Also she writes: The map of Tampa Bay fifty years ago is never quite the map of now.