Fringe Florida: Travels Among Mud Boggers, Furries, Ufologists, Nudists, and Other Lovers of Unconventional Lifestyles (23 page)

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paper, we are going to take your commands in a minute,” he says, grin-

ning deviously as he glances over at his pony.

Eager to participate and see if Sherifox is indeed channeling an in-

ner pony, I concentrate on coming up with a command.

He goes on to explain more about pony play, the psychological bond

and such. “I have a high bar, but there is no right way or wrong way to

play,” Foxy says.

I write “JUMP” on a blank page of my notebook; human ponies do

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compete in steeplechases. It doesn’t cross my mind that Sherifox would

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be blindfolded and jumping might be difficult.

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“It doesn’t matter whether you do it in the living room or on 100

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acres in the woods,” Foxy goes on. Of course, public play is better.

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“We’ve been in Central Park in New York City introducing pony play to

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people. Now that’s as good as it gets.”

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He blindfolds Sherifox. He’s going to show the audience just how

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well he’s trained his little show pony. “Those of you with a paper will

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you please hold them up.”

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I lift mine high like a kid in class excited to know an answer. Then

I look around the room. All the other commands are plants, predeter-

mined by the pony pair. Clearly Foxy had passed them out earlier while

I was caught up in furry world.

The snickers from the audience are not my imagination. I want to

disappear inside one of the furry costumes. Foxy shakes his head.

“We’ll see about that one,” he says.

He puts his blindfolded pony through the other commands using a

subtle movement of the reins and an occasional light tap of his crop.

Without error—or even much hesitation—she canters, bows and gal-

lops to pony play perfection.

Being a sadist, Foxy can’t pass up honoring my command. It would

be an act of mercy to Sherifox and me. He spreads apart a couple of

orange traffic cones and balances a thin pole across the tops.

The headstrong pony is restless and snorting. This deviation from

routine is unexpected and unwelcome. I think she’s knows it was my

instruction. Could the blindfold have holes?

Positioned at the makeshift hurdle, Foxy taps behind one of

Sherifox’s legs with his crop. She lifts her knee and he taps her leg for-

ward. She hops and knocks the pole off-balance. It clatters loudly on

the concrete floor. proof

I want to vanish, but the exit is across the room, a room now so quiet

in tense anticipation that everyone can hear Sherifox’s heavy, horsey

breaths.

After a couple more false starts, she step-hops over, a little sideways,

but without knocking off the pole. Foxy, being a stickler for proper

pony form, apparently thinks she can do better. He leads his pony

around and lines her up for another.

She comes straight at the hurdle, but at the last moment her foot

touches it. She tries to retreat as the pole falls but tangles in it. She

loses her balance, and goes down hard, taking out an orange pylon.

A couple of people run out to help her up while the rest of us collec-

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tively hold our breath in fear that the ponygirl is injured. She dramati-

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cally rips off her blindfold, and her face is bright red. Foxy whispers

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something in her ear, and she snaps her head up and glowers at me,

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the interloper to this human menagerie. Caught up in their pony play

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drama, I cringe in humiliation and fear, yes, fear that this wild-eyed

pony might just come over and belt me with her hoof.

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The killer whale gives the author a big furry hug while his mate, Dolphin John,

and pet, Dragon Takumori, look on. To the right, Ponygroom Tim adjusts Ponygirl

Lyndsey’s bridle. Photo by Lori Ballard.

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Instead she turns and hobbles off with Foxy to their corner table.

Afterward, I muster the courage to face them and formally apologize.

Sherifox turns her back. Foxy, in his folksy way, says it’s OK. He indi-

cates he doesn’t think Sherifox’s accident is my fault, but doesn’t say it

within earshot of his angry pony—that would mean accepting some of

the blame. Their relationship depends on total trust, and I worry that

my ignorance combined with his pride wounded hers. I slink away like

a whipped pup.

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Across the dungeon, Dennis has transformed into Naketa Orcan, a

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black-and-white killer whale. He’s wrapping his furry arms around any-

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one within reach, which soon includes me. It feels like being hugged by

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a giant plush toy, and I almost forget that there’s a man inside and that

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we’re standing in an S&M dungeon. The comforting embrace is wel-

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come after the pony mishap and triggers childhood teddy bear memo-

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ries. For an instant, Wonderland doesn’t feel so kinky.

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Radical Rednecks

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It’s Saturday at 9:00 a.m., and the dusty farm road is solid muddy-

bumper-to-muddy-bumper. My husband, James, and I idle in our Honda

CVR, squeezed between dual-wheel pickups towing even larger vehi-

cles. Stereos boom an odd mixture of bass-thumping rap and country

twang. The toxic smell of diesel exhaust hangs in the air.

Somewhere in the distance is the entrance to the Redneck Yacht

Club, an 800-acre mud park. A friendly guy in the next pickup says it’s

at least an hour’s wait to reach the gate. “They have to search every-

body’s vehicle,” he says.

Signs along the road lay out the park laws: No firearms, no glass, no

pets, no underage drinking, no illegal drugs, no burning of tires, and

no chain saws.

Given that everyone around us is chugging beer for breakfast, the

reason for the prohibitions is fairly obvious, although you have to won-

der how many people have brought in a gas-powered saw for it to make

the list. Nothing like a drunk, pissed-off redneck wielding a chain saw

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to kill a good beer buzz.

The Redneck Yacht Club, twenty miles inland from Punta Gorda, al-

lows mud lovers to camp overnight and haul in RVs, tents, grills, food,

furniture, and all the canned beer and plastic bottles of liquor they can

carry. Trucks and swamp buggies are loaded with oversized coolers,

some multiple, and one buggy has a full-sized refrigerator in back.

No beer for us, yet. But an earlier pot of coffee forces me to join the

pilgrimage of beer drinkers walking along the road en route to distant

Port-o-Lets. The portable toilets are so rank that a girl comes out gag-

ging. Some things can’t wait. I hold my nose.

As mud parks go, the Redneck Yacht Club is luxurious. Matt Steele,

whose production company videotapes and hosts event parks all over

the world, sold me on a visit to the park. “It’s the most elaborate place

in the country. If that’s the only one you ever go to, it will spoil you.”

Matt’s Orlando-based company is hosting the event today, and his

crew’s footage will undoubtedly make it into another DVD in his series

called
Trucks
Gone
Wild
, porn for mudders.

Matt also hosts
Truck
U
on the Speed cable channel. The fact that he

can make a living chronicling mudding is a testament to the popularity

of the backwoods culture. His home base in central Florida speaks to

its prominence in the state. Florida has ten mud parks, and counting.

“A lot of it has to do with weather and the fact you can do it year-

proof

round,” Matt says of why mudding is so big here. “A lot of states might

have one or two parks. But here in Florida there are probably two

events a month within an hour’s drive.”

Local newspapers report that the Redneck Yacht Club draws as

many twenty-two thousand in one day. The park’s owner, Danny Kelly,

says rednecks tend to exaggerate. The max has actually been around

five thousand. This particular November weekend is expected to draw

the largest crowd to date.

Dozens of mud lovers were so eager to get inside that they camped

outside the park’s gate Thursday night for the Friday-morning opening.

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A truckload of young revelers from Okeechobee, about 80 miles

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east, lament that they couldn’t make it until the weekend. They are

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towing a mud-caked swamp buggy—a flat-bed, open-air vehicle with

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giant tires that sits high enough above the ground to keep passengers’

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feet from getting muddy. Swamp buggies are Florida’s unique contribu-

ida

tion to the world of modern transportation.

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This one is being trailered by a pickup so tall that I can barely see

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them through its open windows. The twenty-two-year-old driver

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sporting a rumpled straw cowboy hat shouts over the truck’s rumbling

engine, “We like to hunt deer and hogs, ma’am,” he says, explaining the

primary use of his buggy. “We use curs and pit bulls.”

No dogs today. Instead they have a couple of giggly young women

along for a ride who don’t seem the least offended by the guys’ blunt

honesty about why they are here.

“I like the titties,” says a guy in the backseat, referring to women

who flash their boobs at passing revelers.

Another chimes in, “I jus’ like getting drunk.”

For as little as forty dollars per person, mud lovers can spend three

days and two nights in the woods, drink as much as they want, swim

in muddy ponds, and run around nearly butt-naked. Some equip their

buggies with stripper poles and hold amateur contests.

Partying aside, off-roaders have few other options if they want to

play in the mud. Most south Florida prairies are fenced and farmed.

Wetlands are protected. Neither the Park Service nor farmers take

kindly to vehicles cutting through boggy fields, leaving a trail like a

backhoe.

Danny Kelly, the owner of this mud lover’s dream, knows far too well

the plight that young boggers face in finding a place to churn up mud. A

self-professed redneck and third-generation Floridian, Danny and his

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four-wheel drives were chased out of many a field when he was growing

up.

His grandfather was a farmer who built his own swamp buggy.

Danny is so proud of this that he e-mails me an old photo showing him

and a horde of other grandkids gathered around the contraption that

looks like a combination of an old pickup, tractor, and small barge.

Danny always dreamed of opening a park where man, mud, and ma-

chine could mix with abandon. After making a small fortune through

his marine construction business in Fort Myers, he turned the family

potato farm into just that.

He says he spent $1 million and more than two years developing

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the park. He built miles of fences and roads, drilled wells, flooded

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fields, and put in bridges and dams. He created mud pits, a man-made

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silt-bottom stream, a muddy racetrack, and trails that snake through

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thickets of longleaf pines. For overnighters, he added a huge stage and

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campsites. Recognizing that someone might get seriously hurt, he put

in two emergency helicopter pads.

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Redneck Royalty

My husband, a central Florida city boy, doesn’t quite get the appeal

of mudding but is adventurous enough to try. Being a north Alabama

farm girl, I have a little red clay mud in my veins. I’ve four-wheeled

over hills and through muddy creeks just enough to get a taste of the

adrenaline rush. Unlike a roller coaster, where the experience is always

the same (and you know you’ll survive), no two off-roading challenges

are alike. There’s always a chance that something will go wrong, that

you will get stuck or, worse, topple over. When the tires sink into the

mud, the vehicle becomes an extension of your body. You’re on edge,

pressing your feet on the floor as if that will help give you traction.

The engine roars, and you let out a primal yell. Smoke comes off the