Editor's note: Watch WGCU's local documentary Swamp Buggy Fever! airing on Jan. 22 at 8:30 p.m. on WGCU TV and wgcu.org.
The swamp buggy that Ray Carroll continues to drive was crafted into fruition in 1953, the year before the Naples resident was born.
“I'm still using it, and will until one of us breaks,” said Ray Carroll, with a laugh.
His grandfather, Ernie Carroll, created the buggy and called it, Mr. Pogo.
Pogo was named for a comic strip popular in the mid-century, when swamp buggy fever hit Naples. Settlers crafted buggies so they could explore the Everglades without getting stuck. Ray Carroll's grandfathers took him on their buggies for hunting trips.
“As a boy of 9 or 10 years old, that was a wonderful thing to do, to be with your grandfathers and to play with them,” he recalled.
Cindy Carroll, one of Ray's younger sisters, didn’t like being left behind.
“I grew up between two brothers, and I thought the things that they were doing were far more interesting than the things that the women were doing,” said Cindy Carroll.
The Carroll's trace their roots in the region to the 1890s. When Cindy and Ray were children, Naples was a small town. Each year, more people discovered it as their paradise.
“And for me personally, it was an achievement. OK? The boys, the men did this. I found out that I was fairly competent. Anything you do that's new, and you feel like you're just in sync with it. And you go, damn, I can, I can do this.”Cindy Carroll
“The Naples that I grew up in is almost gone now. When your family's been here 125 years, it's a little hard to be patient sometimes, because you've had to live with so much change and find the good in it,” said Ray Carroll.
Swamp buggies connect the siblings to their memories and what this region used to look like.
“If you lose that connection to the land, I don't know that you can go get back again,” said Cindy Carroll, “so I don't want to have to figure that out.”
In the 1990s, Ray Carroll and some family and friends bought private property within the Fakahatchee Strand.
“As soon as we got the first piece, we had the right to go to and from it, and that preserved our swamp buggy ride. And that location is within a mile of where I camped most often with my grandfathers when I was in the woods.”
But Ray's buggy, Mr. Pogo, could only carry so much.
Cindy decided to buy a buggy of her own: Growlin’ Gertie.
“That's because when you listen to her gears, they growl,” Cindy Carroll said.
“And for me personally, it was an achievement. OK? The boys, the men did this. I found out that I was fairly competent. Anything you do that's new, and you feel like you're just in sync with it. And you go, damn, I can, I can do this.”
Mr. Pogo is more than a machine for Ray Carroll too.
"Owning and operating the swamp buggy, and especially doing it in on country that is almost identical to what I remember, helps me remember who I think I am.”
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