Adrift on a River of Grass

After that outing Podgor was soon a regular at Douglas's Coconut Grove cottage, where Friends of the Everglades, the group she founded in 1969, gathered to talk projects, eat cookies, and sip Scotch. Before long Podgor was the most active and visible Friend. While spearheading the battle to defeat a proposed jetport in the middle of the Everglades, he became a well-regarded authority on drinking water and the Biscayne Aquifer, and a respected environmental gadfly who spent more time at civic meetings and monitoring planning boards than he did at home.

While tending to the daily business of Friends -- education projects, lecturing, political campaigns, a newsletter -- Podgor also represented Douglas. "I took Marjory's agenda and I pushed it," he explains. "I did not invent Marjory Stoneman Douglas, but at a time when she was mostly bedridden and often incommunicado, I kept her a vital environmental force."

His personal life suffered. In fact, he admits, he had no personal life. Nor any money. He tied tarpon flies and traded them for haircuts in the shop below his apartment. He caught fish for dinner. He worked odd jobs: janitor, hobby-shop clerk, musical instrument sales. "I used the barter system," he says. He swapped his expertise on the computer for lessons on the pennywhistle.

"I don't think of myself as a crusader," he insists. "My idea of what I was doing was just trying to get people to do what they say they were doing. If a law calls itself an environmental protection act, let's see if it really does protect the environment."

Podgor takes a breath and neatly sets down his fork. "I'm still trying to drop a little weight," he offers, indicating the wedge of omelet as yet untouched.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas died in May 1998, and the following year Podgor's father passed on. His response to those losses was to withdraw. He stopped reading the newspapers, no longer compulsively tracking every environmental skirmish. Without his Friends of the Everglades post, he lost his seats on various oversight boards. "I was crushed, depressed," he recounts. "I felt like I had walked into a familiar neighborhood, a place I always thought was wonderful, and I got mugged."

Podgor's wallow in the sea of despond lasted for a couple of years. During that time changes took place. The barber shop closed, for example, and was replaced by a fishing-tackle store. Podgor dropped 50 pounds and took a part-time job clerking at a computer store in South Miami-Dade County.

And he picked up the tuba, an instrument he played in marching bands all through Miami Springs Junior High, Hialeah High School, and Penn. With several local buddies Podgor now plays Dixieland in a group called the Springs Jazz Society. "We're not very good yet," he confesses, "but we're making vests, we have straw boaters, and we're auditioning for a local restaurant gig."

In addition to his music, Podgor is edging back into the environmental movement at a critical time, when the eight-billion-dollar Everglades restoration plan is under way and turf wars are breaking out. He sits on the board of the Arthur R. Marshall Foundation, a West Palm Beach-based Everglades group, and has just been named chairman of the Miami Springs ecology board.

He has also met recently with current Friends of the Everglades members to discuss his still-unresolved claims for reimbursement. "We're negotiating," said Juanita Greene, who ended a one-year term as Friends president earlier this month. "We don't think we owe him $18,000, but we'd like to get him back working for Friends. He was one of my teachers, and he is greatly respected. But I know he still harbors some bad feelings."

Indeed Podgor does feel abused by the people he once worked with, though he is still passionate about environmental causes. He is not sure, however, if he wants to reclaim his role as chief publicist for the cause. "I'm a different guy now," he says, laying his fork across a plate now completely clean of omelet. "I've got a life. I have a new gal-pal. I don't want to be the guy always called by the press."

As Coons sweeps up the empty plate and refills the coffee cups, Podgor brushes the lock of hair from his eye. "There's nobody that doesn't like attention," he continues, "but my role may have run its course. I'm a salesman and my job was to sell the world on taking care of the Everglades. For years Marjory was the grand dame, but she wasn't up on everything, and I was her eyes and ears. I was the only guy who did anything. Now there are thousands involved in Everglades restoration. Now they don't need a salesman. They need someone to drive the train."