-- By Tom PhillipsIt wasn't on my bucket list, but it should have been. The Okefenokee Swamp was a part of my childhood -- I felt I knew the place, though I had only a dim idea of where it was, until we passed right by it last week, driving from Jacksonville to a small college in south Georgia, where a friend was running a writers' workshop. By the side of US Highway One was a sign pointing to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. So we had to go.
I knew it from my childhood because Okefenokee was the cartoon home of Pogo Possum, Albert the Alligator, a feather-brained pontificating Owl, a Porky-pine, and a turtle named Churchy la Femme, all characters in a comic strip that was politically over my head, but had humor enough for a smart 12-year-old.
