Thanks for bringing back some great memories Sean. When I was still in high school (1959) my dad was hired by Coleman and Mattie Kelly (who owned the marina and waterfront restaurant) to build a new home back on the bay. It was a five mile ride through scrub pines and not another house in sight on the way there. (They were concerned that things were starting to get toobusy "in town" for their taste.) Their old home place perched on the bluff on the marina side of the bridge overlooking the pass. We enjoyed several lunches with them out on the porch watching the birds and the boats, eating shrimp and salad, and sipping Mattie's ice tea. I went away to college and returned several years later. The world was just beginning to wake up to this extraordinary place. As soon as development started on the then pristine Ono Island, I remember thinking, "One day, this place will look like another Ft. Lauder-dam-dale." I haver often said, "We have ruined all the great places during my lifetime." Well, sho' 'nuf!
I can almost deal with the physical changes in my hometown: it’s the change in its people and their attitudes which is most saddening to me.
Even though we were terribly poor and our family dysfunctional, I was blessed to be born when and where the Lord decided. Something the generation coming up now, I fear, will not be able to say.
Scripture warns us of what lies ahead so we do know. In a way we are in our own Gethsemane and filled with dread especially if tuned in to the news. We have a larger truth to hang onto, the same one Jesus knew as His earthly life was leaving Him. God wins in the end.
Thanks Sean, well described lots of Good byes👋 ! I remember some of good old tims. My first gas fill 46 cents a gallon in Gadsden Alabama.. I recon at time of Gerald Ford!
Oh Lord yes! The beautiful unspoiled Gulf of Mexico coast. I grew up in Baldwin county, Alabama and my grandfather homesteaded 6 miles of the beach where Orange Beach is now. That's 10 percent of the entire Alabama coastline! There were a handful of businesses on ALA 59 between Foley and Gulf Shores. I remember Hazel's Breakfast Nook and Buck's Chicken fried in orange juice (never figured that one out but it was out of this world yummy), a few Mom & Pop 1 story motels and huge sand dunes. Gulf Shores essentially "closed after Labor Day" although a few people still lived there year-old. We didn't know what we had but loved it dearly. Hurricane Frederick changed all that. Now it is a mass of T-shirt stores, Monkey Jungles, giant hotels and condos Dinosaur Golf and people, people, people leaving a "ring around the Guld." I hate it that we can never go back. I wonder in Heaven if you get to "time travel?" Do they have dunes in Heaven?
My grandfather, an Alabamian, LOVED Apalachicola. He taught school there in the early 1920s, a potbellied stove to heat the classroom, and he coached girls' basketball. Nothing like an Apalachicola oyster!
You sure got that right. Fishermen now, the ones I'm in contact with, aren't allowed to harvest oysters for but a little while, shrimping season has been cut severely...shrimp and oyster prices have gone so far upward most people can only buy them on special occasions. If you're lucky enough to have connection to a shrimper, you can get them fresh off the boats. Regulations have ruined the industry. Tourism is a good thing to a certain extent, but only if it's all decent and caring folks, that is not always the case. Beaches are trashed and sometime with stuff nobody would want to pick up. What a shame for people loving the scenery that God gave us to be ruined by who just don't care .,
I don’t either…..except for the love of the memory! And thankful for 40 acres of often seen wildlife and hay in the field around my family’s 1939 farmhouse! (A diamond in the rough)
Cindy, I'm glad my younger days are behind me. I do not envy kids coming up now in this sick world, where not enough "adults" in power care whether school kids are safe from shooters. This will not get better. That ship has sailed. My parents left us a piece of ground, 400 acres. It's peaceful, period. Many good memories of my younger and recent years. We've been fortunate. We are activists doing our part for a better future for others' descendants, as we have no children. WE CARE. We call our reps, we march and we vote.
Happy Sonday yall ! Sean. I feel privileged to have spent several summers in the Destin you remember. I went back to Destin in 1985 and I didn't like it. So I'll stick to Castine it hasnt changed much since I was a boy and thats the way we like it. Gotta feed dogs.
ON THE MARK Sean! I remember that Destin well and miss it, along with most of the 'Emerald Coast'. I still spend lots of time there, but it just ain't the same and like you. I. Just. DON'T KNOW!
I'd like to have seen Destin then. When we first vacationed on Pensacola Beach, it was more like that (although still pretty touristy.) We don't go back there anymore because we can't find what it was or how we felt there. I complain some about how things *don't* change fast enough here in the cornfields, but you've made me a little more grateful for that. Thank you.
Like Laguna Beach in the very early '50s...cows grazing on the dunes and leaving an occasional pie. I would love the solitude the beach brought then, and wouldn't mind where I stepped!
As a small child, I remember standing with my dad on the dunes and looking at cows out in the surf scattered as far as you could see in both directions. (Old timers from an even earlier era later explained that in those days of open range, cows got in the surf to escape dogflies when there was a persistent north wind). As a young adult, I remember eating large numbers of raw oysters scraped from the pilings of the Highway 98 bridge over Destin. I thought they were the best along our Northwest Florida coast. Those days are gone. Now I avoid Destin like the plague.
Nothing I love more than a beautiful beach and listening to the sounds of the surf. But that’s all I do is look and listen. I used to venture in the water but when I found out the U.S. allows cruise ships to dump waste into the ocean, that was it for me! If they are within three and a half miles from shore, it has to be treated. Beyond that, there are no restrictions. I doubt a lot of these fishing fleets are adhering to any of that. After all, who’s watching? I just don’t know.
Thanks for bringing back some great memories Sean. When I was still in high school (1959) my dad was hired by Coleman and Mattie Kelly (who owned the marina and waterfront restaurant) to build a new home back on the bay. It was a five mile ride through scrub pines and not another house in sight on the way there. (They were concerned that things were starting to get toobusy "in town" for their taste.) Their old home place perched on the bluff on the marina side of the bridge overlooking the pass. We enjoyed several lunches with them out on the porch watching the birds and the boats, eating shrimp and salad, and sipping Mattie's ice tea. I went away to college and returned several years later. The world was just beginning to wake up to this extraordinary place. As soon as development started on the then pristine Ono Island, I remember thinking, "One day, this place will look like another Ft. Lauder-dam-dale." I haver often said, "We have ruined all the great places during my lifetime." Well, sho' 'nuf!
I can almost deal with the physical changes in my hometown: it’s the change in its people and their attitudes which is most saddening to me.
Even though we were terribly poor and our family dysfunctional, I was blessed to be born when and where the Lord decided. Something the generation coming up now, I fear, will not be able to say.
Scripture warns us of what lies ahead so we do know. In a way we are in our own Gethsemane and filled with dread especially if tuned in to the news. We have a larger truth to hang onto, the same one Jesus knew as His earthly life was leaving Him. God wins in the end.
Sometimes a simple child’s song can remind us.
Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so;
Humble ones to Him belong;
We are weak, but He is strong.
Beautiful words of life. He’s surely coming soon.
Maranatha
I don't know anymore either, Sean. I. Just. Don't. Know.
Thanks Sean, well described lots of Good byes👋 ! I remember some of good old tims. My first gas fill 46 cents a gallon in Gadsden Alabama.. I recon at time of Gerald Ford!
God bless old timers.
I remember 22 cents a gallon back in 1970. Wow
Oh Lord yes! The beautiful unspoiled Gulf of Mexico coast. I grew up in Baldwin county, Alabama and my grandfather homesteaded 6 miles of the beach where Orange Beach is now. That's 10 percent of the entire Alabama coastline! There were a handful of businesses on ALA 59 between Foley and Gulf Shores. I remember Hazel's Breakfast Nook and Buck's Chicken fried in orange juice (never figured that one out but it was out of this world yummy), a few Mom & Pop 1 story motels and huge sand dunes. Gulf Shores essentially "closed after Labor Day" although a few people still lived there year-old. We didn't know what we had but loved it dearly. Hurricane Frederick changed all that. Now it is a mass of T-shirt stores, Monkey Jungles, giant hotels and condos Dinosaur Golf and people, people, people leaving a "ring around the Guld." I hate it that we can never go back. I wonder in Heaven if you get to "time travel?" Do they have dunes in Heaven?
I LOVE SAND DUNES!
Oh give me a dune,
Where I can go soon,
And the wind can whip through my hair...
Where seldom is heard, a four letter word,
And the skies are more gloomy than fair!
Home, home on my dune,
Where there's nary a person in sight,
And no noise and no trash,
Or folks who are brash,
And I can mellow in peace through the night.
Steve Scott
Sean, I share your sentiments and feel the same way about Apalachicola. I wish the Forgotten Coast had stayed forgotten.
My grandfather, an Alabamian, LOVED Apalachicola. He taught school there in the early 1920s, a potbellied stove to heat the classroom, and he coached girls' basketball. Nothing like an Apalachicola oyster!
You sure got that right. Fishermen now, the ones I'm in contact with, aren't allowed to harvest oysters for but a little while, shrimping season has been cut severely...shrimp and oyster prices have gone so far upward most people can only buy them on special occasions. If you're lucky enough to have connection to a shrimper, you can get them fresh off the boats. Regulations have ruined the industry. Tourism is a good thing to a certain extent, but only if it's all decent and caring folks, that is not always the case. Beaches are trashed and sometime with stuff nobody would want to pick up. What a shame for people loving the scenery that God gave us to be ruined by who just don't care .,
Have tou read Dawn Lee McKenna Forgotten Coast series?
No, I haven’t; but thank you for introducing McKenna to me!
Her books are wonderful. Her main characters live in Apalachicola but go to other places on the panhandle. They are free on Kindle Unlimited. Enjoy!
I don’t either…..except for the love of the memory! And thankful for 40 acres of often seen wildlife and hay in the field around my family’s 1939 farmhouse! (A diamond in the rough)
Cindy, I'm glad my younger days are behind me. I do not envy kids coming up now in this sick world, where not enough "adults" in power care whether school kids are safe from shooters. This will not get better. That ship has sailed. My parents left us a piece of ground, 400 acres. It's peaceful, period. Many good memories of my younger and recent years. We've been fortunate. We are activists doing our part for a better future for others' descendants, as we have no children. WE CARE. We call our reps, we march and we vote.
Spot on Sean, it aint just Destin, the whole Panhandle Coast has turned to fecal matter!
Happy Sonday yall ! Sean. I feel privileged to have spent several summers in the Destin you remember. I went back to Destin in 1985 and I didn't like it. So I'll stick to Castine it hasnt changed much since I was a boy and thats the way we like it. Gotta feed dogs.
Peace
ON THE MARK Sean! I remember that Destin well and miss it, along with most of the 'Emerald Coast'. I still spend lots of time there, but it just ain't the same and like you. I. Just. DON'T KNOW!
Greatly saddened, particularly now, Mitch, that I had to work and could not have met you at that last lunch.
I'd like to have seen Destin then. When we first vacationed on Pensacola Beach, it was more like that (although still pretty touristy.) We don't go back there anymore because we can't find what it was or how we felt there. I complain some about how things *don't* change fast enough here in the cornfields, but you've made me a little more grateful for that. Thank you.
Like Laguna Beach in the very early '50s...cows grazing on the dunes and leaving an occasional pie. I would love the solitude the beach brought then, and wouldn't mind where I stepped!
As a small child, I remember standing with my dad on the dunes and looking at cows out in the surf scattered as far as you could see in both directions. (Old timers from an even earlier era later explained that in those days of open range, cows got in the surf to escape dogflies when there was a persistent north wind). As a young adult, I remember eating large numbers of raw oysters scraped from the pilings of the Highway 98 bridge over Destin. I thought they were the best along our Northwest Florida coast. Those days are gone. Now I avoid Destin like the plague.
Kinda reminds me of the Joni Mitchell song,” they paved paradise and put up a parking lot”. The entire area has been destroyed…no more paradise.
You also described Bear Point, Orange Beach and Gulf Shores in the 50's.
Nothing I love more than a beautiful beach and listening to the sounds of the surf. But that’s all I do is look and listen. I used to venture in the water but when I found out the U.S. allows cruise ships to dump waste into the ocean, that was it for me! If they are within three and a half miles from shore, it has to be treated. Beyond that, there are no restrictions. I doubt a lot of these fishing fleets are adhering to any of that. After all, who’s watching? I just don’t know.
❤️💕