I think that I shall never see, a poem as lovely as a tree hugger
Image courtesy of Del Stone Jr.
Got lots of interesting feedback from last week’s epistle about trees.
Okaloosa planning manager Pat Blackshear agreed that tree preservation is a good thing and said the county is trying to stop the kind of thing that happened on Racetrack Road from happening again. Good luck, Pat.
Another reader sent a clipping: Toyota is developing an experimental tree that eats a higher percentage of the toxic gack emitted by cars. They want to plant these tress along Japan’s highways to soak up more CO2.
Gayle Melich of Niceville sent an ad that appeared in The New Yorker for the New Hampshire Office of Travel and Tourism Development. It read: “More than 6,000 miles of pathways and not one drop of cement.” Now there’s a sentiment to rattle the tar vendors along the Asphalt Coast.
[ Oh, joy, oh rapture. More growth ]
And a Navarre reader suggested the following remediations:
1. Tree ordinances.
2. Reward businesses that build on previously developed property (like Office Maxx).
3. Increase fees for clearing land.
4. Step up educational efforts.
5. The Daily News could place newspaper recycling bins in elementary schools and reward those schools that collect the most paper.
Speaking of trees, the National Arbor Day Foundation has a booklet out called “What Tree Is That?” It’s a pocket guide for identifying trees.
Everybody’s talking about a convention center on Okaloosa Island.
Politicians. Tourism officials. Island businessman.
Kelly Humphrey, in a May 31 MoneySense article, quoted Ramada Beach Resort GM Werner Brielmayer as saying, “We’re building a convention center here,” and the Florida Legislature even passed a law providing bed tax money for a convention center.
Sounds like it’s a done deal, except for one teensy, weensy problem.
Last time county commissioners brought up the subject, angry mobs turned out to give ’em hell (way to go, Joe!). Since then, readers have been calling, writing and e-mailing me to say:
We don’t want a convention center. We don’t want the congestion. We don’t want the pollution. We don’t want the traffic.
And we sure as heck don’t want the bill.
What’s next? Will the CRA, which has had more stakes pounded through its heart than Dracula, be pushing for a parallel bridge to relieve all the convention center road crowding? Don’t laugh. It could happen.
People have said they don’t want this thing. Is it the money that’s talking now?
Got a tongue-in-cheek letter from a Mystery Author about surly babies in public places.
This person equated the defense of misbehaving kiddies with the crucifixion of smokers who light up in public.
At the end of his letter, Mystery Author warned that next time he sees a kid acting up in public and Mommy or Daddy doesn’t do something about it, he’ll give the kid a cigarette!
Better watch out, Mystery Author! You’ll have the ATF and the CF at your door. Maybe even the CRA!
This column was originally published in the June 24, 1998 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
A Florida live oak at Eden Gardens State Park in Point Washington. Image courtesy of Del Stone Jr.
A wooded lot on Racetrack Road was recently cleared. A business was gained, and a couple of hundred trees were lost.
But that’s not the whole story.
A bit of smog control disappeared into the woodpile. Trees help filter pollutants from the air, which is why big cities across America are planting more and more trees within their limits. We don’t have smoke-belching factories here in Northwest Florida, but we do have cars, and cars emit pollution. Trees help clean that up.
Save a little slice of Fort Walton Beach.
The neighborhood will be a little hotter, too. Trees help regulate those torrid afternoon high temperatures by giving off water vapor through their leaves when exposed to that harsh Florida sun. And they provide shade. Now, the sun will beat down on buildings and bare ground.
Next time it rains, more soil will wash into storm drains, not just from the cleared lot but also from surrounding property. Trees help slow the velocity of raindrops, which means they cause less damage when they strike the ground. Tree roots help keep the soil in place, which slows the velocity of the water draining from the land. Now it’s more likely that after the flash showers we have around here, a torrent, not a trickle, will rush across the land.
The neighborhood will be a little noisier, too. A thick border of trees provides terrific sound insulation from the lovely clamor of tires screeching and horns honking along Racetrack Road. Now, the tumult will reach back to the businesses and families that sit on the back streets.
Northwest Florida’s natural beauty is only a pale shadow of what it once was.
The wind will blow stronger through that stretch of land. Without trees to moderate the movement of air, any of the soil left over from the gullywashers will be gone with the wind. Drivers doing the Beal Parkway Crawl past the Wal-Mart site last Saturday can tell you what that looks like: clouds of throat-parching dust sweeping across four lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic.
And of course, a tiny oasis of life was bulldozed into history. No doubt birds and small animals inhabited that tract of woods.
And I imagine a kid or two used it to conduct imaginary explorations or Indiana Jones-style escapes into faraway lands. Every day, more places where kids are able to play and flex their minds are cut down, fenced off and built over.
I prefer change that benefits us all.
When those trees came down, a tiny percentage of carbon- and water-fixing was lost, and a tiny percentage of greenhouse gases was introduced to the atmosphere. Whether man or nature is to blame for global warming, trees help keep it in check, and this batch of trees is now lost to the cause.
It was only a small tract of land, but as you can see, it was a lot more. It was a part of an amazing machine, one that we know needs to be looked after, but don’t seem to care about.
And while this plot of land by itself won’t make any difference in the way things go, when you put all the plots of land together, you see something very big, very important, and something that will make a huge difference.
That’s the story.
This column was published in the Wednesday, June 17, 1998 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of Del Stone Jr.
When you’re next at a bookstore or newsstand, be sure to pick up the premiere issue of Vent magazine.
Vent is published by Marta Randall, who is the wife of somebody you probably know: Rush Limbaugh.
What you don’t know is that a couple of Daily News journalists contributed to Marta’s magazine.
Managing Editor Debbie Lord and Staff Writer Wendy Victora both published multiple short articles in Vent’s fledgling issue.
Before you trouble yourself to look, be aware the stories have no bylines. And I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember which ones Debbie and Wendy wrote – if I ask, they’ll become suspicious, glom on to the fact I’m writing about their impressive accomplishment in my column, and threaten me with physical harm. (They’re needlessly modest, but they do pack a wallop.)
Sp pick up your copy of Vent. Try to guess who wrote what. And bring your copy by for an autograph – they’ll blush to their roots.
—
Recently I wrote about my good fortune to ride from Panama City to Crestview aboard the B-24 All American, restored and operated by the Collings Foundation. The trip provided me with an unexpected windfall.
As I was describing the flight to my bowling pals, one fellow, Chuck Patterson, asked if I had any photos of that airplane.
Did I have photos? Does Disney World have rides?
I brought Chuck a picture of the Liberator, and the next week he returned it – with an absolutely beautiful pencil-drawn version. He also showed me his portfolio – it is crammed with fantastic, photo-realistic renderings of aircraft from different wars and different eras.
Chuck is also a modest fellow. He keeps these drawings to himself. I think they’re worthy of a showing, or of sale, but he produces them pretty much for his family and friends.
But if you’re a fan of aviation art, you need to check out the work of this talented artist.
—
I was more amazed than amused by the piece in Sunday’s Commentary section that took news outlets to task for overhyping all the spree shootings at schools.
The column, by Vincent Shiraldi, director of a research institute in Washington, D.C. (now THERE is a hotbed of clear-thinking), lambasted news organizations for creating a false impression that these shootings constituted a trend. He said that media reports were overblown, and that stories about the shootings indirectly contributed to bad laws and more shootings. Juvenile murder rates are down, Shiraldi pointed out.
Gosh.
While it may be true that juvenile murder rates are down, it is also true that when an individual – be it a child, teenager or adult – shoots and kills four people and wounds dozens of others, no matter where it happens, IT’S NEWS. It’s worthy of coverage. And it deserves exactly the kind of coverage the Oregon shootings received.
Also, when something this heinous and bizarre happens – four, five, six times in a short period of time – it can safely be called a “trend.”
To blame bad laws and copycat crimes on the messenger is to say, in effect, that people are too stupid to sort things out for themselves. Better let the think tanks handle the thinking.
I don’t think so.
This column was originally published in the June 3, 1998 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .