Northwest Florida’s natural beauty is only a pale shadow of what it once was

Image courtesy of Del Stone Jr.

I don’t know that I’ve ever written a cross word about Peter Bos. I’m not about to start now.

He’s a businessman, and a pretty good one at that. He’s doing what businessmen do –  making money. He has made his money within the confines of the law, which is more than you can say about some of our politicians.

But when I heard about Legendary’s new nine-story “Baby Grande” development coming to Destin, I became angry – not with Mr. Bos, because again, he is simply doing what businessmen do. I hate what has happened to our community. Many of you can’t know what it was like because you weren’t here. I was. You’ll have to take my word for it when I say we’ve lost a priceless resource:

Innocence.

Destin has long since been dead. That goofy little fishing village I knew from the 1950s and ’60s ceased to exist sometime in the 1980s. The Museum of Sea and Indian, tourist traps selling baby alligators by the roadside, raw oysters tonged out of the bay that morning – all those things are gone. So are the miles and miles of beaches, clean water, snorkeling for scallops and beach bonfires and pompano big as hubcaps cruising the sandbars for sand fleas – they’re either gone or you can’t get to them because a wall of rich people and condos and big money stands in the way.

It’s too bad Eglin doesn’t give guided tours of Okaloosa Island because you need to see what the whole of the Emerald Coast looked like back then. I mean to tell you, it was beautiful. Plants grew in that white sand you couldn’t find anywhere else in the world. Animals lived there, groomed by natural selection to exist nowhere else. The smell was unique — a sharp, pine-like scent mixed with salt spray and something else, maybe the empty miles across the Gulf of Mexico.

Back then, we knew it would disappear. We knew it would be discovered, and outsiders would come in with their money and cement mixers, and all would be lost. We didn’t do anything about it, and I’m not sure why. Maybe we believed our leaders would protect our interests and keep that from happening. How could we have been so naïve?

Recently the Air Force said no to a bunch of different routes for an alternate bridge to Okaloosa Island. The Florida Department of Transportation is still trying to “fix” the traffic on U.S. Highway 98, especially the stretch through downtown Fort Walton Beach and Brooks Bridge. A second bridge was among the possible cures.

A second bridge wouldn’t fix anything. You could build a dozen bridges to Okaloosa Island – and six-lane highways, tunnels, double-decker roadways – and they wouldn’t fix anything either, because we’ve overbuilt and there’s no more room left. Every aspect of our infrastructure will be popping rivets and straining at the seams to accommodate the people.

“Baby Grande” isn’t threatening the environment because the land it sits on has already been built out. What it will do is make the roads more crowded, the restaurant lines longer, the beaches more congested, and life in general just a tiny bit more difficult for those of us who call this place home.

Destin City Councilman Chatham Morgan called it a “monstrosity” and asked, “When is enough, enough?” Apparently the answer to that question is when the land and sea are no longer available, the sky goes on the market.

So we’ve lost many of the things that made this place special. What we got in return was higher costs, congestion, and ugliness. I don’t care how beautiful the building, when it’s sitting on a plot of land that was unique and irreplaceable, well, that’s ugly.

I reiterate – I am not criticizing Mr. Bos. He has done nothing wrong.

Truth is, I’m not sure who I’m mad at. Short-sighted leaders of yesteryear? Human nature? Fate?

Or maybe just the failure to figure out a better way to make a buck than unrestrained growth. If unrestrained growth is so great, why do we spend so much time and money trying to beat cancer?

Ah well. Too late now. I’m just baying at the moon.

What little moon I can see between the towers.

This column was originally published in the May 15, 2016 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is reused 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 .