At least the hurricane wasn’t named ‘Monica’

Image courtesy of NOAA.

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As the dark clouds and the muddy waters swirl, let us pause to express our gratitude.

It could have been worse. Much worse.

The hurricane could have been named “Monica,” leaving bashful journalists deprived of verbs. How do you describe a windstorm without using the word “blow”?

Ah, but there’s no sexual connotation to that word – not according to the Clintonites, who want to move along because they’re “tired” of hearing about the lies/scandals/hypocrisy. Once again, the flatulent, huffing-their-own-gases segment of the population votes with its comfort level.

Not so for the shell-shocked denizens of the Gulf Coast, who remain glassy-eyed from the near-continuous barrage of hurricane coverage. I should be more grateful, but my eyes are still rolling in the sockets, following the leathery hand of The Weather Channel’s John Hope as he traces swirly motions over the infrared/radar/satellite image of what could be a hurricane or could be the White House after hours. It’s all a disaster looking.

Once Georges lurched ashore, it dropped brimming buckets of rain, creating an instant market for anybody who knows how to fix a leaky roof … or refloat a house.

FEMA knows how to refloat a house, especially if it’s a mansion build on a sandbar. They’ve been doing it for years, and guess whose pockets they pluck to do it. I’ll bet if the FEMA boys dug through their files, they could find a policy for Atlantis.

If the FEMAtics really want to help, give every man, woman and child in Northwest Florida his own liquor license. I’m feeling empowered already!

But I doubt the feds will cooperate. Instead, we’ll get McCarthy-era macaroni, forms in triplicate to jam under the doors, and a visit from a high-ranking official, maybe even Linda Tripp!

So let’s look on the private-sector bright side: The trend is downward for hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, as reported in the July 23 Daily News in a story about GLOBAL WARMING. Maybe storms Charley, Early, Francis and Georges didn’t catch that part. They got to the words GLOBAL WARMING and tuned out, the way MONICA LEWINSKY affects the fashionably flawed.

But let’s not carp about GLOBAL WARMING. It’s been debunked by editorial writers everywhere, same as the infamous OZONE HOLE. Except the ozone hole is real. Oops.

Nevertheless, be of good cheer. The wet got wetter, but with luck we won’t be one of them, and even if we are, the benevolent hand of somebody – the media, the government, maybe President Bill himself – will lift us up, or at least tell us they did.

And that’s what matters: the appearance, not the substance, of a thing.

So don’t worry. When Hurricane Monica forms, it won’t come into the gulf. And if it does, macaroni is only a stack of forms in triplicate away!

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, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .

Image courtesy of Freepik.

If this column leaves you steaming, don’t call me to complain.

I’m not here. In fact, I’m on vacation. I intentionally waited until I was far, far away before publishing this column, because I am a gutless weenie. You’ll see why.

This week, my complaint is with bad driver. Not just any old bad driver.

I’ve been driving since 1972 (often through hip-deep snow … your parents have told you about it). And I’ve driven everywhere, from the eight-lane shooting galleries of Los Angeles to the perilous, two lane left-side-of-the-road back roads of the Bahamas.

With all this experience, you’d think I’d have a pretty good idea of who can handle a vehicle and who can’t. Actually, I do.

Most people would single out elderly drivers, or teen-age boys, as the most serious road menaces.

It’s true that elderly people sometimes create hazardous driving conditions because they can’t see as well, or react as quickly, as we younger folks.

And yes, teen-age boys with access to a healthy dose of cubic inches under the hood present a serious hazard to other drivers’ existence.

But a far greater threat exists. That threat is:

The single white female, aged 18 to 22.

All my observations tell me that this group of drivers is the most seriously deficient in driving skills and judgment. Come upon an accident and chances are, a single white female, aged 18 to 22, will have been involved.

The single white female usually drives a compact imported car, like a Nissan, a Toyota or a Honda, “drive” being a figurative word – the single white female whips the dickens out of those hapless four-cylinder beasts. What began its mechanical life as a sedate econobox becomes a ragged-out Indy racer under the well-muscled gas-pedal foot of the single white female.

They blast away from stoplights as if the clearance sale at The Gap were in its dying moments, and screech to a stop at the next light as if they’d spotted a pair of Wayfarers lying in the road.

They do this rain or shine, because the single white female has no comprehension of the laws of physics. “Why can’t I tailgate the car ahead of me at 40 mph in a driving rainstorm?” she asks. “Friction? What’s that?”

But of course, they never see any of these things happening, because they are too busy (a) applying makeup as they fly down Eglin Parkway at 58 mph, (b) blabbing on cellular telephones as they apply makeup with the other hand and steer with their elbows, and (c) yanking strands of hair from their cell phones and makeup applicators.

OK, so 90 percent of this is exaggeration, and 8 percent is just me trying to aggravate a heretofore neglected segment of the population. Still, there’s that 2 percent of truth. …

The solution to this problem is simple: Require all girls of this age group to drive Geo Metros, or Ford Aspires. Don’t give them any real horsepower until they’re a cranky old geezer like me.

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, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .

Image courtesy of Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bill_Clinton_by_Gage_Skidmore_(1).jpg

Like many of you, I watched television Monday night as President Clinton admitted to the nation that he is a liar.

Unlike many of you, I am not ready to forgive and move along.

I have not written about any of this sorry business with the president because I have not felt qualified to do so – every pundit and politician in the country has expressed an opinion on the subject, and who cares what I think?

But Monday night, the president made me mad. He’s lied in the past and asked for forgiveness. Once bitten, twice shy, I say.

The heart of this issue is leadership, an elusive creature that must be groomed before it is ridden. You lead by earning the trust and respect of your subordinates, who follow you because they want to follow you.

Leadership cannot be inherited, legislated or mandated. It is a natural outgrowth of honesty and character.

We have all experienced poor leadership. The person in charge uses a different set of standards for himself than he does for everyone else. He “misleads” people. He demands respect but does not give it.

Similarly, we have all experienced good leadership. The person in charge works just as hard as everyone else. He gives himself no special treatment. He tells it like it is.

Which person would you trust? Which person would you follow?

I cannot trust a man who has no self-restraint. Nor can I trust a man who lies.

And I cannot follow a man I don’t trust.

I suspect a great many people feel the same way. Americans are lambasted for making demands of their president they would not make of themselves. The president is human, Americans are told. The president makes mistakes.

Well, yes and no.

While it is true the president is a human being, he‘s a very special human being. He’s the leader of our country. He inspires us through his example, and helps set the tone of our way of life. We hire him to be better than we are.

He leads.

It is sad enough that our president cheated on his wife and lied about it under oath (which, by the way, is a crime).

But he has the gall to attack those who exposed his lies, and to demand that we forget about the whole thing and move on?

I won’t vouch for the objectivity of the special prosecutor’s investigation, but Clinton insults us. He insults the office. He insults the people who are struggling to maintain a semblance of decency in the way we live.

When Clinton made the decision to run for office, he consciously accepted the risks, the demands, and the unfairness of public life.

And when Clinton made the decision to engage in an illicit affair, and then when he made the decision to lie about it during testimony, he was influenced by nothing other than his lack of character, and conscience.

Is this the kind of person you’d follow?

If so, we have a bigger problem than a liar for a president.

This column was published in the Northwest Florida Daily News on Aug. 19, 1998 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, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .

The author poses with a scrub jay in this photo that was taken in the 1970s during a Stone family vacation. Image courtesy of Delmar S. Stone Sr.

Every time I speak against the rising swell of pollution, congestion and destruction that is overwhelming the Asphalt Coast, quivering snouts emerge from the quagmire to squeal for pearls.

“Show us the numbers,” they demand, and then they cast forth their own numbers – of new slave-labor jobs created, of new taco-burger-pizza stands thrown together, of cubic yards of earth scabbed by asphalt, as if these cold calculations were the sum of all things.

Thank God they are not.

In reality, the finest things are those which cannot be enumerated by the appraiser’s cool eye: beauty, serenity, peace of mind.

These are priceless, and to demand that a monetary value be stamped upon them, as if they were plastic widgets fished from the clearance bin at a discount store, is to murder them all the other intangibles that make life worth living.

A bird, for instance. In central Florida, you stroll through oak hammocks and bird called a scrub jay will swoop down and perch on your hand and look you in the eye.

Wild birds that are unafraid of man. Isn’t that something?

Scrub jays are close to extinction now, because the oak hammocks have been paved over with strip shopping centers to house more out-of-business video stores.

Is it so all-fired important that you be able to rent “Naked Bimbos from Uranus” at every street corner? Is a video store worth the loss of a bird?

Or a fish – have you seen the water froth as feeding blues slash through schools of frenzied alewife, a scene bathed in the ruddy glow of a distant thunderstorm illuminated by the sailor’s delight of a setting sun?

Now, the murky water carries an oily sheen, and the froth is caused by personal watercraft screaming across its surface.

How much does a fish cost? How much does a pretty scene fetch on the open market?

What is the price of silence? I’ve stood in the forest, where you can hear the nodding of trees, the clouds sailing overhead, the ocean of air. This is the sound of sanity, where dreams are born. How much do you pay for your dreams?

To the privileged few, these things are no more important than what they can be sold for. Such are the wages of “growth.” If it puts money in their pockets it’s good, even if it takes away from everything else.

Most people would call that arrogance. We don’t need arrogance.

What we do need is a less practical but more useful emotion.

On cloudless nights I have gone out and looked up and understood without a word that I am a small thing in a very big universe. The humility is like coming home.

That’s what we need.

To understand the only true measure of prosperity is happiness. Any person, or any thing, which measures its prosperity by “growth” is doomed.

Zelda Fitzgerald said that no one, not even poets, has measured how much a heart can hold.

Yet the squealing for pearls goes on.

How awful, that these shallow and dreamless creatures would rule the world.

This column was originally published in the Northwest Florida Daily News on May 6, 1998 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 .

Life goes on, even when it has nowhere to go.

Last Tuesday was a dog day to be sure. The heat pressed down on Racetrack Road in shimmering waves that seemed to liquefy the asphalt, and torrid devils of oxygen-starved wind trailed the cars, trucks and vans making their way from one side of town to the other.

At the west entrance ramp to the parking lot at Choctawhatchee High School, four tiny birds stood on the baking concrete, pondering a dilemma:

How to get across the road.

They were no bigger than sandpipers, with pipe-straw legs and tweezer-like beaks and sequined black eyes. They stood in tight formation.

Across the road, on the curb of the median, stood a single, larger version of the tiny birds. A killdeer.

The tableau became evident: Mother bird, separated from her babies by two lanes of traffic, wanted them to follow her across. For whatever reason, they hadn’t done that.

The killdeer is not a small bird. It grows to about 10 inches in length. A favorite of farmers, it lives off the bugs that ruin crops, and is protected by game laws.

Racetrack was uncharacteristically empty. But in the distance, at the traffic light in front of the school, a pack of cars waited, engines racing.

He tiny birds darted into the road, their tiny legs working comically. They stopped about halfway across and stared indecisively. After an agonizing moment, they turned and scurried back.

The light in front of Choctaw turned green.

The birds dashed back into the road. One brave fellow ran about three-quarters of the way across. The others were strung out in a ragged line behind him.

Then the lead bird lost his courage, turned and ran back, and the others ran back, too.

Traffic was approaching, a wall of metal and glass and noise bearing down on the tiny creatures. The birds stood on the entrance ramp, gazing across at their mother.

It looked like they were waiting for the traffic to go by, the way schoolchildren bunch up at a crosswalk behind the protective flag of a crossing guard.

But at the last moment, they darted en masse into the road again. Three of them sprinted for the other side.

One tiny fellow lagged behind, looking even smaller as a beat-up van bore down on him.

That’s when Momma bird flew into the rescue.

She whipped in beside him, a whirlwind of black-and-white wings, and hustled him out of harm’s way. He dashed safely for the other side.

And then, as the mother bird tried to save herself, the van caught her in mid-air and blasted her into a cloud of feathers.

She flew a short distance then lay down in the road to die. A woman in a station wagon finished the job.

It was sickening, utterly sickening.

The man in the van drove on.

He could have slowed down. A couple of foot pounds of pressure on the brake pedal is all it would have taken.

Instead, four tiny birds fled into the bushes by Racetrack Road with nowhere to go and no one to take them there.

Life, we hope, goes on.

This column was originally published in the Wednesday, July 1, 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.

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 .

Jogging every morning has allowed me to become intimately familiar with my neighbors’ sprinkler systems.

I feel sorry for my neighbors. While they sit at work, comfortable that their yards are being watered, I am dodging clogged pop-up sprinklers or impulse sprinklers that are stuck watering the sidewalk.

Sprinkler systems are symptomatic of a lot of things going on in our culture, but mostly they represent our tendency to pursue convenience to absurd extremes.

Instead of taking a moment to move a $20 hose and sprinkler, we spend hundreds of dollars installing automatic systems that water the yard during rainstorms, or even the sidewalk.

Such is life in these United States. What we love more than gadgets is convenience. We love convenience so much that we sometimes become overwrought in our pursuit of it, sacrificing other, more important qualities.

Convenience becomes an end, not a means to an end.

I suggest the minor heresy that some things are better done the old-fashioned way, using the time-consuming, labor-intensive methods of our parents and grandparents.

No, we should not ride in horse-drawn buggies, pound our clothes against rocks or grind corn into flour on millstones. But likewise, we should not compose and print, say, a grocery list, using a $3,000 computer, when a pencil and a piece of paper work just fine.

This mad pursuit of convenience is not only stupid but leads to unforgiveable waste; of time, money, resources, intellect and imagination.

Consider, for instance, what happens around the household after a burp in the electrical grid causes the power to go off momentarily. Don’t you spend the next 10 minutes resetting digital clocks?

Worse are the sacrifices conveniences extract from the mind.

Once children were allowed to bring calculators into classrooms, knowledge about mathematics walked out the door. The study of numbers is a discipline of the intellect, requiring a grasp of abstractions and principles that transcends mere button-pushing.

Any fool can be taught to mash a 3 key, a PLUS key, a 5 key, and then an EQUAL key. But take away the calculator and ask the same question. See what the fool tells you.

At its worst, our mania for convenience teaches us that everything we do must be quick and easy.

Cooking, for instance, becomes a matter of microwaving, or eating out. Communicating is little more than bashing out a fragment and pressing the SEND key. “Love” is a latchkey relationship, existing only for so long as the ride goes smoothly.

Convenience rob an experience of pride, of thought, and finally, of meaning. Can a loaf of bread shipped up from a machine compare to the loaf you spent hours kneading with your flour-spotted hands? Is a hasty e-mail comparable to the letter your best friend wrote in her elegant cursives? Is a relationship without challenges really a relationship?

Some things require time, and effort, and thought.

So get out in your yard and drag hoses. It’s a hassle, but when you’re done, you’ll know the yard was watered.

And the job was done right.

This column was originally published in the Wednesday, June 10, 1998 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and was 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 .

In this photo the author (right) explains to visitors how the newspaper is assembled during an open house. Photo courtesy of the Daily News.

Very soon, the Daily News will abandon its old, proprietary computer system for a brand new, PC-based computer system.

With this change, we will move up a notch in the high-technology race that seemingly shifted into high gear during the 1980s and has yet to slow down. Every week, we hear about a new gadget or application that offers to make our lives better.

In some cases, these gadgets actually do make life better. I can’t imagine a world without CAT scanners, or even cordless telephones.

But it also seems increasingly true that these gadgets have evolved to such absurd levels of complexity that they no longer serve the people they were intended to help. In fact, they’ve become an end unto themselves.

This fact was driven home to me last week as we began to learn about our new computers and software.

They are amazing machines. They do most anything, and they do it three or four different ways: They check your spelling, check your grammar, play your CDs, fax your files, surf the web and answer your questions.

Therein lies the problem: They are a little too amazing.

They do too much.

It’s normal to feel a little overwhelmed when learning an unfamiliar and complicated new skill. But I’m not unfamiliar with these machines, and I’m not a computer Luddite. Yet I am most definitely swooning over the sheer volume of … “stuff” on these machines … and the intricacy of its use.

The computer industry is especially guilty of overcomplicating what should be simple procedures. This overcomplication exists on every level of the computer experience, from the insane number of ways any one command can be executed, down to even the muddy syntax of the “documentation” (computerese for “instruction manual”).

But this overcomplication extends to much of the high technology we are told we need: telephones with so many features that they cannot be deciphered; kitchen appliances that require so much programming to do something that it would be easier to do it by hand; VCRs all across America that blink 12:00; the endless parade of digital cell phones, analog cell phones, pagers, check-writers, electronic games, CD players, DVD, HDTV, LD and DCS. …

I feel like one of the robotic workers in Fritz Lang’s science fiction classics “Metropolis.”

Our purpose is no longer to use these machines to accomplish a task, but to make the machines do everything they are capable of doing.

People are starting to rebel.

The “nesting” phenomenon of the early to mid-’90s was an opening shot in our War of Rejection against this insane spiral of technology. The stress of attempting to cope became too much for some people, who chose to hide out and decompress rather than hurl themselves into the clicking, beeping fray.

These days, the move to lead simple lives manifests our desire for the serenity we enjoyed when people, not machines, were more important.

When our computers are installed, I will try to learn the fastest, easiest and most direct ways to do my work. The rest will stay in the “documentation” – there if I need it, I suppose, but out of sight and, with any luck, out of mind.

This column was originally published in the Wednesday, May 27, 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 .