Don’t ever underestimate the power of a steamy,
hot summer to bond year-round residents
together. When there’s only a few of us left and
the streets and beaches are empty, it’s a whole different
world we walk around in.
On a languid summer evening in a small, quiet town like
Boca Grande, it’s easy to believe most of the land was
once covered by mangroves and seagrapes, that most of
the roads were barely-discernable marks through the tall
grass, and the more well-traveled streets were made of
dirt. Sometimes in the evenings you can drive down Gulf
Boulevard from 1st Street and not see another soul until
you get to South Beach Restaurant.
On Gasparilla Island, it’s easy to believe that there once
was a movie theater where you could buy “skeeter
beeters” for a nickel from an old man with a monkey at
the front door ... where you could go down to the dance
hall at Whidden’s and peek through the windows at the
soldiers who had just come to port and see them dancing
with local girls, and where ice was one of the most prized
commodities around ... where kids could go camping for
days on the little islands around ours, smoking pilfered
cigarettes and drinking the occasional beer from dad’s
fridge, while eating fish they caught over a tin-can fire.
On a humid, quiet night in a small town like Boca Grande it feels like you could walk through the
woods and find one of the pirate Gaspar’s treasure stashes, or find a species of lizard that no scientist
has yet proven to exist. You might even encounter a skunk ape. The air around you is so solid, it feels like
you could reach out and touch it. Sometimes it pays not to have a second address for summer ... there
is so much beauty here all year ‘round.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
EDITOR’S
LETTER
Marcy Shortuse
Editor-in-Chief
14 GASPARILLA ISLAND September/October 2019