This was in the Anniston Star Newspaper this morning. The author is Harvey Jackson. [quote]For most folks, the Redneck Riviera is a particular place rather than a stretch of coastline. For some, it is Gulf Shores; for others, Orange Beach; and still others, Thomas Drive. For me, it is Destin. Or was. When I was younger, I spent time in the shadow of the Green Knight listening to the music of the Trashy White Band and got to see redneckery up close and personal. Destin was a rocking place in the '70s and '80s. It also was a hard-working fishing village, blue collar and proud of it. I have been back many times since then, usually to fish, so it was not until my recent trip from Gulf Shores to Panama City Beach that I got a chance to drive through Destin and see what had become of it. A lot had changed. Arriving from the west, over the bridge, "Crab Island" was still attracting party-boaters on the bay side as it always had. On the gulf side the harbor was full of charter boats. (It shouldn't have been. With cobia running, they should have been out fishing — another sign of recession.) And between those rose a monster of a building, bright in burgundy and buff (contemporary colors of choice, I am told), breaking the horizon. New Destin looking down on the old. Condo-culture at its gaudiest. Pulling in at the dock, I found that despite efforts to turn the harbor into a pristine haven for recreational shoppers and wine tasters, the waterfront smelled of fish and diesel, and you could tell that in its heart Destin was still a town of charter boats and beer. Back on U.S. 98, I turned off on the old beach route and ran dead-end into Henderson Park, which saved the beach but destroyed the road. So I went around it and on the other side picked up the abandoned route, which now wanders through upscale neighborhoods and around "Odom Curve," a paved testimonial to the power of a developer who knew the right people in Tallahassee and got the road rerouted to make his beachside development all the more exclusive and expensive. Then I was back on U.S. 98, with Sandestin ahead. Sandestin is where some say the Redneck Riviera died in a late 1980s' explosion of golf-courses, condos, hotels, bistros and Birkenstocks. Tucked away between the highway and the gulf, Sandestin is a world unto itself, a world folks in Destin tried to imitate by building up and bigger, in the residual redneck belief that nothing succeeds like excess. Away from the beach, U.S. 98, four lanes and fast, flowed on until I reached the turnoff on Scenic Highway 30-A, which winds through little beach villages that were isolated from each other until the road was built and were little developed until the 1980s when Seaside appeared in the middle of them. If Sandestin with its condo-golf environment did not kill the Redneck Riviera, Seaside with its cute cottages, tin roofs, picket fences and "relentlessly tasteful" ambiance did the trick. Throw in the more recent developments — Watercolor, Watersound, Alys and Rosemary Beaches, take out the two state parks, and the scene on Scenic Highway 30-A is mostly manmade. Then back on U.S. 98, over Phillips Inlet, and right onto the coast route through another string of villages — Sunnyside, Santa Monica, Laguna and the rest — that lead to Panama City Beach and Thomas Drive. And there I found it. Despite the occasional cluster of condos and the tourist centers, where the likes of Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville" packs 'em in, much of this coast is still cluttered with clapboard cottages, small motels and cafes where locals crowd for breakfast. Sprinkled in among them are seashell shops, low-rise condos, liquor stores, T-shirt shops and landmarks such as the Carousel and the "Y" (with the Y-Not-Lounge). OK, it is not exactly like it used to be. They have added a few more floors to the Palmetto Motel, but the Palms looks much the same. Miracle Strip Park is gone, but there is still the Funland Arcade and Gulf World. There also is evidence of cultures clashing — just down the road from the Laguna Beach Christian Retreat is "Condom Knowledge" ("Educating Panama City Beach since 1995") — but despite the updating, there is a familiarity that harkens back to my youth. Yours too, I suspect. Then on to Thomas Drive, the last stretch before my Redneck Riviera ends at St. Andrews State Park. Here, amid condos clean and bright, and neatly appointed RV communities, descendants of the original rednecks can boogie the night away at La Vela — "The Largest Nightclub in the USA" — which was at the epicenter of the unwelcome attention brought to the area in the 1990s by MTV and "Girls Gone Wild." But if the Chamber of Commerce really wanted its retaliatory slogan "White Sand, White Wine, White Necks" to stick, La Vela was the least of its problems. Just across the way was "The Original Goofy Golf," with its golden Buddha and concrete Sphinx, which was celebrating its 50th anniversary — fifty years of entertaining "Red Neck, White Socks, and Blue Ribbon Beer" families and still going strong. I turned around at the park, took note of the strategically placed spring break sign — "Arrested? Call Appleman" — and headed home. I had seen enough.[/quote]
