Memory Lane

I love reading all of your memories! I often try to imagine what SoWal was like "back in the day". I love looking at the old photos too. Looks like it was a wonderful simpler time. Thanks y'all! :clap_1:

Wow I love reading all this. I am going to have to find some old photos...We used to crawl all over the dunes at Inlet. During spring break we used to lay topless about 3 dunes from the gulf. (there were alot of dunes then ) I remember walking West of Inlet upon some nude bathers, where Rosemary is now used to be a nude beach... Livs MOM we got to go to Miracle Strip a few times with little IBD :clap_1: before they closed it. Such a sad time.


Petticoat Junction now that was a while ago!

Oh gosh, the nude beach...

The morning after our wedding, Mr. SN and I stumbled out into the sunlight to find that his colleagues from the WCSO had written, among other things, "NO MORE (slang word)-BEACH" on the back window of our SUV. Worse yet, we had driven to Atlanta before we saw it... .

Yea, you've got pics of that! We need to scan those!!!
I didn't underage drink until I was 18 and chugged a bottle of boonesfarm behind the Store.
Then I . Don't tell Mom!!

Boonesfarm strawberry hill....Good gosh....memories...that was all I drank....

Delene Sholes was my elementary school principal. You've been married for nearly 20 years? That's great. You must have been a baby when you got married.

she was a mere babe in the woods....

We were really, really BAD, weren't we???? Dune hopping and bonfires on the dunes...no permits. No life jackets on any of our boats, but we did use the ski belt when we skiied in Western Lake. If we'd had a dog he would have run loose. But then those were the days when if you saw two people on the beach it was considered a crowd. Steele Mama, you didn't mention underage drinking?! I didn't do that, but I'm sure it happened at Grayton Beach.....How 'bout sliding down the huge dunes by the State Park....when there were dunes?!

Yeah, the Green Knight was the Big Chicken of the beach.

Those were the days.....

People knew who Ed Walline and JD Miller were...Cube, Eric, as in "DUNE" Allen...Johnny Zeal's...water skiing behind a '54 Willys Jeep in July..from Blue Mountain to Grayton...watching Bombing in the Gulf...Ft Rucker helicopters land on the beach..cuz the boys had a date...Fri/Sat...night fights at the HangOut..Long Beach=PCB...shine at the club 81..Swinging
Medallions@ Ol' Hickory across from Goofy Golf and Sky Ride, Old Dutch, L'l
B'ham, Red Rooster, Grayton Beach Store, Old man Butler, Shanks, Skeeter's (RIP) 396 Chevelle w/8=Track..Bish, digging lakes out, shooting sand crabs with Daisy BB guns, Sea and Ski (SPF..wazzat?), floundering in all the lakes...wading with a Coleman Latern...(AMOCO white gas..from Barrett's store on Peach Creek...white gas now known as...'unleaded')..
Campbell Brothers, Blue Gulf (first 'developement'...Brickyard)...rattlesnakes..shooting sharks from a boardwalk in Blue Mountain...Eloise..30-A????...SKunks out the ass...
and.......trees....

ahhh miracle strip...i destinctly remember riding Dante's Inferno..(the devil Head thing) and the music was "Were gonna' rock down to ELECTRIC AVENUE...and then we'll take it higher".(Eddie Grant)..i thought it was the coolest...and the bullet was so scary. I was probably 9 or 10. :clap_1: :clap_1:

People knew who Ed Walline and JD Miller were...Cube, Eric, as in "DUNE" Allen...Johnny Zeal's...water skiing behind a '54 Willys Jeep in July..from Blue Mountain to Grayton...watching Bombing in the Gulf...Ft Rucker helicopters land on the beach..cuz the boys had a date...Fri/Sat...night fights at the HangOut..Long Beach=PCB...shine at the club 81..Swinging
Medallions@ Ol' Hickory across from Goofy Golf and Sky Ride, Old Dutch, L'l
B'ham, Red Rooster, Grayton Beach Store, Old man Butler, Shanks, Skeeter's (RIP) 396 Chevelle w/8=Track..Bish, digging lakes out, shooting sand crabs with Daisy BB guns, Sea and Ski (SPF..wazzat?), floundering in all the lakes...wading with a Coleman Latern...(AMOCO white gas..from Barrett's store on Peach Creek...white gas now known as...'unleaded')..
Campbell Brothers, Blue Gulf (first 'developement'...Brickyard)...rattlesnakes..shooting sharks from a boardwalk in Blue Mountain...Eloise..30-A????...SKunks out the ass...
and.......trees....

You just may be almost as old as I am....I remember everything you mentioned. Skeeter was a legend. A real character who lived every minute of his short life. You just can't really describe "the store" and how central it was to everything about the beach. Back then, Grayton Beach was very isolated and when you got there you just stayed there. Our family and lots of others had a ledger at the store and VanEs would just write down what we bought and our parents would pay at the end of the month or the summer....whatever. I walked to the store every day to get milk or bread and ususally added a nickle Coke or an ice cream bar to the bill.

We walked the dunes from the trees on 30A to the Gulf.

Does anyone remember "lonesome pine". I wish I had a picture of that, but I doubt that any of us ever thought about taking pictures of things like that. I thought they'd always be there, but that tree is no longer there. Magnolia Cave was always romantic....even if you didn't have a date. It IS still there, but against the "law" to visit.

People knew who Ed Walline and JD Miller were...Cube, Eric, as in "DUNE" Allen...Johnny Zeal's...water skiing behind a '54 Willys Jeep in July..from Blue Mountain to Grayton...watching Bombing in the Gulf...Ft Rucker helicopters land on the beach..cuz the boys had a date...Fri/Sat...night fights at the HangOut..Long Beach=PCB...shine at the club 81..Swinging
Medallions@ Ol' Hickory across from Goofy Golf and Sky Ride, Old Dutch, L'l
B'ham, Red Rooster, Grayton Beach Store, Old man Butler, Shanks, Skeeter's (RIP) 396 Chevelle w/8=Track..Bish, digging lakes out, shooting sand crabs with Daisy BB guns, Sea and Ski (SPF..wazzat?), floundering in all the lakes...wading with a Coleman Latern...(AMOCO white gas..from Barrett's store on Peach Creek...white gas now known as...'unleaded')..
Campbell Brothers, Blue Gulf (first 'developement'...Brickyard)...rattlesnakes..shooting sharks from a boardwalk in Blue Mountain...Eloise..30-A????...SKunks out the ass...
and.......trees....

Oh yea! Skeeter!

And we swam in the Blue Gulf pool until the fire. We would ride on the beach from Grayton to Blue Mountain and climb the dunes to swim in the pool. My Grandaddy was a "member", then he worked with others to start the Santa Rosa Golf and Beach Club.

wasn't there a big old gator in western lake called "Jack Daniels"? folks used to ski right by him. wonder if he's still around. or did he get carted off?

wasn't there a big old gator in western lake called "Jack Daniels"? folks used to ski right by him. wonder if he's still around. or did he get carted off?

Yes, my grandaddy named him Jack Daniels, because that is what GD drank all day. Or maybe we named him..... dunno. He would feed him marshmallows at our dock.
No he is definitely not around. Back then he only had one eye.

You just may be almost as old as I am....I remember everything you mentioned. Skeeter was a legend. A real character who lived every minute of his short life. You just can't really describe "the store" and how central it was to everything about the beach. Back then, Grayton Beach was very isolated and when you got there you just stayed there. Our family and lots of others had a ledger at the store and VanEs would just write down what we bought and our parents would pay at the end of the month or the summer....whatever. I walked to the store every day to get milk or bread and ususally added a nickle Coke or an ice cream bar to the bill.

We walked the dunes from the trees on 30A to the Gulf.

Does anyone remember "lonesome pine". I wish I had a picture of that, but I doubt that any of us ever thought about taking pictures of things like that. I thought they'd always be there, but that tree is no longer there. Magnolia Cave was always romantic....even if you didn't have a date. It IS still there, but against the "law" to visit.

ooops, forgot to include the "Lonesome Pine"..someone told me some a**hole
cut it down for firewood...and I think, but, am not sure that local artist Mary
Vinson painted a 'portrait' of it...(either she did or, I was dreamin', or on some
bad acid at the Freeport Rock Concert @ the Mud Race Pit ~circa 70 early 80 sumpthin~. (How's that for a run-on)

Magnolia Cave (Grove)...well...

And Mrs. Butler spanked me for sitting on the pinball machine..called my folks, so got another switchin'...

waxing nostalgic ad nauseum...I done

No, those aren't my pics. They cam up when I did a search. I'd like to thank the people who did take those pics though. My daughter can say she at least got to go to Miracle Strip once before it closed. She was born in June of 2004 and we went the weekend before it closed. She was 6 weeks old. I hate it that she won't share my memories of the place.

As for the dunes and bonfires, I don't think we did near the damage that the structures on the beach have done. ;-)

I took my son four times to Miracle Strip the summer before it closed, hoping he would have the same fond memories of it that I do. He was 8 at the time, I think. Surprisingly, it was cleaner than I had remembered it. I miss that place.

ooops, forgot to include the "Lonesome Pine"..someone told me some a**hole
cut it down for firewood...and I think, but, am not sure that local artist Mary
Vinson painted a 'portrait' of it...(either she did or, I was dreamin', or on some
bad acid at the Freeport Rock Concert @ the Mud Race Pit ~circa 70 early 80 sumpthin~. (How's that for a run-on)

Magnolia Cave (Grove)...well...

And Mrs. Butler spanked me for sitting on the pinball machine..called my folks, so got another switchin'...

waxing nostalgic ad nauseum...I done

Hey king, did you know Mike and Buddy White from Freeport back then?

People knew who Ed Walline and JD Miller were...Cube, Eric, as in "DUNE" Allen...Johnny Zeal's...water skiing behind a '54 Willys Jeep in July..from Blue Mountain to Grayton...watching Bombing in the Gulf...Ft Rucker helicopters land on the beach..cuz the boys had a date...Fri/Sat...night fights at the HangOut..Long Beach=PCB...shine at the club 81..Swinging
Medallions@ Ol' Hickory across from Goofy Golf and Sky Ride, Old Dutch, L'l
B'ham, Red Rooster, Grayton Beach Store, Old man Butler, Shanks, Skeeter's (RIP) 396 Chevelle w/8=Track..Bish, digging lakes out, shooting sand crabs with Daisy BB guns, Sea and Ski (SPF..wazzat?), floundering in all the lakes...wading with a Coleman Latern...(AMOCO white gas..from Barrett's store on Peach Creek...white gas now known as...'unleaded')..
Campbell Brothers, Blue Gulf (first 'developement'...Brickyard)...rattlesnakes..shooting sharks from a boardwalk in Blue Mountain...Eloise..30-A????...SKunks out the ass...
and.......trees....

Nowthat is a list of old memories, haven't thought of the Red Rooster in forever. I also think about the old bowling alley in Mexico Beach, I think it is still there.