Owen worked as a deckhand on a fishing
boat out of Destin back when it was still Destin. Now it's Silver Sands Factory
Stores, the world's largest designer outlet center, high-rise condominiums, and strip
stores the length of Highway 98.
One thing that comes with progress though
is live-music venues. Dread Clampitt Live at the Funky Blues Shack is an
interesting album. And think of poor Kyle Ogle, who grew up in Destin. Think
how the changes must sicken him.
Maybe it's me who's crazy. Maybe progress
is good. Maybe my wrong life-choices have soured me on what everybody else still
seems to believe in, and desperately seek.
Maybe George Bush is the greatest
president since Ronald Reagan, or his father, and I'm a throwback, the 10% that didn't
get the word.
Maybe I hate freedom, and want to run America down.
Which America is that? The America of Thoreau, at Walden Pond?
The America
of Hunter S. Thompson, pointing at the spot where the wave crested, and began to
recede, in fear and loathing, paranoia and spite?
The America of Nixon and
the pumpkin tapes, McCarthy, the Patriot Act and the War in Iraq? Outsource the
torture.
Brother, can you spare a dime.