My Place on the Gulfshore - Coming to Iona

In Iona the remnants of the past are diminished in number and scale by the grand designs of modern trends. The old brick building that was the Iona schoolhouse still lives a charmed life beneath old oaks and Spanish moss. But the Hickory Barbecue, where no matter what, a person could still spot a friend or at least an acquaintance, has recently closed. For years, the restaurant stood alone in the middle of a crushed-shell parking lot. Several years ago, the owner put up a new building 100 yards away from the old low-slung structure at the end of a driveway pitted with deep holes that filled up with water after every summer rain. The new place had air conditioning and an asphalt parking lot, but nothing else really changed. I believe that one lady had been taking orders and serving food for 40 years. The regulars ordered chicken or ribs, fries, slaw and corn on the cob and drank sweet tea, just like their folks did. But now it's closed tighter than a Seminole drum. No one knows what happened; there have been no announcements.

Just across the street from the entrances to Palmetto Point and Gulf Harbor sits a cluster of tiny buildings. It is the Fountain Motel, built in the '40s, when perhaps guests were smaller of stature. Certainly the needs of travelers were less demanding. The buildings are square, built of concrete block, and are repainted nearly every year. The Fountain Motel remains, maybe at the whim of its owners, truly a monument to a simpler time, like that little cottage around the corner in Harlem Heights. The fountain still works.

We know, however, writers and readers alike, that wherever we are that is home, it is because of the people we love and know that make it so. Iona would be bleak and gray, without form and purpose, if my wife were not with me and my parents were not just down the road and my best friends didn't live just around the corner.

I am reminded of Tom and Ed Kelly, twin brothers who have lived into their 80s, who grew up in Iona, who ran barefoot in the sand spurs, who fished and hunted and trapped for food. They farmed and struggled and lived and raised families and went to church all those many years within a mile or so of that little brick schoolhouse where they learned to letter and add. If you asked them about it, they would say simply that when they were boys, "there wasn't nothin', nothin' in Iona." I've known them since forever, and I'm glad they stayed and helped the place become something. Like that little cottage and memories, they are parts of my link to my past. It seems to me, though, that those places where we used to ship flowers and fruit and vegetables of many varieties have now come to Iona instead. That's the way it is, and that's fine.