Think of St. Lucie and think about the smell of freshly cut grass, the warmth of sun on your face after months of unforgiving chill, the sharp crack of a bat connecting with a baseball and the roar from a crowd jumping to its feet as players from the New York Mets race around the […]
Editor’s Note: The Desert Inn Motel was hit by a tractor-trailer in December 2019. The Osceola County Historical Society is currently assessing the damages and reevaluating plans to restore it. I am a sucker for historic markers. Behold, those weighty plaques at roadsides trivializing notable events from a hazy past. To wit, this gem from a crossroads […]
Valentine’s Day, a day that is supposed to revolve around love and romance, now marks the one-year anniversary of one of the deadliest mass school shootings in modern history. On Feb. 14, 2018, 17 people died at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, a quiet city named one of the state’s safest only days before […]
HOLLY PARKER CURRYEco-Ripper Curry runs the 11 Florida branches of the Surfrider Foundation, an activist group that protects the world’s beaches. She has always loved the sea: growing up the daughter of a Coast Guardsman, she and her family lived near the coasts of Puerto Rico, Guam, Bolivia and Panama. Today, Curry has taken her love […]
Immigration. Drug busts. Gators. Elderly folks. Mar-a-Lago. Old-school theme parks. The list reads like a catalogue of “Florida’s greatest-hits” stereotypes immortalized today in pop culture, movies, books and Netflix series. But 37 years ago, these cultural monuments were just basic realities of life in the Sunshine State. Miami native and National Geographic photographer Nathan Benn […]
Behind every American Idol—style success story, consider that army of gigging musicians (on keys, drums, bass, lead guitar) making the person in the spotlight sound great. Success looks a little different for those folks, who play on as many dates and projects as time will allow. After 10 years in Atlanta—including a transformative stint with […]
Not only does fifth-generation Floridian Andrew Patterson have home-state pride running through his veins, but he also has carpentry in his blood. “Every man in my family was something and a carpenter, whether it was a farmer and a carpenter or a factory worker and a carpenter,” he explains. On his part, Patterson became a […]
In 2015, two friends and I trekked 1,000 miles from the Everglades Headwaters near Orlando to Gulf Islands National Seashore near the Alabama border. We traversed a network of public and private lands to show that the statewide Florida Wildlife Corridor is still connected and can still be saved. At times, we had to find […]
“Why isn’t that on a shirt?” That’s what Bryan Horn asked himself one day when he saw his beloved chocolate lab, Lottie Grace, standing regally in the back of his truck. It was then the Jacksonville resident began sketching out the logo that would eventually become the face of Over Under, his sporting lifestyle brand. […]
