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Editorial


The ‘remnant people’ head home, or stick around

April 25, 2024
There are many “very important” and “formerly very important” or “previously important” or “pretty important” people on Gasparilla Island. We have acronyms for them. This week, we spied one of the…

The limits of our earth on this day

April 19, 2024
Earth Day is coming up this weekend. This week, we have a column about Earth Day from Delores Savas as well as a small article about one of the Earth Day activities in our news section. There are …

Why Placida matters to Gasparilla Island

April 11, 2024
This week, we have a story on the sale of Eldred’s (pictured here). Of course, we all know it needs a new custodian. Its current, old Florida, charming and useful state, cannot survive when the pr…

We value those 4-Digit Phone Book ‘social calls’

April 4, 2024
We appreciate the many personal visits from residents coming by to pick up their 4-Digit Phone Book. We have a standard ritual for it, namely we check to see if the listing is correct, we give eac…

Pascua Florida, or Feast of Flowers

March 28, 2024
Of the two big religious holidays, it is Easter that is the one that makes the most sense, culturally to Florida. In the imagination, Christmas is a cold weather holiday, and a “too hot” Christmas…

The value of the story of Gasparilla Island and old Florida

March 21, 2024
This Tuesday, retired history teacher and certified tour guide David Bredemus brought a tour bus to Boca Grande. It was not an ordinary bus tour group, interested in drinks, theater or casinos. In…

Local support for our tourism ‘commons’

March 14, 2024
In the English tradition, there is the common. Not common as an adjective, as in ordinary, but the “common” as a noun, as in the places that we all own together, as a public. Many here on Gasparil…

Hot dogs with the Methodists at the Strawberry Beach 

March 8, 2024
On Sunday morning, the day after the Strawberry Festival, a four-year-old boy posed a question. “Can we go to the Strawberry Beach?” The boy, unconcerned with actual geography, thought the w…

Redundant systems and Boca Grande’s Auxcomm 

February 29, 2024
In the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, communications for Cape Haze and Boca Grande went back to the pre-Flintstones era.  That might sound extreme. It is not, as Barney and Fred had dial phones wi…

Cape Haze at nexus of American sawfish revival

February 23, 2024
We reside in a sawfish aquarium, Charlotte Harbor. It’s Jurassic Park, and you don’t have to visit Universal Orlando. Last Thursday, sawfish expert Tonya Wiley delivered a talk in Cape Haze as …