The Rise and Decline of the Redneck Riviera: An Insider's History of the Florida-Alabama Coast

15. Stumbling into the Future

243 t all happened so fast. In the summer of 2001, David L. Langford of the Associated Press traveled down to the Alabama Gulf Coast and returned to confirm the existence of what Fodor’s Gulf South guidebook called “the Barrier Island Republic.” Created by a keg-party coup in the late 1970s, “when a group of hard-partying locals seceded from the United States,” this “beach with attitude” existed in secret, without government, without taxes, without politicians, without anything but an “official bird . . . the seagull , the flying rat of the coast.” The “republic’s” only purpose was to “let people know that [its citizens] weren’t willing to succumb to condo-fixation.” Less than a decade later the very thing barrier islanders “weren’t willing to succumb to” had pulled off a countercoup, taken over their republic, and driven the hard-partying into a fewcoastalenclavessuchastheFlora-Bama,orinlandtoplaces such as Bennie’s Redneck Rendezvous. But even at the Bama the partying was controlled and calculated so as not to lose its appeal to lower-middle-aged good old boys with beer bellies and good old girls with too much makeup and too few clothes. All along the Riviera it was much the same. Redneckery—that lean, mean, hard of hand and piratical of glance redneckery— was in retreat. But it was not dead. fifteen Stumbling into the Future 244 chapter fifteen Over in Destin, Norma and Phil Calhoun had given it a transfusion, transplanted an organ or two, and kept it going. WiththeiroldvenuesclosedNormaandPhilopenedtheirown,Calhoun’s Pub and Grub, in a strip mall up the hill and across the road from Destin’s Gulf-front condos. Norma ran the bar and restaurant, Phil and the Trashy White Band entertained. And when he wasn’t leading the group (and the audience) in old favorites such as “She Ran Off” and “All American Redneck,” Phil was singing gospel. There is a picture on the wall of him with his preacher’s wife, which she complained wasn’t really big enough. Behind the bar, next to the telephone, a sign answered that often-asked question— “wwjd—what would Jesus do?” “Jesus,” the sign reads, “would slap the shit out of you.” If you drop by one afternoon you can have a beer with a little of what is left of old Destin. After the boats have brought in their charters and catches, after the fish are filleted and packed, after the deck is cleaned and the tackle readied for the next day, some of the captains and deckhands slip past the tourist bars and boutiques that line the harbor and drive over to Calhoun’s. Even though Norma doesn’t mind if they bring their sweaty, bait-stained selves inside, they are gentlemen, so they sit at the patio bar to cuss and discuss whether or how the people who made Destin the “world’s luckiest little fishing village” are going to survive. The real estate market collapse and subsequent recession took its toll on recreational fishermen as it did on everyone else. Before the crash they could earn enough in eight to nine months so that with a few odd jobs they could get themselves and their families through the winter. After the crash customers who once chartered them for twelve-hour trips cut back to half that length. And with construction at a standstill good winter jobs were few. Deckhand Steve Brown told the Destin Log in November 2008 that he had recently “done everything from delivering pizzas to throwing a paper route, to remodeling jobs” but there just wasn’t much off-season work. Some boat owners borrowed to get through, while others such as Captain Bud Miller got a commercial fishing license so in the winter he could “keep fishing just to pay the monthly bills.” Miller knew the Gulf in winter was cold and rough and sometimes dangerous , but as he told the Log in the fall of 2008, you “have to go out when buyers buy.” It came down to either taking “a butt whipping at sea or a butt whipping at the bank.” stubling into the future 245 There was also the “butt whipping” fishermen were getting from state and federal bureaucracies. “When I first started out,” one captain told the press, “I had four documents . . . a captain’s license, a state commercial fishing sticker, a radio license, and documentation for the boat...