Gisco is Gone....!

Friends:

Gisco is Gone ... !

That's right, after 37 years Gisco is closed "Gone Fishin'" said the sign. Can you believe it?

The old weathered shack gave us its own share of old-island ambience to that corner. I won't miss it too much, I think, since it smelled real fishy the last couple of times I went there. And in my line of business --- real estate --- we know if something smells fishy, there's probably something rotten at the core. So, I guess it had to go, but my eyes will miss it another relic past its prime.

Lots of things have changed around here and more is on the way. In the old days of summer vacations my brother and I would pool our nickels and dimes and rent a "cottage" on Sea Island for two weeks, pretending of course to be relatives of Gatsby. Gone are those days for sure, substituted by a new Cloister hotel that would make the architects of Dubai jealous.Two nights there now equals two weeks' house rent in the old days! Now we'd be forced to have to go to Myrtle Beach, and could a marriage handle that?

And what about the Prince on the Beach ~ the owners, relics themselves from that last magnolia State of the Confederacy, have substituted what was a perfectly nice outdoor bar on the beach for a fetid pool of water in the lobby, the smell of chlorine ubiquitous. They deserve the guests they get ..... it reminds me of a Radisson I once stayed in on a snowy winter night in Minnesota. Strange people were there.

You want more? Just look around. Check out the license plates, listen to the lingo at Winn Dixie, savor the new Starbuck's, the Outback (what happened to that smoky den called "Poor Stevens?"), the less-than-Misner architectural abominations on Beach Drive, and the sickening proliferation of traffic. Change is coming fast, so you'd better get a good last look of how things are --- 'cause if you don't like what you see today, you sure as heck won't like it tomorrow; and McIntosh County is lookin' better all the time.

Maybe we're the relics after all --- I'm beginning to think so. We're gonna see more "gone fishin'" signs sooner than later. And don't think for a minute you can trust Providence to protect you from the fallout. Elvis is dead, Rodney too. James Brown's body is still making the circuit and the media won't let Anna Nicole go in peace. So what kind of loving Father would take these folks and leave us with Hillary? Somethin's fishy all right. And when our little airport Farmer's Market hangs out their "gone fishin'" sign, I'm outta here myself. Enough is enough.


Bud
April 12, 2007