Dale K. Robinson

Cruising the Redneck Riviera

August 5, 2006

She was a 1966 Chevy Impala Super Sport, silver blue with chrome bumpers and wheels and a white ragtop. She was perfect for a 20-something young GI who drew Eglin Auxiliary Field 9 for his first duty station. Aux Field 9 is better known today as Hurlburt Field, a few miles west of Ft Walton Beach on Miracle Strip Parkway, also better known as Highway 98.

I arrived in the Panhandle on the heels of Hurricane Eloise in September 1975, driving through sheets of heavy rain in Alabama that taxed my driving skills and the integrity of the convertible top’s seals. Broken limbs and fallen trees lay along the roads; power was out to businesses and homes from Montgomery to Ft Walton. But the time I reached the Florida line, the rains had passed and sunshine was chasing angry clouds away.

The Chevy was oblivious to it all now that it no longer had to contend with rain driven by tropical storm force winds. I drove slowly down Eglin Parkway, marveling at the destruction. I would later learn that Eloise had caused more than $200 million in damages and killed 76 people in the Caribbean and the US.

When I finally arrived at Hurlburt Field, power was out on the base and the barracks room that was to be mine had an inch or two of water standing in it. That was my introduction to the Florida Panhandle, known then as the Playground Area. Fortunately, Eloise was my only hurricane experience during my first tour at Hurlburt Field.

I loved putting the top down on the Chevy Impala SS and cruising Miracle Strip Parkway, Highway 98, from Hurlburt to Panama City. With the sun warm on my neck, and the breeze blowing in off the Gulf, I enjoyed the beaches and the ocean and the pretty girls. It was a simpler time.

Way back then, Destin was still just a small fishing village, a long way from what it is today. There were a few motels, a few stores, a few homes, lots of unspoiled beach visible from Highway 98 back when Highway 98 hugged the beach. It was before Wings stores and Walmart and condos, before this area became the Emerald Coast, back when it was part of the Redneck Riviera. Jeff Foxworthy defined “redneck” as a “glorious lack of sophistication.” That was the panhandle thirty years ago.

I miss that old Chevy, I miss cruising the Miracle Strip; I miss the view of the beaches and the breezes blowing in off the Gulf. I miss the Redneck Riviera.

The Redneck Riviera

Gulf Shores up through Apalachicola
They got beaches of the whitest sand;
Nobody cares if grandma's got a tattoo or
Bubba's got a hot wing in his hand.
Redneck Riviera is where I wanna’ be,
Down here on the Redneck Riviera by the sea.
Down here on the Redneck Riviera,
trawlin' up and down the Mir-a-cle Mile,
Smoothin' out my tan and disposition
And wearing little other than a smile.

American balladeer Tom T. Hall

Back to Dale's Home Page