"Though Much is Taken, Much Abides"

Even "the unemployed" find it necessary sometimes to travel roads once familiar and then left behind to visit loved ones, familiar, and now residing in distant "homes."

The unemployed find strength in things like wildflowers on dunes on barrier islands.

An invitation to drive on the beach once again proves too tempting a pleasure to forgo. The slow pace required and the current paucity of visitors on Anastasia Island reminds one that progress is not always an optimal thing or even long-lived.

Structures built to withstand the fury of Atlantic storms, like this hacienda we once referred to as the Hotel California, aspire to great strength and resilience, but they will ultimately not last.

Gaillardia, though, have proven their resilience and ability to withstand the most adverse of conditions.

Starfish find themselves washed ashore sometimes and, if they're lucky enough to not be plucked from their temporary environment, may eventually regain their former comfort and nourishment provided by the sea.

Some objects do not fare so well when the tide returns to claim the space they occupy.

Dunes like the ones on Anastasia Island need protection because they render protection when it is most needed, during hurricane season.

At the end of the day, a peace offering from the sea is held up for inspection and admiration.

Favorite eateries and watering holes still stand as welcome stations on an island once considered home. This former bastion of bacchic sports celebrations, though, seems to be barely holding its own in this season of scarcity. Even the battle between Sooners and Gators does not command the high ticket prices it might have in years past.

The object of a journey to the East Coast of Florida still holds her own in the face of advancing age and retreating cognition. Born in 1917, she has lived through many tough times it would be nice to forget. A son's wife of 29 years, when asked "Who are you?," decides that memory loss, either short- or long-term, is not a blessing, at least as far as humans are concerned. Governors from the Land of Lincoln and their cohorts should take note that history, at least, keeps track of untruths and will never yield to forgetfulness.

...Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are--

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

--from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "Ulysses"--