Ah, Florida.

Ringed on one side with Atlantic Coast, the other with the beautiful Gulf Coast.

When people go to the beach, they daydream of walking along the shore. Building sandcastles. Reading a book while they relax in a reclining chair.

In the vast majority of the state, and our nation, you can do this with no problems. Beach access is cut in between high rise condos and hotels. People of all economic stratum live in surf frolicking harmony.

Customary use laws throughout our great land, and even this state, ensure you are free to enjoy the sandy beach from the mean high tide line down into the water.

Unless you are in stingy Walton county.

Nestled among friendlier towns is a stretch of beach homes for the uppity. Movie stars, famous chefs, politicians…they have their expensive homes perched on or over the beautiful Emerald Coast.

By undoubtedly greasing the palms of Florida legislators, their haughty county is now not a welcome place for YOU, cretin.

Your huddled mass of toes aren’t even allowed to walk across this expanse of beach – they “own” it.

A certain prominent singer and actress tried to ban mere mortals from the stretch of sand in front of her California home…and failed.

Ah, but this is Florida. The panhandle, no less…a destination for the rich and famous. It’s not been exposed to the glare of reality. Most people don’t even know Florida extends up to Alabama.

When I moved here twenty years ago, that hallowed bit of land was not much more than a stretch in the road with a couple of cottages sprinkled about.

Now it’s a pretentious, manicured, elbow to elbow blockade from the Gulf of Mexico.

If you dare try and plop your cooler and umbrella at the mean high tide line, provided you can walk that far, with no way in, between all the pastel perfect homes chained together with fences and forbidding hedges…well, the local police will come and dun you off the beach. You’ll be sent packing. No mega wealthy millionaire wants to see average folks on “their” stretch of white sand.

No, this is not the “Truman Show”, though it was filmed here.

It’s the work of money and crooked legislation.

You, wealthy sir and ma’am, do not own the ocean or surf. No one does.

Everyone was supposed to be able to enjoy the ocean or gulf, no matter how rich or poor. That’s what the customary use laws protected.

It’s just too unseemly for you, mostly interlopers from Atlanta or North, to let locals mar your view of the Gulf of Mexico.

I hope some sense, combined with the outcry of the local taxpayers, will reverse this trickery that has cause such heartache for average folk in Walton County…and everyone who foolishly tries to vacation here.

In the mean time, shame on you. The waves and wind are owned by no one.

Remember that come hurricane season….when you’ll be crying for taxpayer money to repair what nature has wrought.

It cuts both ways.