Editor’s Letter
14 GASPARILLA MAGAZINE • September/October • 2020
Marcy Shortuse
Editor-in-Chief
What a long, strange trip it’s been.
Here we are, already in the fall of the year 2020. It has
been a year that has fl ashed before our eyes in a fl urry of
“unprecedented” strangeness (who else among us intensely dislikes
that word now?), and now we are in the third quarter of a football game,
approaching the fourth, that we still haven’t quite fi gured out how to play
… much less how to win.
I remember well how I sat at my computer trying to write the July/August
editor’s letter, not knowing what would be happening in the world by the time the
magazine reached people’s hands. I remember it well because I am once again experiencing that
strange feeling.
We persevere, right? We adapt, we overcome, we do what we can. I hope this letter fi nds you
with as much right in your world as can possibly be.
Each September/October issue we like to run a little “spookiness” to go with the Halloween
season. It would be nice to have a rain of beautiful fall leaves in our little corner of the world, but
instead we have actual rain … and occasionally a hurricane or two brush by. Usually October
brings our fi rst taste of cooler weather, but almost without fail our kids don their Halloween
costumes and trick-or-treat with more than a few trickles of sweat trailing down their neck. We live
in paradise, it’s true, but a tropical climate comes with its ups and downs.
If you are a regular reader of this magazine you might have noticed that several of our fall issues
have included stories about local cemeteries, and this issue is no exception. I have to admit I
wasn’t prepared for this cemetery, though. Southland Cemetery is a tiny little plot in the middle of
a residential area outside of El Jobean, which belies the sadness and history that is buried there in
the ground. Located on the Doolittle Waterway, you can hear the sounds of the neighbors’
televisions and children playing as you walk the narrow pathways roped off around the grounds.
No one is sure who is buried there, which makes it even more melancholy. Give the story a read,
you might be surprised at its history.
To go with the All Hallow’s Eve theme we have interviewed some of the most interesting and
eclectic artists in the area, whose job it is to work with skin and bone. Rattlin’ those bones and
bringing the dead back to life are the professions of Michele Moore, Garrett Stewart and Capt.
Eddie Vitale, and we threw in a little perspective from local girl Kelly Reark Borza to bring it around
full circle.
Sea turtle season is winding down, and we wanted to bring you an update on how that’s going
on the island. We also have an article from our freelance writer Tim Spain about a very prolifi c and
dear lady of the island named Susan Wood, a photographer whose images you may have seen
worldwide over the past decades. Finally, we wanted to give you some insight into an event that
takes place in November that our publisher, Dusty Hopkins, took some amazing photographs of
last year. The Venice Chalk Festival may sound like something that you would not normally add to
your calendar, but wait until you see photographs to make a fi nal determination. The art is
outstanding and, in many cases, breathtaking.
I hope you enjoy our wide and varied topics in this edition. Keep on keeping on, keep on taking
good care of yourselves, and each other. In the end, that’s what’s most important.