Riding the Cycle of Worry

The Marco Beach Boys began in the 1970’s. This was when the Marco Beach Hotel opened and almost everyone that lived and worked on Marco was working at the only hotel on the island, the only golf course on the island, or flying above our newly developing community on Marco Island Airways.

During the late 1970’s however, many Marco Islanders began to worry. Deltona was the parent company that was producing all the jobs, the model dream homes that were affordable, and the lifestyle in paradise that no one wanted to end.

There was trouble brewing however but thinking about the unthinkable only made worrying worse. Many believed the death of Tony Lema, who was the world-famous Marco golf-pro and golden boy of the Deltona Corporation, was the beginning of the end for Marco Island.

Also alarming was the fact that although a hundred miles of dredged canals, seawalls, roadways and infrastructure was complete, real estate sales were in a slump because of runaway inflation and rapidly rising interest rates. After all, there were entire sections of Marco Island with newly paved streets and newly invented street names with not a single new home under construction. The worries increased on windy days when sand from empty lots would blow into little dunes and cover the desolate streets and forlorn cul-de-sacs where acres upon acres of sandy real estate was beginning to look like another failed Florida development.

At the only gas station on Marco - and throughout the entire nation - the price of gas doubled in less than a month. If the worrisome price at the pump was not enough to raise the levels of stress on a crumbling piece of paradise, retail clerks and grocers were busy with their own worries as unbelievable inflation was forcing almost every clerk everywhere to raise the prices on almost every item every day. Restaurant prices were climbing through the roof and there were droughts and floods in opposite parts of the country.

Also increasing the Marco levels of worry was the virtually abandoned “Western Hunter,” which was the giant and ship-like dredge that produced so many of the island canals. When anyone, islander or visitor alike, would cruise down Collier Boulevard toward the beach (where the Esplanade is now) the behemoth size of the green and white digging machine that was beginning to bleed streaks of rust was another constant reminder that all was not well on a developing island that was no longer developing.

When finally arriving home, and away from the rumors, whispers, and reminders of failure in paradise, there was an hour of evening news on three network television channels. Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley were some of the popular and most trusted television news anchors, but during the late 1970’s the worrisome reports coming from the major networks were always broadcasting the same troublesome bad news. Runaway inflation, double-digit unemployment, and an energy crisis was a new worry created by rising oil prices and Middle Eastern unrest. A volatile stock market was reacting daily with fear driven behavior and finally, fifty American hostages were being held in Iran by the new Islamic regime under the unpredictable command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and their spiritual leader the Ayatollah Khomeini. 

All across Marco, Goodland and the Isles of Capri, and the rest of the U.S. everyone every day could see yellow ribbons tied to almost everything as Americans everywhere were reminding each other of another pressing worry and fear for all U.S. citizens abroad.

Just before the peak of hurricane season in September of 1979, Jimmy Carter was president and the Marco Beach Boys and Girls were preparing for the final weekends of the summer season. Thankfully, the summer weekends were always busy, but during the week the hotel and the rest of the island in summer was like a ghost town. The Labor Day weekend was always one of the busiest beach weekends on the island and the weekend after Labor Day almost as busy.

For that first weekend of September, however, hopes for Labor Day were dashed as another worry popped up for Marco Islanders in the western Atlantic Ocean. This worry was heading our way with the name of Hurricane David. Because of the energy crisis, oil worker strikes in the Middle East, and worries of looting at gas stations in Florida, a National Guard trooper in full army uniform with an M-16 assault rifle was stationed on Marco at the Chevron gas station along with other troops at every other gas station in south Florida.

During that worrisome windy and rainy Labor Day weekend, Marco was deserted, but there were high hopes for the following weekend until midweek, when Hurricane Fredrick began making a turn for the Dry Tortugas and ultimately Marco Island. When Hurricane Fredrick appeared so soon after the panic of David, the entire island began to worry that back-to-back hurricanes - and National Guardsmen stationed on the island - might be the way of the future.

There was little encouragement from the network nightly news because even the most trusted anchors were solemnly reporting predictions of even more hurricanes, higher gas prices, higher inflation, more unrest and tension in the Middle East, and even secret rumors that our most fearsome enemy, Russia, was planning on sending troops to occupy Afghanistan in the following year.

On September 12th, 1979, only weeks after all the worries from Hurricane David and Hurricane Fredrick, Hurricane Henri made a worrisome arrival and brought heavy rain and street flooding to Marco in what seemed like the stormiest September in the history of the world.

Cable news network made a debut the following year and 24- hour cable news became a reality. Before the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussain proclaimed with Hitler-like intent that no American could imagine what the Great Mother of all Battles would be like and worries and fear of secret Iraqi atomic weapons and poison gas attacks were the worries and speculations of everyone watching 24-hour news on television.

During the years of worry, and fear, and rumors of more things to worry about, a wise man arrived on Marco Beach and made a statement to a gathered group of Marco Beach Boys and Girls. “Don’t worry so much. 90% of the things you worry about will never happen and the other 10% you can’t do anything about!”