Steve Hart
Florida isn't just one big, paved-over shopping mall of designer gowns and ticky-tacky tourist treats. The fabled "Sunshine State" (Flarda, as the Crackers call it) still calls the romantic, the adventurous, the explorer, even the renegade seeking the peace and quiet of the gently washing surf or the mystery of the wooded swamp.
Although rapidly dwindling under the flowing lava advance of asphalt and concrete, the natural and truest Florida can still be found and enjoyed and appreciated like it was by the ancients. These stories from the mythical, "Down Yonder, Florida," will get readers in touch with the magical, mystical, enchanting and - most of all - welcoming "Land of Flowers."
Steve Hart is a sailor, angler, explorer, raconteur, amateur citrus-grower and semi-professional theologian who masqueraded as a Florida journalist and pundit for nearly 25 years. A fifth-generation Floridian, Hart comes from solid Cracker stock but finds the human face of 21st Century Florida growing in richness and texture as his beloved Sunshine State becomes a patchwork quilt of cultures, traditions, shades and ideas.
His mission as a writer, however, is to capture the essence of Florida spirit, soul and nature and remind natives and new natives alike of the very reason this peninsula is the single most intriguing place in North America.
The stories and observations of Down Yonder, Florida were published originally in the Naples Daily News where the author was senior staff writer. Some were also originally published in the Everglades Floridian and most recently in ETC., a new publication of the Naples Daily News. He is Senior Vice-President for Public Policy at The Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce, resides in Naples and and continues to pester the community's visitors when he's not on his boat or in the woods.
