October 20, 2005 Issue

One of the unspoken measures that men use to determine "quality of life" is the ability to pee in one's own backyard. This is a luxury, like many others, that thankfully is available primarily to men. I have been fortunate, yet always discriminating, in exercising this privilege. It is, to me, the most precious of all property rights.

Until recently, during my entire time in Destin, where I have been visiting or living since 1964, I have been afforded this opportunity. Like so many other aspects of life in what used to be the World's Luckiest Fishing Village, the free and unfettered right to relieve one's self on one's own property is becoming a thing of the past.

And, I guess we should probably begin establishing municipal ordinances to forbid this practice to insure that when people from rural areas visit our town they are forewarned that this age-old practice is frowned upon these days. We need a law with a little more certitude than "indecent exposure."

Unfortunately it is time. One can only imagine the chaos that would ensue in some of our larger condominium projects if large numbers of men felt the urge to pee outside at the same time.In these modern days, women (God bless them) have gracefully left this privilege to men. But if they choose to push this issue we would have a real problem on our hands. Almost none of the behemoth projects being built today allow room for men to pee outside at will. What a Fellini-esqe carnival it would be to have equal numbers of women jockeying for positions to pee with men (who were given a physical advantage to accomplish this by the Creator).

Many of the places where men are able to comfortably use their backyards at their pleasure offer other advantages. Since 1983 I have spent a lot of time on a small island in the Bahamas.For more than 20 years it has not been necessary to lock our house there. In the Bahamas, not only can you pee off your dock, you can scream and holler until you lose your voice and you aren't likely to bother anyone.

We also raise horses and grow flowers on a small ranch in Red Bay, Fla. Not only is it a town where it is not necessary to lock doors, it is actually frowned upon.

My friends and children hunt on nearby property in Westville, Fla. The camp house there is purposely left unlocked. Frank Powell, a 30-year veteran of the Florida Game and Fish Commission, explained the reason for this several years ago.

"If you lock it up, they'll steal everything you've got and destroy the doors and windows in the process," he said."If you leave it unlocked and an old boy wanders up through that river-swamp lost, wet, cold and hungry; he might borrow a can of beans or something, but that'll be about it."

Alas, things change. My family has recently moved from our home on Joe's Bayou. We now live in one of Destin's many gated communities. This place affords 24-hour protection complete with uniformed guards and roaming patrols. But for some reason most of the houses in this compound
are kept locked as tight as an apartment in a NewYork tenement building. At least I assume they are locked because almost all of them are also protected by 24 hour high-tech burglar alarm systems.

The days of me being able to fully enjoy my backyard may be numbered. Guana Cay in the Bahamas is being developed by a huge San Francisco corporation. Soon we will have a Tom Fazio designed golf course. Lots are selling for $2 million and up. I'll bet there will be a guard gate and probably an opportunity for someone to sell burglar alarms. There are no police on the island, so I'm not sure who will respond to all the false alarms, but that will be their problem.

In Red Bay, the guys I work with are finding it increasingly hard to get a table at the venerable, roadside Bruce Cafe. The cafe, where a meat and three plus soup, desert and tax will run you $5, is now packed on weekdays with developers looking to move their operations north. Everything from Freeport to DeFuniak Springs is fair game and I'm sure the bucolic little town of Red Bay is on their list.

Who knows where any of us will end up in this life ?I hope there will be a spot for me somewhere that will allow this primitive act to be practiced.In this fancy subdivision in which I now find myself, there are some nights at this time of year when the stars are out and the north wind blows across the bay, fat mullet jump, and the coyotes yip in the few pockets of woods left for them.

Almost every night I have to let our dogs Junior and Zoe out to do their business. Don't tell anyone, but sometimes I'll look around, and if the neighbors appear to be sleeping, and if there's no one gigging flounder in front of our dock, and if the guards aren't patrolling our neighborhood; I'll do what men have been doing for so many wonderful years. I'll pee in my own backyard.

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