The Graying American Frontier
by Alec Newell
Central to
the notion of what it is to be an American, is the concept of the Great
American Frontier. It is an ever
changing place that is always just
beyond the familiar confines of where we are, and it always offers the
limitless possibilities of what we could become in a new place. For each generation of Americans that
destination has come to mean something a little different, but for a growing
number of retiring American Baby Boomers, the face of the Great American
Frontier is looking a lot like Central America.
I was almost one of them.
Alligator Nose at Roatan's East End - photo by Newell
When I
bought my house in Mayport for the princely sum of $15,000 in 1976, I remember
my new neighbor, David Torrible commenting to me, "You must have wanted to
come to Mayport awful bad to pay money like that for your house." I was a little taken aback. I had been living in a garage apartment a
block and a half off the ocean in Neptune Beach, for $75.00 a month (utilities included),
but the country had been in an escalating real estate bubble. The house where I had been renting, had
changed hands three times in as many years and each time it had, the rent for
all the other tenants had gone up. It was
just a matter of time before mine would too.
The price of everything was going up, and two things were becoming very clear
to me: a.) I could not afford to buy a house, and b.) I
couldn't afford not to. In a few short years the country would see
mortgage interest rates climb from less
than 9 percent to more than 18 percent, and the house in Mayport had seemed, at
least to me, to be a stroke of great luck at the time.
Thirty years
later, the mortgage had been paid off, the estimated value of the house had
increased many times its original value and I knew I had done well; but
the country was in the middle of another real estate bubble, and there were
rumors afoot that someone had plans
to turn Mayport Village into a cruise ship terminal. What the Villagers would soon discover was
that the Jacksonville Port Authority had quietly devised a plan to buy up key
sections of waterfront property, then acquire private homesteads by
exercising "Eminent Domain" laws, as the residential property values in the village fell. The net result would be to displace homeowners
who would then have to relocate to new addresses in a rising housing
market. By 2008 the Jacksonville Port
Authority had acquired most of the targeted waterfront parcels, and seemed to be well on its way
to paving over Mayport Village and its 450 year old historical legacy.
America,
love it or leave it. The more I thought
about what the Jacksonville Port Authority was doing, the madder I got. Coincidently, my wife happened to bump
into a former student, who knew about some cheap property for sale in
Honduras. What followed was a three or
four year long installment of House
Hunters International that included a 2400 kilometer, week long trek
through Panama, and three or four trips down to Honduras, the original banana
republic. What we found were endless
colonies of retired American expats who had bought property in Central America,
sold their homes back in the States, and were having their Social Security and
retirement checks forwarded to their Central American bank accounts. They were living pura vida or "the good life" in exotic destinations that in many ways, bore an eerily
resemblance to the Sun Belt communities that their parents or grandparents had escaped
to a generation or two before.
The Bay
Islands lie just off the Northern Coast of Honduras. They boast the second largest barrier reef on
the planet, and they are a favorite destination for scuba divers from all over
the globe. The plants, animals and
terrain are exotic, beautiful, and diverse.
The fishing is excellent. Columbus
visited the Bay Islands on his fourth voyage to the New World in 1502. Near the island of Guanaha, he had
encountered native islanders paddling seagoing cayugas (canoes) fashioned from single
giant logs. There are still some of them
around that were made as late as the 1940's and 50's that are still being used
as fishing boats by some Islanders. American
playwright Eugene O'Neill had come to Honduras in 1910, as a young man to look for
gold, and William Sydney Porter (aka O
Henry) had escaped to Honduras in 1896, running from the law. He wrote a very memorable a collection of short
stories called Cabbages and Kings
from his experiences there.
Banana Republicans near Roatan's Airport
On the East
End of Roatan, largest of the three Bay Islands, is Port Royal.
It is a place of desolate beaches
where iguanas sun themselves on the stone foundations of ruined colonial forts
, and vines cover lost relics from buccaneer settlements. Just off the beach at Port Royal, within easy
rowing distance, is Careening Kay which
bears no human habitation. It still looks
pretty much as it did in the 17th Century, when Captain Henry Morgan used it as
a place to beach and repair the hulls of pirate ships. The West End of the Island caters to tourists
and is populated with family owned restaurants, bars, dive shops, and the kind
of one and two story barefoot walk-up hotels that travel agents love to feature
in their brochures.
The first
wave of 20th Century Gringo Expats to take up permanent residence in the Bay
Islands was a gritty, self reliant, quirky collection of lassie faire
entrepreneurs, adventurers, and criminals who could operate quite comfortably
in a culture where anything and everything was OK if you had the money or the
influence enough to make it happen. More
recently arrived pilgrims tend to be retired or disenchanted refugees from an
American economy and culture in a state of decline.
They are looking for a new place to either reinvent their lives, or at
least to live out their final years in a place where their devalued nest eggs
can still buy them some measure of ease and comfort. Many of them have opted for gated communities
with private security guards where they can still celebrate Independence Day
with fireworks, beer, and watermelons, or attend rum soaked Karaoke nights,
play golf, shop at the new mall, and eat at the fast food restaurants that are
popping up all over the island. What
most of them have failed to take into account is that while they may have
managed to escape the economic decline in the culture they've left behind, it is all
but impossible to escape from the cultural baggage that the new pilgrims have brought with
them.
Turquoise Bay Roatan - photo by Newell
If you are
looking for a beautifully landscaped 3/4 acre home site lot with fruit trees, an
ocean view, beach and boat waterfront access, in a friendly close knit American
expat community, on an island paradise in the scenic Caribbean, I know of one that is currently listed for a
mere fraction of its original purchase price,
contact: alecnewell@gmail.com
