Thanks for visiting Positively St Augustine. This site is the “reincarnation,” for lack of a better description, of a fairly extensive former website by the same name. I started Positively St Augustine sometime in the late 90’s, and added to it frequently as I was almost spending more time there than I was at home.
The web hosting service we were using at the time melted down sometime around 2005, and I ended up pulling my websites down rather than move them. I felt Positively St Augustine was due for an overhaul anyway, and I honestly didn’t have the time to deal with it back then.
No one will ever know how surprised I was to start receiving emails from total strangers who’d found my site and enjoyed it! I had no idea I had a “following” and the requests to put the site back up really warmed my heart. I did start to put it back up several times, but it never “felt” right. That sounds silly, I know, but anyone who knows me knows St Augustine is part of who I am and I wanted everything to be right before I put it all up again.
Web design and maintenance has changed dramatically over the years (thank heavens) and it was my discovery of and fascination with WordPress that spurred me to action. I rather like the blog format because I love tags and categories. I think a visitor to a WordPress site can find information that interests him/her so much faster and more efficiently than on a traditional website. I am still learning to use WordPress so while the site isn’t quite yet what I want it to be, I am learning and I am enjoying working with it again.
Initially, most of the material here came from the original Positively St Augustine site. I’ll add new material as I generate it, as well as newer photos.
I enjoy working with Positively St Augustine, and it gives me a place to brag on my city and share the things I love about it. However, during the time Positively St Augustine was down, I’ve seen changes in the city that disturb me. New construction in the historic district…well, let’s just move on, shall we?
There’ve been good changes, too. Although I haven’t seen it yet I understand Aviles Street was to be closed to vehicular traffic and made a “walking” street only. As much as this inconveniences people who live and work there, I can see the necessity and I honestly don’t mind it.
I don’t mind the Bridge of Lions being “re-constructed.” I wish it could have stayed as it was, but in spite of all the controversy and inconvenience, it had to be done and I’m okay with it. I actually find it beautiful.
But there are other changes happening in the city that make me want to bang my head on my desk in frustration and scream “what are they thinking??!!” Every time I see an article in the Record on a proposal to build something new or change something in the historic district, my heart clenches in terror. Every bit of “remodeling,” every bit of “alteration,” every bit of so-called “improvement” chips away another piece of a fragile being. In just ten years, St George Street alone has become almost unrecognizable to me. Some days I wish I could close my eyes and see it as it was in 1991.
But then, every day I wish I could close my eyes and see St Augustine as it was in, say, 1740. In 1991, I could easily find pieces of 1740 St Augustine. I still can, but only because I know where to look.
I’ll keep looking and I’ll keep hanging on to those little pieces of St Augustine we still have. And I’ll keep hoping that someone, at some point, will stop the destruction of the precious old pieces of the city that are left.