ESTO HAS ALWAYS been a beautiful place to those of us who lived there. But I always considered it a little more down to earth, until I saw a recent drone video. I had no idea they allowed these sorts of things in Esto. We didn’t much cotton to new-fangled things when I was growing up.

It’s gotten even more beautiful in the golden glow of my memories. I once sent a few of my Esto stories to my friend Paul Wills, who grew up across the state line in Hartford, Alabama, and also made it all the way to Tallahassee, as I did. He said he liked them, but that they conflicted with his memories. “You make Esto sound like Mayberry. I always considered it just a place to go across the line and get Florida beer.”

Paul made it all the way to 100, so that Esto beer must have done him some good. He became the No. 2 editor at the Tallahassee Democrat, where our pal Malcolm Johnson, the editor, wrote a daily front page column he called “I Declare!” Paul always said that, when Malcolm made way for his front page column, he was going to call it, “I Swear.” He was a wonderful guy with a terrific sense of humor who cross-pollinated all kinds of fruits and vegetables in his big backyard garden.

— Thomas Reynolds

LOOKING WEST just after sunset at the end of the year.

LOCAL PHOTOGRAPHER Susan Brown captures the magic of a new morning at John Clark Park in Esto.

AZALEAS ARE BOUNTIFUL every spring, and so are wisteria vines. But this year what’s most striking are fields and fields of Indian cane. It’s a weed that shows up before the fields are plowed and planted. We used to pull it up and chew it when we were kids, although it didn’t offer much taste or kick.

A drive around the dirt roads near Esto offers signs that spring is upon us.