Tag: Pensacola

The thunderous roar of fighter jets is nothing unusual in Pensacola, Florida, known as the “Cradle of Aviation.” Founded in 1914, Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola was the first of its kind in the United States, marking the beginning of formal schooling for aviators.

Slicing through downtown Pensacola all the way to the bay, Palafox Street is known as the city’s core cultural artery. It’s a distinction the street has enjoyed for the past two-and-a-half centuries, during which it has been subject to—and shaped by—British, Spanish, and American rule.

Atlanta families flock to these pristine white beaches as surely as birds migrate south in the winter. Rowdier sections have become a rite of passage for students.

It was a bright weekday in mid-September and the Cormier boys—thirty-one years old, identical twins, best friends, incorrigible malcontents—were coming home. Their sixty-two-year-old father looked out his living room window as a U-Haul rumbled into the gravel drive.