A Better Time, A Better Place — William Williamson

Holton Roberts, his wife, Dot and their son, Jake have been living since the forties on Pigeon Plum Key, a small private island a tenth of a mile offshore from the chain of islands that make up the Florida Keys. Their idyllic Conch life, fishing, turtling and trapping crawfish and stone crabs is shattered one morning when they learn the other families living on Pigeon Plum Key has sold out to a developer who wants to build a resort and marina on the island.

Holton is offered a huge sum of money for his property, but being the cantankerous old man that he is, he tells the attorneys representing the developer to go to hell and refuses to sell his homestead. Jake can only watch the pain and anguish on his aging father and mother's faces as they try to go about their daily chores knowing their life on Pigeon Plum Key is about to drastically change for the worse and there is nothing they can do about it.