Those wacky and wild spring breakers

PANAMA CITY BEACH, FL - The shorts have gotten longer, and the one-piece has shrunk and divided into two pieces. But it's not just the Spring Break attire that has changed over the years. It's also the attitudes, some Spring Break veterans said. Jim and Elaine Quigley spend half their year at the Edgewater Beach Resort. The Indiana couple hit the beach during Spring Break wearing 1930s beach gear to show how it used to be.
   
"We looked good, but we didn't let it all hang out," Elaine Quigley said.
   
The Quigleys gathered their costumes by buying pieces at a costume shop in Indiana and Salvation Army stores. Elaine Quigley compared what she collected to pictures she has of her mother from the 1930s.
   
"The attire has changed quite a bit," Elaine Quigley said, "from one-piece down to a two-piece. The men also now wear long shorts when they use to wear much shorter shorts."
   
The attire is not the only thing that has changed over the years for Panama City Beach Spring Breaks, they said. The Quigleys believe the young spring breaker have grown nicer over recent years.
   
"I think it's gotten milder," Elaine Quigley said of recent Spring Breaks. "We could go on the beach with the kids and talk to them."
   
In the past, the Quigleys were mocked and called grandparents by spring breakers. That has changed, and many of the students are friendly these days, Elaine Quigley said.
   
Not everyone agrees the changes have been good.
   
Dale and Karen Clark met on the beach in 1968 at the Hang-Out, where condos now tower the gulf waters. The Panama City couple has seen the beach change from an innocent hangout to binge drinking.
   
"We didn't have Spring Break back then," Dale Clark said. "It would appear these people come down here with the attitude that they are owed a good time. We weren't owed anything back in the day."
   
Dale Clark met his wife while she was baby-sitting her younger siblings at the beach. The couple has been married for 41 years.
   
"Back in the old days we would dance when we met," Dale Clark said. "There were a lot of places to dance."
   
There appears to a loss of innocence and a lot more aggression on the beach, he said.
   
"No one can drink anymore," Dale Clark said. "They have to get drunk. ... When we were kids, it was a big deal to walk down the beach and hold hands."