House Rules

No one likes to be asked to abide by rules, especially when you are supposed to be "away from it all". However, the rules are pretty simple and practical once you have spent any time on the coast. I really don't know how the rules were started. I would guess the credit should go to my great grandmother Caroline Chaires, because it was her house first and her daughter (my great aunt) Kakey is the source of many of the ones that were repetitively given.

Over the years, I am sure that some rules have been dropped and some never really took hold. For example, back when there were wild hogs roaming around in the woods there was a fence surrounding the yard. I am sure it was very important to keep the gates closed, otherwise the wild pigs would have gotten into the yard and rooted up the lawn. I have also heard how my great grandmother Caroline Chaires didn't want people shooting quail behind the house. As the story is told, she tried to tell Reynolds Lewis he couldn't and he told her he could. Supposedly, Reynolds Lewis was one of the few people who give her those kind of answers. Similarly, I believe my mom was involved in asking the Wilsons to keep from riding their horses on the beach. I wish I could remember their exact answer.

Growing up it is hard to take in the rules from the adults, especially when those rules aren't coming from the usual source - our parents. The recitation of the rules from Kakey often made her unpopular with some of my cousins. I have never had a problem with the rules or hearing them, and I like to think of myself as a quick learner (aside from continual boating mishaps). I also believe that I am Kakey's favorite great nephew, so perhaps I could do no wrong. My cousin's I am afraid to say were misled down a potentially dangerous path by my brother in the form of the infamous "Kakey Trap". Not having been a part of this plot, I can't say with certainty if it really was my brother or my cousin Cary who derived this scheme. Having decided that they had had enough of Kakey, they decided to dig a pit on the beach in front of our house. They then covered this pit with thin sticks and seaweed so that when Kakey came down to the beach she would step on the seaweed and fall into the pit, where upon she would realize her misjudgement in telling her great nieces and nephews to "rinse their feet before coming inside" or "close the door quickly, don't let the mosquitos in". Thankfully, one of our parents caught wind of this plot, otherwise, Kakey may have been made a cripple.

My cousins and I will always remember Kakey for these rules and perhaps one day pass them on to another generation. I know that the beach house has been a favorite place for Kakey in her life. In the times that she didn't have her great nieces and nephews to boss, I am sure that she and her friends had "grand times" at the coast. It's not hard for me to remember those days growing up when Maryann and Phil Shuford and Dottie Rickards would all be sitting on the porch having their drinks and most likely reminiscing about the good times.

The Rules
1. Keep the doors closed. Mosquitos will take any opportunity presented to get in the house. There is nothing more annoying trying to sleep at night with the buzz of mosquitos around your ear.
2. Rinse your feet before coming into the house. This is the beach and your feet get dirty or sandy. If you have sandy feet and you lie on one of the beds on the porch, you just got sand in someone's bed. Right after mosquitos in the ear on the annoying scale.
3. Don't sit in a cane chair with a wet bathing suit. Cane is not water proof and will rot pretty fast if it gets wet. Re-caning a chair ain't easy or cheap. There are hard bottom chairs you can sit on with a wet bathing suit.
4. Don't leave food out. It is very humid, so food gets stale fast. We have roaches and ants that can't be stopped from coming in and will invade any open bags of chips, cookies, etc. Ants will also go after fruit.
5. If you are going off in a boat, tell someone where you will be. You will regret not doing this once you've ever been stranded.
6. Don't drink the tap water. The water comes out of a well in the backyard. No sense in risking it.
7. Conserve water. The forementioned well will run dry if a lot of people are in the house and use the water too freely.
8. When walking in the water, drag your feet. Better to kick up a stingaree than step on one.
9. Discard fish parts smartly. Don't drop heads and guts in the water while others are swimming. We haven't had a shark attack yet, but no need to ring the dinner bell.
10. Respect your neighbors. The houses are close together and the proximity to water helps the sound carry. Mom and Dad have called the Franklin County sheriff numerous times over the years on the young adult parties that went late into the night. Paybacks are way overdue.
11. Don't leave chairs and belongings on the beach. If you are not using them, bring them back up to the yard.

Boats - Part 2

The scary motor
Another one of my earliest boating memories is how my father would clean the outboard motor after each use in the saltwater. When I was young we would always bring the boat back to town after being down at the coast. Dad would sometimes wait to spray down the outboard motor with WD-40 once we got back to the house in town. As I can recall, he would somehow have water running through the motor to flush out any remaining saltwater from the pump. I don't think he had a hose and cup back then. What I seem to remember is that he would place an empty garbage can under the prop and make sure that the pump intake was submerged after filling the can with water. He would then crank up the motor in the front driveway of our house to clear out the saltwater left in the water pump. While the motor was running, he would also remove the cover to the outboard. With the cover off, he could then spray down the engine ensuring that all the parts that might have gotten salt water on them would be protected.

The removal of the outboard cover absolutely terrified me. First of all the exposed engine was so frightening looking. Second, the cover muffles a lot of the sound of the running outboard. So much so that when you take the cover off it becomes so much louder with a more sinister growl. Some part of my mind thought that the engine was a monster. Years later when I saw Star Wars I think I halfway expected that under Darth Vader's helmet was an outboard engine. I always dreaded that some problem would occur with us all in the boat and Dad would need to remove the outboard cover. As I got older, I obviously overcame this fear, but I can still remember running up to my room, which was on the opposite side of the house, anytime my Dad cranked up the motor in the driveway.

Old Motors
I mentioned in "Boats - Part 1" how a boat provides early life lessons. Hoke Oliver had an old 7 or 10 horse power evinrude outboard, which I can only guess was built in the 40s or 50s. He would mount it on the back of his john boat to use for fishing or setting crab traps. That old motor was a prime example of the quality that used to go into things and how long something can last if you took good care of it. It also taught me early on that newer isn't always better. I do believe that the motor did owe a part of it's longevity to Mr. Oliver. He was pretty handy with small engines and could provide any service needed to that engine to keep it going through the years.

Small engines were not the limits to Mr. Oliver's expertise. His house was 2 doors down and between ours and the Nelson's. He was a person who always had a smile on his face. Anytime we caught a fish that we could not identify, we would run over to Mr. Oliver and he could identify it. The time Jack and Chris Lowman and my brother and I caught a giant Jack Crevalle off the Alligator point spit, it was Mr. Oliver who identified the fish for us. He once raked up a coral snake in his front yard and brought over to our house for us to see. I learned that coral snakes can live under the pine straw at the beach and if "red meets yellow, it can kill a fellow". Mr. Oliver used to also keep a couple of quail feeders back behind the houses in the woods. In mornings and afternoons, you would hear Bobwhite quail calling each other with their distinctive "bob-white" whistle. If you hear a bobwhite down there today, there's a good chance that it is the descendant to one released years ago by Mr. Oliver.

Boats - Part 1

My earliest memory of being in a boat probably occurred when I was 4 years old. The memory is pretty faded, but I remember it being a dark green john boat. I think it belonged to our cousin Larry. I also remember Dad trying to put me in the boat down at Diehl's from the lower portion of the dock. What stands out in the memory is that it was sinking.

Dad has always owned a Boston Whaler. Florida Sportsman used to have a Boston Whaler ad in their magazine with a boat sawn into 3 sections, each with a person safely floating on board. A Boston Whaler is styrofoam boat with a hard fiberglass shell. It probably isn't actual styrofoam, but something equivalent. While it isn't the smoothest ride across the water, you don't have to worry about sinking.

When we know that a storm is coming or there might be a chance for rain, we will just pull the plug out and let the natural bouyancy of the boat settle the water line. This way a deluge of rain or a breaking wave won't capsize the boat after filling it with water. The only drawbacks are that you need someone to run the water out before going on that next boat trip and sometimes the battery makes contact with the water. That phenonmenon is what H.D. and I refer to as "stingy water".

Since Saint Teresa is protected by Alligator Point to the Southeast, Dog Island to the Southwest and the reef directly south; there never really is too much surf. We are able to toss anchor in front of the house and leave the boat parked. It always seems like the time we have to worry most about the boat is when a storm comes at night. Dad always has a powerful flashlight that he can use from the front porch of the house to make sure that the boat isn't dragging anchor when the waves and wind pick up during a storm. When boats started to drag anchor during a storm you could always expect the men along the beach to come down out of the cottages and help each other out.

The boat has been a great teaching tool for responsibility. There were times in the past when I was a teenager when Dad wanted me to make sure that the boat didn't get beached. If I slept through a storm at night, I would spend the next day digging a beached boat out. Once you've had blisters from digging in wet sand you never want that experience again.

I learned how to drive a boat before I could drive a car. To this day you can see the lessons I learned. First lesson - a boat doesn't have breaks. Frederick Conrad and I took the boat over to the Alligator Point marina to get gas. When you are 14 or 15 years old, getting gas at the marina by yourself is pretty big time. When we were pulling up to the dock, I came in too fast and Frederick got distracted by someone saying "hey". We didn't hit the pier of the dock too fast, but hard enough to ding the bow of the boat. That "scar" is still on the boat today.

Second lesson - don't forget to pull up the anchor. I've heard of friends forget to tie the anchor on and tossing it into the open water, but I think I've got that beat. Late one afternoon Terry Nelson and I were both in our father's boats. I don't know where we were going, but he took off before me and I got in such a hurry to catch up that I forgot to pull the anchor all the way. I must have shorted it or something because when I took off the anchor came off the sand and right into the bottom of the boat - prongs up! Terry either heard the noise or saw me stop suddenly. He circle back over to where I was and asked me what was wrong. I could barely speak. I think I went into shock. When we figured out what happened we both dove under the boat and pryed the anchor out from the bottom. To this day there are 2 "tooth marks" on the underside of the boat. I am not sure if my Dad knows these stories. I hope the statue of limitations has been reached since those both occurred over twenty years ago.

Of course Terry Nelson also owns the worst boating accident story that I know. In Tallahassee on South Monroe street, just below the state capitol, used to be the "B&W Fruit Market". As you come down the hill from the capitol, the road transitions rather abruptly from hill to straight flat road. As I can recall I believe there was even a metal grate across the road where the hill part of the street meets the flat part. It is probably to help with runoff during heavy rains as it was quite common for the Market to get flooded.

Terry and I had a lot in common growing up, but when we got to high school he "lived it up", while I always was in fear of stepping out of line. It must have been when were in the 10th grade. I remember that the Key Club was having the annual bahamas dance at Lafayette Park gym. As was quite common growing up, my parents took us to either the beach or river when there was a social event in town. I guess it is better that we weren't sitting at home. Terry was going to go to the dance that friday night and then come down with his father the next morning. We had already made plans to go fishing for specs that Saturday afternoon.

Saturday morning rolled around and no Terry. I kept checking over at their house, but no sign. When they finally arrived you could tell something bad had happened. It seems that earlier that morning, Terry's Dad asked him to hitch the boat to the back of the truck. Terry was probably a little foggy that morning and forgot to roll up the front wheel of the trailer that you use to bring the trailer to the hitch without having to lift the front. As they were driving across town and came down South Monroe, that front trailer wheel, still cranked down, caught the part of the road where the hill ends and the flat part of the road begins. Right in front of the B&W Fruit Market, the trailer detaches from the truck and sails into the back of a car parked along the street. The momentum of the moving trailer stopping suddenly in the back of the car sends the boat airborne into the wench of the trailer - completely gouging a hole in the bow of the boat all the way through. Fortunately, no one was hurt. But Terry Nelson, a Boston Whaler, and the B&W Fruit Market are forever tied together.