The Skinny Island Post

There’s one bike rider among the usual, and shrinking, band of morning beach walkers.  A friendly chap, he always says good morning, and he scared the bejesus out of me this morning with his greeting as he approached from behind, because I didn’t hear him coming.  He can’t beach ride every morning, of course, because you can only negotiate a bike, even with fat tires, through our sand at or near low tide, which we’ve had through the weekend and into the first of this week.  But Ive been seeing him for years, another of the crew of regulars whose name or story I do not know.  For a long time he pedaled alongside a woman, his wife, I am assuming, who was a runner.  Then, five years ago or more he was riding by himself and we haven’t seen her since.  Opens the door to many possibilities, but we just don’t know.  One of the many mysteries I prefer to keep as mysteries about the lives of these beach folk.  It’s the story-teller in me.

One noticeable characteristic of this guy, however, is that he always presents with the scent of sunblock, classic Coppertone, to be specific.  It is unmistakable; there’s no other scent like it, and that’s what this is about.  When he passes and I get a whiff, I’m transported through a portal to a carefree, happy time.  Smells are evocative and provocative, you know, and are deeply associated with memories.  For me this scent evokes memories of my youth with friends on the Gulf coast, St. Theresa, Alligator Point, Panama City, a wonderful time with everything still out ahead of us.  Patchouli is another scent that brings a rush of good memories, but of a different time, place, and circumstances.  And oddly, even diesel fumes evoke the streets of wonderful cities we’ve enjoyed.

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I wrote some time back about the submarine look-out tower on the beach, and the guy who lived in the sheltered space beneath the deck below it.  I saw him this morning, sitting on the steps of a dune walkover a half-mile further south, his bike leaning on the railing beside him.  I thought it a bit odd he was there and not in his usual place.  On the way back home I saw why.  I hadn’t seen it on my passing of the look-out in the pre-sun light, but there it was.  There were new steps rising from the beach, and the under space was now sheathed all around in new wood.  No access now.

Time to move on.  And so it goes.

We’re having a little mouse issue right now at The Little Hacienda.   It’s undoubtedly due to the change in the weather, the little guys naturally seeking a nice warm place to ride out the Florida winter.  Of course, when it hits 80 again in a few days, that could prove to be a poor decision.  We first heard a little something in the attic about a week ago and, having had a similar experience some fifteen years ago, knew how to proceed.  First was to find the means of entry.  I found a small hole in the facia on the south side of the house, which I plugged.  Unable to find our old live trap, we bought a new one.

These are little dune mice, not big hulking city things.  They live, naturally, in the dunes, and occasionally make their way across A1A to our little sanctuary, which accounts for the healthy snake population we sustain.  They are tiny, about 4 inches long, (minus the tail), dark brown, and quite cute.  Just not in the attic.  The remedy is to set a live trap up in the attic, baited with either cheese or peanut butter.  Turns out this iteration prefers cheese.  We trapped one a couple days after setting out the trap.  We were having coffee and reading the paper when we heard the trap engage, then a frantic clanging as the little fellow tried to escape.  Our method of disposal is relocation.  We take them up the road to the North Peninsula State Recreation Area, and release.  We are not fond of family separation, but in this case, given their proclivity for reproduction, a period of separation will probably do them, and us, a world of good.

Which is what I did.  Hoping that was it, we nevertheless re-baited the trap and put it back in the attic.  Sure enough, a day later we heard footsteps. Nothing for a couple days, and then last night we heard the cage engage again.  I waited until morning to retrieve the trap, when I should have gone up right away.  I discovered the little guy had died!  No trauma; the trap is large enough to accommodate a hefty raccoon.  I believe he died of fright, and we feel terrible about it.  I took him back over to the dune, said a few words, and placed him down in the palmettos.  Later that same day, today, I heard the tell-tale ruckus, and on investigating, found we had caught another of the little interlopers.  This one I transported up the beach and let him out across from a beach bar at happy hour. He scampered in the other direction, down the dune.

But the whole thing brings to mind another incident, speaking of raccoons.  We have a little get-away house over on the west side of the state, making us truly bi-coastal.  How we acquired, and have held what we lovingly call The Little Hacienda West, or TLHW, for 17 years without renting it out or actually living in it is a story for another blog, so we’ll hold off on that for now.  The fact is we had a family of raccoons, a mom and two babies, take up residence in that attic several years ago.  I happened to be there by myself for a bit, and was naturally tasked with getting them out.  My research into the matter told me that light and loud sound would drive them out.  As luck would have it I had a shop light for some other work I was doing there, and a pair of giant HED speakers.  And again, there’s a subject for another blog.  Whatever happened to big speakers?  Everything is miniaturized now, and virtually useless.  If it doesn’t rattle the walls and loosen plaster, what good is it?

Anyway, I put the light up in the attic and then lugged one of the big speakers up.  I turned the connected radio to a classic rock station, and let loose with some Zeppelin.  Nothing.  I could see three pair of beady little eyes staring back at me from the recesses of the attic.  Next up was Metallica.  Surely that would get them moving.  Long story short, they didn’t budge for any music I tried.  I then had a sinister idea, and switched from FM to AM, searched for a few minutes and stumbled on Rush Limbaugh.  After ten minutes of Rush, mama was herding the youngsters out the way they’d come in, an impossibly small opening next to the electric meter on the wall of the shed out back.  Draw your own conclusions.  I’m not saying another word.

And we spotted this guy sliding down a palm a few evenings ago back at The Little Hacienda.  I think he (she) may have been scoping out a warm attic.  All this because we have a relatively unique habitat here, for a residence, anyway.  Stay tuned for blogs on our wonderful nearby parks, Bicentennial, a mile south, and North Peninsula, 2 miles north.

We’re Back, with a beautiful start to 2020.  After more than a week of dreary, rainy weather at the end of December, we’re enjoying fantastic weather here on Skinny Island, and pumped to have a great year, with lots of projects.  We don’t make resolutions, but we are inspired by renewal.  We’re healthy, relatively speaking, still moving and thinking clearly, so the rest is gravy.

We had Right Whales off the beach yesterday.  Unfortunately, I missed them, but a beach-walker friend told me this morning he saw them, a female and calf, about two-hundred yards out.  I haven’t seen any in about eight years, but they are a beautiful sight to behold, and very uplifting.  It’s a beach thing.  And I have a new friend, Sully, a rambunctious Golden Retriever puppy, who walks on the beach in the morning with his people.  He moves in fifty different directions at once, and is an absolute joy.

January and February can be a bummer here, but we’ll get through it, and by popular demand, and for our sanity, we’ll try to be more consistent in turning out the Post.  Stay tuned!

Moonrise on The 10.  I think it’s the best stretch of road in the country, and also one of the longest.  I-10 runs from Jacksonville to L.A., and at last count, we’ve driven it, one way or the other, five times, with another three to and from Texas.  Heading west you get into good country right out of Jacksonville, and except for Tallahassee, you don’t hit much traffic until New Orleans.  If you’re smart, you take the 12 at Slidell, LA, to get you around New Orleans, and then you have to go through Baton Rouge and Lake Charles, but it’s not bad, depending on the time of day, then Houston, which is always bad.  Then there’s a pretty free run to San Antonio, which has gotten way too big since we lived there in the early 70’s.  After that, it’s a crippling, long drive across west Texas to El Paso, unless you give in and just enjoy the scenery.  The land and sky are so immense and beautiful.  I find it deeply moving, and have since I first drove it in 1970.  At Ft. Stockton you can turn south for another hundred miles to Big Bend National Park, out of the way, but that gives it special status.  If you do that, and want to continue west, you have to take little two-lane 118 out of the park to Alpine, where we once spent the night, long ago, passing through Terlingua, which was a ghost town when we passed through in 1970, and where they now have a famous barbecue cook-off, before hooking up again with the 10 and El Paso and Las Cruces, NM.

In years past it was a fun run through beautiful desert from there on, but with the insane growth of Tucson and Phoenix, it’s sometimes a good choice to head north out of Las Cruces on the 25 to pick up the 40 to continue west.  Bust I still like the southern route, despite the ugliness and smog of The Valley of the Sun, although 25 should not be missed.  It is a desolate, mind-bending drive through Indian territory to Albuquerque.  If you stay on the 10 you will eventually hit Blythe, CA, then Joshua Tree National Park, where we had one of our great camping experiences, which included margaritas in the middle of the road, and where, on the western side of the park you gain elevation and can see the Salton Sea and the unmistakable crack of the San Andreas Fault.

After that you’re on your own. The L.A. rich folk desert.  Coachella, Indio, Palm Springs.  At San Bernardino you’d better decide whether you want to go on into L.A, or hook north on the 15 to get out of it.  If you keep going you’ll eventually end up on the Santa Monica Pier, after hours in traffic, and if you take the 15 to Barstow, you can pick up the 40 to Bakersfield and pick up the 5 north.  Good choice, unless you want to see the Hollywood sign, and look at the palm prints at Grumman’s Chinese Theater.  Pretty much a one-time experience.  The 5 takes you up the Central Valley all the way to Washington.  America’s bread basket; almonds, avocados, pistachios, etc.  Not to be missed.  We’ve taken it all the way up into Oregon.

North of San Francisco, if you want to head back from there, you can pick up the 80 through Truckee and Reno to Salt Lake.  Every time we’ve been up there weather set in, requiring chains, so we haven’t done it.  I always wanted to do the 80 on a motorcycle, like my San Francisco friend Chester Chin described, but I guess that’s past.  If I can come back, I’m doing that, on a big BMW.

Coming back on the 10 is even better, for some reason.  I think it has to do with the gradual leaving of openness for the crowdedness of the east.  Not that that’s better, not at all.  It’s about re-emerging into life as it is, after experiencing something greater; the American West.  There’s nothing like it.  There’s the gradual contrast you experience, that sharpens what you’ve just been through, knowing that’s out there.  I’m ready to do it again.

Our dear friend Frannie Glosson sent us this photo a few days ago, saying she found it in her attic.  Frannie is the wife of my long-time pal and Walter Reed army buddy, Dean Glosson. I say she is the wife, not was, of Dean, though he is deceased too soon, because I know she is.  Anyway, this is a photo of me, taken ca. 1974 in McHenry, Illinois, at Dean’s family farm.  It was so long ago it’s hard to remember the details, but we had taken a trip up there to see them when we were both barely a year out of service.  Amazing what hair you can grow in a year when you’re young.  I remember it as a joyous occasion, full of energy and hope.  We had been through a lot, and we were beginning our lives after service.  I met Dean in basic medic training in San Antonio in late 1969, and we then both attended the Clinical Specialist course there in 1970, an army LPN course.  We lived together off-post, with another amazing person, Pete Young. Pete, a daily farmer from Maine, was in the class ahead of us, and served in Okinawa upon graduation.  Frannie and Barbara came out to an Antonio in the summer of that year and we got apartments a street apart near the base.  It was a wonderful time.  As luck would have it, we both got assigned to Walter Reed in DC upon completion of the course, and both landed on the same ward, a neurosurgical unit.  There’s a lot to be written about that, but that’ll have to wait.  The first year we were there– two newly-wed couples– the Glossons with a new baby, Josh, we lived several miles apart, but in our second year, along with two other couples from our unit, we moved into apartments on Flower Avenue in Takoma Park, MD.  Dean and Frannie lived just across the hall from us on the second floor.  There was lots of music and good times.  We’ve remained close ever since.

Here’s what I want to say about the photo.  It resonates in me in a way I’m not really able to define, but it’s something about the whole trip.  It’s about friends, real friends, love and life.  Something about commitment and staying true to a vision we perhaps idealistically had.  I’m still with, and still in love with, the woman I had married just three years before this photo was taken.  We’ve struggled, but have lived the kind of life life we bought a ticket for.  Compromising as necessary, but holding firm to an idea that was more about grace than it was money.  My friend Dean is gone, but not far away, and he and Frannie lived a life of service.  I can think of no better tribute or way to live.

I am looking at the future in this photo, I think.  The early commitment to art, in some form or another, is there, and regardless of commercial success, that has been my path, my quiet, singular gesture.  I just wish I still had that hair.