Road Trip 3

Road Trip…3

July 24, 2017

I realize that a few of you may have been offended by my ending of the last blog. I’m overly fond of what Gloria Steinem said, “If you haven’t been called a bitch by the time you are 30, you aren’t trying hard enough”. Anyway it would likely be good to consider that conflict and difference of opinion are quite common in families, and often about religion in particular. In my own family my older brother, Buddy, reported to be an atheist at a young age. I believe he was more of a pantheist by the end of his life. My older sister argues about everything and she goes to Bible study and church four or five times a year. I believe she is more of a biblical theologian than anything else. I believe in God. I do not like the rigid judgmentalism of organized religion- the ostracism of whole groups of people because of who they love and how they love. The racism that was so endemic in the southern religious communities in the south. The refusal of organized religion to consider anything different from church doctrine offends me. Their dogma ran over my karma, as the old bumper sticker used to say. My younger brother, David and sister Rosie are Christians whom I respect and admire, as is my youngest sister, BC. The conversation reminds me of an old joke, where Jesus and the devil were walking together in the garden. Jesus sees a scrap of paper on the side of the path that appears to be a list. He picks it up and reads the word “religion” out loud. The devil tears it out of Jesus’s hand and says, “Give that to me, I’ll organize it!

So that is that and I make no apologies for it. However, I was unkind to my cousin Judy, and I do apologize to her. I have a new mantra,  Honesty without kindness is brutality.

As I think I stated earlier some of us eventually had to go back and forth from the beach to my hometown of Palatka, Florida,. (The name Palatka comes from the Seminole for “cow Paddy”) It sits on the banks of the St. Johns River about 20 miles inland from St. Augustine. The main street has seen better days, but the people are mostly sweet and kind and fond of fishing. We arrived just in time to see David’s grandson, Syler, win a bass fishing Championship for the State of Florida in his 10- year-old age group. He was grinning from ear to ear as he stood at the city docks to receive his trophy. We then headed to Corky Bells Fish Camp to celebrate. We were blessed during dinner with a good old-fashioned Florida frog- strangler, otherwise known as a thunderstorm! Judy showed up and couldn’t find us, so I jumped in a car and drove 500 ft. to McDonalds to lead her to Corky Bells After stuffing ourselves with fried fish and hush puppies we headed to River Road where David and Rosie’s home is nestled among the old live oaks filled with Spanish moss.

News Flash! We crammed so many activities into our three and one-half days I cannot get the order of events straight. So, I’m just going to take the liberty of cramming in all into what ever space I can find.

One of the crazy days going back and forth to Palatka, we went to the best fish fry I have ever attended at Kelley and Cliff’s barn. They’d built a huge boat garage and off to one side they made a bar and kitchen outside. They installed a fryer for all the fish Cliff brings home. Cliff Prince is in the top 100 bass fishermen in the world. It is an international competition and he makes a nice wallet of winnings. Kelley and the kids follow him around as his groupies when he competes and they say a lot of fishy prayers. It’s a given that Syler follows him everywhere, but so does their beautiful daughter, Gracie! Cliff is a real celebrity. All the cousins were at the fish fry and afterwards did some skeet shooting. They had a blast. They were all sun burned from the beach, and Jakes was jet-lagged from just getting home from his school trip to Spain. Needless to say they were exhausted. Now Syler is a champion fisherman at 10, and Rosie just called to tell me Gracie is fourth in the world in Archery in her age group. What an amazing family!!!

Also, I forgot to tell you that after the fish fry we ALL went with Jennifer to YOGA class in Palatka. All of us including David, Rosie, Dianne, Logan, Chrissie, Mia, Jennifer, Kelley P, Gracie, Kelly S, Jakes, Lindsey, Syler, Greg, and me. We made up the entire class- though some were more active than others! The Yoga instructor was great. Cousin Judy also was there, but decided not to push fate and participate. And to celebrate our perfect Yoga class, we all went out for ice cream! Make sense out of that?

Oh, and one dau we went to lunch and ran into Jo Carol Meltzer! Didn’t recognize her. Brought back bunches of uncomfortable memories. Ah well.

Oh, and that morning, or one of the mornings, , Leigh Trescot brought her mom, Nancy to visit for a few minutes. Nancy lost the love of her life, Jack. He lived spryly into his 90’s, I don’t think Nancy is doing very well. She is as beautiful as ever and loves to see all of us-and we her, Hugs went all around—but she looks pretty frail. Nancy is in her 80’s. It is so damn hard losing all these wonderful people who so mightily influenced our lives just by their presence. Nancy was definitely one of those (along with Phyllis DeGuerre.). Nancy stayed to visit about 30 minutes or so, then she and Leigh left with many hugs and kind words.

Shortly after Nancy left, my son Greg showed up and we all greeted him with great enthusiasm. We said goodbye to Judy as she headed over to the beach so she wouldn’t have to get on the road so early in the morning. She was headed back to Atlanta with our love and devotion and prayers for Aunt Bunny and Gene.

We were leaving the next morning to cross the state to the Gulf for Chrystal River and Wakulla, so it wasn’t long before we bedded down for the night.

Next edition the saga continues : Swimming with the Manatee and Wakulla!!!