The John Gorrie Bridge

One day the old man told me about how they used to make ice before there were refrigerators.  He told me about how metal blocks filled with fresh water would be dipped into a larger container of brine water that was cooled by a large machine.  He went into detail about how pistons on the machine fired.  He also taught me what brine water is...

...The pistons worked like this:  a small amount of fuel would be injected into a small container or capillary within the engine.  The piston, a metal cylinder, would slowly rise and compress the fuel until the pressure was great enough to create enough heat to ignite the fuel.  The fuel would then explode and the piston would fire...Brine water is essentially salt water.  It freezes at a much lower temperature than fresh water... 

...The large containers filled with fresh water were then dropped in a larger container of brine water using a pulley system of some kind.  The brine water was cooled to less than 32 degrees by the machine. The pistons would fire and run the machine.  After some time, the fresh water became ice.  The fresh ice in the container would be turned upside down and warm water would be poured over the top to allow the ice to slide out. This is how I learned about how ice used to be made and how fire can be used to make ice.

He also told me that the the bridge that crosses Apalachicola bay was named after John Gorrie, the man who invented the machine that created the ice. The John Gorrie bridge is one of the bridges that has always carried me to freedom.  I don't have to explain what this bridge is to my family.  They know the bridge very well. It has carried us all to freedom many times.  If you weren't in my family and you were to ask about this bridge, I would have to tell you that it is made of fire and ice. I would have to tell you that it crosses the bay that is fed by the river where my granddaddy used to eat oysters and that I am very sure that he crossed it when he died.

Photographs & Backpacks

I remember him in photographs...
somehow he never smiles, but he always laughs...


...Once granddaddy told me a story about a time, during world war II, when he was shot at while crawling in a ditch. When he walked away, there were bullet holes in his backpack. My backpack has always held books and his held bullets. He always taught me more than my classes.

The Movement In His Toes

I will always remember him in his big rocking chair,
with his big reading glasses and his full head of hair,
with all of his stories, always watching the news,
always chuckling at politics in his favorite house shoes
I will always remember him, for everything that i know,
I will always remember the movement in his toes.

The Other Side

Once he told me about a time that he had been in a firefight with the Germans during WWII.  The Nazi army had beaten into his company very deeply and there were many drops of blood across the hillside on which they fought.  The shooting went on for many hours and then night fell.  The darkness of the night was accompanied by a brief silence, followed by the sounds of death. There were many wounded American soldiers on the hillside opposite from his ear. They were out of reach in a way that one feels about lottery tickets and drug recovery.  He spent the night listening to the the desperate, dying screams of friends that he had made, knowing that he was hearing their last words...it took me a long time to realize that the fear and despair that he felt that night was not for himself, or even for the men that laid on the hill, but for all of us and our wars.

The Old Men and the Sea

Once he told me of a struggle between a great man and a great beast, something similar to the way hemmingway told of santiago.
a man at the edge of his pulse with his line finding its way to an end. the struggle of pride and sport and sweat all finding its way into the sea. and there he saw spoonie with his brand new fishing pole at an arch to defy mathmatics, in the bow of a tiny row boat, on the verge of becoming a local hero, and then, just like it started, with the snap of tiny teeth, spoonie was in the hull with half of what he had in his heart and his hand.  the unknown, escaping out into infinity, like dreams and future days and unseen things, a mirage in a desert of distant fins, something lost that had never been.  shadows swiming in the night, like sillouetes of birds in flight, spoonie had fallen with his great new broken fishing staff, and my grandfather told this story many times... and he never forgot to laugh.

Old Dog Again

Once he told me of his grandfather,

a victim of the days when intellect was hidden sometimes,

by masks and pointy caps and shotguns.

and there they marched behind the blinds,

with windows closed, covered and exposed,

lost out in the woods, with leaves hanging from the trees,

all fallen in the fall, and in the winter left to freeze,

something discarded and forgotten, way out in the breeze,

decaying and swaying, a forest in the seas.

all of the confusion of war and loss and hate

passed down by faith and famine and fate,

some pathetic mixture of culture and genetics,

a symptom of politics and phonetics,

we're all so lost and following all we've found

and his ol' grandfather's dog followed him all over town.

granddaddy told me of his grandfather's dog,

following him in his sheets and all the fog,

in everything he tried to conceal,

in everything that was violent and real,

in all of the days and the choices of all the seasons,

sometimes those without a voice are the voice of reason...

Old Dog

Granddaddy told be of his grandfather, who was a member of the ku klux klan.

his grandfather suited up every evening and took his pride and all he had learned

to discuss all of his hatred for colors and his black and white views

and to burn all of the things he was told to believe in,

like crosses and swastikas...

but he had one problem...he had a dog.

and all dogs see different colors than we do...

and they don't seem to be so offended by them...

and the dog always followed him around in his white skin

and even in his white suit and cap,

and damnit the dog was always so obvious and naked.

so very much the opposite of what his grandfather intended to accomplish.

but sometimes love is more powerful than hate.

and so everyone always knew about his grandfather,

and his all of his silly rantings and rally's...