The Dock

On the dock, stretching out across the sea,  
a clock could carry time into infinity,
On the glossy surface of some old photograph  
I see him standing there, waiting for her time to pass.

Model Sailboat

Every Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, I think of Granddaddy and St. George Island. January was always the month that Granddaddy and Nana rented Willow Pond and Jason would always anxiously await MLK holiday to have a long weekend to go visit.


At the beach, we'd wake up in the morning, have breakfast and Granddaddy would laugh because we cut our bananas the same way (with a spoon, no knife necessary). Then we'd spend the day listening to stories, eating mixed nuts and shortbread cookies from a tin.


One year, Granddaddy was putting together and painting this intricate model sailboat. I remember sitting around the big breakfast table together: Granddaddy, Jason, Lauren, and me. We all took turns painting the little sailors and watching Granddaddy with his delicate handy work.


I loved watching Granddaddy busy with his model sailboat. He could do anything, fix everything, tell you all that you needed to know in life, but I feel like he taught me a great deal about enjoying the small things and taking time to do what you love each year at the beach. I hope that one day Jason and I can spend long months on the beach taking the time to do what makes us happy (no matter how big or small). And like Granddaddy, I also hope we always laugh with our stomachs too.

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.

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.