Simpler Times

Today is a day for memories. I was just sitting back here at my desk and remembering some of my favorite childhood memories growing up in the area known as the Cove in Panama City Florida. Summers were magical in the Cove. You could start your day off at 5:00AM easing up to the kitchen to take open up the fridge and removing four or five slices of bacon and a piece of aluminum foil as a make shift bait bucket. This was not breakfast for me but for a few starving little croakers and choffers down in Watson Bayou. I would gather my old metal tackle box, my Zebco 202 rod and reel and maybe a sandwich or two and head down Cherry Street for a great time. Do you remember getting your first rod and reel? I remember like it was yesterday. We had a Christmas gathering at my grandmothers over on McArthur Avenue most years and this one particular time we were all gathered in her den. Her table top silver aluminum Christmas tree with a rotating light lense turned the aluminum branches from reds to blues to yellows and to greens. It wasn’t exactly a live green Douglas Fir but it meant way more to us since it was grandma’s traditional tree. Sitting on another table would be a gum drop tree. Do you remember those? A clear plastic tree with gum drops impelled on each of the limbs. Bell shaped gum drops covered with sugar. There would be gifts for everyone from cousins, uncles, aunts and so forth all stacked around the little table that held that little Aluminum Christmas tree. I remember one year toward the end of the gift giving when my older brother and I had nothing from grandma, my grandfather going to his garage wood working shop and bringing back inside two long round tubes. I remember the excitement of ripping off the wrapping and then pulling the end off that tube and pulling out that brand new Zebco 202. A $300 Diawa couldn’t have meant more to me that day. Well getting back to the story. The then International Paper mill would be in full blossom on most mornings with that horrible stench you learned to get used to and a deep fog from the smoke billowing from its stacks. Of course there was no public docks to fish from so you eased onto a private dock in the backyards of neighbors like the Sullivan’s or Doc Humphreys’ and quietly took your Zebco and released a little line, fastened on a bobber and threaded a small piece of cut bacon on to the hook and lightly cast it out onto the glass like dark waters of the bayou. Of course you nearly always had company from other Cove kids with their fishing gear ready to do battle with a Spanish or King mackerel… yeah we wished. You usually never caught anything but trash fish down off those docks but you weren’t there for the food, you were there for the fun. It was fun to watch the seagulls dive bombing the schools of Elwy’s, it was fun to play with a blue crab on the barnacles of the dock posts with a piece of bacon and hook. To this day there is still nothing like that warm morning sun coming up over that bay in brilliant red, yellow and orange colors mixed in with a pillowy cloud or two. Sitting there on that dock you could hear the machines across the bayou of the paper mill whirling away, you could hear the shrimp and fishing boats diesel engines droning as they were leaving out of the Panama City downtown Marina, you could even see a playful dolphin from time to time tossing a lazy slow pelican in the air like a feathery volley ball toy. Those were simpler times, no doors locked, no security systems, no video games, and not a lot of TV to watch. I don’t know how many times I got a rusty old hook in my finger and never went to get a tetanus shot. I would go to the docks barefoot most of the time and never worried about ring worms or infections. We had no cell phones to keep in touch with our parents. When it was dark it was then we went home and in the house. Going inside was more of a punishment than a preference in that day. Those were incredible days with memories that will far outlast my aging brain. Isn’t it a shame today’s generation will miss out on these kinds of cherished memories? Have a great day.