As a kid, we moved around a lot. My dad was in the Air Force, so we ended up moving six times during my childhood. My family loved the outdoors so we went exploring in all the places where we lived. This included hiking, camping, and fishing. Consequently, I had exposure to nature and wildlife.
However, nothing prepared me for beach life. When I’d told my Virginia friends that I was sad to be saying goodbye to them, they had replied in one voice, “Are you crazy…you’re going to Florida!!!” “You’ll be so tanned,” one of them had said.
None of this had occurred to me at all. And honestly, I didn’t care about tans and beaches at that point. I only felt an intense sorrow, different from our other moves. I’m sure it must have been my age, the emotions of being a budding teenager at that time. But, try as I might, I couldn’t muster any excitement for new horizons, much less new people. So I clutched my journal to my chest, and with my dog at my side, we rode in the backseat all the way from Virginia to Florida.
I remember that first summer along the Gulf Coast. It was full of discovery. My parents, being very familiar with the area since they had lived in nearby Biloxi at one time, were delighted to introduce me to many new things. The more animatedly Mom explained about her love for the beautiful azaleas and the moss-draped ancient oak trees that graced the area, the more I slumped into melancholy.
One frightening discovery was made in Mobile, Alabama. I don’t remember if we were just driving through there on the way back from Meridian to see my grandmother or had purposely gone over to visit the battleship that sits at the end of Mobile bay causeway. But after our tour of the big boat, we were sitting out by the water on the old concrete picnic tables (that still exist there), I got the scare of my life. Little did I know this terror would be repeated too many times to count as I was to become a life-long resident of the area.
Feeling something on my sandaled foot, I looked down and saw the biggest, most monstrous, black, nasty-looking bug crawling away unafraid from my foot. I let out a blood-curdling scream. My parents both laughed and commented that “It’s just a cockroach.”
Mind you, I was an outdoorsy girl. I grew up camping. At least in Virginia we had reasonably sized bugs. I wasn’t afraid of those bugs, or of frogs, or dogs or cats or horses, or of anything alive that I could think of up until that point.
But since that day in Mobile, Alabama, me and the species of Cockroachia have been sworn enemies.
That horrific introduction to coastal bug life, however, was quickly contrasted with another new Gulf Coast discovery for me, one that was scrumptious and promising of more pleasurable days to come in Florida.
And truly that day became a turning point for me.
Mom and Dad had been excited to go sightseeing in our new location. We meandered up and down the coast, ending up on what was to become “my beach,” the lovely and glorious Pensacola Beach. We walked in the surf on the gulf side and then across the street and through the sand dunes and along the inner-coastal waterway. Little did I know, I’d grow to love the whole area. I’d learn to treasure the sand, the salt air, and the warm sun on my skin.
On that day, as we played along the beach, we came upon a small fishing boat on the sound side that had just come back from net fishing. Actually, they’d pulled up some bay oysters and were sampling some right off their boat. These guys had brought all the necessary items. When they found out that I’d never had an oyster before, they offered me one. They grabbed a fresh shell and pried it open with their oyster knife. I noticed the other guy was eating his directly out of the shell but this guy spilled mine on a saltine cracker and dropped some hot sauce on it for me. “Put the whole thing in your mouth at once,” they all agreed, including my parents. It was a truly interesting and lovely flavor, salty and fishy, but not too much, briny with a touch of zest. I was an instant Gulf Coast seafood fan!
Much later, I’d grow to love the tasty shrimp and saltwater fish too. I’d learn to treasure the sand, riding up and down the beach with friends, and laying in the sand for hours to tan my skin. I would eventually feel, and become even, a Floridian. But for this thirteen-year-old me, in eating that first oyster on that beach, I felt quite like Jonathan Swift who said, "It was a bold man that first ate an oyster."
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