Muzzy

If anyone asked me, “Could life get any better than this?” I might have to answer, “Don’t think so.” Middle of May and sixty something Fahrenheit. 46% humidity at this sit-down with a glass of cabernet from the Black Box I didn’t take to church after all. On my upstairs front screen porch looking out at clear sky, light breeze, blue Bay. Sailboat under sail across the Bay. Why do I always capitalize Bay? Because of all bays on earth, this Bay is sacred, holy. St. Andrews Bay.

Thursday five o’clock in the afternoon, taking note of life. My house is on the mostly quiet dead end of W. Beach Drive that gets hardly any traffic. When my parents first bought the house back into the family in 1962, the road down front was not paved and every car that buzzed by raised a cloud of dust that kept both porches covered with dirt. Inside too, because it was before air conditioning and the windows were open. I didn’t want the street paved, but my parents did and they and the neighbors pressed the city for it. They were right.

Unlike cake, remembering a dirt road is better than having it.

If this note get blog posted it will be because Friday morning I have an eight o'clock appointment for an abdomen ultrasound or sumpnother. Nothing to eat or drink after midnight, including no coffee, so tomorrow morning may find me cross. In fact, with no coffee I stayed asleep until 6:15 now, and the morning finds me muzzy of mind with nothing in stomach but a sip of water downing a handful of pills that render me muzzy.

Thursday has been good. Not perfect, but good. May 15 is Robert’s birthday, he’s 79, four months older than I am. When we met for our walk this morning, he told me that four o’clock this afternoon would be a historic moment: at four o’clock p.m. on this day in history, my mother dropped me off at his house for his 7th birthday party. Robert remembers and he is an organizer. He rounded up information about our Cove School class of 1949, found all those he could, and worked up our first class reunion. That was in 2003 to coincide with our 50th reunion of our Bay High class of 1953. Robert organized a classmates gathering, which we had at Cove School. We elected him our class president. A bit later we had another reunion and Robert brought Virginia Parker, our beloved 8th grade teacher at Cove School. It's the wine doing this to the eyes. Ten years after our first one we had another reunion at Cove School when classmates were in town for our Bay High 60th reunion, and we reelected Robert. If it happens again I’ll nominate him President for Life. Ever an outstanding athlete, he played varsity basketball at Bay High. I was a band nerd.

Tuesday and Thursday mornings Robert and I meet on Linda Avenue by HNEC WIlliam’s Field for our walk. This morning, Thursday, we walked just half an hour, down Hamilton Avenue to Massalina Drive, left and past 321 where I grew up. I planted those azaleas. Dug the holes, mixed the peat moss, dirt, fertilizer, water to create slush, put them in. Some of the azaleas Anderson planted, those I planted. That little front porch is where the Easter bunny always left our Easter baskets. Under the porch is where our cat usually had her kittens. I crawled under the house once and looked under the porch just as a kitten was born. The mother cat, very gentle, just looked at me.

My parents built that house in 1937, and January 1938 we moved in just two weeks before Gina was born. I stood on the front stoop with my mother and watched my father and his helper Dave plant that 3-trunk magnolia tree while our dog Patsy watched and romped in the front yard. Current owner stopped in her car and spoke to us down front, said her husband would love to show us through one day, just knock. Maybe one day. On up Massalina Drive pausing to look at Robert's house across the bayou

to Linda Avenue and back to the school.

Tuesday our walk was over an hour: Cove School, 2nd Court to the Bay, across Tarpon Dock Bridge, E. Beach Drive to what? Park Street? to McKenzie Park for a quick sit-down, then to Harrison Avenue and up to the Ritz Theatre.

Reminisce about how it was, movies we saw there, the line to the ticket booth stretching down the sidewalk and round the corner. Then 4th Street and 4th Street Bridge across Massalina Bayou. We peered under the bridge to see if we could spot old pilings from the wooden bridge that was there before 1945.

Man, was that a noisy wooden bridge, we could hear it from our house half a mile away, every time a car drove across it, lummalummalummalummalumma, both that bridge and the old wooden draw bridge at Tarpon Dock.

Right onto Massalina Drive, past the dock where the South Wind used to be tied, owners from Columbus, Georgia; the green house where Robert lived when we became friends and schoolmates and where he grew up, and where that party was and lots of other playing over the years. Round to Hamilton Avenue, to 2nd Court and back to our cars. Tuesday is our breakfast day: we ate at Golden Corral, eggs over medium, one fried chicken leg, coffee, lots of water, strawberries over soft vanilla. Ice cream? Hey, nobody lives forever, if you can’t have a quarter cup of --- it’s ice milk -- for breakfast, pull the string, this is my stop.

For our walk we take turns choosing where to go. Tuesday was my turn, today Robert’s turn. Next Tuesday is my turn to choose the walk route and to buy breakfast, Robert’s turn to choose where we go for breakfast. I like GC where I can get what I DWP, but the restaurant out over Johnson Bayou is good too, except the piping hot two inch thick biscuits are irresistible and I don’t eat biscuits. Except there. Maybe the biscuits were an inch and a half, I wrote that Thursday afternoon and now it's Friday morning, and thinking about that biscuit makes the empty abdomen rumble.

This wasn’t a diary, but made itself one anyway. Thursday lunch with Kristen, Linda, Malinda at Sue’s on 390, because the line was long at Hunt's. Sue's, new name for the outskirts-of-Lynn Haven branch that was J.Michael’s. Fine enough,a bit pricey, oh, I’m telling you a bit pricey it was over a hundred dollars for four because they fancy themselves gourmet, the oysters are OK but for oysters go to Hunt’s, Captain’s Table or Gene’s. I like Gene’s, but it’s all barstools, no tables, so go expecting to wait or you may not be sitting next to your buddy, which defeats half the reason for going there; but along with The Sandbar out at the Beach on Hwy 79, Gene's is the best. Take cash, no plastic. Cash or check. Gene's Oyster Bar on Sherman Avenue in Millville. Don't get me started on the red brick building that used to be at the corner of 98 and Sherman, where Mr. Sherman used to park that enormous Cadillac 75 sedan in the 1940s.

One of these days I -- MAY -- be willing to try The Fish Net on 77 in Lynn Haven again. MAY. They used to have really good fried mullet, first class, the best, I mean “Mama quality fried mullet” which came to your table untouchably hot and the backbone in one side Panama City style which gives you the extra delicious meat on that side; and the tail fried crispy to crunch on. At some point ownership changed and it was terrible the next time we went. The last time we went, years later, they didn’t have mullet. I used to take Kristen to The Fish Net when she was little, just the two of us having a lunch adventure after I picked her up from kindergarten at HNES. We would go in and sit at a table and she would say, “Papa, I hope they have mullet.”

Mullet. Oysters. Panama City native like her Papa.

Oh, schtrawberries, gardenia to heliotrope, there go my stupid eyes again. Pardon me, back in a sec --