Tarpon et al
Thursday: with Tuesday, a walk day. A few minutes before seven o’clock I’ll roll up behind HNES, park by the soccer field, and wait for Robert. We walk, sometimes an hour, around parts of the neighborhood we grew up in. Robert typed an address list of where everyone in our Cove School class of 1949 lived, and we’re chugging by this one and that one, remembering. Strolling might be more apt than chugging. We’re also getting in some Bay time, especially along East Beach Drive looking across to Red Fish Point, sometimes across Tarpon Dock Bridge. It’s Tarpon Dock because the S.S. Tarpon docked there on her weekly run
between Mobile and Carrabelle from 1903 to 1937. Yesterday would have been my father's 103rd birthday. He was born in Pensacola then some days later brought home to St. Andrews aboard the Tarpon.
He came to this address where I am now, but a different house. In 1912 the house that was here was rolled across the road on logs, and this house was built for the growing family. Enlarged, the older house is still there, the blue house on the southeast corner of Calhoun Avenue and 9th Street.
Realtor’s photo, the house is for sale, said built in 1876. We have a photo of it sitting where my house is now, just the original house, the right end facing the Bay. In that picture my grandmother Carrie is sitting on the steps down front holding my father, who looks to have been a few weeks old. The house rises in the background, and seems to have the same posts that are there today.
Tom+ in +Time