Frabjous Friday

Generally a headache takes four, but one aspirin will do this morning. Ship sailing by in heavy rain under dark, thick clouds. Looks to be Juan Diego, one of her class anyway.

Obliterated by rain, cannot see her now, even her silhouette, can’t even see Landmark Condos a quarter mile east.

What’s going on. Prince dead at 57. Gwen Graham declares she won’t run. ShrimpBoat in receivership, hope (pray is overdoing it) they succeed, Lo Smith and Son can take pride in helping the resurrection of St. Andrews starting with the old ShrimpBoat. It’s not been resurrection actually, metamorphosis. I knew St. Andrews when and it’s never been like this, in my growing up years dying remnants of a fishing village from my grandfather’s day, dirt roads, ice plant, fishhouses, fishing boats, plenty of mullet, drunken fisherman and Mattie’s Tavern. Now interesting cafes and little shops thank God not clicky enough to be shaded “boutique.” 

From 7H at the moment I can’t even see Davis Point, much less Courtney, startling lightning, and one loud and lingering, deeply rumbling KABOOM.

What else. Just as well for the aspirin this morning, this weather was totally unexpected at seven o’clock, and Robert and I would have got soaked, because by seven-twenty-three a solid white rain drenching downpour, we’d have been caught in it and nothing to do but say bad words. Me the profane one anyway, Robert is the good guy between us.

So instead of eggs over medium and cheese grits at Big Mama’s on the Bayou, pasty duck parts on toast. One of these days again, breakfast at Four Seasons across the street, best grits since eating grits at the breakfast table as a child, watching a red-headed-woodpecker rat-a-tat-tat the little rotting oak tree on the bank just outside the dining room window. Of the five who saw that woodpecker every morning those years, two are dead and my sister and brother may have been too young to remember. So it may be just me. Rule was wash your face, comb your hair, and do not come to the breakfast table late. 

The dining room’s still there, not surprisingly much smaller than it was when I was a boy. The little scrub oak long gone, and the woodpecker.

What else. Frank McKeithen recommends Tommy Ford, that's good enough for me, something most assuring about a county where nobody needs to run against the sheriff. Obits this morning, Betty Ellis. Before we relocated from Central Pennsylvania to Apalachicola, Sid and Betty Ellis lived in Port St. Joe, from whence Father Sid balanced three churches, St. James PSJ, St. John Baptist Wewa, Trinity Apalach and fourteen years later I followed him to Grace PCB. 

Moonrise last evening. One aspirin and the ominously gathering doom of the Day of the Lord this morning. To put a little on top, Anu’s word for today is frabjous. Full moon tonight: mind the shadows. 

DThos+

It may be Four Winds, not Four Seasons, IDK.