Bumper

Lots of beauty, color as last evening we returned from Thanksgiving Day at Breakfast Point PCB to 7H. Moon & Venus, with Jupiter faint, 

and Oaks by the Bay Park next door to us here, the Christmas display. Thanks to, no, belay that, Because of Hurricane Michael, this time last year we had been living at Panama City Beach for several weeks and today a year ago 29 Nov 2018 moved from our second beach accommodation to our third apartment, across Philips Inlet Bridge over into South Walton, The Point at Inlet Beach, a block down the sidewalk to Rosemary Beach. We stayed there two or three weeks, then across to an identical but reversed apartment on the other side of the place. Continuing our Hurrication Exile, it was pleasant and a blessing given all that was going on and was uninhabitable here in Bay County, and we were grateful, thankful that Britany & Ray took us under their care.

My blog +Time may not be widely read, but whoever does read it will be disappointed that I have no report on our Thanksgiving raccoon. Two legs good, four legs better, but we had a turkey and nobody even tasted my delicious oyster dressing but me. Recipe varies, but generally a thin layer of - - well, there are pretty much just three ingredients, Pepperidge Farms sage dressing works better than their cornbread but which is also good, pecan pieces mixed in, raw oysters - - in a loaf tin, thin layer of dressing, layer of oysters, thin layer of dressing, layer of oysters, thin layer of dressing, layer of oyster, topping of dressing. This time the top layer of dressing was too sparse, so two slices whole wheat seeds bread on top. Bake at about 350°F and check from time to time, you'll know when it's done. The oysters can be pan seared beforehand, but not so long as to cook all the juice out, because you need that and its flavor to bake into and permeate. I like turkey gravy plentifully stirred with a can of cream of mushroom soup, lots of the gravy ladled over the oyster dressing. In fact, along with a second mug of black coffee, that's what I'm having for breakfast even as I type this blogpost. Mama used to have a saying for delicious things that qualified, "It'll be twice as good tomorrow", and sure enough, it's even better than it was yesterday. A again, good, Better, BEST, because nobody but me eats it, there's enough for me to have a breakfast slice for several days.

A "breakfast slice" because having been baked in a loaf pan, instead of spooning it out I cut a slice. Cold, it heats up quickly in the little toaster oven. And, you know what I'm thinking? To my recipe I'll add two ingredients: three or four times as much pecan pieces. And fry up some chicken livers, let them go cold and crumble them up in my oyster dressing before baking. If that doesn't sound good to you, you must not have been born and bred here on the Florida Gulf Coast.

The other thing in mind this morning is that Linda, who scrolls down FaceBook, I do not, all I do with FB is post a link to my blogpost once a day, Linda showed me a map that Bob Hurst posted on The Cove in PC, FL page, a map of Panama City in 1936. 

Born in 1935, I turned one year old that year, and I have recollections from early on. In 1936 we lived in StAndrews, on Frankford Avenue at 11th Street, across the dirt road from the baseball diamond where a local team played. The house is still there but ruined by HMichael and likely may be pulled down. 

In January 1938, just a week or two before my sister Gina was born, we moved to our newly constructed house in The Cove. In those days, Cherry Street ended with the old country club at dense woods. Bunkers Cove Road ended with the Edwards House: beyond that it was solid thick forest, woods; a dirt road with deep ruts (and I don't think there were even two sets of ruts, just one pair of ruts). In my Time, we Cove School boys used to wander around back in those woods looking for Indian Mounds, to pick up pieces of history, shards of pottery. But caution was always in order: every now and then you came across the tarpaper shack of a squatter, and you backed off because "you never knew". And also because when you got the scent of whiskey in the breeze you knew you were close to a moonshine still and you didn't want to get shot so you cleared out. 

The map shows Panama City as I remember it from my earliest days. A small town. Pop, my grandfather, still smolderingly muttering that Panama City had absorbed the much older town of StAndrews instead of vice versa if there had to be consolidation at all. Beach Drive was one connector between PC and StAndrews. The north connector eventually was the deeply rutted road long years later paved into 11th Street. I do not remember Lake Caroline ever being called Baker Bayou, but that's what the map tells. The map shows the railroad line coming in from what is now US231 and branching down, one, to the old PC depot across from the oil terminal, and, two, through StAndrews, seems to cross what is now Lake Caroline and to StAndrews depot at the Bay just south of 12th Street. I have memories and stories about that old depot.

In "Bumper" I can see where in 1937 our new house in The Cove was built, and still stands, but it was brand new subdividing when my parents bought the lot, and in 1936 map the road doesn't even show yet. Not until seeing this map last evening did I ever even hear any hint of Bunkers Cove being called Bumper and Bumper Cove, and googling I found no history of that. So I'm wondering if the map is in error, but hoping someone will come up with details. 

The map, I have taken it into my photo archive and made it the "desktop" for my computer. What a great thing!!

And there's our surenuff Friday dawning.

T