Thursday was special to me

Yesterday, Thursday, we had what for me turned out to be the treat of treats. An invitation to the soft opening of our newest restaurant, Harrison's out on the downtown marina that has been under refurbishment since Hurricane Michael. In addition to the welcome and continuing hospitality, let me splainify. High on the north wall inside the front door is a large photograph of my grandfather's fish house, workplace of his company Bay Fisheries, which he founded, owned and operated in the early years of the twentieth century.

A D Weller, and my grandmother Carrie Lee Godfrey Weller, came to St Andrews from Pensacola with their children Alfred Daniel Weller, Jr and Evalyn Godfrey Weller (whom we called EG) and Ruth Weller. A friend sent me their page from the 1900 census, in Pensacola, when it was just Mom and Pop and Alfred. The St Andrews, Washington County census of 1910 shows them living here by then. My father was born in 1911. The family first lived in the blue house that's now at the southeast corner of 9th Street and Calhoun Avenue that my father held as his earliest memory, an electric lightbulb hanging down from the ceiling on a long wire, swinging back and forth as the house was rolled across the dirt road on logs. Having emptied the lot, my grandparents built The Old Place at the 2308 W Beach Drive location where it still stands, under major renovation by current owners.

Across the street, it was Bay View Avenue at the Time, not W Beach Drive, where Landmark Condominiums now stands, was Pop's fish house, as we called it, on a pier sticking out over the water. Bay Fisheries. At some point, my father told me, my grandfather needed finances, so he incorporated Bay Fisheries and they sold shares, and in the process Pop lost control.

Pop was out of the business for some years from 1924, when the Weller family sold The Old Place and moved to Ocilla, Georgia, where Pop was the Ford dealer for a few years. My father was twelve when they moved away, and, as often as I asked, told about leaving St Andrews, Mom and Pop and young Marguerite in the Hudson touring car; and my father and his sister Ruth driving the Model T Ford; the cars loaded down with all their transportable possessions, including that both cars had cages of Mom's chickens strapped to the running boards. I was always impressed that my father was driving a Model T at age twelve, and my father taught me to drive, and I started driving, the Sunday after my own twelfth birthday in September 1947.

The family's relocation, leaving St Andrews, was brought about by my grandparents' finally giving in to their overwhelming grief, and Mom's insisting they move "away from the water", after the death of their son Alfred, my father's eighteen-year-old brother, who drowned in the wreck of the fishing smack Annie & Jennie, lost in a storm at The Old Pass on a bitter cold night in January 1918, (below "APPALLING DISASTER")

a story I've told here on any number of occasions. They lived in Ocilla for a few years, about which I loved hearing my father tell about unloading Model T Fords at the local train depot, assembling them (they were shipped by rail, "knocked down"). The family next moved down in Florida, Lakeland or Lake City, I don't recall which, where Pop tried the real estate business, then moved back to the Florida Panhandle, first Valparaiso, back in the fish business, then on back to Pensacola, where, by this time in high school, my father befriended Wilbur Gentry, who was my mother's brother. And Bubba, Gina, and Walt are the rest of that story.

Mom and Pop and my father and his sister Ruth returned to St Andrews from Pensacola at some point (by then Evalyn was in college in Tallahassee). My father graduated from Bay High, class of 1928. Bubber Nelson once showed me a photo of their graduating class, everyone in cap and gown, out in front of the beloved old Bay High building, so I could see my father.

Anyway, above is a picture of Bay Fisheries at some point. The fishing smack Annie & Jennie was a twin-masted schooner like the boat in the foreground. My own copy of the pic is dated 1920.

I don't want to get my family stories and history wrong, but facts as I recall them being told to me, are that the fish house pictured above was swept away in the Hurricane of 1936 (see links below), the year after I was born. Neighborhood friend, Bill Lee and his brother and another boy went diving in the Bay off the Jetty after the hurricane, and brought up sheets of the roofing tin, and my grandfather's adding machine - - which Pop told me he rinsed the salt water out of it, dried it, and resumed using it. From early as a small boy, I remember him punching numbers into it, and pulling the crank lever to lodge each entry.

The St Andrews Jetty was there when I was a boy, and we used to swim jumping from it into the water, one side deep, one side shallow. As I say, Landmark Condominiums is there now, but if you look at a photographic chart of the Bay shoreline, you'll see that the Jetty is still there slightly under the surface of the water, slightly east of Landmark's marina.

At some point after the building was lost in the hurricane, my grandfather started managing, for E E Saunders & Company of Pensacola, the fish business operated out of the fish house that in my growing up years was where now is located the Shrimp Boat Restaurant in St Andrews,

Sorry, you're getting a long, rambling version as my mind wanders. Where was I?

Oh - - yesterday. We had the treat of the year, lunch at Harrison's Kitchen & Bar.

It's not some exclusive New York restaurant. First, it's so solid that I plan to ride out the next category 5 hurricane there. It's a place like we knew here when I was growing up, where you meet and greet friends as you make your way to your table, and friends stop by your table to say hello while you're dining, and you stop by and visit friends later as you're on your way out. The view is the best, in fact I can see my home, Harbour Village condominium, from there, and I can see the restaurant from 7H porch. The food is local, a mix. We shared the shrimp bangers, which I recommend,

and I had a dozen raw oysters and a dozen baked oysters. If I were doing it over, next time, I'll also have a dozen fried oysters, but I didn't notice that on the menu until we got home to 7H and I started planning my next meal there.

My main dish was a bowl of the seafood gumbo, dark and spicy in a huge soup bowl, excellent, I brought half of it home and had for supper last evening. Linda had the catfish sandwich, this was enormous, and half of it was her supper last night. Our star item for dessert was bread pudding with a sugary brown bourbon sauce, superb, one serving serves four and over half of it came home with us. At the end of it all they have Panama City's classiest go-boxes.

They open for serious next week, August 15, have the lunch menu, a dinner menu, and a Sunday brunch menu. I visualize not having to wait till we get home from church to have my once a week martini. Oh, I had the Bloody Mary, which was perfect.

Here's another picture or two of the same location, Bay Fisheries Co, different angle,

and another, and a picture of the Annie & Jennie under sail.

And finally, from my scattered family archive, my own picture, dated 1920, same photo that's now been blown up and on display at Harrison's. Somewhere around here is a close up picture of the fish house and pier, with Pop standing in the foreground, but I've not seen it in years.

From here in 7H, my outlook is StAndrews Bay, looking south across Davis Point,

round which the Annie & Jennie sailed into destruction and the death of my beloved grandparents' most beloved child; a family tragedy that took a road down which I came into existence. My life because of Alfred's death. This is NEVER out of my consciousness, and my view from 7H makes it irrevocably so.

++++++++++++++

Thank you, Lisa, for the day and for stirring my family memories. And thanks, Mike McKenzie for the old photographs and newspapers.

Life is Good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j97MT67OtNo

https://www.weather.gov/bmx/event_08011936tcyclone