Go Trojans!
Tuesday: today's our pack up day, isn't it! Tomorrow morning is our plan, leaving early for us, drive east along the coast, stopping in Apalachicola at the bookstore where Hollis used to have her little shop, and the bee store and the goat milk soap shop.
No Time to waste, so immediately back on US98 continuing east through Carrabelle, Lanark Village, across the Ochlockonee Bay bridge to stop in Panacea for dinner - - noon, the mid-day meal, "lunch" to you Yankees - - at Posey's restaurant. What am I hoping for in Panacea? fried mullet, no? Yes. We'll see, eh? Packing my antacid pills hopefully, nomesane?
Maybe I've told this before? The last Time we ate at Posey's was thirty years ago, August 1992. It was an extremely heavy Time for me, just before Tass flew to England for her junior-year-abroad. For the second or third or fourth Time, kind, loving, generous parishioners, he an architect in Pennsylvania, had given us a week or two vacation at their cottage on St George Island.
It was rainy there that week, looking out across the Gulf, steady rain as Hurricane Andrew emerged from its Category Five devastation of Homestead and swept across the Gulf of Mexico miles south of us. As it rained, beloved parishioner Jocelyn Tracy died that week, and another parishioner phoned to let me know.
There's a proverb: "Happy is the Bride the Sun shines on; Blessed are the dead the rain falls on." I remember quoting that proverb graveside, in driving pouring rain, at our burial of yet another beloved parishioner, Audrey Roux - - for whose death, in another stage of my faith and theology, I was enraged at God.
"May I Hate God?" by Pierre Wolff, SJ. Maybe I'll go there again another Time. The startling title of Fr Wolff's little book, in which, answering, he reasons out the most Grace-filled theology ever conceived.
Anyway, that August 1992 week: it was, as I recall, the Thursday that we decided to take a drive east toward Panacea. Coming to Posey's restaurant, we stopped for supper, an enormous buffet spread of seafood that included fried oysters and, a surprise, fried frog's legs: large, they are like a small chicken thigh and drumstick. Tastes like chicken - - might as well stick with fried chicken, eh? Or would you rather eat a frog than eat a chicken?
A frog gig is a deadly thing: we use a frog gig here in 7H to hang a Japanese kimono that Linda bought at our topmost favorite shop, The Stone Lantern in Highlands, NC. Founder and owner Ralph DeVille died a few years ago, and the shop was to be disestablished, destroying our years of loving a week in Highlands annually.
Anyway, I think Posey's have relocated in Panacea, but we'll find it because the menu lists fried mullet and we'll see. If it's good enough, maybe we'll lease 7H long term and move to Panacea, nomesane?
Lunch, dinner, then on to Wakulla Springs for a vacation at the Lodge there. Roundabout yes, but it's as close to Tallahassee as we can comfortably drive anymore, far from busy highways. All this so we can get to one final football game at Lincoln High School, Tallahassee, a major treat for us the seven years Caroline and Charlotte played in the marching band. Caroline, who played flute in the Trojans band, is now a junior at FSU, which makes me temporarily a Seminole because Love is stronger than Time (yes, I was photographed once, doing the Chop, but please, it's our secret, eh?, okay, Go Noles, but don't count on me Thanksgiving weekend); and Charlotte, now a senior at Lincoln, has moved from trumpet to drum major,
and is to direct the marching band at their football game against Rickards this coming Friday evening. Tass has sewn up a healthy schedule for our visit, removing our driving burden while we're there.
Tuesday, then. The contract team is coming at 12 noon to begin their task of finding and correcting the leak into 7H that was sprung by Hurricane Michael, so work to do, clearing the living room before they knock.
RSF&P
T