GOING TO THE GULF

"Is it time to go yet?" my sister, Chris, and I took turns asking.

"In a little while,” was the repeated reply.

We were going to the Gulf. My father had outlined the trip: we'd drive the twenty miles from De Funiak Springs to the Choctawhatchee Bay, take a launch to Fort Walton and then walk across powdery white sand to the water. The excitement created by anticipation of a boat ride and swimming in the warm, gentle surf of the Gulf was almost too intense for my five-year-old sister and me, a much older seven, to control. This was not something the family did very often. This was a very special trip, before the full effect of the Depression took hold of our lives.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s there were not the bridges or roads which today connect the narrow strip of Northwest Florida's Gulf beaches, Fort Walton to Panama City, to its mainland, south of Alabama. The Gulf was fairly inaccessible. In later years the trip to the Gulf, a: our favorite Grayton Beach, became a thirty-minute drive, but in my early childhood this was a day-long adventure. And we packed picnic lunches which in themselves were special.

These were not peanut butter and jelly occasions. These were rare out of-the-ordinary excursions requiring much preparation. We'd awakened to the aroma of fried chicken. A heavenly chocolate cake had been baked the day before. Mamma and Cattie, the cook, were preparing potato salad and sandwiches. Ice, set out in a bucket to keep salads and other perishables cold, would be replenished at the Freeport ice house near the Bay. Once we were at the Gulf, the last of the ice would be used for tea with lots of lemon. Oh, it would be wonderful,

I had made the trip the summer before and could envision the blanket spread on the sand, towels wrapped around our bathing-suited bodies and eating the delicious food laid out on a bedspread/tablecloth.

The household had been stirring since early morning. I'd heard Daddy start up the car to go get Cattie just as it was getting light.

"Cattie, are you going with us?" I asked.

"No, honey, I'm not too crazy ‘bout the Gulf. And, like your Aunt Bernice, I just don't like sittin’ in all that sand."

I knew the stories of how Aunt Bern, on her very infrequent trips to the beach, refused to alter her attire for sandy picnics. From Daddy's description I could see Aunt Bern walking, not too happily, across the sand perfectly dressed, with a matching hat (not a sun hat), shoes and stockings, carrying a parasol in one hand and a folding canvas chair in the other.

I never could understand the dislike that either Aunt Bern or Cattie had for the beach. To me the Gulf beach was heaven.

*Soon's I get y'all off," Cattie continued, "I'm gonna dig up some worms from the garden, get a pole and go fishin’. It's still early enough and with the light rain we had, they'll be biting. I'll have myself a good ol’ fish

dinner.” While Cattie had been talking as she worked, my sister kept repeating,

"When will everything be ready?"

“We don't want to arrive in the blazing noonday sun, honey,” my mother patiently explained. "We'll have a light lunch under the shady oak trees by the Bay as we wait for the boat. By the time we get to the Gulf, it will be just right for swimming. Then, after our picnic supper on the beach, we'll come back across the Bay just at sunset and drive home in the cool evening.”

The day went just as planned with one delight after another. Even the drive from Freeport down a sand-rutted road through pines, palmettos and scrub oaks to the Bay was fun, though Daddy said he was thankful we had not met another car.

Mamma said she thought this might be the same road her family had taken twenty-five years earlier when they came in several wagons and Carriages from Geneva, Alabama, then boarded a ferry and on through more woods to Grayton Beach.

As she had before, Mamma told us how at that time it took two to three days, depending on weather and other conditions, as they camped along the way. Because neither her father nor Uncle Walter, her brother-in-law, could leave the lumber business for the family's summer vacation, Jack (known then as a colored man) was entrusted to see that the wagons with women and children and supplies safely reached their destination. Much of my early life, I heard stories about Jack and his important role on Grandpa's steamboats, which plowed the Choctawhatchee Bay from Geneva to Freeport and on to Pensacola. As we drove through these woods where wild animals (bears, wolves, bobcats and even panthers) then roamed, I wondered aloud how scary it must've been to camp there at night. Mamma said they had such confidence in Jack, she didn't remember being afraid.

I loved hearing these stories of Mamma's early life, as we drove through the woods, but I hoped there would still be some daylight when we came back on this road on our way home.

When we got to the Bay, the air was hot and still. Fishermen had set up a camp there, and Daddy enjoyed exchanging stories with them. Chris and I explored the active insect life around the oak trees, and watched fish jump in the water.

Mamma sat peacefully under a tree fanning herself with a palmetto leaf. Daddy walked over to her, and I heard him quietly say, "I know you love this scenery of water, blue sky and the grey moss you're always raving about, but none of it can compare with your beauty."

“Malcolm, you do carry on, " she laughed. “I'm not beautiful and how can you compare a person with a place?"

"Because you, too, are God's creation, a perfect creation."

“Here comes the boat," Chris announced from the shore. I was glad, because I was somehow feeling I shouldn't be listening. I also felt a little left out.

“Come on, let's go," Daddy said as we each picked up something to
 
Carry On board. When we arrived at the Gulf, the white beach looked endless. Far in the distance we could see a few other people--tiny dots on the landscape At the water's edge sandpipers scurried about with perfect timing, just missing the incoming waves.

My sister and I threw off the clothes we'd worn over our bathing suits and raced to the clear, inviting water. All afternoon we alternated between swimming, racing up and down sand dunes and building sand castles surrounded by elaborate waterways.

Mamma and Daddy laughed and talked as they watched us, sitting with their backs against a log that had washed up on the beach. When Chris or I would find a beautiful shell, they shared our excitement and placed the shells in neat piles to take home.

“Anybody hungry?" Daddy called.

Of course we were--ravenously ready for the food we knew was waiting. It was even more delicious that I'd imagined.

Soon afterward, as the sun began its long, slow descent, Chris and I changed from our wet suits to dry clothes behind a sand dune, though no one was in sight for miles.

All too soon we were packing up and walking across the dunes to board the boat home. The walk through the soft sand seemed much longer than when we'd arrived.

"Oh, it's a lovely tired," Mamma said as my sister and I complained. Diverting our attention, she said, "Look, there's the boat waiting for us just as your daddy arranged.”

"You can make it, Marjorie," Daddy said. "You're a big girl, but I'd better carry your sister this last little ways."

It was good to climb on board the launch and sit on the side by the railing. As the boat sped over the water, we felt a light breeze and salt spray in our faces. The steady rhythm of the motor contrasted with the sea gulls’ silent pursuit in our wake. It was a lovely tired. I don't remember much about the car ride home to De Funiak Springs.

What I do remember vividly about this trip was the first sight of sugar white sand dunes, sea oats waving in the warm breeze and then the gloriously inviting azure blue and aquamarine water of the Gulf that extended as far as the eye could see. Except for the soothing sound of the tame surf and an occasional sea gull's call, there was a rapturous expansiveness and quiet. I feel the same sense of wonder and ecstasy every time I return to this beautiful stretch of land and sea, though there are now a few more people on the shore.