The Aucilla
Point and Shoot, FL (YU)—The crew
chief on the Aucilla dig came in a couple of days late. He stayed in Panacea with the crew and helped
clear the mound. The hold-up was the Principal
Investigator (PI) couldn’t decide what vehicle to give him to use, over there.
Should
he give him the Land Rover? No, that was
the principal investigator’s personal vehicle, his staff car, so to speak. It was brand new. He bought it under a grant for the Panacea
dig.
Should he give him the ¾-ton pickup with the camper cap on the back? No, he needed that for the Panacea crew to ride in the back of, and to carry the tools. The crew rode to the site and back in the back with all the tools. The ¾-ton was a 4 x 4.
What did that leave? A ½-ton pickup with no cap on the back. Two-wheel drive.
Why did it take half a week to decide that? I think the PI wanted Dick to help the Panacea crew clear the mound. He claimed to be still deciding which crew members to send, but it was clear to Scrib that he was going, and clear to Tree that he was going, too.
Finally, after a
week in Panacea, staying at the rented house on
They rented a john boat from the fish camp.
There was a boat ramp at the site.
Since they used the boat five days a week they left it in the water, tied to a pier, on a dock, next to the boat ramp.
Fishermen came
down from
The fish camp
sold bait, beer, and ice, but didn’t fix meals, so the crew drove to
They skipped breakfast.
For lunch they took one baloney and cheese sandwich on white bread and two Oreo cookies apiece.
Dick carried a Thermos of coffee with milk and he and Scrib shared the coffee at lunch and at breaks. They carried a water cooler in.
They left the shovel box, and the footlocker, at the site, chained together, and the sifter baskets, chained to the sifter frames.
They didn’t use a wheelbarrow.
Scrib carried the transit, tripod, and stadia rod and Tree carried the camera boxes and camers tripods. Dick carried artifact bags, stakes, and twine. He had a field book and plot books. Each man had a field pack with his own hand tools in it: a trowel, a pair of small root clippers, an ear syringe and a grapefruit knife. Scrib had a pair of cable splicer’s scissors. Wiss snips.
Tree had his own
car. He drove it to the site on Sunday
night. On Friday night, after work, he
drove to
On Friday after
work Scrib and Dick took the truck to
Friday night,
Scrib and Dick ate at Morrison’s cafeteria, in
The Ship’s Cove
Café, in
Scrib liked Blue Cheese dressing. I don’t know why he didn’t buy a bottle with his own money and take it with him to the restaurant. For that matter, I don’t know why he didn’t buy his own Thermos and take two Thermoses of coffee and milk to the site.
One Thermos wasn’t really enough for him and Dick both at lunch and at two breaks.
Scrib still smoked back then. He wore a bush jacket with several pockets—the two top pockets for his cigarettes and lighter and his prescription sunglasses or bifocals and the two bottoms ones for a pocket knife and small hand tools and a notebook and pen, for sketching, and making notes to himself, about the dig. A sort of a logbook, or journal. A log.
Scrib once called a book LOG OF A BIG HAT.
He wore a raffia hat he bought at Delray Farm Supply. A planter hat.
