On the way back to Port St. Joe, Old Folks
went into the St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, at Cape San Blas.
He had been
camping there, many times.
St. Joe Point stretches seven miles out into the
Gulf of Mexico, from the end of the park, proper, enclosing St. Joe Bay, and you
can hike out there and primitive-camp, away from campers with cars, RVs. motorhomes,
with their air-conditioners going all night. Children, video games. Celebrity Bingo
on the TV. Celebrity poker. Pinball machine moths.
We took Owen and Balder
camping, but all they did was fish, swim, hike, help cook, listen to the adults tell
stories, play music, and sleep the sleep of the just at the end of the day.
Also, out there, away from civilization, you can see the Milky Way, in the sky, at
night.
It's an humbling experience.
When I got a job with a desk
and a typewriter, access to a copying machine, Potter said it was like putting Frank
Pitts in charge of all the wild, gone-feral hogs on St. Joe Point.
Frank
Pitts is gone now, and so are the hogs.
And so is Potter.
* * *
The St. Joe Bar still stands.
In town.
Potter said one time
a seine fisherman got in a fight with a martial arts expert in the St. Joe Bar.
The martial arts expert kicked the seine fisherman in the head.
"Felt
like thunder," he said.
Potter asked him what he did, and he said, "Got
up and whipped his ass."