I planed to go to a small press conference in Tarpon Springs.
Brenda went out of town on business, to teach a class, so I took
the boys with me. We stayed in the Gondolier Motel on Spring Bayou, across the water
from the Community Center, where the conference was being held. While I sat at
my booth and talked to other small press publishers, Owen and Balder fished off
the seawall, using menhaden the jack knocked over the wall with their heads
for live-bait. At lunch, we went to the sponge docks, where they were having
a seafood festival. We ate raw oysters, boiled shrimp, boiled crabs,
and fried fish. Eating well is the best revenge. That afternoon,
they swam in the motel pool and Owen cooked the jack
on a throwaway charcoal grill for an hors d’oeuvre.
I went for a swim with them and had smoked jack
for an appetizer, then we went to Pappas’s
for dinner and ate roast lamb
and a rice pilaf. The jack tasted
about like smoked sailfish, or smoked wahoo.
That night, Brenda called and the boys talked to her.
They said they were having fun.