Visit to Florida

My husband and I just returned from a quick trip to Florida. We drove up to Portland on Thursday night, stayed at the Ramada, then took an early flight on Friday morning. Monday morning, on the other side of the weekend, we were at the airport again, getting on a plane at 6 a.m. The traveling days were tiring, the usual stop and go associated with moving through airports and waiting on planes. But for the two days in Florida, time seemed to slow down, almost as if we were being given the gift of time to adjust.

We planned the trip about six weeks ago when my father said he was going to organize a party for my grandparents. They both turn 80 this year and will be celebrating their 62nd wedding anniversary. My grandparents married when they were 17. Knowing a couple that has been together that long gives the rest of us (relative) newly weds a warm, fuzzy feeling.

One of the things we never worry about when we go to Florida is where our next meal is coming from. My family knows how to eat and eating is as much a social activity as it is a necessity. When we arrive Friday evening, my father’s wife has prepared a meal to greet us: stewed venison, field peas, corn casserole and fried cornbread. Field peas look like beans before they’re picked and favor black-eyed peas when they’re shelled. Down South we eat them well cooked and seasoned with salt, pepper and bacon. Corn casserole is made of field corn (not the sweet corn typically found in Yankee supermarkets) scraped from the cob and baked with lots of butter, salt and pepper. If it’s buttery and salty enough, it tastes like popcorn. Cornbread is fried in a cast iron skillet and NEVER has sugar added; it has two parts yellow corn meal and one part flour. My grandfather prefers his with cracklings, crunchy bits that used to be part of a pig. I’ll say no more.

Before sitting down to dinner, or rather “supper,” we go over and say hello to my grandparents who live next door. My grandfather is watching “Gunsmoke” in black and white; he watches it every night on the Western channel. He’s seen all the episodes, but can’t always remember how they end which makes for a slight element of suspense. My grandfather owned a mechanical construction business in Northwest Florida for many years, but he’s always been – and still is – a farmer. He grows peas, corn, peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers. Growing his own food, and food for his family, is as much a part of him as his blue eyes and pug nose. He dresses like a farmer, too, barefoot when inside, well-worn overalls and wide brimmed hat when he leaves the house. His arthritis has slowed him down in recent years. Now he uses a brace to kneel in his turnips and a golf cart to get around Oak-Loosa. My grandmother has already gone to bed; she goes to bed at 6 p.m. and watches “Gunsmoke” in the next room. We go in to see her, hug her neck and tell her about our plane ride. She’s wearing a walking cast these days because she recently “stepped wrong” and ended up with a stress fracture in her foot. She looks forward to bedtime when she can take the cast off and put on her old soft night gown. She is lounging on the bed when my husband and I come in. She still has good, long legs. Her blue eyes are sparkling and she’s happy to see us.

Saturday is the big day, the day of the party. My father set up his “catfish kitchen” and begins frying halibut, catfish, brim, hushpuppies and fries. My grandfather has some conch that he dredges with egg and flour and it's fried up, too. My husband later says the conch reminds him of squid; I’ve never been up to eating squid myself. Around noon the family begins to arrive: my grandfather’s sister, his nieces and nephews, his son and his kids and their kids. Before long, the sheltered carport is filled with the steady buzz of conversation, a rowdy hum that seems to get louder and louder as the party progresses. I remembered the family reunions my mother had taken me to when I was a kid and how I hated being dragged along. Who were all these people? What was I expected to talk to OLD people about? How did they know me? My husband and I load up our paper plates with fish, hushpuppies, baked beans and potato salad and retreat to a quiet corner with our sweetened iced tea. We are welcomed by folks whose first impulse is to give you a hug, not a handshake. I begin to remember faces and I smile until it feels like my own face will break. I haven’t been to a big family event in years. It feels, surprisingly, good.

When I was very small, my mother was in a motorcycle accident. She and my father had divorced, but while mom was mending I spent a lot of time with my Mamma and Pappa, my father’s parents. They have stories from that time that they tell and retell. Every time I go to Florida, I’m immersed, baptized, in those memories as they “tell stories” on me. There was a time when I knew most of these people – first and second cousins, aunts and uncles – and they watched me grow up from holiday to holiday. How interesting to encounter former versions of yourself in the memories of others. My second cousin’s wife told my husband that, used to be, you wouldn’t find me without a book in hand or some story I’d written. Someone else tells me about how I bonded with my grandparents as a child, telling me what a spirited, sassy little girl I was. If only returning to Florida and to family could take me back there. I realize there are some parts of me that have gone missing in the intervening years. I feel the loss.

Someone has brought a bakery cake for my grandparents. My grandfather cuts big slices for the kids and we all have cake. Later, there will be another meal at the “camp” – prime rib, chicken, salad, fruit, rolls, baked potatoes with loads of butter and sour cream. We sit around tables where, at gatherings past, the adults used stay up all night playing Rook by the light of kerosene lanterns. Everyone is talking, visiting. My cousin comes over to thank us for the wedding present. He and his wife were married at Disney World in March. She is a small, slim, dark woman with big eyes and bright smile. Her family is from India and she wore a sari to the wedding dinner. Her brother, mother and father are here, so this is the official “family merger” and we want to make them feel welcome. Her father is an Emergency Room doctor in Virginia. She will take the Florida bar exam next month. Perhaps some wondered if my cousin would ever get married. Now he is talking about building next to us on the other side of the lake. They’ll make fine neighbors.

Sunday we look over our property again, decide on where the septic will go and where we will set up the trailer that will be our temporary home while we build our new house. I get to carry the machete, but don’t see any snakes. That doesn’t disappoint me. Later, my husband and I drive down to the beach at Okaloosa Island where, just the day before, a 14-year-old girl had been attacked by a shark. I realize you take your chances wherever you live. Sharks, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes – the world is a dangerous place. The beach is full of people swimming and sunbathing. I put my feet in the warm, salty water.

Back at Oak-Loosa, we have a shrimp boil for supper, the last meal of the day. The weather is warm for our visit, what you’d expect for Florida in June. I’ve surprised myself by how well I’ve handled it. The worst part is going from the heat and humidity into the air conditioning half dozen or more times a day. The body is slow, sluggish to adjust; it shivers to the AC’s embrace. After supper, my husband and I take the boat out on the lake, trawling with the electric motor. My cousins have a boat with a gasoline engine; they’ve spent the day charging up and down the lake, skiing and towing kids on inner tubes. Everyone wears a life jacket and everyone watches out for the little ones. I think that kind of care and protection is at the heart of family; I think how lucky these kids are to have people looking out for them. My husband motors the boat around the lake and I prop my bare feet on the side, greedy for the breeze that comes off the top of the water. He drops a line in and, surprising us both, catches a small brim. He carefully removes the hook and puts it back in the water, then hands the pole to me. My husband is anxious for me to catch a fish, even if it is a second-hand one. Maybe then I’d like fishing.

Monday morning my father takes us to the regional airport at Ft Walton Beach. We’re still drowsy from sleep, wanting more coffee. We say our goodbyes and surrender our carry on bag to security. I buy a magazine for the plane and we board on time. Below us, Florida looks green and impossibly small, but I know that soon it will become an entire world for us. We’ll pull the corners in and call it home.