The Wild

Times have changed. Grayton Beach, Florida, like hundreds of beach towns along America's coasts, used to sit in the middle of an undeveloped wilderness. There are fresh water springs all along this stretch of the Panhandle, which meet with the tides of the Gulf of Mexico to form brackish water bays, estuaries and lakes. When the rich minerals of the sea mix with the fresh, earthy springs of the inland it tends to harbor a harsh and hearty collection of flora and fauna. There were large alligators at one time roaming these lakes. The 14-foot hide which used to hang from a tree across from the Miller's old home lay ready evidence to this fact. Even in my day, however, you could find yourself face-to-face with more than one of these shy reptiles. On one ill-advised expedition my cousin and I decided to paddle on a surfboard across the lake into a narrow channel in the marsh. Just as we rounded a turn we found ourselves looking across a scant fifteen yards at two large eyes and a snout protruding from the shallow, black water. We backed out of there quietly, under the reptiles' watchful eye. Nobody was looking for trouble on that lazy afternoon. Another time I was treading water just off the end of our dock, trying to cool off from the mid-afternoon sun (even though the lake water was often was warm as a bath) when suddenly my buddy jumped up from the bench hollering, pointing to an alligator. I leapt from the water onto the dock in what seemed at the time a single movement. But it was a harmless 'gator, only about five feet long, the one my grandfather had named Jack Daniels. Ole' Jack backed away from us cautiously, eyeing us both with an amused grin.

I've known kids who were bitten by water moccasins in that lake, and seen a few moccasins myself. My cousins delighted in killing rattlesnakes whenever they came across one. They'd drag it, headless, down to the dock, for a proper skinning. I've heard the sounds of wild boar running across our back yard in the middle of the night, tripping the bell-rope that our Grandfather had set up. Of course he'd grab up his old shotgun and, in his boxer shorts and robe, wander to the edge of the woods looking the rascal. Thin, barky pines grew out of the sandy soil, surrounded by palmetto bushes with fronds as sharp as saws. Needle-grass ringed much of the lake, with needle-like points at the end of each reed, on guard to turn you into a sieve if you accidentally fell into them while fishing, prospecting, or water-skiing. You could catch your foot on any number of snares: small cactuses which grew everywhere from the beach back through the woods; spurge nettles, the plant we called the 'itchy-bitchy' (a small white flower with raspy leaves and poisons that could infect an unsuspecting wanderer with a two-hour itch); or perhaps you'd step into a collection of dried out sand spurs and spend the next twenty minutes extricating your feet.

Western Lake, which establishes the eastern boundary of Grayton Beach, is a dark lake, the color of tea, and the bottom is made up mostly of black, gushy mud, hiding blue crabs, shrimp, barnacles, old motors, and oysters with edges sharper than razors. Almost everybody I knew could display one or more proud scars from a careless encounter with a Western Lake oyster or a barnacle, or a half-rusted tin can. Because the lake opened up to the Gulf every month of so, the dangers of the sea would often drift in with the tide. I've witnessed small sharks swimming into the pass from the Gulf, and once I made the mistake of gigging a leathery stingray along the lakeshore at full moon. The catfish that used to inhabit the lake were a nasty strain as well. One time I stepped on a dead cat lying upright on the dock. It took half a minute to sling it off my foot, and I remember yelping in pain as I hopped up the hill toward the house where my mother awaited (in the front yard probably, hanging out laundry) ready to heal all wounds.

The most bothersome of all the creatures were probably the tiniest. The humid climate of the sub-tropics provides a lush breeding ground for insects. I remember the images of dragonflies performing their mating dance above every still pond or puddle; horseflies, yellow-flies and mosquitoes swarming brazenly at early nightfall (well-tutored in the clever art of gliding in on every unguarded centimeter of flesh); and brown bats diving for supper up and down the dirt roads and alleys. The woods were rich with life. At night the songs of crickets, toads, cicadas and owls would rise up and harmonize with the rolling melodies of the Gulf, bringing to full gestation every wild dream in a young boy's head, until the weariness of the day's activities would inevitably pull him down toward other dreams.

As for the thunderstorms! Well, you have to have witnessed the power of a sudden Florida thunderstorm to fully appreciate the excitement and fury that a small storm, rolling up the coastline unannounced, can produce. You have to have known the experience of being half-asleep at daybreak, rolled up against the screen of the sleeping-porch, trying to catch the last few cooling breezes of the night, when the sound and brilliance of a lightning bolt suddenly strikes, sizzling and crackling it is so close, and then just a moment behind it comes the inevitable BOOM!, a sound not unlike a cannon going off inside your hallway. The air is so full of electricity you can feel it in you hair, and you pull yourself under whatever covers you can find and peek out just a little, listening, listening, hoping the next bolt won't strike so close, but of course it does strike close----too close----and the thunder explodes into a series of ghostly reverberations, as though it were the voice of some long forgotten deity. The rain and wind will soon roll in behind the lightning and the storm will disappear as quickly as it appeared. The air will be suddenly cool, your bed more warm and inviting, and within minutes the lawn will be dry once more. There's no place to hide, of course. You can only take a deep breath of the fresh air, roll over into your soggy pillow and say a prayer.

Looking back, it would be hard to invent a more dangerous environment for an energetic and curious boy to grow up in. Yet, for all the perils, parents thought little of allowing their children to run un-chaperoned throughout the wildest reaches of Grayton, as long as they made it to someone's house for supper, and headed for home when The Store closed. I guess we all looked after each other back then. Today, while mostly its the same kind of folk who wander the beach, it's a different world. There's hardly a chance you'll run into a red-tailed fox sniffing at your campfire, or even that a stray skunk will chase all the neighbors indoors. And out beyond our house, where there used to be woods so thick you couldn't travel through them, you see mostly backyards now, and beach homes. They are clearing land for new subdivisions every day. But civilization presents other dangers. We are more cautious these days, and suspicious. Times have changed.