Mexicowoods—An Expatriate Life

We Drive to North Carolina

We have been visiting family in Pensacola. This, I have to point out, is not the Florida of Miami or Tampa. No wall-to-wall high rises, no East Coast retirees, no Midwestern snowbirds. Here we are in the true South; the panhandle is virtually a part of Alabama. The beaches are lovely white sand, minus the hassles and expense of South Florida: The Redneck Riviera.

Now we're traveling through more of the South. We're driving eight hours from Pensacola to Cashiers, North Carolina (pronounced Cashers) where Laura's mom grew up. We're crossing Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, headed for the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Our route takes us through the Old South, Old Dixie, the Confederate South. Good times here are not forgotten. A joking man asks in passing, "How come the South lost the war?"

In the center of a small Alabama town, we pass an old log cabin.

No longer king, nevertheless some cotton still grows here. This field, shot from our speeding car, looks odd: lots of cotton bolls but no leaves. Laura's stepdad explains: cotton isn't picked by hand anymore. Farmers spray defoliant on the fields and mechanically harvest the bolls after the leaves have fallen: efficient, but the romance is gone.

Near Greenville, Alabama, we pass Hank WIlliams' birthplace. Along the lonesome highway a billboard declares:

GOD, GUNS & GUTS

We Support Our Troops

We pass the Beams of Light Church, the Apostolic Faith Campground, the Abundant Life Parking Lot. Here jackleg preachers perform foot washings. Here abortion clinics suffered bombings. Here a fanatic assassinated Dr. David Gunn.

Signs hawk green peanuts, boiled peanuts, goobers. One delivers a mixed message: "Layaway Plan Available—One Nation Under God." A vanity license plate admonishes: "Choose Life." Church and State are not so separate in Alabama.

But whether Southerners want it or not, change is coming. A billboard heralds: "Hyundai—Proudly Built in Alabama." Koreans now own a part of Dixie.

Hours later, crossing into Georgia, we spy the golden dome of the state capitol. For a brief while we leave the Old South behind, passing through a modern metropolis of freeways, skyscrapers and mammon.

 

Kudzu grows everywhere. This rampant vine continues to eat the south, smothering trees, impossible to eradicate.

 

We cross the South Carolina line—really cheap gas! One of our party orders the chicken fried steak at Cracker Barrel. He won't do that again.

In North Carolina, the Blue Ridge Mountains appear on the horizon—welcome sighting of our destination.

 

We're in a different kind of South here: still socially conservative but less strident. We're going to visit mountain people, more independent than doctrinaire. We're looking for a small hamlet along a winding mountain road, where Grandma and Grandpa lived their entire lives, cutting their own firewood, putting up homegrown string beans.

A Nature Walk

Laura's dad is a professor at the University of West Florida. We went there to sit in on his course on the works of Cormac McCarthy, and arriving early, took a walk through the 1600-acre campus, much of which has been set aside as a nature reserve.

A boardwalk gives access to extensive wetlands.

A small, slow river meanders through, reminding me of Rancocas Creek in southern New Jersey, where my parents would take me canoeing when I was very small. The smell of brown water, the hum of insects, the warm sun on my back enfold me in a benign, lazy world.

Few plants flower in this late season; berries are the main source of color.

Snapping turtles, some quite large, lurk in murky waters. Their scummy shells could use a good scrub, an issue the groundskeepers at UWF may want to consider. Familiar with these creatures from my boyhood days in the Eastern United States, I don't even consider reaching into the water to pick one up.

Here in Western Florida I encounter my first Red Velvet Ant. It's a large insect—¾" long. It's not actually an ant, but a wingless wasp. Another creature to avoid touching.

A sign at the entrance hints at the prospect of somewhat more interesting wildlife, but we don't run across any, more's the pity.

 

UWF is a center of excellence for environmental studies. It prepares students for careers in environmental restoration. The wetlands we walk through are a model project, a demonstration that environmental destruction is not irreversible, a sign of hope that the planet can indeed be saved.

Pensacola Naval Avation Museum

While Laura was off catching up with old friends, I visited the Pensacola Naval Avation Museum, sited on the grounds of the Naval Air Station, Pensacola, right across the bay from Fort Pickens. Housed in a large building, the museum contains a large and beautifully restored collection of historical aircraft.

Aircraft range from a Wright Brothers era contraption to modern military jets. It even has a scorched Apollo capsule. I particularly was taken with this biplane—a seaplane with wooden pontoons, hanging over a row of missile toting fighters.

A huge graphic dominates the entry hall. It bears a slogan typical of "can do" military spirit:

UNITED STATES NAVY AIRCRAFT CARRIERS

four-and-a-half acres of sovereign U. S. territory, anytime, anywhere

 

The museum ranks up there with the world's best. Scores of aircraft. an IMAX theater, and many cockpit trainers and combat simulators provide visitors with a hands-on experience. I could have easily spent a couple of days playing here. But alas, I had only the one morning.

Fort Pickens

Fort Pickens sits on the western end of Santa Rosa Island, guarding the entrance to Pensacola Bay. Built in the 1830s, today it is part of the National Park System, and an interesting place to spend a morning as Laura and I did.

The fort completely controls access to the bay. Whoever holds it can allow or deny shipping into the southern United States. Unfortunately for the Confederacy, Fort Pickens was held by the Union throughout the Civil War. Heavy coastal guns like this 32 pounder prevented any hope of supply for the Confederate Army.

Most ordnance has been removed, but remains of several batteries illustrate the power of the fort.

Fort Pickens housed newer batteries to protect the bay during the Second World War. I didn't visit these emplacements. I was surprised to find that a civil war fort did service in modern wars.

I came across this mortar. It puzzled me. I can't see how such a weapon would be effective in repulsing a naval attack. Better for attacking the fort, I thought, not defending it.

Fort Pickens reopened as a national park only recently. Hurricane Ivan (2004) damaged the facility and the National Seashore infrastructure as well as a whole lot of Pensacola itself. Skeletal trees killed by the hurricane line the access road.

Power is due to be restored next week. Meanwhile, the fort's electricity needs are met by diesel generators.

 

Brief actions occurred at the fort at the beginning of the Civil war. The South was unable to dislodge Northern soldiers and abandoned Pensacola, troops being badly needed in Virginia and elsewhere.

The only other notable use for Fort Pickens was to house Geronimo after his surrender.

Dinner at Mom's

Wednesday's post was about shopping for seafood at Joe Patti's Seafood Market. This one is about what we did with our purchases.

Laura's Mom, Julie Demarko, is a celebrated chef in Pensacola, so dinner at her house is always a treat. I expect to gain weight on this visit. Julie undertook to prepare a seafood dinner, a three-course affair. Faced with such a project, I would have fretted about it for days before hand. Julie tossed the whole thing off effortlessly.

I didn't get off scot free. I was pressed into service preparing one of the appetizers: seared scallops.

 

Voila! They look great, no? I forgot to season them. I was a little intimidated, cooking under the supervision of so accomplished a chef.

Second appetizer: soft shell crabs Cajun style. Is it even possible to get soft shell crabs in Mexico? These were a real treat. I try to get some whenever they're available.

Main course: Fish stew accompanied by green salad. The stew contained exquisitely fresh red snapper, local shrimp and a stone crab claw, served in an intense broth made from fish trimmings.

How I miss the seafood I tasted in San Francisco and Boston. Dinner at Julie's is a rare treat.

[A disquieting note: I learned that stone crab claws are harvested by trapping the crabs, snapping off their claws, and returning them (the crabs) to the sea where they grow new claws. Eewww.]

A Famous Fish Market

Joe Patti arrived in Pensacola from Sicily in the 1920s. He fished for shrimp, opening his namesake fish market in 1935. Today, it is a Pensacola institution. When we visit Laura's folks, we always try to shop at Joe Patti's Seafood, because it is one of the finest fish markets in the country.

 

No kidding. The amount and variety of seafood sold here is staggering. Nine years ago (the only numbers I could find) the sales volume was $14 million.

I tagged along with Laura and her mom early one morning as they shopped for dinner.

I have never found anything so fresh as these redfish in San Miguel de Allende, but then our town is located in Mexico's midwest, hours from any fishing port. People tell me the fishmonger at the tianguis is good, but buying from him requires a leap of faith I have been unable to make. Things run downhill from there: the seafood composting at Soriana perfumes the entire supermarket.

Joe Patti's sells a half-dozen species of shrimp, either cooked or uncooked, shelled or not, with or without heads. They sell more varieties of just shrimp than all of the kinds of seafood offered at Mega.

I've never seen wild-caught salmon in Mexico. We only get fish that were farmed in Chile. And look at those prices! The Sonoma Market in California sells salmon for three times as much.

I don't know what mullet gizzards are. No doubt they're a bargain at $3 per pound. I'm game to try some, if I only knew how to prepare them.

Blue crabs are caught locally. Customers take the ones the counterman selects. You don't get to pick the ones you want for only a dollar each.

Frank Patti, son of founder Joe, is a no-nonsense kind of guy. He sets the rules for his customers (like no picking) and shows them exactly what to expect when they ask to get their fish cleaned.

Make sure you ask for the backbones, and expect to pay 40¢ per pound to have the black cleaned out of the bellies, whatever that is. Oh, and keep in mind that once your fish is cleaned, it's yours. No backing out.

Customers take their dripping, fishy purchases to a bank of checkout stands where everything is weighed and priced, and packed in ice for the ride home. Forgot to bring your cooler? Cheap Styrofoam ones are for sale at nominal prices. A sobering refund policy greets purchasers: it features the word "no."

Nobody is put off by Frank's rules. The fish is too good and the prices are right.

The store sells more than fish. A "gourmet" section offers spices and condiments, breads and cheeses.

Here's a typical offering:

They still operate their own fishing boat, but much produce is bought from local fishermen who transfer their catches right onto Joe Patti's dock where it travels about twenty feet to the store's counters. Fish doesn't get any fresher than that.

Joe Patti's is a major tourist attraction. But for locals, it's just the place they buy their fish. Lucky Pensacolans.

Two Gulf Coast Beaches

Laura was born and raised in Pensacola. Her parents still live there. One can hardly go farther west and still be in Florida.

We come here a couple of times a year to visit the folks and old school friends.

We're staying inside the city limits, but today we're driving south across the Pensacola Bay Bridge to Gulf Breeze. Cross another bridge and we reach Santa Rosa Island the barrier island and Pensacola Beach. We want to swim and get some sun.

A water tower sign informs us we've reached our destination. I feel odd coming all the way to Florida to enjoy sand and surf, given Mexico's gorgeous and extensive beaches. But San Miguel de Allende is at least a day's travel from any of them, whether by automobile or airplane. Laura's mom lives less than a half-hour drive from Pensacola Beach. From her house, a trip to the coast is much easier.

This is an urban beach. Hotels and condos front the water. The sand is a beautiful white and the turquoise water is clear. Pensacola Beach is not as famous as the South Florida beaches, but knowledgeable vacationers come here to escape crowds and save money.

A hurricane-resistant pier provides a viewing platform for strollers, but fishing is not permitted. Surfers are welcome west of the pier, but wave action is gentle; there'll be no shooting the curl here.

The beach is dragged every morning, leaving smooth, clean sand. Life guards watch over visitors from elevated stations. Yellow 4WD trucks enable rescuers to execute rapid responses anywhere along the long stretch of water. The green flag flying from this truck means we picked a good day to swim: the water isn't hazardous.

Or is it? While swimming, Laura and I receive many tiny stings. Suddenly attentive, we realize we're surrounded by jellyfish. I prove to my satisfaction that I'm incapable of photographing jellyfish bobbing in the waves (although to my chagrin Laura captures one beautifully). I have to settle for a washed-up specimen to document what was biting us.

The City Fathers want Pensacola Beach clean, safe, and hassle-free. No booze allowed, a proscription widely ignored by guys whiling away the afternoon in beach chairs, hands periodically dipping into coolers for cans of Bud Light.

Immaculate restrooms, an architect-designed snack bar, abundant trash barrels bearing signs: "Leave Only Footprints," and rows of rental lounges under identical blue umbrellas are signs of civilization imposed on nature.

I like beaches a little more remote, a little more natural. Usually none such coexist with cities, but arrayed along Santa Rosa Island on either side of Pensacola Beach we have Gulf Island National Seashore. Driving west from the high rises, housing density begins to drop. We enter a region reminiscent of Seaside FL, that squeaky-clean town where Jim Carrey lived in The Truman Show.

Houses soon peter out A sign announces the border of the National Seashore. An old life saving station serves as park headquarters where a garrulous ranger is happy to recount an exhaustive history of the place.

Few visitors and no amenities disrupt our solitude here. Absence of lifeguards (or for that matter any other person who might render aid) keeps us out of the choppy water. We settle for walking in the surf line for a mile or two, enjoying fresh salty air and the cries of seabirds.

 

Drifts of shells testify to the low number of beachcombers. Pensacola beach, by contrast, has long been picked clean.

 

A frieze of Sea Oat seed heads runs along the length of the barrier island. These native grasses—true wild oats—anchor the dunes against the storm-driven waves that wash over the land.

Pensacola Beach or Gulf Island National Seashore—they're just a few miles apart along the same stretch of sand. Which would you choose for a seaside outing?