In Pursuit of Papa
Tracing Hemingway’s footsteps through his fishing days in Bimini.
Visions of the Bight
And it shall come to pass in those days that your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.
The Family Rifle
Remington called it “The Gamemaster.” Serial number 260,000, one of more than a million made between 1952 and 1982. We met on the beach. I was doing turtle work for the DNR, she was on vacation. I was registered with the Feds with authority to possess and transport...
Deep South Bugs and Bucks: When Itches Collide
Lowcountry of South Carolina. Two-thirds of my county is underwater at high tide. If it bites, it lives here. Deer flies, horse flies, dog flies, chiggers, sand-gnats, three flavors of ticks, assassin beetles, 56 separate species of mosquitoes, any number of...
A Good Dog Always Knows
Ain’t nothing to writing Papa Hemingway said, you just sit at the typewriter and bleed. I sat at the keyboard and cried for Zebo, damn near about shorted it out with my salty tears. It’s a twisted tale, as good tales are. Me and Miss Biscuits built a house on...
The Rising of the Sun and the Running of the Deer
The dogs struck in the old ricefield bottom, grown up now in a great snarl of water-trees, the bell-trunked tupelo, sweet gum and soft maple, the ground beneath a foot deep with the soggy litter from the last hurricane surge, driftwood snags and ricks of dead spartina...
Fair Winds, My Brother: Daufuskie Family
Forget about deer stands,” he said. “Just boost your woman high up in a live oak late in the afternoon. That way you’ll know she’ll still be there when you come to fetch her home after sunset.” We were on his front porch, out of the wind on a chilly afternoon, easing...
A Man In Full: Roosevelt Becomes A Man
Daddy sent Theodore off to Harvard in 1876 with this advice: “Take care of your morals first, your health second, and your studies third.” Predictably, young Roosevelt was a better boxer than student, much preferring independent inquiries rather than activities...
Three Boys and a Cannon Barrel
It was a Federal Criminal Conspiracy: three boys, a cannon barrel and scaup to drive them crazy. The saltwater scaup are mostly gone now, but back when I was a boy they would raft offshore, a thousand, ten thousand at a time. It would take a booming gale to get them...