Our Crazy Dog

We decided after a while in a small mobile that we liked it and we would buy our own. Bobbie Hickman gave us a lot of good advice about buying one.

We shopped around a bit and found one that we really liked and it was on sale. We bought it and moved it into the same Park we were in while renting and stayed till the Boat was finished overhaul in the yard.

Bobbie also gave us a pup while we were in Charleston; she had rescued him one night during a fire in their Park. He was running loose and she was afraid he would be killed in all the traffic.

She had scooped him up and put him in their Spartan till it was all over, she already had a dog, an old Wire Haired Terrier named Pud, she could not find the pup’s owner after the fire and didn't want to keep him she had already named him Goofus when she gave him to us.

A Canaanite Pup

We never knew what breed of dog he was or if he was just a mutt, but I found some photos online and this one looks like he did when she gave him to us.

What a dog he turned out to be, he had personality plus and we just called him Goofy. He was a natural comedian if he did something and you laughed he would really outdo himself then.

He was white with brown ears and was a medium/large sized dog when he was full grown. We had him for awhile and then gave him to my dad when we moved into a Park that didn't allow pets.

He loved to go fishing with us and he would watch the cork a lot better than either of us. When the cork went under he jumped in and if you weren't really good at reeling it in he would get all tangled in the line and nine times out of ten you lost your fish.

He also loved Pizza, back in those days I made homemade and had a gas stove with a glass oven door. He knew when I was making it and he would sit and watch the oven door like someone watching T V. As soon as it cleared the oven he would start yelping for a piece.

We had to let it cool first or he would try to eat it while it was piping hot and burn his mouth. He was like a spoiled child. If we left him home alone he would tear the house apart while we were gone.

He would tear up all the magazines and string the toilet tissue off the roll all over the house; he would tear all the sheets and covers off the bed and pile them up in a pile.  In general everything was a real mess with his tantrums at being left home alone.

He looked like the photo below when he was older, all white, but with brown ears.

Older Canaanite Dog

He was a great watch dog, and he would not let anyone in the car with me if Chuck wasn't in the car. Many times in the mornings several of the guys would grab a ride with us from the barracks to the Boat, but it was a big no/no till Chuck was back in the car. You will hear more about our crazy dog in other stories.

The Florida Panther

Once in a while he would go ice fishing with his Uncle’s in their launch.  They would stay out several days and fish till they filled the hold.  As they filled the hold, they layered each catch with ice till the hold was full and then they came back in. 

That was as much to keep the fish moist so they didn't dry out as it was to keep them cold, and to keep them from spoiling.

Isaac Henry bott Richburg poling
his mullet skiff in Cedar Key 1900

They towed their skiff boats behind the launch; they used them for running out their nets and catching the fish. 

They slept, cooked and ate on the launch.  Chetter did a lot of the cooking and he was heavy handed with the pepper.  But if anyone complained, they had to do the cooking for awhile.  So, there were hardly ever any complaints.

And usually after the evening meal they always told scary ghost stories.  This was mostly for the benefit of the younger men.  They would swap stories till the tide was just right to drop the nets and fish.  One such night, they were in the Wacasassa River near the mouth.  Chuck told me “It was so dark in there you couldn’t see the man rowing in the boat next to you, he said we maneuvered by sound.”

Leotis (Bum, Odie Boy) Collins

Just before they left the launch Leotis (called Bum or Odie Boy) had been telling a tale about a big “Florida Panther.”  He said, “The panther comes to the river to drink and lays in wait to jump you, and he’s has been known to kill and eat grown men.”  By the time they got in their skiffs to go fishing, the younger guys were scared half to death.

They were rowing along as quietly as possible, listening for fish breaking. Bum suddenly stood up and threw his let-er-go toward the bank, and at the same time without his knowing, he had rowed up under a fork of a tree limb that was hanging out over the river and it caught him.

One limb slid under each arm and lifted him clear of the boat; at the same time the let-er-go hit a big bull that had come down to the river to drink.  The bull let out a bellow and Bum let out a scream that chilled the blood.

Chuck rescued Bum; his lower body was dangling in the river.  Bum still had the screaming memies, but everybody else was laughing so hard their sides hurt and they were teasing him about almost getting caught by that “Big old Florida Panther!” 

They had to go back down the river a ways to catch his skiff; it had drifted down river with the current while Bum was hanging in the tree waiting for Chuck to rescue him.

The power’s that be, refuse to admit that there are Florida Panther in our woods and hammocks up there, this area being known today as “Florida’s Nature Coast.”  But there most definitely are! 

And have been for many years, long before they imported the Puma or mountain lion which are basically the same cat, and there still are some originals in the Gulf Hammock! 

Too many people have been seeing them for too many years!  People who grew up in the area, and know those woods and hammocks like the back of their hands. 

A Florida Panther Track

One of the Wildlife Officer’s who worked in the area quite some time back and before any Panther was ever imported, took pictures, and made plaster casts of the tracks.  But those in power refused to admit that they were panther tracks.

There are also a few Florida Black Bear still in those woods too.  My husband decided before he died, that it was political. 

If the Power’s that be, admitted there were Florida Panther there, they would then have to force the timber companies to cease the destruction of their habitat.

To be continued

Fishing and Turtleing

After he quit school he started working with Genie Andrews.  Genie was more of a turtle-man than a fisherman.  It was really an art form with Genie.  I guess he could probably be called the turtle king, on the Gulf Coast of Florida back in those days.  He taught Chuck how to catch turtle, and how to read the sea and tell how the tide was running in any given area.

And he also taught him how to figure out the best place to set the nets to catch the turtle as well as how to run the nets and set them  All up and down the west coast of Florida, they even made a couple of trips to Key West during the time he turtled with Genie.  Genie really knew his trade! 

He had also done a little rum running every now and then during the WWII, just to supplement his income.  He taught Chuck how he could drop a load all at once by pulling one rope while running full bore ahead. 

Chuck never had an occasion to use that knowledge, but he knew how to if he’d ever decided to do anything illegal, and not get caught with the contraband aboard. 

He was approached several times over the years and offered opportunities, but he weighed the costs; and decided that the money he would make was not worth what the cost would be.

Chuck had a very close friendship with the Andrews Family. At that time they lived upstairs in one of the Andrews Buildings on the corner of Hwy. 24 and Second Street.

This building later became the famous Heron Restaurant which was owned and operated by Janice Coupe who served gourmet meals; her specialty was her awesome Crab Bisque!

The Heron Restaurant Building

Most all of the buildings on Second Street have an upstairs balcony, Chuck and Kenny would hold Mattie, the Andrews Mother, by the heels over the balcony as a tease.

I thought, this was so dangerous, but I knew her and she took it all in stride knowing they would not drop her, they were strong young men and it was humorous to her as well, and she told me the story several times and laughed heartily each time she told me. She adored Chuck, and his sense of humor. 

Before he quit school and started turtleing with Genie, he fished a lot at night with Kenny, and Joe, who were Genie & Mattie’s sons.  Sometimes on Friday and Saturday nights they would camp out on the barrier islands because it was adventurous.  

All young men love adventure!  They poled their skiff boats with a long pole oar; very few if any had power boats back in the 1940’s.  The launches had power if you were well off enough to have one.  Most launches were powered with an old car engine of some kind.

To be continued

The Divorce and the Move

 Chuck had many fond memories of growing up in West Lake Wales.  The family lived there till his Mom and Dad began having marital problems, and they leased the property out, and the family moved into town to a house on Cohasset Avenue.  They lived there for less than a year.

His mother decided to move back to Cedar Key and after the move she and Papa got a divorce.  Chuck and two of the sister’s were still living at home moved with her.  The older sister, Ilene had married Varnell Campbell and lived there, and Hoyt had joined the Navy. 

The family had always visited Cedar Key as often as possible while Chuck was growing up.  His dad and mom were Native Cedar Keyans and still had numerous family members living there. When he was growing up he used to spend a lot of time in the summer during school vacation in Cedar Key.

Chuck was fourteen when his mother moved back to Cedar Key with him, his sister Delores (Teeny) and sister Barbara Helen (Bobbie), his daddy had bought the building on Second Street (everyone calls Main Street) which years later became the  L&M Bar.  It was not a bar when Papa owned it. 

The Building is the one on the front right.
Photo courtsey of Carmen DayWilliams

Several years later he sold the building and at some point Lawrence & Melrose Clark bought the building, and built the bar in downstairs and that’s when it became the L&M.  Their family also lived upstairs where Chuck, his mother and two sisters had lived. Other families lived there between the time Papa sold it and the Clark’s bought it.

His mother’s, brother’s Chester (Chetter), Leotis (Bum or Odie Boy), and Leo Collins taught him how to hook ‘n’ line fish and how to net fish.  His daddy had a boat built for Chuck, and Chuck named it the ‘Seabo’.  He had to pay Papa back on a percentage basis out of what he made fishing.

Whenever he was not in school he was fishing and he made good money.  He didn’t quite finish the tenth grade before he quit school.  He and the Principal had a misunderstanding one day. 

The Principal started hitting him with a long cane switch and Chuck jumped up and punched him in the stomach and ran out of the school building and never went back.

To be continued