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Monday, April 19, 2004 |
| Editor's Note: For those of you living in a hole, my computer completely died shortly after the last posting, so finally, a month later, I'm stocked with a working computer. For those of you that have been checking in rather frequently...Ok, so after a week of telling you that I was going to get back into the writing thing, I finally am. I decided that if I waited to post until I got caught up from the last few weeks it would take a few more days, so here's what's going to happen...I'm going to start out writing about today. Then, as soon as I get the chance, I'm going to reach back in time and cover everything I can remember. Today was by far the most eventful Monday that I've encountered since I've been down here. Wait, I think I should probably start with Saturday night...that'll make a few things easier. Since tax season effectively ended last week, Dad was able to come down and spend this weekend with me. He got down here around 3ish on Saturday afternoon, but unfortunately I had to work. So he somehow figured out who Mark & Patti were and they hung out some that evening. Also, Andy & Anne...two of my best friends from college were in the area with his family, so they came and ate at the Back Porch. (It was kinda weird when Anne walked in the door because even though I knew they were coming, there was still a moment that I was completely speechless...it's not often that I see someone I know from my Georgia life walk into the resturant.) Later on Mark, Patti, & Dad came and ate, so I was able to hang out with them for a little while. After work, dad had been asleep for hours, so I met back up with Andy & Anne, and we went to Snapper's Lounge. I don't think I've introduced you to Snapper's yet...it's kinda the hangout for the local crowd. It's certainly a one-of-a-kind place, there's no doubt about that. Anyway, so Billy, the cook, had picked up some crawfish that morning and had a big crawfish boil. Many of the people I work with had called him and he said he'd be glad to stay open until we were able to make it off work, so we went to see what this crawfish thing was all about. I don't think we ever truly sold Anne on the idea of crawfish, but Andy & I sure enjoyed them, and it was really great getting to spend some time catching up. I'm realizing that the one biggest thing I miss from home is all my friends. Sadly, I hadn't spent that much time thinking about it before seeing Andy & Anne, but it's beginning to sink in that when I go back to Athens for graduation this year, it'll probably be one of the last time's that I'll ever see a lot of the people that I've spent the last few years getting to know. Depressing. Ok, before I start to get all emotional on ya'll, I better go ahead and move on to Sunday. I woke up pretty early (probably 7:30 or so), but I soon found out that it wasn't early enough. Dad had already made his way to the porch, and he was quickly becoming acquainted to all the folks there. I don't really remember what all I've told you about the porch, but I'll try my best to explain it. The porch is the morning gathering place for most of the liveaboards here. If and when you are on the porch, you are fair game, and if there is something for them to use against you, they're happy to do it. (For Example...last week Katy sent me a letter, and she addressed it to Bozo Cordle...that's what she calls me. I no sooner got within 20 yards of the porch after the mail had arrived and I had 4 or 5 people calling me Bozo and just generally giving me a hard time about it. I think half of them had probably already tried to open my letter but the other half wouldn't let them. Anyway, it's all in good fun, but this is the nature of the porch.) So, I was somewhat worried when I saw Bill McPherson preaching to dad about something. There's no telling what kinds of lies he'd be telling trying to get me in trouble! (seriously...none of it is true, dad...promise!) :) I tell you, while dad was there the porch was certainly in rare form...It was more active that I've seen it in a while. Everything worked out fine & everybody seemed to enjoy meeting him, much like they enjoyed meeting mom & the girls last week. Mark had a good many projects he 
was going to try and get done on Sunday,
but he soon gave up and decided to take us sailing instead. I was absolutely thrilled because I hadn't been sailing with them yet, and I know that dad was pretty excited as well. We pulled out of the dock around 12:30 and took off across Perdido Bay. We had a perfect sail all afternoon with a SE wind at about 12-14 knots. One of the coolest things for me was having the opportunity to be Mark's helmsman for a while and sail the boat. He let me handle it nearly half the time, which was a really good experience for me. And boy I tell you what...not only does their boat make an amazingly comfortable home, but it sails like an absolute dream! Maybe one day...Ok, so we're on our way back to the dock around 5:30 or so and we see a marine police boat coming up astern. Before long, we realize that he's 
towing another boat. This kind of puzzled me, because since the arrival of commercial towing companies (i.e. TowBoatUS, SeaTow, etc.) the government isn't really allowed to tow people. That's about the time that I realized that the towed boat had a officer on it as well. Hmm...that's pretty interesting, we figured the owner was arrested and his boat impounded...then as they passed us we noticed the name on the back of the boat had been spray painted black. Ok, something's definately up now. Surely that must mean the boat was stolen. Sure enough, once we got back to the marina we talked with Jeanie Fitzgibbons...(her husband Randy works for Orange Beach Police) and she said that the boat had been stolen Saturday night.Apparently the dude stole the boat (a nice 40ft. Sea Ray) from Sportsman's Marina and then promptly ran it aground. He got assistance from the police boat and they noticed he was acting real weird. About the time they got him off the shoal, they found out the boat was stolen. By that time the guy's boat was free so he tried to ram the cop boat and then took off into the gulf. About 18 miles out, he either ran out of gas or had some sort of problems or something and they tried to arrest him, but he locked himself in the cabin of the boat. So, they hooked up the boat and started towing him in anyway. After a mile, he cut the tow line and jumped in the water. That lasted about a second before he realized either that the water was too cold, or that he'd rather be sitting in jail than swimming in the middle of the gulf. So, they finally got him into custody and locked him up sometime Sunday morning. End Chapter 1. Me & dad got up and hung out on the porch for a while & then decided to run over to Pensacola. I needed to pick up an anchor from the used boat parts place over there and I wanted to show him Joe Patti's Seafood. (The coolest seafood market I've ever been to). On the way we passed about 4 or 5 undercover cop cars with their lights on & everything, but we didn't really think too much about it. I think dad enjoyed seeing the seafood place & I picked up a couple of pounds of Royal Reds for later. Coming back to the marina we had to go through a road block, and come to find out, boat thief dude had broken out of jail. Not good considering Randy is the Jailor. He had broken down or through the fence when he was let out in the yard for a smoke break, then broke into a house and took a shower and stole a set of clothes and shoes. Needless to say, that made for quite an interesting afternoon what with all the helicopter and boat law enforcement traffic all day. Luckily, as I sit here typing at 11:30 I just heard that they caught him a few hours ago. Apparently he had been trying to look normal by raking a yard all day and working in some family's garage. When the family got home it didn't take long for them to realize that something wasn't right when they saw how clean their yard was. Go Figure. |
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