| It was always about laughter, catching the cool, relaxing and giving meals, baths, jokes and humor endlessly. The effortlessness now eludes me, how ones life can be so easy and unperturbed is amazing and completely unheard of today. I'm afraid that the happiness and full light heartedness which fill the air at South Point may never happen for me and others again. |
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| Early on a sunday morning as the sun continued to rise in the east, as the heavy dew caps melted beneath the groomed green grass and after the cheerful half hour drive from TarpumBay, we broke the corner racing to the small square kitchen fighting for the best seat around the square wooden table for breakfast. The kitchen stood in the back of the main house seperated only by the steps and a small passage way between them. The kitchen stove was always lit early before we arrived on Sunday mornings. The air surrounding and up to the kitchen always filled with the piping fresh scent of hotdogs, grits and eggs, just moments before we would all be sitting behind the aluminum strips surrounding the square green topped tables sipping on delicious sweet creamed tea or hot cocoa. Overwhelmed by the joy we felt on such mornings at the shore the laughter and relief of such moments brought immense pleasure, especially to me. My family surrounded me and we comforted each other with play during such occasions, but I could not feel the joy for them I could only hope that the joy they felt was equal to my own. Judging by their reactions and the wide happy expressions on their faces it was. Grand father would never join us on such occasions this early in the morning he always found it his pleasure to rise early, gather his fishing gear and make to the beach where he left many times alone or with the company of the joker teller Mr. Edmond in the� skiff he built for himself some years earlier.� At these times he wanted no assistance from our young happy faces only our smiles of love and admiration and the assurance that we'd be in his smiling and happy presence once he returned in the afternoon. There we sat gathered around the man for a flurry of jokes about ber bookie, ber rabbi and us chickens, the story of the fox and the hens and lots of others including the one about the sappodillas filled with the brown stuff. He would often grapple with the grains and water glass just before getting in the boat then crank up the sea gull motor then leave for the fishing drops in back of the few islands which lined the seashore. Anyone could tell that this was something he immensely enjoyed. I can see him now his pants rolled up above the ankle, the glare of his one gold tooth as he smiled back swinging the oar back and forth as he left the shore. After he left the quietness of the shore was broken only by the continuous wafting of the swells as they broke onto the calm empty beach. |
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| These are the memories of Palmetto that will live on with me throughout time. Palmetto, in its quaint village setting holds the best memories of neighborly love and freindship I have ever known. My brother now a doctor lived in Palmetto with my grandparents during his childhood and boyhood years. I've often wondered if it were not Palmetto which gave him the drive to become such a high achiever in life, I must discuss that with him sometime. The reality of love and freindship of that time experienced and practiced by those people is thought of as naievity today. The neighborhood shop keeper, Mr. Tadd daily giving the contents of his shop, mostly candy, away to friends and children of freinds just for the reward of a smile, today unbeleiveable. Although we could not go outside of the wall surrounding my grand parents yard, the excitement of the children that passed by filled us for another week after which we would return and get to know more of these unique people. The pleasantness of the hottest day was fine enough to bear but had little similarity to the pleasant calm which overcame the village as sun went down. All the streets cleared everyone left the streets to take their baths, crawl into pajamas and sit around the tabletops at dusk to sip tea and fresh baked bread which signalled the last meal of the day before a restful night and bedtime dreams. We always left before the night came as such I never got the chance to sleep in my grandparents house like my oldest brother, the doctor, whom we were all jealous of for that reason. He grew up with all the privilige we thought. During his lifetime I never saw him as dirty as we were, as a matter of fact I never saw him as gregarious somewhere perhaps in Palmetto he learnt to have and display an even temper free of the loudness and outbursts we were capable of. The many summers as a boy with his own job from an early age working on the road cleaning crew with the other neighborhood boys under the supervision of mr. Edmond as foreman evened him out. I think it made him feel special, all that treatment, he learnt early and grew up fast under the direction of my grandparents and the neighbors in South Point. He knew early that they loved him and through him they gave to their only daughter my mother a lovely gift, a well disciplined strong willed child. This was the last they could do for us in Palmetto, shortly afterwards my grandfather died. He had taken enough of this life and given all he could, now it was up to us who knew what Palmetto and its people were all about. Their devout faith in Jesus and church every sunday, their love and light heartedness, their undying devotion to each others families was neverending it went on and we knew full well that it was because they all wanted it to. This is not to mention their hard work and loyalty to the land and sea during the week when we were away, much of this we did not see. Of this we saw only the remnants, the bunches of sugar banannas and onions hanging in the small shop in front of the yard, the banannas from which we plucked so many times and packed up to carry with us back to our home some thirty miles away, as they said it, "up the shore." One can only dream of such a life today, not opulant and stylish but comfortable and free, upholding moral and social standards to the highest levels preserving a happiness in life which can be treasured forever. The sea, the feilds and land in the distance, the sunset and most of all the wonderful people good natured and clean, loving and kind, gentle in the fullest way. Through these memories Pallmetto lives on. |
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