Redneck Riviera

On the Gulf coast of the Florida Panhandle, just thirty miles southwest of Tallahassee, lies a little known spit of land called Alligator Point. Very little known, in fact. Ask anyone outside of a sixty-mile radius about Alligator Point, and chances are they won't know what you're talking about, and they might think it has something to do with the University of Florida Gators. But no; this is deep in Florida State Seminole country. American-Indian heritage is ever-present here, with places called Apalachicola (home of the best oysters in the world), Sopchoppy, and Ocklockonee. But today the Indians most mentioned are the 'Noles, spangled in large print on the front of the Tallahassee Democrat or stuck blatantly on the back of pick-ups in garnet and gold. Pirates once used the area for hideouts and raids. Today the only pirates are the weekend variety, rolling into town in their SUVs and station wagons, putting boats and Waverunners on trailers, carting gallons of run to the coast. My parents bought a house on Alligator Point over thirty years ago. Back then property was relatively cheap, and The Point was mostly undeveloped. Now, there are few vacant lots, and property rates have risen as "Undiscovered Florida" has been discovered. We're on our fourth house now, a one story, way up high on stilts overlooking the bay. One good push, one strong hurricane, and I'm afraid the house might tumble into the bay. It's sturdy enough, I guess. It does what it's supposed to and sways in the wind. Not so that I'd notice, being used to it, but visitors have commented on it, their eyes growing wide and uncertain as the house ever so slightly moves. The houses down there have to roll with the wind or else be buckled under it. Along the beach road there is evidence of other houses lost to storms, their once solid planks and beans rotting like so much driftwood. Inside, the house is typical beach tacky, and that's the way we like it. Back home we had antiques and flounces and gracious rooms and not a spec of dust in sight, but at the beach it's a different climate all together. The utensils rust quickly in the salt air, so there's no sense in having the good stuff. We eat greasy, messy fried fish and hush puppies and cheese grits, so the white plank table is covered in a plastic tablecloth. The cups, too, are plastic. It doesn't shatter into a thousand sharp shards when drunkenly dropped on the floor. We have a few real plates, but paper is preferred. The walls are decorated with wooden fish, beachy knick-knacks, a seascape, all of the above picked up at flea markets and craft shows or painted by my older brother in the sixth grade. All the furniture was at one time good quality and used in our home in town but is now relegated to beach use, good candidates for sticker burrs, sand, and spills. In the place of honor, right above the breakfast bar with its resident ceramic pelican, is a large wooden sign, looking like something from a saloon in the Old West. The dark wood is painted with big, bold, sunset letters: Welcome to the Redneck Riviera. There are lots of windows in the house, which we mostly leave open to catch the breeze off the water. Almost the entire back side of the house (or front, depending on which way you look at it) faces the water, and the French windows there open up onto a partially covered deck. We can sit inside or on the deck, sip our pina coladas, and watch the gentle waves lapping or see porpoise flash in the sunlight. My father has a mammoth easy chair from which he commands the satellite dish, flicking doggedly through sporting events, movies, TV shows, and news channels. Whenever he gets up from his chair, I quickly take his place, enthroned in the giant cushions and the indentation his body has made. I can only sit there when he's busy doing something else because it's his chair. And if he catches me in it he'll bellow, "Get out of my chair," but slowly and drawn out so it sounds like, "Giiiiiiiit outta maaaah chaaaaar." And I'll giggle and skeedaddle out because I know he's teasing. Not about me getting out of the chair, but about the bellowing. The deck hangs out over the bay, and at low tide I can see the shallow depressions in the sand that the stingrays have made, burrowing under the cool earth. The holes are empty, the rays pulled out deeper with the tide. Sometimes in the golden water of the ebbing tide I can see crabs scurrying over the rippled sand, swept along with the movement of the waves. At high tide the water sometimes smacks against the rocks at the bottom of our stilts, put there to prevent erosion. If I look to the left, out over the water and toward the end of The Point, I can see the sunset, all gold and then orange and red and then pink and purple and then deep, deep blue. I feel a change instantly, the minute I hit the Ocklockonee Bridge, driving out to Alligator Point. The bridge is about ten miles from the house, and right then the smell of the water and air begins to work on me. I roll down the windows and breathe in the salt air. Whatever is going on in my life, however I've felt the preceding thirty miles of the trip to the beach, when I get to the bridge all that changes. I get giddy. I turn up the radio and rest my arm on the car door, driving with one hand, tapping my fingers on the wheel with my hair whipping in my face. Only ten more minutes, I tell myself, then I'm there. I cross the bridge, trying to hold my breath the whole time. As a superstitious kid I used to lift both feet, too. I can't do that now as the driver, but I still hold my breath. Taking the turn to The Point, I get ready for the ride. The road is notoriously bad, with potholes and bumps. I hit the gas and bounce jauntily over the road, pines and dunes passing in a blur. After about five minutes I can just begin to see the water Gulf flashing through the trees. And then turning the corner just past where the old beach club used to be, I get my first real look at the Gulf, sparkling and surging at the edge of the glistening sand. I have a hard time keeping my eyes on the road because I keep wanting to look at the waves.