BUG KILLIN’ IN APALACH
By Bruce W.  AKA DDT/Insecticide

I’d been meanin’ to spend some time in Apalachicola for various reasons, and the weather up in that part of Florida’s panhandle was forecast to be more’n tolerable, at least for the next several days. An hour after the idea had been incubated, sometime around noon, I’d finished the preliminaries, warmed up ALI (the name of my Valk), and was finally ready to slip the kickstand into the up position

Now, which way to go? As is my custom since abandoning gainful employment, I hadn’t given any more thought to a plan -- route or otherwise -- than I would’ve had I only been going to a local shop to buy chrome. The sky still looked mighty threatenin’, so, as I rode through town, I figured I’d just scoot on up the super slab and get north of the ugliness, then pick the next leg of the route later. 

Many times I’ve found myself looking over a map at gas stops and had some sympathetic soul ask if I were lost. I always enjoy reading their expressions when I tell them, “Nope, I’m trying to decide where I might go next.” Like me during the first half-century of my own journey along the path of life, most folks also lead highly structured lives of schedules, deadlines, and tragically limited amounts of true leisure time. Statements of envy are frequently included in these exchanges, and they’re a constant reminder to me of my good fortune. For sure, I am indeed living proof of that old saying: “Behind every successful man is a very surprised mother-in-law.”

Although the sun was peeping through at me now and then by the time I made the turn onto I-10, it was also dropping lower in the sky, as was the mercury in its tube. I made the easy decision to stay on the slab a while longer before turning off towards my destination for the day and whatever adventure might await me there. 

Just after dark, I rolled down from the crown of the bridge and immediately found myself in town. The first structure on the left was the gray and white, clapboard three-story Gibson Inn; an historic hotel built in 1907 and recently restored. It also had a restaurant and lounge, so it seemed to be the perfect place for me to deposit my cold and thirsty carcass for a spell. 

I love small towns. I suppose I like the hamlets in the South just a tiny bit better, though, mostly ’cause folks down this way don’t talk with an accent the way everybody does in other parts of the country. But strip away the superficial veneer, and small town folks are the same everywhere: warm and friendly; laid back and easygoin’. I’m certain they have fewer ulcers and other stress-related ailments that grind on the rest of us who’ve sacrificed health and peace upon the altar of the American Dream. This place was no different.

The lady that checked me in, although not originally from there, turned out to be a fascinating story herself. Shirley had been forced to abandon her ‘calling’ in photography to find activity sufficient to pay her bills. During the happy times, though, she’d stretched her talent and found fulfillment through a range of adventures, one of which had included road trips with Viet Nam Vets on their bikes. Damn, I could’ve spent hours right there just listening to her, but I needed to get settled in and see if there were other discoveries to be made -- not to mention there was still that naggin’ thirst thing...

I quickly scoped out the bar as I crossed the entry threshold: Shucks, only one patron and a beverage fetcher. But, before I could reach the stool that would become my perch for the next couple of hours, RD was introducing himself, and Cliff, who professed never to have been a letter carrier, was ready to provide a remedy for the dust accumulation in my swallow pipe. Colorful guys both, and downright comical, too. We talked, joked, cussed politics, and even got around to chattin’ a bit about local history. Ron strolled in during all this, and he contributed handsomely, as well.

Some time after we’d progressed beyond the ‘witty and charming’ phase of inebriation and well into the ‘insightful and intellectual’, a group from the ‘Seafood Sampler’ doin’s in town dropped by. The party really got into high gear then, but closin’ time was soon upon us. “No problem,” Gill and LuLu told us, “y’all come on over to our house.” LuLu showed us around their mostly restored old home, and Gill played his guitar some and told a few stories, too. I felt as though I’d known these folks a long time, and they treated me just as if I were one of ’em. When the evening finally ended, RD informed me that I had friends in Apalach now, so I needed to come on back anytime. 

I visited the Gorie Museum the next morning and learned how ice making had been invented there, along with the discovery of the principles of what was to become air conditioning. I spent the afternoon in the library reading about the history of this quaint village and its marvelous people, and I even managed to respond to an e-mail or two. 

Between those two activities, I went to have lunch with RD. He was a little under the weather -- said he was sufferin’ from some mysterious illness called ‘brown bottle flu’. We did talk briefly, but then he had to go run some errands. I spent the next hour or so chatting with a retired history teacher who turned out to be a gold mine of information -- and, I mined some fist-sized nuggets!

In earlier times, Apalachicola, which takes its name from the river that empties into the Gulf of Mexico there, became a busy seaport. The Apalachicola River is formed by the confluence of the Chipola, Chattahoochee, and Flint Rivers, which in turn drain southeastern Alabama and southwestern Georgia. Long before roads even remotely worthy of that name came into existence down here, rivers were the highways of commerce. ‘Apalach’ was well situated to take advantage of the cotton empires emerging ‘up river’ of it, and by the early 1850’s had become the third busiest U.S. port on the Gulf.

The Civil War brought with it a Naval Blockade that hastened the inevitable decline of Apalach, already under siege as a result of the extension of railroads throughout southern Georgia and Alabama. The resilient residents responded to this challenge by transforming the local economy into one based upon the harvesting and exporting of wood products. As that resource eventually neared exhaustion, another transformation to seafood harvesting and exporting rose to the fore. Even now as this industry is in turn entering its decline, local entrepreneurs are looking to tourism to eventually replace it in importance.

Throughout the nineteenth century growth and economic success came at a very high price. Disease has plagued mankind since before he came down from the trees, and the subtropics have added to the variety of scourges available to torment humans. In addition to all the ailments affecting the rest of North America, malaria and yellow fever periodically reached epidemic proportions here. 

Dr. Gorie, a local physician, observed that cooler temperatures from the changing seasons ‘naturally’ ended the rein of horror, so he set about finding a way to apply the concept of expanding gases producing cooler temperatures, a theory he had heard of while in college. With the ability to artificially lower temperatures during times of sweltering heat, many patients began to recover from yellow fever; a disease that previously had all too often meant certain death.

Neither RD nor any of the cast from the evening before made it to the watering hole Monday night, but a few other characters did. When closing time blindsided us, though, everybody called it quits -- well almost. Turned out poor ol’ Cliff now needed to unwind some, what with all that work he’d been forced to do while the rest of us had been playin’. 

We walked down the street to another beverage aid station, and I spent the better part of two hours mining still more nuggets of local lore. 

Book learnin’ is good, and it’s essential to understanding the history of any area and its people. Listening to locals, though, adds a dimension of depth and perspective to dry data that takes one well beyond understanding to a fuller comprehension and feeling about their lives -- and in turn about our own. Heck, I could’ve read a book at home and gotten essentially the same information. But, I would never have learned as much as I did...

It was only Tuesday morning, and I did still have a few days remaining on my parole, but the Gypsy in me said it was time to move on. Besides, I can’t sit in a chair nearly as long as I can in the saddle. I decided to ride ‘up river’ and see what else I could learn about the circumstances and influences on this interesting but relatively unknown slice of the Southland. 

I stopped in a couple of small towns and read plaques at civic buildings. I rode some county roads to sample the flavor of all that offers, and I let my mind’s eye scan back through the pages most recently written into my mental notebook of memories. In less than forty-eight hours I’d already had a first rate adventure!

I arrived in Bainbridge, GA., about noon and rode around looking at old houses and other buildings before asking a nice lady for directions to the library. There, I was able to check my e-mail again and do some more reading. And, I was able to resume my search for who we are, by trying to understand who we were and how we got here. Again, a helpful librarian put me on to just the right material, and the journey continued. Closing time came way too soon, but whatcha gonna do?

I found a motel with the requisite food and beverage dispensaries and prepared for the next onslaught of unexpected revelation. A couple of older gentlemen, well known locals to be sure, were holding court at one end of the bar, while a few other folks were scattered around lookin’ wary of unfamiliar surroundings. I decided to just sit back and watch for a while and see if anything developed. 

Eventually one of the elder statesmen and I got to jawin’, and he began to probe my reason for venturing into this un-glitzy, non-tourist destination. “You need to meet Jack Wingate,” he said with obvious enthusiasm. “He’s an older fellow who probably knows more about this area than anybody.” He went on to tell me that Jack had owned a fish camp south of town for decades and decades and still hangs out there everyday, even though he’d sold the place a while back. Sounded like my breakfast plans just got made.

The plaque on the corner caught my eye, just as I made the turn to go down into the ‘Jack Wingate Lunker Lodge’. A graceful U-turn and a few minutes reading about the fort that had been erected there in 1817, and of its role in the First Seminole War, sated that curiosity, so now for some grits and eggs. I happened to meet Jack just as I’d removed my tush from ALI’s saddle, and right away I knew I was going to be needing a miners’ hat again! He sat at the table painting word pictures of his corner of the universe as he wound line onto a new reel he’d just bought, and I shoveled down enough groceries for two lumberjacks. He did have a wealth of knowledge, and he seemed to enjoy my interest. 

Jack is quite a celebrity it turns out -- Shoot, he’s probably as well known in this part of the ‘Wire Grass’ region as Bear Bryant was in Tuscaloosa. He’d go on about this railroad spur and that steamboat landing for a while, then somebody would wander up and sit down with us. I enjoyed those exchanges as much as the history lessons, so I was now mining boulder size chunks of ore. 

After an hour or so of this, Jack moved on to another table to visit a while with some folks he knew. Even before my egg yoke stained dishes had been cleared away, though, I’d already strolled up to the counter and rented a cabin for the night. Folks, it just don’t get no better’n this!

Later, Jack and I sat outside in rockin’ chairs on what amounts to a front porch, and the lecture continued with insights into the reasoning for the placement of some of the early military posts in that area. I haven’t a clue how long this went on, but it ended when a minister and his wife ambled up for a late lunch. “Pray fo’ me, preacha! I only had one nap yeste’day, and I’m sufferin’ bad.” Just after that Jack left “to go get horizontal,” as he called it, and I went to my cabin to get settled in and ponder what all was happenin’ here.

About four I returned to the porch for my next lesson, but we didn’t get to cover much ground. Anglers kept dropping by to pay a social call on this local legend, as they returned from dueling with their aquatic adversaries. What the hey, I could always fill in the specific details with a book or two later on, and besides, these interactions were also fascinating! 

Fishin’ is so much more’n drownin’ bait, it turns out, just like motorcycle ridin’ is way more’n merely operating a two wheeled vehicle, and as surely as life itself is more than simply acquiring greater trappings of wealth than your neighbor. I wasn’t moved to go out and buy a bass boat, mind you, but I will forevermore think differently about this sport and its practitioners.

Jack eventually left for the evening, but I tarried on the porch a while longer to see what else might happen. Nobody seemed to care that I wasn’t a fisherman, and I enjoyed chatting with half a dozen locals about a whole range of topics. Inside just at dusk I ordered the ‘small’ catfish dinner, but I still managed to stretch a few seams, anyway. I listened to the Country & Western song playing softly in the background;  “...it don’t matter what you know; life’s a dance you learn as you go...” Ain’t it so.

Below the mantel of the substantial brick fireplace at the far end of the dining room is a soot-darkened, brass-colored plaque that reads ‘Wingate’s College’. I was informed by W.G., another local elder, that every mornin’ around six, a small group of ’em has a ’round table discussion’ of all that’s important in the world. In fact, this think tank is so scholarly, he unashamedly asserted, they’ve concluded that Einstein probably stumbled upon the theory of relativity by accident, since he never had the good fortune of attending this academic Olympus. I reckoned on tryin’ to enroll as a freshman come first light.

The dew was heavy as I removed the bike cover in the pre dawn darkness, so I spread it out inside the room to dry. The air’d had a sharpness to it, too, that made me glad I had less than a mile to ride to the restaurant and lecture hall. Jack and most of the faculty were already debating the physics and metaphysics of why the fish hadn’t been bitin’ lately, as I quietly found the coffee pot and then took my seat as near the fire as I could get. For the next couple of hours, all the topics never covered by 60 Minutes, that you always wished would be, were discussed in depth. I quickly found out that I’m not ready for this level of scholarship, however, so I ended up having to audit the class rather than be fully admitted.

Outside, a few hours later, Jack told me I ought to visit Fort Recovery, and, if I had time, the old arsenal down at ‘the hospital’ in Chattahochee. He also informed me he had nineteen historic sites located around there, and the next time I came, he and I would make a day of visitin’ each one of  ’em. With that I was off to ride the back roads and do some more ponderin’.

Another cloudless day with temperatures eventually climbing to near 70: Perfect! No traffic to speak of, and the critters apparently had better things to do than play tag we me. I made the stops Jack had recommended as I headed home, but this day was one more suited for highway crusin’ and thinkin’ -- sometimes. Other times I took a few liberties with the throttle and got after another of my solemn duties these days: Killin’ bugs! Yes sir, after many unfulfilling decades in the salt mines, I’ve finally found my true callin’…