After a year of packing and a frantic two weeks of preparation, our belongings were picked up and carried away within a few hours. For the next month, it's life in a suitcase.
On July 1, we left town under the protection of summer clouds. Almost immediately, an enormous sense of freedom replaced the anxiety. A few hours later, I found a place I had thought about since I was a child.
In 1956, our family and some friends drove from Indiana to Pensacola where my Aunt Naomi lived. Uncle Bud was a caretaker at Fort Pickins National Park. It was adjacent to some sort of military base. The original fort dated back to the Civil War and once held Geronimo prisoner. The Park was located on a long thin strip of sand separating the bay from the Gulf. For a kid, this was paradise. We played in the dunes, walked and fished from the beach. I remember wading into some shallow water at night hunting for flounder. The crowds were miles away at the beach resorts. We had, in effect, our own private mile of beach and adventure.
A major perk of my uncle's position was a large, old house that was provided by the park. It was about the only civilian building there. A big New England style house, it dwarfed the more traditional Florida beach homes of the day. Tall, with angular gray bleached gables, it could be seen from a far distance. A broad porch on two sides held back the relentless sun. Boys from Indiana burn easily and quickly. There was little air conditioning in those days, and certainly none in the house, but we fell asleep easily from exhaustion.
Pensacola is about half way between Tampa and Houston, our first destination, a good place to stop for the day. We had time to drive to Gulf Breeze and turn onto the beach road. I knew it would not look the same. The number and height of the condos seemed misplaced. A couple of miles down the road, there was a lonely gate and a small building to collect your $8.00 to enter the Park. We balked at the price, but the nice attendant asked if I had a Golden Passport, i.e., a free pass to any national park. Good thing I carry mine around.
The road beyond the gate, windswept with sand, divided the beaches , desolate save a few pieces of equipment and oil clean-up people. It was obvious that the military presence no longer existed nor were any of its buildings left. We continued along the quiet road. I began to think that the old fort may have been demolished. There were no above ground improvements except the signs telling us that shore birds nesting.
Then, unexpectedly, we spotted a tall building with gables and a big porch. There it was, alone on the white sand - a piece of my childhood - set apart from any notion of ordinary life. It was dirty white, but we found evidence that the original gray wood had been painted, confirming my memory of it. The porch held our weight. To the left, we looked at Pensacola Bay. To the right, the heavy surf of the Gulf.
The breeze and the memories are still there, in and around that old house where I once spent one of my last weeks as a child. So many things are gone from those years - my elementary and junior high schools, a large section of the downtown in the city of my birth, the old movie theaters and drive-ins, Crosley Field, and the old Elks Country Club where I caddied. Yet somehow, this isolated but grand and aged building remains, serving as a registration office for the campsites at the end of the thin peninsula.
I should mention that the old fort is still there but appears to be unattended, and is being reclaimed by the sand and wind.
The circumstances behind the existence and use of the house are not known to me. It doesn't matter, for to me, it is an event of grace, another step in the preparation before our final departure in two weeks.
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