Wewahitchka

 A perfect pair of eyes grace the side of her face. Her nose is the river, Apalachicola, running always toward the bay and Port Saint Joe. Buster, I came across Wewahitchka one day out looking for tupelo honey and I fell in love with the sound of the name.

“That’s easy to do, for you, fall in love.”

Very easy and I don’t mind, but I have never been there. I want to find my way, one of these days. It sounds like a good place to go, to take a road trip. And while we’re at it let’s take in Tate’s Hell. Tate’s Hell used to be a swamp, a wetland, but it was drained to make way for commercial logging and 12 ecosystems were destroyed.

“Another insult to our Mother.”

That’s right, after that, you know what? Where there is money involved, people will rape the land, without a first or second thought. Now the fishermen wonder why Apalachee Bay is in such a mess. They want to blame the people in Georgia who use water out of the rivers. I’m sure that’s part of the problem, but I also imagine a lot of those problems originated in Tate’s Hell when it was forever changed by 40 years of logging; back then they called it land management.

“I hope they replanted some trees.”

The state took control of it in 1994 and now it’s called a State Forest. Florida is trying to return it to its natural state. Projects have been completed to that end, but it will take a very long time for it to return to its natural state if that’s even possible. We’ll have to be careful when we go there, Buster, I hear there are wild cats out there.

“Busters not scared of a wild cat, or any other kind of cat.”

There is black bear out there too, but I’m not sure how long they’ll last. The state has decided to declare war on bears.

“What does Florida have against bears?”

A bear kicked over a trash can in Tampa, so the legislature decided enough is enough and allowed permits to be issued to bear killers. They’ll be after the wild cats next. I tried finding us some boudin today, Buster, but I never found any. Something must have happened to the truck hauling the boudin.

“What’s boudin? Something to eat?”

Something good to eat, Buster Posey. But it was not in the cards for us to have any tonight. I drove to where the truck was supposed to be, but he was not there and I found out later what happened. All that means is that I drove a long way for boudin and came away with nothing but a craving for boudin.

“You never did say what boudin is, exactly.”

Boudin is a sausage that I have not had in quite a while. I used to get it in Lafayette and Henderson, Louisiana, but I don’t get by those places like I used to. I heard that a food truck here in Tallahassee had some boudin balls. I saw them featured on their menu. I went to where they were supposed to be parked today, but they were not. I’m having to do without, Buster, just like you said, so now, we’ll both have to do without. You might not like boudin, Buster, it may be too spicy for your sensitive pallet.

“I want to try some boudin. Bring Buster boudin!”

I’m not giving up, my little friend, today was a setback, but hopefully, Captain Q will get his act together and get his mess running again and one of these days, I will track him down. Maybe we'll run up on him on the road to Wewahitchka. Anything’s possible.

 

Buster’s Journal

14 August 2015

Tallahassee, Florida