I keep missing literary places . . . it’s back to Apalachicola

When I messaged author Marilyn Turk about my book, she responded with news of another of her books set in a region my book features –Apalachicola, Florida. All books in her Coastal Lights Legacy series are set in Florida. I had already discovered Rekindled Light, the fourth book, set in Pensacola.  Rebel Light, the first in the series, begins in Pensacola, but both the main character and the action quickly move to Apalachicola in 1861 during the  early stages of the Civil War.

Those who enjoy historical fiction will appreciate the well-researched novel, a blend of genres – historical fiction and Christian romance. Rebel Light will definitely be included in the second edition of A Literary Traveler’s Guide to the Gulf South. Rebel Light not only includes Apalachicola, but also St. George Island and St. Vincent Island, just across the Apalachicola Bay bridge.

Despite devastating hurricanes like Michael, Hermine, and Dennis, some of the landmarks Turk uses as settings still exist and are waiting for me to return to Apalachicola to take the tours.

The Old Cotton Warehouse. Photo Credit: Apalachicola.com

Apalachicola, in 1861, was a bustling seaport with nearly 2000 residents, many making their fortunes in the cotton and shipping business.  As Turk describes the town, “Steamboat whistles rang out over the din of business in the downtown streets which were full of wagons, people and bales of cotton. . . where the waterfront began, rows of three-story red brick warehouses stretched along the water’s edge.”  Downtown Apalachicola is much quieter now, but vestiges of many of the old warehouses still stand, some converted into shops. In fact, the Apalachicola Center for Culture and Arts is the Old Cotton Warehouse, built in 1838.  Of course, oyster harvesting and shrimping were important at that time, too.

As the plot unfolds, Kate, the main character, receives an invitation to the Cotton Ball, which is held at the finest house in the area, The Orman House, located on 

The Orman House. Photo Credit: Downtown Apalachicola.com

the outskirts of the city on a high bluff, overlooking the river. On my next trip to Apalachicola, I’m going to visit the Orman House and envision being at the ball. At the Cotton Ball, Kate meets botanist Alvan Chapman, a fellow guest. The botanical garden adjacent to The Orman House, the Chapman Botanical Garden, honors him.  As Kate and her Aunt Sally visit with Chapman in the garden during the ball, they admire Orman’s orange grove and Chapman points out several native plants.

Trinity Episcopal Church. Photo Credit: Diane Skelton

In the book, the families attend church at the historic Trinity Episcopal Church. Attending church or being seen at church was an important aspect of social circles. The building dates to 1837 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Turk’s description of the interior of the church and the dedicated pews is fascinating.

Kate, who has come to live at her great aunt’s home on the outskirts of the city, has a clear view of both St. George’s Island and St. Vincent’s Island. In order to warn her father’s ship about the blockade, she, along with a Union soldier she and her aunt rescued and nursed to health, make a night crossing by boat to the lighthouse on St. George Island.

Now, I can connect Rebel Light to the wonderful St. George Lighthouse and Museum just across the bridge from Apalachicola on St. George Island. On my next trip, I’m going inside the lighthouse, not just the museum. I want to climb the steps that Kate and Joshua climbed, lantern in hand.

The lighthouse Kate climbs to save her father. Photo Credit: Diane Skelton

I’d also like to go on the Tour of Homes in Apalachicola, in hopes of going inside a Widow’s Walk like the one in Great Aunt Sally’s home. Widow’s Walks, viewing rooms or porches on the top of Victorian homes, allowed a wife to watch for the return of her seafaring husband. If he doesn’t make it back, she’s a widow. The Gibson Inn in downtown Apalachicola has a Widow’s Walk, as do several homes like Hays House on the corner of 4^th Street and Avenue D.

Note the Widow’s Walk atop the Gibson Inn. Photo Credit: TheGibsonInn.com

And the next time I go, I’m going to take the walking tour so I won’t miss anything. It will be my third trip in a year!

WALKING TOUR LINK http://www.apalachicolabay.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Apalachicola-walking-tour-2021.pdf

Cooking on the Road, Eating like the Locals

“Add recipes!” some writer friends suggested as I was writing my book A Literary Traveler’s Guide to the Gulf South. Somewhere along the traveling, researching, writing, and publishing road, the idea got lost in the process. I did include dishes some authors order at their favorite restaurants, but my research on popular foods of the coastal area buried itself in some computer file. I had toyed with the idea of turning favorite food into an interesting sidebar, but then I figured Who wants to cook on vacation?

These pocket-sized recipe collections are from Cornwall and Devon in England.

I figured wrong. Last week when I picked up about 75 cookbooks from Barbara, a friend who is downsizing, the idea of regional recipes resurfaced. Her collection includes cookbooks of all sizes and shapes from Italy, Britain, Tuscany, the Caribbean, New England, and even four tiny ones from Cornwall – all places she visited. It seems travelers do like to take home recipes. Maybe cooking is a great way to relive vacation.

This 1974 copy of Gulf Coast Gourmet was well loved by its former owner.

One of Barbara’s cookbooks, Gulf Coast Gourmet (which I first read in 2018 when finding 300 gumbo recipes to celebrate News Orleans’ 300^th anniversary) features family recipes from coastal Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The Foreword explains the cuisine of this tri-state area, “Our traditions include an appreciation of good eating brought to us by French, Spanish and Italian ancestors and made individual by the American skill of using imaginatively whatever was at hand: often improving upon the past . . . fine herbs and spices with the delicate flavor of choice seafood – an art which dates back to the early days of this historic area.”  Gulf Coast Gourmet, compiled and published by the Foley (Alabama) Woman’s Club, was so popular it went through eleven printings.  And as for gumbo, probably the most popular dish in all three states, here’s a shout-out to Native Americans and Africans, neither group which receives culinary accolades. We wouldn’t have gumbo without them!

As I evaluate what goes in the next edition of A Literary Traveler’s Guide to the Gulf South, I’m considering a few local recipes to offer a flavor of the coastal region. It might take some doing to get copyright permission, but the sidebars will look something like this:

WHAT THE LOCALS EAT

 THE MISSISSIPPI COAST

When visiting the Bay St. Louis area, a fellow writer interviewed locals about what they cooked at home and their family favorites. From their responses she learned the dishes are heavily influenced by French cuisine due to the proximity to New Orleans. So, it’s not surprising to see red beans and rice, crawfish pie, shrimp creole, and shrimp jambalaya on the list. Locals also enjoy crab, crab bisque, oysters, and red drum (that’s fish).  One woman explained many home cooks follow the traditions of their original ethnic group. Since this coastal region included many Italians and Sicilian settlers, the popular dishes include seafood mixed with rich tomato sauces, peppers, and cheeses.  Farther east along the coast, Mississippians enjoy dishes like stuffed flounder and deviled crab, smoked mullet, fried fish, and raw oysters. Every town on The Mississippi Coast likes shrimp – boiled, fried, sauteed, grilled, blackened, every way possible and especially in gumbo.

LOWER ALABAMA

Alabamians love crab dishes, especially the rich lump blue crab meat for which their coastal area is so famous. And they love shrimp, just like Forrest Gump says, “fried shrimp, boiled shrimp, baked shrimp, shrimp with rice, shrimp etouffee,” and so forth. One favorite is Alabama Baked Shrimp, much less clean-up than the traditional shrimp boil.  The variety of shrimp dishes range from traditional shrimp cocktail to the more sophisticated shrimp delicacies found in Alabama’s remarkable number of superior seafood restaurants. Fried softshell crabs are also a seasonal favorite along with fish dishes created from Spanish Mackerel and Redfish.

FLORIDA PANHANDLE

Just a few miles farther east in the Florida Panhandle, the appetite for oyster dishes grows and multiplies all the way to Apalachicola, once one of the largest producers of oysters in the U.S. Traditional Thanksgiving celebrations in Pensacola included oyster stew or gumbo as an appetizer and oyster stuffing/dressing to go with the turkey. Fish dishes vary, but the most popular Northwest Florida specialties feature grouper, snapper and pompano. Shrimp remains a seafood staple in Florida too. When it comes to ethnic favorites Pensacola-area family dishes are inspired by both Greek and Spanish settlers. Hosting a fish fry, crab boil, or shrimp boil is a traditional way to welcome family, friends, and out-of-town guests.

Book Review: Please send me 1 copy of . . .

Best benefit of my first job? Free books! As the assistant editor for a teachers’ magazine, part of my job was reviewing books. Of course, this was decades ago when authors sent real hardback books for review – not a PDF or an ebook. That’s how I got my first edition of Pascagoula: Singing River City. For two years, before I took the job, the book had stood on a shelf of books to review, all gathering dust. I took it home with a monograph of Eudora Welty’s stories, pre-Pulitzer Prize.

But it was Pascagoula: Singing River City that held a personal connection. The book documents the folklore, legends, and history of my hometown, almost 200 miles from where I worked. Plus it was written by the son of my junior high music teacher. The author, Jay Higginbotham, then a young historian, went on to become a noted Alabama and Mississippi historian, archivist, world traveler, and author.

Slipped inside the review copy of the book was a black and white 5.5 x 8.5-inch card, printed on both sides. The flip side included a handwritten note, “Review Copy — Higginbotham is a former Miss. school teacher. His mother, grandmother and great-grandmother were Mississippi school teachers. Thanks.”  I recognized the writing and suspect it was written by his mother, the chorus teacher we affectionately called “Miss Higgy.” The book, sans jacket, is bright orange faux linen with gold embossing of both the title and author’s name.

I was reminded of the legend of The Singing River in Jay Higginbotham’s book when reading Carolyn Haines’ novel Touched. Set in fictional Jexville in southeast Mississippi near the Pascagoula River, Touched refers to the legend of the Pascagoula River when star-crossed lovers walked to their deaths in the Pascagoula River bringing along the entire Pascagoula tribe with them. The tribe would rather face death than surrender and be slaves to the Biloxi. Haines includes the name of lovers – warrior chief Altama of the Pascagoula and princess Anola of the Biloxi. In Touched, a part-Indian character tells one of the most poignant and descriptive accounts of the legend of the two Indian lovers that I’ve ever read or heard.

Ding! Bells chimed in the recesses of my mind. Anola meant something to me. Then I recalled The Anola Club of Pascagoula. Now, fifty years later I realize the significance of the name Anola. It’s the oldest women’s club in the town – like Princess Anola, these women give their all for Pascagoula.

Carolyn Haines’ Touched is another book I’ll include in a second edition of A Literary Traveler’s Guide to the Gulf South: Bay St. Louis to Apalachicola.

2022 Cover

Set in the 1920s in southeast Mississippi, the Pascagoula River, its currents, terrain, history, and secrets play an important role in the plot.  It’s obvious to anyone who’s been to this part of the South that Carolyn Haines, a native of Lucedale in southeast Mississippi, knows the geography well, especially the waterways. She describes the Pascagoula River as “yellow-red, sluggish looking . . . The current wasn’t a steady flow . . . but a confusion of small eddies. In places it was smooth as glass. Suddenly a churning motion would break the water and a swirl of suction would be revealed. Whatever luckless object happened by would be suddenly sucked deep into the river.”

When the characters take an excursion ferry to Ship Island, Mattie distinguishes between the Mississippi Sound and the Gulf of Mexico.  “The contrast between the Sound and the Gulf was magical. We played in pure white sand where the water foamed up at us, hissing and laughing.” Mattie had earlier described the Mississippi Sound as a “landscape of gray.” The Sound’s white man-made beaches didn’t exist until the 1950s, but even white sands didn’t change the color of the water.

Though the scene sounds peaceful and calm, the book is not. Mattie is a sixteen-year-old bride sold by her stepfather to a bachelor in Jexville. The husband is even worse than the stepfather. The plot includes hurricanes, mass murders, vigilante mobs, and a nine-year-old girl struck by lightning. Themes are numerous including women’s rights, justice, abuse, survival, hope, vengeance, acceptance, nature, and lost love. Nightmares, prophecies, mobsters, gamblers, and judgmental better-than-thou townspeople create a turbulent atmosphere, as readers come face to face with man’s inhumanity to man and one young bride’s psychological means of survival. Like the other two books in the Jexville Chronicles, the reader is left wondering about the beliefs of so-called religious folk. Underneath it all, the river casts

1996 Cover

spells and fuels nightmares, while uncovering the past and prophesying the future. Touched is a dark, deep book, and I hope the re-release will find a strong readership to appreciate it.

If this tale of star-crossed lovers rings a bell with you, perhaps you’ve heard Johnny  Preston’s 1959 hit, “Running Bear Little White Dove.”  Pascagoulans claim the song was inspired by the Legend of the Singing River. The song was written by J. P.  “The Big Bopper” Richardson who died in the Buddy Holly plane crash, the same year the song made the charts, so no one will ever know if the song is really about the Indian lovers who walked to their death in The Singing River. The Big Bopper didn’t mention their names – Altama and Anola. But check out this YouTube video and imagine it set in the Pascagoula River Swamp like the one pictured on the old cover of Haines’ Touched.

Cry Baby Creek Bridge: Mesmerizing, frightening fiction

For a Labor Day getaway, I took a short trip to cross a bridge I needed to cross. Though my book A Literary Traveler’s Guide to the Gulf South links seventeen bridges to literature and writers, I’d never crossed the Florida bridge from Niceville to Destin. I’d been to both Destin and Niceville, but the Mid-Bay Bridge across Choctawhatchee Bay, the quickest hurricane evacuation and commuter route, was never on my route.

Since the bridge is in my book, I needed to cross it. I had grandiose hopes for this 3.6-mile bridge, with its toll of about a buck a mile. It would whisk me, right along with famous writers, from the plot-stimulating beaches of Destin and beyond to Niceville, where writers like to live.

I envisioned breathtaking, sun filtered photo opportunities, but it rained and I had to shoot from the car through tinted windows. The bridge looks about like the Garcon Point Bridge across Escambia Bay which I can see from my neighborhood. The one difference is Mid-Bay Bridge takes me to glamorous, glitzy, posh Destin shopping areas — the Garcon Point Bridge takes me to Walmart.

Bridges captivate writers, it seems.  They offer vast opportunities for themes, plots, metaphors, and marvelous titles – The Bridge Over the River Kwai, Bridge to Terabithia, Bridges of Madison County. In fact, Ranker. com lists fifty good books with the word “bridge” in the title.

1994 Cover

The most fascinating fictonal bridge I’ve recently read about is the bridge over Cry Baby Creek in Carolyn Haines re-released novel Summer of the Redeemers. This book, part of her Jexville Chronicles, could easily be included in my book since all three novels are set in southeast Mississippi near the Pascagoula and Escatawpa Rivers. Though Summer of the Redeemers is set in Mississippi, the nearest Cry Baby Creek is in Saraland, Alabama, near Oak Grove Road and Kali Oka Road. Like other Cry Baby bridges and creeks in America, this one is steeped with the urban legend of the mother who drowns her baby when fleeing for her own life. This YouTube video shot at Cry Baby Creek in Alabama tells the story.

2022 Cover

Haines’ novel features 13-year-old Bekkah, whose entire world is Kali Oka Road and its residents. She knows every person, tree, house, barn, animal, and rut along the road. But this summer a religious sect moves onto the end of the road, just across Cry Baby Creek bridge. A horsewoman moves into an empty house and fills the barn with horses, which attract Bekkah. Headstrong, curious and outspoken, Bekkah has a way of getting herself in risky situations. Bekkah’s best friend Alice is the primary babysitter for her infant sister. It’s been ten years since the first baby died in Cry Baby Creek, and the reader fears these new residents at the end of Kali Oka Road will lead to more missing babies. Suspense, intrigue, surprises, and just about anything else a reader could want fill this hauntingly beautiful novel. Even though it was first released in 1994, it stands the test of time. Some pages are still too scary to turn.

Of course, this part of the country speaks to me since I’m from Pascagoula. Haines writes of the Pascagoula Indians and the Pascagoula River Swamp, just ten miles south of the fictional creek. The novel is set in 1963, the year nearby Mobile, Alabama, got its first McDonalds, enamored by both Bekkah and her fifteen-year-old brother Arly. Other Alabama references include the characters swimming in the Escatawpa River at the Highway 98 bridge where Alabama and Mississippi meet, and the white sands of Gulf Shores, as white as Bekkah’s grandmother’s hair.

A book of the South by a Southern writer reminiscent of William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and Harper Lee, this regional novel carries universal themes of nature, compassion, religion, justice, fairness, guilt, and change. Like the third book of the Jexville Chronicles, Judas Burning, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Summer of the Redeemers, though at times it was frightening, yet mesmerizing.  Now that I’ve read Book One and Three, I’ll bridge the gap and read book two, Touched, also recently re-released.

For the 2nd Edition: A Perfect Blend of Fact and Fiction

John Grisham rearranged Florida Panhandle geography so believably in The Judge’s List (October 2021) that I called in the experts (a courthouse employee and a North Hill resident) to help me distinguish fact from fiction, even though I live in the Panhandle. This sequel to The Whistler is a Grisham thriller for the “second edition list” of my new book A Literary Traveler’s Guide to the Gulf South: Bay St. Louis to Apalachicola. The subtitle of John Grisham’s book could well be From Biloxi to Rosemary Beach.

Grisham has created Florida’s 22^nd Judicial District including two real Florida counties — Santa Rosa and Escambia — and the fictional Chavez County. (I can’t help but wonder why he didn’t name it DeLuna after the founder of America’s first settlement.) Florida Circuit Judge and serial killer Ross Bannick lives in Chavez County, eight miles outside Pensacola in fictional Cullman, Florida. Grisham even invents an address in the gated community where the judge lives:  825 Eastman Lane, Cullman, FL 32533.  Of course, there’s no Cullman, Florida (there’s a Cullman, Alabama). There is, however, an Eastman Lane in Cantonment, a town about 15 miles outside Pensacola with the identical zip code. Just no 825.

John Grisham takes the readers along the Gulf South from Biloxi to Rosemary Beach following the path of the murderer-judge, blending geographical reality with believable fiction. (Of course, there are some locations outside my book’s parameters like Santa Fe, El Paso, Andalusia, and Houston.)

If John Grisham’s The Judge’s List appeared in my book, it would read in this order —

Biloxi, Mississippi

Two men are murdered in a home being painted in a subdivision with a couple of dozen houses under construction, on an unpaved street just outside the Biloxi city limits. The killer drops the victims’ cell phones in a post-office mailbox in Neely, Mississippi, a real town in nearby Greene County, north of the Coast. The post office is located at 6724 Old Highway 24, adjoining a convenience store.

Mobile, Alabama

Character Dr. Jeri Crosby, a professor whose father was a victim of the serial killer, lives in Mobile and teaches at the University of South Alabama, 307 N. University Blvd, Mobile. Another character, an elusive private eye, operates out of Mobile.

Pensacola, Florida

The judge grew up in Pensacola. He was in a Boy Scout troop at Westburg Methodist Church, lived on Hemlock Street in a prewar neighborhood, and attended a nearby Episcopal Church. There’s no Hemlock Street or Westburg Methodist Church, but there are plenty of prewar neighborhoods and Methodist and Episcopal churches. As an adult he lives outside Pensacola and owns a shopping center on the northside of Pensacola, ten miles from his home in fictional Cullman. The shopping center has a Kroger, a fourplex cinema, and eight smaller businesses. Pensacola has plenty of these strip centers, but sadly there are no Kroger grocery stores in Florida. (How I miss my Texas Krogers!)

There’s no shortage of buildings for federal and state judicial offices in Pensacola, Top left picture, sixth floor, houses FBI offices. Other buildings house federal district and state circuit courts and offices. PHOTO CREDIT: DIANE SKELTON

Judge Bannick visits Escambia County Courthouse at 190 Government St. for a judge’s meeting while other characters meet with Behavior Analysis Unit FBI agents, presumably at the FBI offices Suite 650, 125 W. Romana St. The FBI is one of many tenants in a modern eight-story glass building at One Pensacola Plaza.

The judge dates a wealthy widow who lives in North Hill, a gorgeous real 50-block section of Pensacola. Grisham perfectly captures the neighborhood as he writes “streets were shaded with canopies of old oaks and their thick limbs were draped with Spanish moss . . . 200-year-old homes.” (I think the moss blew away with Hurricane Ivan.)  North Hill is listed on the National Registry of Historic Homes. The neighborhood is bordered by Blount, Wright, Palafox, and DeVilliers Streets.

Characters in John Grisham’s The Judge’s List could easily live in any of these Pensacola North Hill homes. PHOTO CREDIT: DIANE SKELTON

The judge and his date travel to a country club fifteen minutes from North Hill; Grisham calls it the 100-year-old Escambia County Country Club.  In the book, the club sits on the bay with water on three sides and majestic views from the grand hall. Characters enter the property down a winding, shaded drive to the manicured fairways. Though there’s no such place as Escambia County Country Club, his creation seems a description of Pensacola Country Club, 1500 Bayshore Dr. Of course, the Pensacola Yacht Club at 1897 Cypress St. has a tree-lined entry but, alas, just yachts, no golf. Both clubs were established between 1900 and 1910 and have gorgeous bay views.

Tree-lined entries to Pensacola Country Club, left, and Pensacola Yacht Club, right. PHOTOS BY DIANE SKELTON

Investigator Lacy Stoltz meets the complainant at Brookleaf Cemetery in Pensacola. There’s no such cemetery though the description fits many of the beautiful cemeteries in America’s oldest settlement – a main gate leads to a “paved trail lined with weathered monuments and family tombs . . . With time the tombs lost their significance and yielded to elaborate headstones.” Stoltz eventually crosses paths with the serial killer and almost gets a tombstone of her own.

Florida Panhandle

Dusty’s Salvage, described in the book as 90 acres of rusting cars and trucks with over 100,000 wrecks, is so big the investigators need a golf cart to find row 84-South. Sorry, nothing’s that big in MILTON, though Grisham makes me a believer.

The mother of a victim lives in a low-end nursing home in NICEVILLE, while the Biloxi sheriff meets investigators midway for a talk at a fast food restaurant in DEFUNIAK SPRINGS. The protagonist almost meets her fate, just off the Interstate at the Bayview Motel in CRESTVIEW, but no such place.

Scenic 30A Florida

Main character Lacy and boyfriend Allie live in Tallahassee and like to escape to Rosemary Beach to Lonely Dunes, a fictional boutique hotel. It’s a shame it’s fiction. I’d like to go there.

A Mobile private eye tracks down a former Pensacola policeman working at Seagrove Beach’s Pelican Point Resort. It’s fiction too, but Pelican is one of the most popular names around the Panhandle.

Back to Mississippi

I enjoyed The Judge’s List and am looking forward to John Grisham’s next book about the Dixie Mafia, set along the Coast. I’d referred to the Dixie Mafia in my book, and now two Grisham characters will face off: boyhood friends from both sides of the tracks. The Boys from BIloxi promises plenty of Biloxi locations. It’s due out in October – almost one year to the day since the publication of The Judge’s List.

My Second Chance: The one that almost got away

My book, A Literary Traveler’s Guide to the Gulf South, gives a nod to bestselling author Andy Andrews, Orange Beach, Alabama. That simple nod should have been a full salute, with fireworks, confetti, and a John Philip Sousa marching band. I just read his book The Heart Mender.

A colleague of my son learned I had written a book about regional authors and sent The Heart Mender home with him for me to read. I read, I wept, I laughed, I cried, and I believed every single word about German U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico in 1942.

How I know it’s true comes later.

How could I have missed this book? I have asked myself over and over.  Perhaps because my criteria didn’t include the categories of self-help, motivational, inspirational, personal growth, or Christian historical fiction, which is how the book was labeled under its original title, Island of Saints: A Story of the One Principle That Frees the Human Spirit (2005). That title has less than 150 reviews on Amazon, borderline for my book’s criteria. The new title, The Heart Mender, has almost 1300 rave reviews!

During my research, the on-site historian at The Grand Hotel in Point Clear, Alabama, mentioned The Heart Mender and what a well-known author Andrews is, but I focused on two other books she told me about: The Noticer and The Noticer Returns, both by Andrews.  The later one is set at The Grand Hotel.

I should have cast my net wider, listened more, asked more questions.  The Heart Mender embodies what my book is about – it is the perfect example of places that inspire writers.  You see, what Andy Andrews found buried in the sand at his home on Orange Beach inspired this book of forgiveness, redemption, love, and second chances.

When digging in the sand, Andrews unearthed several kreigsmarine German navy uniform buttons, medals, a military ribbon, and three WWII-era photographs (one with Adolph Hitler) hidden in a can buried underneath a bay myrtle tree. The nearly hundred-year-old tree at his home had died, and Andrews was digging up the roots when the shovel hit metal. And there begins the unveiling of the story of German U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico.

Many of us who grew up along the Gulf know the stories. I heard them growing up in Pascagoula, a shipyard town. A friend of mine heard the stories from a buddy who grew up on Mobile Bay. The book is a true account. Andrews researched and interviewed members of the “greatest generation” still living near Orange Beach and Foley to unravel the truth.

Reprinted with Permission: Photo Credit: Nelson K. Hamilton, Crosby Drug Store, Foley, AL http://www.lifethoughts.com/photos/photo.cgi?id=1615

To begin, Andrews describes Orange Beach and Perdido Key as it looks today, then flashes back to its desolate state in 1942. He uses original names (Highway 3 for what is now Highway 59), Highway 98, and places like Crosby Drug Store on Laurel Drive, Fort Morgan, Dixey Sand Bar, Gulf Shores State Park, and Bon Secour (now a national wildlife sanctuary). He blends real locations with fictional places like Snapper Boat Yard at the intersection of Highway 3 and Keller Road, and the Hungry Mullet Café, where several main characters work. The “Where Are They Now?” section in the back of the book includes specific instructions on how to find where the main characters’ cabins stood and where the body is buried.

In the story, a young American widow whose husband was killed by Germans learns forgiveness as she cares for an injured German submariner washed ashore near Orange Beach in 1942 – the year at least 24 German U-boats crisscrossed the Gulf of Mexico destroying more than 50 American ships, both military and civilian.  At the time, newspapers did not report the activity due to national security. But the fishermen and residents knew – they had seen the lights and, of course, bodies were washing ashore.

The subtitle of the book is prophetic: The Heart Mender: A Story of Second Chances. The book, which is Andrews’ personal favorite, has a second life. Not only has its readership grown, but The Heart Mender is in early production stages to become a motion picture. With its theme of forgiveness, I hope I can be forgiven for not including The Heart Mender in the first edition of A Literary Traveler’s Guide.

What? More Books to Read?

In the two weeks since A Literary Traveler’s Guide to the Gulf South: Bay St. Louis to Apalachicola has been available, I’ve been getting News Alerts from readers! Thank you for alerting me to new books, new authors and to ones I missed.  As these new titles arrive, I smile, find a copy of the recommended book, and begin turning pages. It looks like I have more research to do, more books to read, and more places to go. You’ll see the results here on my blog.

I discovered one additional title by myself clicking on a Kindle special. I’d already read two of Alex Kava’s Ryder Creed K-9 Mystery Series. This one,  Hidden Creed (Book 6, August 2020), is set deep in the woods of the Florida Panhandle. With a storage unit of human body parts discovered in Pensacola and three bodies discovered in the Blackwater River State Forest, it’s a busy time for Ryder Creed and his K-9 scent dogs. The settings along Blackwater River and Coldwater Creek and in the Blackwater River State Forest, mixed with a  raging swamp fire, a serial killer and more murders, creates a fast-paced page turner. The plot requires scent dogs like Grace and Scout to find the bodies and track the killer. But the setting isn’t exclusive to the forest or the river. After FBI Agent Maggie O’Dell arrives to survey the human remains in the Pensacola storage unit, she books a room with a beautiful Gulf view at Margaritaville Hotel on Pensacola Beach. The character takes time out from inspecting cadaver parts to enjoy a grouper sandwiche at Peg Leg Pete’s (which the author recommends). Though these two places on Pensacola Beach are authentic, the marina and Walter’s Canteen are products of the author’s imagination. Character Maggie O’Dell “couldn’t go far without driving over a bridge, each of them two-to-three miles long with gorgeous views of water. There wasn’t a quick route anywhere, especially from Pensacola Beach.”  Kava also accurately depicts Baptist Hospital and the military presence in the area.  The author, who has homes in both Santa Rosa County, Florida, and in Nebraska, is spot-on with her descriptions. Though Kava wrote the novel before the May 2020 Five Mile Swamp Fire destroyed nearly 2300 acres near Garcon Point in Santa Rosa County, the swamp fire element in the plot was almost prophetic. The real fire came within a half-mile of Alex Kava’s Florida home.

One of my readers in Gulf Breeze suggested adding John Grisham’s The Whistler (2016), a whistle-blowing mystery about a corrupt judge and casinos on Indian reservations. The ambiguous setting is fictional — in the town of Sterling, the county of Brunswick County, near a casino near an Indian reservation somewhere in Northwest Florida, near the Emerald Coast. Panhandle residents know the nearest casino is in Atmore, Alabama, but Grisham builds an interesting world where a casino could exist in the fictional 24^th Judicial District. He includes numerous mentions of Pensacola, its newspaper the Pensacola News Journal, the federal courthouse, FBI offices, probation offices, all in downtown Pensacola. In the plot, Board of Judicial Conduct investigator, Lacy Stoltz working out of Tallahassee, seeks information on a crooked circuit court judge in cahoots with members of the Coast Mafia who travel around Fort Walton Beach, Seagrove Beach, DeFuniak Springs and Rosemary Beach in Walton County, Milton in Santa Rosa County, and Panama City Beach in Bay County. The fictional Tappacola Indian tribe has a reservation and casino located somewhere south of I-10 near Highway 98, near a tollway off the illusive, imaginary Highway 288. Directions like that make his fiction super-realistic unless you try to follow the directions or find it on a map. Though the location might be puzzling, the atmosphere isn’t. Grisham is spot-on when it comes to bumper to bumper hotels and motels in Panama City Beach and endless condo communities and sprawling golf courses near the beach. The Emerald Coast has more than 20 golf courses, some with top national ratings.

There’s a second in this John Grisham series —The Judge’s List. It has the same character, Lacy the investigator for the Board of Judicial Complaints. This time she investigates another judge, also doing bad things in the same judicial district in the Florida Panhandle. It’s on my To Be Read list, coming up right after . . . The Heart Mender by Andy Andrews of Orange Beach, Alabama,  and Robb White and mom Bailey White’s Flotsam and Jetsam, boat tales in Apalachicola. Both books are recommended by fellow readers.

Since I secretly had hoped more research would be needed, I’m delighted to hear from any more readers who have books to recommend. Send me more!

What? No Souvenirs?

A two-year project, this travel guide describes places writers lived and wrote about, plus places that inspired them. I traveled the territory of 350 miles finding interesting destinations, all within three hours east or west of my home in Gulf Breeze, Florida.

I wish I’d bought souvenirs along the way.  Of course, I have photos, but I traveled back and forth from Apalachicola to Bay St. Louis for two years, and all I have to show are pictures, business cards, maps, tourist brochures, and scribbled notes on shorthand pads. And, hooray, my book!

The beaches at St. George Island are gorgeous and tropical, even in March.

 “No souvenirs” didn’t dawn on me until I went thrift shopping last week with my teen-age grandson. Rummaging (I love that word) through the t-shirts crammed along the rack (arranged by color) I saw this purple one. St. George’s Island was the last stop on my literary map from Bay. St. Louis to Apalachicola.  I bought the secondhand purple t-shirt. 

This shirt may be from a charter boat company in Panama City Beach. The line “Refuse to Sink” is reassuring.

At the next thrift shop I saw this one from Panama City, another reminder I didn’t buy a souvenir. I passed on this shirt. I ate too much good food for two years exploring these places — medium t-shirts don’t fit anymore.

Scenic 30A, a picturesque series of beaches along Florida State Highway 30, includes beach towns like Grayton Beach. Several novels are set along this area, as well as the movie The Truman Show. No doubt beer is a popular beach beverage.

 

After the thrift shops, my grandson and I stopped at the Four Winds International Deli in Pensacola and I discovered even more tangible reminders of my adventures over the last two years. Those people sure can market Scenic 30A!

My book is my souvenir. Here’s hoping the descriptions and details in A Literary Traveler’s Guide to the Gulf South are good enough to last a lifetime. Happy travels, happy reading. My book is available on Amazon.

A Memorial Day Read: Military Brats Sound Off Now!

They called themselves “military brats.”  New kids in my hometown were usually children of Navy officers working on defense contracts with Ingalls Shipbuilding. When they arrived at Pascagoula High School, they were bright, worldly, and a threat to my grade point average. They were more than smart –they were intelligent, academically driven, leaders, and definitely not brats.

As far as I know, none of these classmates became writers. If they did, they’re probably writing manuals for NASA.  But some other self-proclaimed “military brats” are included in my book, A Literary Traveler’s Guide to the Gulf South: Bay St. Louis to Apalachicola.  Thanks to the Army, Air Force and Navy for stationing their finest (along with their offspring and spouses) in the Gulf South, pens in hand, ready to spin great tales.

The 335-mile stretch from Bay St. Louis to Apalachicola hosts five major military bases. These installations bring an influx of tens of thousands of residents to the area. The largest military presence in the state of Florida is in the Panhandle. Eglin Air Force Base, Hurlburt Field, Tyndall Air Force Base, and Naval Air Station Pensacola add more than 35,000 military personnel to the Panhandle at any given time. NAS Pensacola alone employs more than 16,000 military and 7,400 civilian personnel. Though Alabama has a minor coastal military presence, next door in Mississippi, Keesler Air Force Base is home to 4,008 active-duty military, 1,546 civil service employees, and 1,700 contractors.

Here’s the military roll call of contemporary authors included in my book. They offer readers a wide variety of books ranging from military fiction, military romance, cozy mysteries, memoirs, and Broadway.

Military Kids

Robin Roberts at Pass Christian Books, where she launched her latest book. Shared from Facebook, Pass Christian Books

Air Force:  Good Morning America host and author Robin Roberts, the daughter of a Tuskegee Airman, calls herself a military brat. Her father, a full-bird Colonel, retired from the Air Force after being stationed at Keesler Airfield in Gulfport. From age nine, Robin’s home was Pass Christian. She loves “the Pass” and the Pass loves her back.  Her memoir, Everybody’s Got Something, which tells the story of her battle with Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS), includes a salute to her father and his military service. As a host for ABC’s Good Morning America she once did a segment where she lived out a fantasy for the program as she learned to fly. She learned on the same type plane her father had flown in the 1940s. She later flew a P-51 Mustang, a genuine Tuskegee Airmen plane, owned by Tom Cruise. Along with many accolades for journalism and the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, she’s written three books and co-authored one with her mother. She launched her latest book, Brighter By the Day: Waking Up to New Hopes and Dreams at her hometown with the first stop on her book tour at Pass Christian Books. She may call herself a brat, but to me, she’s a real trooper.

Joshilyn Jackson at a Pensacola writer’s workshop during Foo Foo Fest in 2019. Photo by Diane Skelton

Army: Best-selling author Joshilyn Jackson lived in seven states before she was nine. Her father Bob, according to his obituary, “was a decorated Army officer, an Airborne Ranger who earned a Silver Star, six Bronze Stars (two for valor), a Purple Heart, and many other military awards. Bob served three combat tours, first in the Dominican Republic, where he helped start a church that exists to this day, and then twice in Vietnam . . .  after retiring from the Army, he began a second career in Pensacola.” Joshilyn was born in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and the family lived on military bases where she recalls hearing the cadence.  Her father retired from the military when she was about nine and they settled in Pensacola, where she lived until she headed off to college. 

Military Spouses

Photo credit: sherryharrisauthor.com

Air Force: Sherry Harris – Cozy mystery writer Sherry Harris has written more than a dozen books in two series. Her Chloe Jackson Sea Glass Saloon Mystery series is set in the Florida Panhandle. Her husband, an Air Force officer, was stationed at Hurlburt Field and they lived in Shalimar from 2000 to 2003. One delightful series centers around garage sale finds. She once told an interviewer that as a military spouse, she honed her fine garage sale skills as they moved around the country with the Air Force. Some of the clever titles include Tagged for Death, I Know What You Bid Last Summer, Let’s Fake A Deal, and All Murders Final.

Air Force:  Vicki Hinze – USA Today bestselling author of more than 35 books, was raised in New

Photo credit vickihinze.com

Orleans. Hinze married a career Hurricane Hunter/Special Ops officer. They and their children moved every few years. Mississippi, California, Illinois, Florida, and Texas.”  Vicki lives in Florida with her artist husband, a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel.

Navy: Wallis Warfield Simpson, who eventually married the King of England, moved to Pensacola in 1916 to live with her cousin, who was married to a U.S. Navy captain and new head of the Pensacola Air Base. Wallis met her first husband Win Spencer, a U.S. Navy aviator stationed in Pensacola. She writes of life in the Pensacola Navy Yard and as the wife of a pilot in her memoir The Heart Has Its Reasons: The Memoirs of the Duchess of Windsor (1956).

And the Military Personnel

Army Air Corps: Neil Simon, Broadway playwright and author of Biloxi Blues, was stationed at Keesler when it was Keesler Army Base. He joined the Army Air Force Reserve just before the end of World War II, and his first assignment was at Keesler. It was also his inspiration for his popular Broadway play (and film by the same name) Biloxi Blues.

Air Force: Hunter S. Thompson, founder of gonzo journalism, was stationed at Eglin Air Force Base where he got his first newspaper gig for the base newspaper. After covering sports for the Air Force, he went on to more exciting adventures, like riding for a year with the notorious motorcycle gang Hell’s Angels gathering material for his book Hell’s Angels.

Army:  W.E.B. Griffin (William Edmund Butterworth) the author of some of the most successful military series ever written, Brotherhood of War and The Corps, was stationed at Fort Rucker in southeast Alabama, before he moved to Fairhope to write fulltime. More than fifty million copies of his books are in print in more than ten different languages. He wrote or co-authored more than 250 books under several pseudonyms, W.E.B. Griffin, his most famous pen name.

When I see this list of authors, I wonder which man or woman stationed at Eglin, Keesler, Tyndall or Hurlburt is destined to be a famous author. Which kids attending the local high schools will be the next best-selling authors? Research assures me the answers are only a generation away.  According to a 2020 article in Forbes Magazine titled  The States That Defend Us—Where Do Our Military Volunteers Call Home? (forbes.com) military service is becoming rarer. But, those who join come from families, culture and locations that value military service. That’s true of the towns from Bay St. Louis to Apalachicola.  Chances are we’ll be seeing more famous writers from around here soon. I hope all those military-friendly colleges along the Coast expand their creative writing programs – they’ve got some great prospects heading their way.

Spreading the Wildest, Best Kept Government Secrets — NERRs

The boardwalk at Apalachicola Estuary Research Reserve ends at Apalachicola Bay. Signs along the boardwalk indicate the rivers which converge into the Apalachicola River, then into the bay.

Three of the federal government’s best kept secrets are within driving distance from my house. I found all three of these hideaways because of a single book – Mark Childress’ V for Victor. I wanted to know more about Weeks Bay, a primary setting in this World War II novel, so I headed for Alabama. That’s where I discovered NERR – National Estuary Research Reserves, portions of our country set aside for protection (reserves) and research. My visit to Weeks Bay Estuarine Research Reserve sent me on a grand adventure for my guidebook – locating other estuary reserves, places where rivers converge, pouring fresh water into larger bodies of saltwater.

Only 30 National Estuarine Research Reserves exist in the U.S. The most recent reserve in the program, which began in the 1970s, just opened in January. In the parameters of my Literary Traveler’s Guide to the Gulf South: Bay St. Louis to Apalachicola, each of the three states hosts an estuary reserve. Mississippi, Alabama and Florida have each partnered with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and NOS (National Ocean Service) to preserve and protect the wild places where the rivers meet the sea – estuaries, marshes, swamps, bayous, bays, bogs and all other types of wetlands. Along with interpretative centers, displays, boardwalks and trails, each has plenty to offer the traveler. And scientific research is conducted continuously at the reserves.

Each of the three NERRs I’ve visited–Apalachicola, Weeks Bay and Grand Bay–is different. Each researches and monitors the estuary system, but offers different exhibits and activities for the visitors. They are open to the public, but you really have to be looking to find these secret treasures.  They’re not on tourism guides. And, the areas are so vast – 234,000 acres (much of it water) in Apalachicola–you sometimes need GPS coordinates to find the entrance ways.

Boardwalk sign: the headwaters of the Chattahoochee are 434 miles from the Apalachicola Bay.

Apalachicola has wonderful boardwalks leading all the way to Apalachicola Bay with marvelous vistas. Along the way, signs indicate which rivers flow into the bay and their distance. Among the great exhibits inside, there’s a cool gift shop.  You might also catch a glimpse of an American alligator, Florida manatee, bald eagle, and loggerhead sea turtle. Inside the 5,400-square-foot nature center are three 1,000-gallon tanks, with fish of the region swimming around.

Grand Bay’s boardwalk leads to Hawks Marsh, a small bayou with grasses and dozens of plant species to identify. Nearby, ospreys nest in towering power lines. The staff keeps a running whiteboard tally of sightings We also saw bluebirds and added several sightings on my iNaturalist phone app. Inside the interpretative center, Tobi, a fascinating diamondback tortoise, swims solo in a large aquarium. I think he likes to swim over and say hello to visitors. At least he did to me.

As if nature isn’t enough, Grand Bay features an Art in the Open sculpture with one of Walter Anderson’s designs.

At Weeks Bay you can walk several boardwalks to see saltwater marshes and bottomlands, and the bay. Interpretative signs lead the way. There’s a two-story observation deck at the bay.  An interesting section of Weeks Bay NERR is the pitcher plant bog with a boardwalk ending at the Fish River. The NERR facility took a beating in Hurricane Sally, but they are repairing the boardwalks. Inside are excellent displays. Be sure to pull out the drawers in the education classroom to study the skeletons.

Thanks to one book, V for Victor, I am a proud advocate for NERRS. I even tried to make a donation – but they can’t accept money since they’re a government agency. So, I’m encouraging all my readers to visit a NERR near you!  If you’re too far inland, enjoy these books by regional authors which feature estuaries.

 

Several species of carnivorous pitcher plants thrive in the bog at Weeks Bay.

Two teenage girls disappear on a sandbar in the Pascagoula River

Carolyn Haines’ Judas Burning is a perfect novel to link with the Grand Bay National Estuary Research Reserve. Haines, who is from southeast Mississippi, set this novel on the Pascagoula River, northwest of Lucedale where the Chickasawhay and Leaf Rivers converge with the Pascagoula. The mystery features my favorite type of character, a small-town newspaper editor crusading for justice. Most of Haines’ best-selling novels are her cozy mysteries, but this novel takes a serious turn. Protagonist Dixon Sinclair has bought the local newspaper in her small Mississippi hometown and returns from the big city to publish the paper, deal with her alcoholism, and seek justice for her father’s murder.  The novel is rich in setting and filled with local color: Pascagoula River Bridge, Gautier, highways 57 and 98, the Legend of the Singing River. The river itself is just as important a character as those who live along its banks. It provides adventure, refuge, sanctuary, recreation, food, and, of course, danger for two teenage girls.   One of the fascinating exhibits at the Grand Bay National Research Reserve is a series of audio interviews with photographs of people who grew up in the region. Listening to their stories shows the importance of the river in their lives.

Two teenage girls disappear crossing the old train trestle across the Apalachicola River

Almost all of Michael Lister’s mysteries mention the Apalachicola River, the Dead Lakes, and the Chipola River in Florida, perhaps because Lister lives and writes in nearby Wewahitchka. He grew up along the Apalachicola River. His bestsellers, thirty-something of them, all with the word “blood” in the title, usually feature prison-chaplain-turned-investigator John Jordan. In Out for Blood, John Jordan takes the role of sidekick, helping female sheriff Reggie Summers solve the crime. Lister uses authentic locations along the Apalachicola like Carver Landing and acknowledges the diverse and ecological importance of the river as he writes about search and rescue boats, divers and volunteers with scent dogs scouting the banks, swamps, and tributaries for the missing girls. In this novel, too, the river provides nourishment, entertainment, escape and adventure. Walking down the boardwalk to the bay at Apalachicola National Estuary Research Reserve you can feel the rushing rivers, pouring into the Apalachicola, a powerful force converging  and emptying into a Apalachicola Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

Nazi submarine slips into Mobile Bay in WW II

The Fish and Magnolia Rivers converge into Weeks Bay which then pours out into Mobile Bay. Author Mark Childress knows this area well as he moved to Magnolia Springs and lived in the cabin mentioned in the book. He motored his boat up and down the Magnolia River and into Mobile Bay. The protagonist in the novel, a young boy, discovers the presence of a Nazi submarine in Mobile Bay and tries repeatedly to let authorities know.

When I read this following section, I knew I had to find Weeks Bay – “The Magnolia River meanders for five miles from its spring, widening, opening and mixing with the salty tide as it approaches Weeks Bay. This wide, shallow lake narrows down to a mouth. The lower jaw of this mouth was Willie’s Island – a half-mile of marsh grass, a long stretch of thicket woods, a high place of two or three acres well-shaded by live oaks, with Weeks Bay on one side and the big bay, Mobile, on the other.” I really wanted to see this place, much of it authentic, a tiny bit imagined. When I stood on the boardwalk at Weeks Bay NERR and looked across the bay, I knew two things: the setting is gorgeous, and the author captured it perfectly. Childress spins a tale both rich in history and setting.

When you head out for summer vacation, I encourage you to find a National Estuarine Research Reserve and visit. Load the iNaturalist app on your phone and begin a grand adventure of your own. And, if it rains, pick up one of these three books and immerse yourself in a good mystery set where land meets saltwater.

Each NERR offers a view, each one different.