this past weekend saw me back home, Bumble Fork- a brief jaunt to attend Buttercry's lovely bridal shower and cram in as much Highway 4, no see 'ums (not to be confused with u-peel-'ums) and (speaking of which) cheap quality seafood as possible. Bonus: seeing my friend Moxy and her daughters, who I had babysat when I was a teenager and who are now teenagers themselves. Ulp.
a quintessential Bumble Fork shot, taken from outside Moxy's house:
And now for some inarguably beautiful Bumble Fork images, taken at Stan's Clam Stand where my father and I shared a remarkable lunch:
Crispy fried gator tail in the background, flavored with squeezes of lemon... the crowning glory of a Bud...
well, I might be able to get Egg Foo Yong at 3 in the morning here in New York City, but for me, nothing beats such a meal as that fresh from the Gulf, accompanied by hush puppies and tangy cocktail sauce, served on wooden boards. Add a couple of syrupy blood red slices of crabapples and it's all over.
And later, at Buttercry's house, juicy stone crab claws.
too damn hungry now to write any more. high time I actually got to bed. but - shockingly - the coolest part of the weekend? A Friday night spent watching - wait for it - a football game at my alma mater, Bumble Fork High; words I never, ever thought I would type. Hanging out with Moxy's beautiful daughters brought the invitation. While my first ingrained instinct was to laugh ruefully, I found myself unexpectedly tickled and after musing a bit, had to admit that the idea of attending a Bumble Fork Swashbuckler football game as an adult - removed from any bitterness I had as a teen - did kind of sound like... fun (!) Maybe the allure was something like the irony of eating at chain restaurants in Manhattan; after years of gorging one's self at all the trendy. ethnic, out of the way, one-of-a-kind places one can find, having dinner at the Red Lobster in Times Square is so corny that it's suddenly almost cool. And so off we went, after a brief trip to the KMart inside the Bumble Fork Mall to buy decorations for Moxy's girls' Halloween party. And, dudes? The mall now has a Spencer's. Bumble Fork, I remember when you were just this high. A moment of silence... please.
....
Ah, Bumble Fork High School, a.k.a, "Swashbuckler Country": Dundee High School in the neighboring town was made of bricks and looked like something out of an Archie comic, but BFHS is clunky, sprawling, a cream-colored ant farm of Lego blocks, garnished with stripes of blue and gold. BFHS, with its segregated parking lots; sections for cars/hoopties, sections for the trucks; with its halls named in honor of the school mascot; Gasparilla, Land Lubber, Treasure Chest, Pieces of Eight (which we called "Pieces of Poo" back in the day), and Swashbuckler. The school has grown since I graduated, so maybe there are more halls, similarly named (I suggest "Parrot Smarts", "Thar the Football Team Blows", "Johnny Depp Rocks"). Well, gosh. Only a few minutes back and I was thinking like a 16 year-old already.
Some impressions of the contemporary BFHS: it all smelled the same - wet grass, unidentified leftover smells wafting from the cafeteria - but, of course, looked ever so much smaller since I've grown ever so much bigger in the years since graduating high school. (Natch!) The kids, as could be expected: so young-looking. The game: shockingly sparse attendance, especially considering that we were playing Dundee that night. Feeling like a tool: at intervals! Me, teetering close to my 10-year reunion, sitting on the bleachers and hesitantly muttering all the old cheers I'd forgotten under my breath, seeing people who looked like my old classmates but weren't. Odd, too - my BFHS was before the cell-phone revolution; to me, seeing students texting each other was a little eye-catching, interesting, and contributed to my feeling as "old" as someone my age can rightfully feel. In my day, we just yelled across the room, y'all. Sometimes, when Buttercry and I were feeling ambitious, we wrote each other notes emblazoned with original cartoons, usually depicting our glamorous future lives and/or some fantasy scene: me, in a slinky dress against the backdrop of a city skyline, on the arm of a ridiculous Elvis-coiffed marginally talented actor I had a Lifetime Movie-star crush on; she, surrounded by throngs of Michael Stipe look-a-likes, cuddling with them underneath afghans and sipping steaming mugs of cocoa (with plenty of little curls above the mugs to denote steam). We had creativity in the old days.
Football games were so magical to me as a Freshman - the lights, the green, the thundering music, the realization of all the high school dreams John Hughes inspired in me - but as I went through adolescence and, due to various events, grew increasingly anti-social, bitter and angry, the allure gradually dropped away until pep rallies became a thing to shudder at, as did the phrase "Swashbuckler Pride". By the time graduation rolled around, I was as thrilled to get out as someone empty and apathetic as I was could be. And then, last Friday night - gleefully texting my ex-Pirate friends: " @ BFHS game; holy crap, dude!" Who would have thought...?
and now, bed.
