DAD, DOMINOES AND DAUPHIN ISLAND

STORY BY CHARLES DOWDY

PHOTOS BY CHARLES DOWDY

Ifpeople were asked to describe my dad with one word, most would probably call him “quiet”. I would use the word “smart” since he knows how to keep his mouth shut when he doesn’t have anything to say. But over a game of dominoes, that single word might be “loud,” or even “obnoxious”.

A game of dominoes happens at most family gatherings, but when we go to the beach it is guaranteed. Almost always after dinner. Dad will summon three other players to the table. He will form the teams and the trash talking will commence. While considering his play, Dad will make a noise that sounds like the mating call of a dolphin named Elvis. Once the domino is down, Dad’s voice morphs into some kind of crying clown as he joyfully sings the score.

Over my lifetime our family has taken our annual beach trip up and down the coast, from Panama City, to Destin, to Perdido, to Gulf Shores, and Fort Morgan. Lately, we have settled in on Dauphin Island.

This is my extended family. We always take the trip near Father’s Day and my mother frowns on non-attendance. Not that it is difficult to get everyone to come.

There’s always the summer vacation I imagine I will take. One that includes full nights of sleep, lots of hydration, daily exercise and some healthy meals. And that’s usually how it starts. For a day. Then Dad slips onto the porch just shy of noon with frozen margaritas or pina-coladas that could double as jet fuel, and the day slowly dissolves into sun, drinks, books and not a lot of motion. About the only organized group activity all week is dinner, eaten late, and that’s usually some fresh fish prepared in enough butter to give Paula Dean pause.

There’s plenty of reasons we have settled on Dauphin Island. A lot of it has to do with how we vacation. We don’t do much. We don’t go out. This year, during our beach week, I got in a car three times, one each for the grocery, liquor store and seafood market. We’ve even given up on the family picture where everyone dresses in the same color and you hire some contract photographer to capture a moment that does not at all reflect what that week was really like.

The “no formal picture” thing is legit. There was an unfortunate incident during our staged family picture a few years back in front of a high-rise condo. Some dude yelled off his balcony, “Hey, get your fat @##!% out of the sand dunes.” Apparently, the photographer often employed the spot for beachy serenity. He was non-plussed. But we were shook. It was like a Hollywood Squares of laughter from the rest of the condos as the guy kept heckling us. The resulting photos looked like we were told to smile at gunpoint.

We are more like pirates during our beach trips. I subscribe to the notion that if you look well put together during your beach week then you aren’t doing it right. (Not everyone, including my wife, subscribes to this.) This year my first shower didn’t happen till Tuesday. There were maybe one or two more after that. I re-wear clothes, since all I’m going to do is sit in the water or the sun.

I think we like Dauphin Island because it is easy to get to, but hard to find. It strikes me as the kind of place that locals want enough people to visit to keep the lights on, but maybe not to stay too long. Compared to the places on the other side of Mobile Bay, there’s not a lot of signage or gaudy billboards advertising the island. After meandering down from the interstate on any combination of two-lane highways, visitors arrive on the island via a threemile high-rise bridge. From the bridge the island barely rises out of the water. It is 14 miles long, and under two miles at its widest point, but most of it is much narrower than that. There’s one of most things, a grocery store, coffee shop, seafood store, and a couple of restaurants. And it appears that the small putt-putt course operates on the honor system.

A few years back, on our first family trip to Dauphin Island, we had come straight from the New Orleans airport. We were late, 3:45 in the morning, getting there. While going down the desolate main drag, one of our twins said, “This looks like the kind of place a serial killer might hang out.”

There’s 1,300 permanent residents, in addition to a steady stream of cars coming on the island to catch the ferry across Mobile Bay to Fort Morgan. And there’s legit touristy things to do on Dauphin Island, like visiting historic Fort Gaines, the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, or the Audubon Bird Sanctuary. (Note: If you go to the fort they will occasionally fire a cannon without a lot of notice, and if you are about to have a child, need to go to the bathroom, or happen to be a candidate for a heart attack, then you have a serious problem.)

I’d been on Dauphin Island many times, often on my way to the ferry. I remember one beach week years ago when I had to leave Fort Morgan with the twins to go home for a couple of baseball games. We did it as a two-day marathon thing. As I rushed back I made the last second decision to try to catch one of the final ferries across the bay. It was a risky choice, but I thought it would time out right. And it did. We were one of the last cars to pull on the ferry, and it left the dock before I had the car in park.

There was a thirty-year-old Ford truck in front of us. As I watched, this guy two and a half times older than his Ford let down his tailgate. His cut offs had actually been jeans at one point in the recent past, the edges had not frayed much. A muscle shirt showed off thin brown arms that would put a skin doctor into shock.

He went back to the cab of his truck and retrieved a small blanket and a basket. A similarly dressed woman joined him as they set the blanket over the tailgate and laid out a spread of grapes, nuts and cheese, along with a bottle of wine. I looked back at my sweaty ball players. We had come in so fast we didn’t have a bottle of water. These two let their legs dangle off the truck as they took in the sunset.

Right before the end of the crossing I approached the guy and we talked for a minute. He told me they lived on Dauphin Island. I think, ultimately, that’s what I like about the place. Other locales try to grab this distinction, but Dauphin Island is a Jimmy Buffet song. This guy told me they liked to ride over to Fort Morgan on the ferry, then turn around and ride back. He called it their “date” and said they got to see a lot, and it didn’t even cost him much gas.

Well, if he really needed fuel for his truck, I guess I could have let him have one of Dad’s margarita’s.

Robby Miller Tangipahoa Parish President

As we move into the second half of 2023, we have so many good things happening here in Tangipahoa Parish!

Hundreds of new jobs are on the way. From retail interest to additional investments from our new and existing industrial partners, Tangipahoa Parish is working! Moving into the 3rd and 4th Quarters of this year, we expect more good news for our business community, and there is no shortage of jobs to be had.

Need more info? Contact our Geaux Jobs office at (985) 902-4200. Our team is here to help you find work!

Want to open or expand your business here in Tangipahoa? Our Economic Development team stands ready to help you in that endeavor. Check out https:// tedf.org/ for a wealth of tools and information.

As we prepare for the opening of a new school year, the start of a new semester at Southeastern Louisiana University and Northshore Technical, and the excitement of our annual fall fair and festival activities, there’s never been a better time to be part of our Tangipahoa Parish community. And don’t forget–the state’s longestrunning parish fair is right around the corner! The Tangipahoa Parish Fair kicks off the first full week in October, and this year, the fair is moving to a new location, next door to the Florida Parishes Arena in Amite. It’s the “same fair with a new flair,” and we couldn’t be more excited about this year’s event! You’ll definitely want to make plans to join us!

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing many more good news stories from around our parish. Stay tuned! The future looks bright for Tangipahoa Parish!

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