Mobile Bay Magazine - June 2020

Mobile Bay THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE FOR MOBILE AND BALDWIN COUNTIES

June 2020

TAKE ME TO THE

COASTAL COOL CELEBRATING THE CHARACTERS, ADVENTURES & SEAFOOD THAT MAKE OUR COAST FABULOUS!

BOATY KNOWS

THE MANY TALES OF A LOCAL LEGEND

WATT KEY ON QUARANTINE, A SIMPLER LIFE & HIS NEW BOOK

SAILING THE BAY

ABOARD THE VIRGINIA CIRCA 1930

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CONTENTS | VOLUME XXXVI / ISSUE 6

JUNE 2020 36

Shrimpin’ the Bayou

Food writer Emily Blejwas says the story of Bayou La Batre is the story of an endless search for a crustacean and a livelihood

41

Fresh Picks

Summer produce is having its moment in the sun, so let MB help extend that moment to the kitchen table.

48

Boaty Knows It

CORN AND ZUCCHINI ORZO. PHOTO BY ELIZABETH GELINEAU

Mobile fireman and fisherman, Boaty Campbell, looks back at a lifetime of service and master storytelling

 Aside from living his whole life on Mobile Bay, Boaty Campbell has deep ancestral connections to the murky waters. His great-grandfather was captain of the CSS Selma , and his grandfather served on the USS Alabama , moored in the Bay. Read more about Boaty on page 48.

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CONTENTS | VOLUME XXXVI / ISSUE 6

JUNE 2020 27

30 ON OUR COVER SAILING VESSEL, THE VIRGINIA, ON MOBILE BAY, CIRCA 1930.

PHOTO COURTESY S. BLAKE MCNEELY COLLECTION, THE DOY LEALE MCCALL RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH ALABAMA

9 EDITOR’S NOTE 10 REACTION

58

13 ODDS & ENDS

GLUTEN-FREE CRAB CAKES FOR THE WIN / PHOTO BY ELIZABETH GELINEAU A PADDLE AT BAY MINETTE BASIN / PHOTO BY HANLON WALSH MONROE PARK YACHT CLUB, CIRCA 1900 / PHOTO COURTESY DETROIT PUB. CO.

15 THE DISH 16 MIXOLOGY A gin & tonic that gives “cool as a cucumber” a whole ‘nother meaning 19 BITE-SIZED Find porch-styling inspir ation — or just sit a spell and enjoy the breeze 20 SPOTLIGHT Meet the local business creating the scenic viewfinders found across the globe

24 SPOTLIGHT Local author Watt Key takes readers on the hunt for Bigfoot in his newest book, “Beast”

54 JUNE CALENDAR

58 ARCHIVES A look at Mobile’s bust- ling waterfront of old

27

30

GUMBO MB’s guide to finding the perfect watercraft — and where to launch it

62 LITERATURE Author Audrey McDonald Atkins takes to the top of a magnolia tree

BAY TABLES A hearty serving of some favorite coastal recipes from the pages of MB

64 ASK MCGEHEE Is it true that a piece of Oakleigh artwork is on display at Versailles?

66 IN LIVING COLOR The Virginia, an 1865-built schoonerturned-yacht, gets the colorization treatment after 90 years

 Viewers built by Fairhope’s SeeCoast Manufacturing can be found in every U.S. state, as well as 80 countries around the world. Read more about the “visionary” family business on page 20.

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Mobile Bay VOLUME XXXVI

No6

JUNE 2020

PUBLISHER T. J. Potts Stephen Potts Judy Culbreth

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Maggie Lacey MANAGING EDITOR/WEB Abby Parrott

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Amanda Hartin PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Virginia Mathers

ART DIRECTOR Laurie Kilpatrick

ASSISTANT PUBLISHER

EDITORIAL CONSULTANT

ADVERTISING S R. ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Joseph A. Hyland Anna Pavao ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Jennifer Ray

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

ADMINISTRATION CIRCULATION Anita Miller ACCOUNTING Keith Crabtree

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Audrey McDonald Atkins, Emily Blejwas, Catherine Dorrough, Tom McGehee, Breck Pappas, Dr. Allen Perkins, Hanlon Walsh CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Bailey Chastang, Matthew Coughlin, Elizabeth Gelineau, Trisha LaCoste, Elise Poché, Chad Riley, Nicole Quinn ADVERTISING AND EDITORIAL OFFICES

3729 Cottage Hill Road, Suite H Mobile, AL 36609-6500 251-473-6269 Subscription inquiries and all remittances should be sent to: Mobile Bay P.O. Box 43 Congers, NY 10920-9922 1-833-454-5060 MOVING? Please note: U.S. Postal Service will not forward magazines mailed through their bulk mail unit.

Please send old label along with your new address four to six weeks prior to moving.

Mobile Bay is published 12 times per year for the Gulf Coast area. All contents © 2020 by PMT Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of the contents without written permission is prohibited. Comments written in this magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the ownership or the management of Mobile Bay. This magazine accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photography or artwork. All submissions will be edited for length, clarity and style.

PUBLISHED BY PMT PUBLISHING INC .

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EXTRAS | EDITOR’S NOTE

Shut Your Trap

PHOTO BY ELIZABETH GELINEAU

W

e always boiled crabs at my house growing up.

It was just what you did in the summer. And also in the spring and fall, and any other time an old fish carcass — or chicken part, in a pinch — would attract the crustacean to your trap. We put traps out in the Mississippi Sound when I was really young, and these days my dad keeps about five traps running at all times in the water in Point Clear. When I’m lucky, he calls up and offers his surplus, but I don’t have the patience to pick the meat for very long. Character flaw. A plate of jumbo lump West Indies, already picked to perfection, is my ideal.

I vividly remember the first time I saw somebody clean a live crab. Holy cow, that was a sight. Captain Mareno emptied his trap into a bucket on their dock at the Lagoon and proceeded to clean those suckers while they were alive, pinchers snapping. I’m told it helps the seasoning soak into the meat and reduces the mess at the table. I was maybe 8 years old, and I can still remember the smell of the crab boil and fresh lemons filling the beach house — the smell of summer vacation.

During quarantine, my children begged us to put out a trap of our own.

Going to the grocery store every 10 days (at the most) made picking up chicken necks a little difficult, so we dragged some doves out of the depths of the freezer and gave them a try. Those stinking Mobile Bay crabs turned up their noses at our bait! We only caught one blue crab in a week of trying, and I have to say it is a lot easier on my bleeding heart to boil a giant pot of crabs than it is to boil one poor sad fellow. But then he tried to pinch me with insane aggression, and I threw him in the pot without remorse.

Mobilians swear boiling crabs is better than steaming them, and I bet the folks at Bon Secour Fisheries would agree, much to the dismay of the people in the Chesapeake Bay. But they can stick to their side of the coast and leave us be. We know a thing or two about blue crabs in these parts.

Get your traps out. Summer is coming.

DON’T BE CRABBY LOOKING FOR EASY SEAFOOD RECIPES FOR THESE WARM SUMMER DAYS? TURN TO BAY TABLES, PAGE 30, FOR ALL THE BEST LOCAL IDEAS.

LOVE THIS ISSUE

WICKER ALWAYS WORKS THIS PRECIOUS CLUTCH WITH BLUE LEATHER AND CANE SIDES FEELS LIKE A SUMMER COTTAGE

BY THE SEA! BEAU & RO CANE CLUTCH THE HOLIDAY

FARM STAND FRESH I GEEK OUT OVER FRESH LOCAL PRODUCE — ESPECIALLY HEIRLOOM AND SPECIFICALLYSOUTHERN VARIETIES, LIKE THESE PATTY PAN SQUASHES. IF YOU CAN’T FIND IT IN A BIG BOX GROCERY, I’M HOOKED.

OLD FAITHFULS I LEARNED TO WATER SKI ON A PAIR OF VINTAGE CYPRESS GARDEN SKIS — THEY DON’T LOOK LIKE MUCH BUT THEY GET THE JOB DONE. TIME TO PULL THEM OUT FOR THE NEXT GENERATION.

Maggie Lacey EXECUTIVE EDITOR

maggie@pmtpublishing.com

 A year and a half ago, MB learned how to cook crabs from the boil master himself, Boaty Campbell. We get to know Boaty personally in this issue, but go online to find his foolproof recipe for perfectly boiled Mobile Bay blue crabs from our November 2018 story, “How to Eat Like a Local.” mobilebaymag.com/eat-like-a-local/

SAFETY FIRST I’M LOVING THE IDEA OF A LIFE JACKET DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR WOMEN PADDLERS! IT FEATURES A SMALLER CUT, SUPPORTIVE INNER CUPS AND A BACK WITH HALF FLOTATION AND HALF COOL MESH TO FIT COMFORTABLY ABOVE THE SEAT BACK. PADDED MESH SHOULDERS AND WAISTBAND ARE EASY ON THE SKIN WHEN WORN WITH A SWIMSUIT, TOO! STOHLQUIST WOMEN’S CRUISER FAIRHOPE BOAT COMPANY

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EXTRAS | REACTION

Tell us how you really feel ...

PAVED WITH MEMORIES On November’s End Piece, a colorized photo of Bay Shell Road, circa 1900 My mother always told me that in the summer, the whole family would camp at the Bay, and the men would go to their jobs in the city and then come back in the evenings.

- Martha Broyles

DINE TIME On April’s Ask McGehee about the history of Morrison’s Cafeteria I love that Morrison’s! So many lunches with my Grandfather Carlin there. Judy Adkins and I would meet him after we had our braces tightened at Dr. Brown’s in the Merchants National Bank building.

- Mary Helene Delaney It was such a treat for my grandparents to take me there to meet my dad for lunch in the summertime. We also shopped for “princess” slips for my grandmother at Hammel’s while we were Downtown.

- Mary Frances Rasp Giattina

GROWING PLACES On MB’s May issue Finished reading this month’s issue this morning and loved it!

It inspired Mom and I to finally get to work on starting a garden of our own.

- Allison Daniels

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EXTRAS | REACTION

The Pulse of the Bay WE WANTED TO KNOW — WHAT’S THE MOST UNEXPECTED THING THAT HAPPENED TO YOU DURING QUARANTINE?

BRINKLEY HUTCHINGS PHOTO BY MATTHEW COUGHLIN

IN THE WOODS On April’s Feature, “A Good Start,” about Nature Connect’s Brinkley Hutchings A breath of fresh air does a soul good. Brinkley Hutchings, you ARE making a difference.

- Sandra Keel

MILKWEED AND MONARCHS On May’s “Ask the Experts” about spring planting I appreciated the mention of milkweed in “Ask the Experts.”

I would like to expand on that a bit and stress the necessity of milkweed for monarch butterflies as they pass through on their annual migration.

- Barry Gaston

MOBILE’S RIPE MINE On MB’s Facebook story, “The Bay Area’s Architectural Gems” A home on Government Street commonly known as “The Elephant Walk House” should have made the list.

- Greg Blake

 Want to share your thoughts and reactions? Email maggie@pmtpublishing.com.

“I watched Easter Vigil mass online wrapped in a blanket on the wharf after watching my husband give a Marion Institute Mohawk to our 15-year-old nephew!”

Brady Berglin, registered dietician and swim buddy

“Who would have thought a few months ago I would be celebrating my senior prom in my front yard!”

Mary Potter Partsch, senior, Baker High School

“After 6 weeks of letting my hair grow, and knowing it’ll be at least another month before I have to go back to work, I shaved my head. My wife’s exact words were, ‘It’s not bad, just different.’ We all know what that means.’”

Luke Jones, customer service representative, AM/NS Calvert

“Never imagined going outside at night in our city and howling at the top of my voice.”

Pauline Anders

“One night, my husband and I were bored sitting on our front porch. So, we put old lemons on the road and made bets about which one would get hit by a car first.”

Ocllo Robinson, instructor, University of South Alabama

“While wearing my pjs, I painted my entire staircase Benjamin Moore’s ‘Kendall Charcoal’ while binge-watching all three seasons of ‘Ozark.’ I may or may not have been consuming Pollman’s cookies, too.”

“Since we didn’t have our nieces and nephews with us for Easter, we hid eggs with dog treats and had a hunt for the four-legged kid!”

Chesley Allegri, financial advisor, Morgan Stanley

“I never expected I would miss kids’ sports as much as I do. They create a great deal of go-gogo during the week, but I miss watching them play and the camaraderie with parents.”

Kari Benson, pharmacist, USA Mitchell Cancer Institute

Trip Atkins, Elite Medical Solutions

“Never thought I would be comfortable with a mullet, but it’s kinda growing on me.”

Travis Everette, owner/agent, Allstate

“I hugged my parents through a shower curtain! I never expected to experience being separated from loved ones in this way a few months ago.”

Laura Chandler, director, ClearPoint Strategy

“That a letter of the alphabet would take a tumble, an ‘m’ would roll over and become a ‘w.’ These days there’s a little more ‘we’ and a little less ‘me.’”

Sonny Brewer, writer

“We did an athome ‘field day,’ completely organized by my two middle school kids.”

Stephanie Barfield, Ph.D.

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EXTRAS | ODDS & ENDS

Summer Breeze text by BRECK PAPPAS

“I boil shrimp with heads on, and I like to get my water seasoned pretty spicy.

When the water starts rolling boiling, I drop my shrimp in and let them boil for 5 minutes, turn it off and let them soak for 5 more minutes.

Ready to eat…”

- Alec Naman, Naman’s Catering

EAGLE EYE Thanks to Eagle Scout Bennett Reetz, visitors to Gulf State Park can now observe a nest of bald eagles through two Mark II binoculars.

On page 20, read about SeeCoast Manufacturing, the local company that builds these viewing devices for use around the globe.

282

Estimated number of shipwrecks in Mobile Bay according to a 1983

10

YEARS AGO THIS MONTH

The first tar balls from the BP oil spill washed ashore in Bayou La Batre.

On page 36, Emily Blejwas tackles the history of the resilient fishing village.

survey commissioned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

[ NOTABLE OPENINGS ]

THE ICE BOX BAR

Housed in Mobile’s once-upon-atime Crystal Ice Factory, the new bar on Monroe Street has already established quite the following.

Frozen cocktails and bumper pool?

Count us in.

GARDEN REPORT This month is your last chance to prune those azaleas; any later, and you’ll risk cutting off next year’s flower buds. Leave the electric trimmers in the garage and use hand pruners to snip off only the most wayward branches. june 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 13

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FOOD | THE DISH

Bite of the Bay MB’s contributing food fanatics share their go-to local dishes.

VICKIE BAILEY, Owner, The Happy Olive

ANTIPASTO BOARD AT RED OR WHITE “Last evening, we ordered the antipasto board to go. The spread included a variety of meats and cheeses (prosciutto, honey-laced Bell Chevre, wedges of Midnight Moon) as well as small olives, baby gherkins and sweet drop peppers.

A sprinkling of candied pecans and a French baguette provided a sweet finale.”

RED OR WHITE • 323 DE LA MARE AVE., FAIRHOPE • 990-0003 • REDORWHITEWINE.COM

TACOS FROM ROOSTERS. PHOTO BY ELISE POCHÉ

RYAN BALTHROP, Singer, songwriter, musician

GRILLED SURF SHRIMP TACOS AT ROOSTERS “I tried the grilled surf shrimp tacos with sweet-fried plantains on the side. The chef uses Gulf shrimp — perfectly seasoned, seared and charred — served with mango salsa, cilantro, crema and queso fresco.

Every bite was savory and sweet, and the homemade tortillas they come wrapped in are hearty and filling. I added a squeeze of lime, and all the ingredients intermingled to throw a flavorful fiesta in my mouth.”

ROOSTERS • 211 DAUPHIN ST. • 375-1076 ROOSTERSDOWNTOWN.COM

ANN-BROOKS MORRISSETTE, Executive Director, Fuse Project

FAMILY MEATLOAF MEAL AT THE NOBLE SOUTH “I can’t say meatloaf is my usual ‘goto’ on a menu, but recently a relative brought it to us as part of a family meal from The Noble South, and we can’t stop talking about it. Every bite was cooked to perfection, and each course highlighted fresh farm-to-table ingredients: pickled shrimp, kale salad, meatloaf, Brussels sprouts, hashbrown casserole and strawberry cornbread pudding.”

CADE KISTLER, Program Director, Mobile Baykeeper

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES WITH TUNA POKE AT DRAGONFLY “After a long morning of water sampling in Mobile Bay, there’s nothing better than lunch from Dragonfly. This dish had the fresh and delicious tuna you’d expect in a poke, but the tomatoes stole the show. The cucumber salsa, spicy aioli and wasabi crema were perfect complements to the main course as the spicy notes from the aioli and crema were nicely balanced by the cucumber salsa.”

THE NOBLE SOUTH • 203 DAUPHIN ST.

DRAGONFLY FOODBAR • 7 S CHURCH ST.,

690-6824 • THENOBLESOUTHRESTAURANT.COM

FAIRHOPE • 990-5722

 What dishes made you drool and left you hungry for more? Share them on our Facebook page! june 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 15

FOOD | MIXOLOGY

Refresh Your Spirits Bright and bubbly with the cool scent of cucumber, this gin and tonic will set your spirits right at the end of a hot summer day.

Cucumber Gin and Tonic MAKES 1 1 cucumber 1 1/2 ounces gin 1/4 lime tonic toothpick

Slice cucumber on a mandolin lengthwise to make two long, flat strips (discard the first strip that is mostly peel). Add one strip to the bottom of a rocks glass and pour gin over the top. Using a muddler or the back of a spoon, press on the cucumber to release some juices. Squeeze the lime over the gin and add lime wedge to glass. Fill with ice and top with tonic. Thread the second cucumber slice onto a toothpick in a wave pattern and use to garnish.

Did you know?

The quinine in tonic water fluoresces in ultraviolet light.

A cool party trick to be sure, but that same quinine is present in your gin and tonic thanks to outbreaks of malaria in India in the early 1800s. A potent prophylactic medicine, quinine unfortunately won’t do much to prevent the coronavirus. We are, however, willing to give it a try.

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recipe & text by MAGGIE LACEY photo by ELIZABETH GELINEAU

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BITE-SIZED | INSPIRATION

Three Things to Love text by AMANDA HARTIN • photo by BAILEY CHASTANG

LOOK UP! A “haint blue” ceiling discourages swarming insects and nesting birds.

The blue-green hue is also said to keep spirits away, according to folklore.

“In my childhood, the porch was a concept as well as a place.”

- Eugene Walter (1921 – 1998), New Yorker essay, “Secrets of a Southern Porch”

You don’t have to live on the waterfront to be inspired by this Southern porch designed for lingering.

SIT A SPELL

UNDER FOOT

PRIVACY, PLEASE

COMFORTABLE SEAT-

COASTAL PORCHES TRA-

THESE RUSTIC-LOOKING

ING IS ESSENTIAL FOR

DITIONALLY HAVE PAINTED

SHUTTERS SERVE TRIPLE

ANY GATHERING SPACE.

FLOORS, BUT THE LOOK STILL

DUTY, NOT THE LEAST OF

WEATHER-RESISTANT FUR-

FEELS FRESH ON A VARIETY

WHICH IS PROTECTION

NITURE IN EARTHY SHADES

OF HOUSE STYLES NO MAT-

FROM HIGH WINDS SWEEP-

ARE SMARTLY GROUPED TO

TER THE ADDRESS. A SOFT

ING ACROSS THE WATER.

CREATE DISTINCT SPACES

NEUTRAL — OR EVEN A FUN,

AESTHETICALLY, THE WARM-

— A COZY DINING AREA,

VIBRANT COLOR — UNDER

TONED WOOD PROVIDES

PERFECT FOR SUMMERTIME

BARE FEET PERFECTLY SAYS

A TOUCH OF SOUTHERN

PICNICS OR FALL CAN-

SUMMER, WITH A SOUTHERN

CHARM AND BLENDS WITH

DLELIT DINNERS, AND A

DRAWL. THE FACT THAT

THE OUTDOOR SURROUNDS.

CASUAL CONVERSATION

PAINT IS SUPER AFFORDABLE

AND AS FAR AS PRIVACY

SPOT, IDEAL FOR AFTER-

AND COVERS A MYRIAD

GOES, YOU’D BE HARD-

DINNER DRINKS OR EARLY-

OF FLAWS MAKES IT A WIN

PRESSED TO FIND A PRETTIER

MORNING BREWS.

EVERY TIME.

SCREEN THAN THIS. MB

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A SIGHTSEEING ADVENTURE AT FORT MORGAN. PHOTO BY TRISHA LACOSTE

PEOPLE | SPOTLIGHT

Get a Better View Scenic vistas the world-around are brought into sharp focus — and sometimes vivid color — thanks to a manufacturer located along the Alabama Gulf Coast. text by CATHERINE DORROUGH

I

f, one day, you should find yourself strolling along Australia’s southern coast, riding to the top of one of Dubai’s glittering desert towers or even rambling along the craggy paths of the Rock of Gibraltar, you may be lucky enough to spot a little slice of home. Distance viewers, those unassuming slate-gray machines that sit atop the world’s overlooks and scenic vistas, often bear a little metal plate that reads, in part, “Fairhope, Ala. 36532.”

The maker of these viewers, SeeCoast Manufacturing Company, operates from a metal-clad facility on Middle Street, a block away from the busy thoroughfare of U.S. Highway 98. They’ve been steadily producing their viewers for more than half a cen-

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tury, first scattering them along the Gulf Coast and then sending them out to the farthest reaches of the globe.

A Look Back “Kenneth Cain Sr. started the company,” says Sarah Jones, SeeCoast’s head of sales and marketing. “He had tuberculosis, and he was looking for a project to keep him busy. He ran across similar coin-operated telescopes and thought he could make something like that for around here, because we have so many views overlooking the water.”

With sons Kenny and Geoffrey, Cain started making his own prototypes in the garage of his home in Fairhope. They put the

first couple of viewers at Bayfront Auditorium in Pensacola to test the public’s interest in them, and before long, people started requesting viewers at other destination spots along the Gulf Coast.

The Cains ran their viewers on a concession basis and collected from them each month. “It became a family affair,” Jones says. They would all pile into their Nash Rambler to collect from the viewers, often going to the beach or stopping for lunch along the way. As their concession route grew along the Alabama and Florida coasts, they’d spend the night in the car to save money.

When the patriarch announced he wanted to retire, Geoffrey came home from college to take over the family business and grow it. “He’s the one who began manufacturing the viewers for sale rather than just concessioning them,” Jones says.

It wasn’t long before the company outgrew the garage. In 1960, SeeCoast relocated to a manufacturing facility, where they’ve been ever since.

A Look Inside Great care goes into the manufacturing process. “These could be precision cast and made on a big assembly line without much care to each part of the process,” Jones says, “but they wouldn’t last as long.”

The team starts by grinding burrs and imperfections off of raw aluminum castings. Then they place the castings into an etching vat, which allows the surface of the metal to adhere to a powder coating. That coating is sprayed on by hand, adding durability against the natural elements. After that, the viewers are placed into an industrial oven.

They’re finished with a clear epoxy, followed by a color coat. Then they’re topped off with an anti-graffiti clear coating, which prevents paint or marker from adhering to the surface. “We deal with a lot of parks, and they all really appreciate that,” Jones says.

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Here’s Looking at Hue Recently, the company teamed up with California-based lens-maker EnChroma to begin making colorblind-accessible viewers. “One of our customers had the idea of putting the EnChroma lens in the viewer,” Jones explains. “We didn’t know it at the time, but they actually took EnChroma glasses, disassembled them and retrofitted the lenses in the viewers. They put the viewers in Tennessee parks to make the colors of the fall foliage accessible for everyone.”

The enhanced viewers were highly publicized. When the EnChroma team saw the news coverage, they reached out to SeeCoast to talk about a partnership.

“We were really excited about that,” Jones says. “Since we work with so many public places, accessibility is really important. It took a little while to work out how we would do it. We sent them the optics from each of our models so that they could size the lenses correctly.

It’s taken a little less than a year to put it all together, but we are finally at the finished state where we can offer it to our customers.”

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While the colorful new optics have only just begun to hit the market, vacationers can spot SeeCoast’s classic madein-Fairhope models all over the U.S., including Gatlinburg SkyLift Park, Las Vegas’ Stratosphere Tower, Disney World, Stone Mountain, Ga., Mount Rushmore and Pier 39 in San Francisco.

Closer to home, prominent sites include the USS Alabama, the Mobile Bay Ferry, Gulf State Park Pier, Fairhope Pier, Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines.

“We haven’t changed a lot about our company over the years, but our customers seem to really appreciate that,” Jones says. “They can come back to us 20 or 30 years later and have their viewers refurbished. We have replacement parts should they ever need them. It’s a situation where, if it isn’t broken, why fix it?” MB

Top EnChroma technology has allowed individuals with color blindness to experience the outdoors in vivid color, as demonstrated by these before and after photos.

Above EnChroma lenses have been sized to fit different SeeCoast models.

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PEOPLE | SPOTLIGHT

Simply Wild On the heels of his most recent book, “Beast: Face-to-Face with the Florida Bigfoot,” local author Watt Key talks inspiration, unusual food — in unusual places — and the unexpected pleasures of a slowed pace.

interview by AMANDA HARTIN

Life has certainly been a little off-kilter lately! How have the Keys been handling self-quarantine?

Lots of books, YouTube and Netflix — like most other families, I assume. But I have found it absolutely crucial to get in a lot of social distancing while fishing. Basically, we’ve been doing a lot of fishing. And not complaining much about that.

Have you been able to make any online classroom appearances?

A lot. I’ve done 15 schools this week. I’m even invited to a virtual pizza party in Rochester, Michigan, this evening. It sounds like fun, and I think I’ll go.

I’ve been intrigued by the idea of Sasquatch ever since I saw the movie, “Harry and the Hendersons,” back in the ‘80s.

More recently, my dad shared his own bigfoot story, which took place when he was a teen in Crenshaw County, Alabama.

I understand you’ve had your own experience, which is where you derived the idea for this book, correct?

Well, I will start by saying that I have never seen a bigfoot or anything like it. But one evening, when I was deer hunting in the Mississippi Delta, I had an experience that — connected to a bigfoot story I heard told on a radio program — got me interested. I spent about a year listening to bigfoot podcasts and reading books about bigfoot to prepare for the story I was going to tell. Bigfoot stories range from, “I saw a hairy ape thing run across the road in my headlights,” to, “I was sitting on my back porch when a spaceship hovered over my pasture and dropped some bigfoots out of it.” You have to sort of take the middle ground there. You can read more about what happened to me in the author’s note at the end of “Beast.”

One good thing about staying home is that it provides more time to read. I finished “Beast” in a couple nights — it’s a great, fast-paced book. I have to admit,

As a college sophomore — and for school credit — you intentionally spent 14 days in the wild, foraging for your own food.

In “Beast,” Adam, the main character,

Has your office been taken over by your family, now that everyone is working and schooling from home?

Fortunately, my home office is in the backyard, separate from the house. They have to travel through rain and scary darkness to reach me. Of course, most of the time, I just get a text to come inside and help with something.

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finds himself doing the same in Florida’s swampland, eating a few meals that left me squeamish. Were there any particular things you ate that weren’t quite as bad as people might imagine?

Cottonmouth. Wasn’t bad at all. Seared piglet skin — excellent — tastes exactly like the fried pork skin you can get at a gas station.

You would imagine an armadillo would taste terrible. Actually, it tastes worse than you can imagine. Acorns are tiresome; palmetto and pine needle tea are good. You can read about my full menu on the “Alabama Moon” page on my website.

Adam is one tough kid. I certainly wasn’t as brave as he when I was 13. Were you like him growing up, strong-willed and tenacious?

I wasn’t as remarkable as any of my characters, but they are all a blurry version of me — what I know, things I’ve done, etc. Most people aren’t as interesting as they might think they are or want to be, and I’m no exception. I try to make stories based on the things I know but make them larger than me so that people are interested in them.

I would imagine growing up in Point Clear alongside four brothers has provided you with a wealth of inspiration for

your stories. Do you find yourself modeling characters after your brothers or plots after your antics?

I don’t base any fictitious characters on them, but I write about their real characters in my book, “Bay Boy,” about growing up in Point Clear.

Book Excerpt from “Beast: Face-to-Face with the Florida Bigfoot” “Let me tell you something. If you want to see a swamp ape or Bigfoot — whatever you want to call it — you’ve got to be out in the wilderness for weeks. Maybe months. Miles from anything. No fires, no tent, nothing.

Until you run out of food and have to live like an animal. Until you’re so primitive you dig worms from the ground with your hands and eat them just to go on another day. Then maybe they’ll show themselves to you. You understand? A man can’t do that.”

I nodded.

“Then there’s the killing part. Let’s say I managed to get far enough out into the Refuge and survive long enough to see one of these things. Let’s say I got close enough to take a shot with a high-powered rifle like a .30-06. This is an animal that can weigh a thousand pounds. Maybe more. I’d have to shoot it in the heart. And let’s say I’m lucky and its heart is in the same place as ours. And say I get even luckier and kill it. Then what?”

Stanley paused. I shook my head to show that I didn’t have an answer.

“Then you’ve still got to deal with the other ones. You think they’re going to like you shooting one of their family members?”

I shook my head.

“But let’s say there’s not any more. Say this thing’s by itself. Now what?

How are you going to drag a thousand pounds of dead weight out of there?

You can’t leave and come back for it. Alligators and coyotes will eat it. Or maybe they eat it.”

“But why did you have to kill it?”

“You want proof, you’re going to have to bring back a body.”

“But maybe just good pictures would do. I mean, if you just had enough good pictures.”

“That’s been tried, right? The government confiscates any decent proof that ever goes public. The blurry stuff that’s left, people just write off as a hoax. No, you’re gonna have to have a body. And that’s impossible.”

“What if there was a way to make it public before the government could get to it?”

“If you can figure a way to do that, then you’ll be the first.”

Life seemed simpler and less rushed when we were growing up, didn’t it? With today’s slower pace, has your family rediscovered simple pleasures, such as suppertime or walks in the evening together?

It is certainly like we are back in the ‘70s.

And I like it. Phone’s not ringing. Traffic isn’t bad. Nobody rushing to school, exercise class, sporting events. You realize that you don’t have to eat out so much and rediscover the fun of cooking family meals. My kids are at the age where I thought I was pretty much done with my part — they are driving or about to head to college — but it’s nice to get a second chance to hang out with them one last time.

Are you working on your next book yet?

Anything you can divulge?

I am always working on a book. In a sense, I usually have three going on at once. I have the one that just came out that I am promoting. I have the one for next year that I am editing. And I have the one for two years out that I am writing. I try to put out a book a year, though that doesn’t always happen.

I never have liked talking too much about what I am working on because it seems to mess me up and hem me in. I need to able to write it without remembering what I told people it was going to be about, if that makes any sense. MB

PHOTO BY MATTHEW COUGHLIN

What’s on your summer reading list?

Classic books most people don’t read anymore, books you wouldn’t expect me to read, all to prepare for a book I want to write. For example, I want to write a book with a precocious female main character. I’m reading Heidi, True Grit and Anne of Green Gables.

Reading is still fun for me, but it’s oftentimes, most times, research, too.

Watt Key is a local, award-winning author whose debut novel, “Alabama Moon,” received international acclaim.

“Beast” is available for purchase at Page and Palette (pageandpalette.com), The Haunted Bookshop (thehauntedbookshopmobile.com) and on Amazon. Additional information is available at wattkey.com.

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GUMBO | RECOMMENDATIONS

Rising temperatures and longer days beg us to spend time on our sun-kissed waters. By investing in a kayak, canoe or paddleboard, a bright new horizon opens up for exploration. MB is here to help you get started.

PADDLING IN

PARADISE

FIND THE BOAT THAT’S RIGHT FOR YOU Kayaks

Kayaks are generally the top-of-mind craft when thinking about getting out on the water affordably and with minimal effort. While they are fairly easy to lug from car to water, a kayak’s length and weight might make them tricky to transport from home to launching point. Kayak trailers or roof racks — either bought or rigged at home — are a good option, as is having a fellow paddler on hand to assist with lifting.

To avoid the lift altogether, consider an inflatable kayak (available in kid sizes, too). And don’t forget a few nice-to-have accessories, such as a dry bag, padded seat cushions and fishing rod holder.

LIFETIME WAVE 72” KAYAK

KIDS PADDLER Perfect for: Young kids just learning to paddle Length: 6 to 9 feet Weight: 18 to 36 pounds Price Tag: $75 and up Good to know: Because of their light weight, youth kayaks are fairly easy to paddle short distances. Most kid-sized kayaks are rated for 130 pounds or less.

Pro-tip: Consider attaching a tow rope in case little Johnny tuckers out just off shore.

text by AMANDA HARTIN HOBIE MIRAGE OUTBACK KAYAK

SIT-ON-TOP Perfect for: Beginner paddlers Length: 10 to 12 feet Weight: 35 to 50 pounds, depending on length Price Tag: $300 and up Good to know: This style makes it easier to reboard in the event of a capsize. In addition to having a higher center of gravity, these vessels are usually wider than sit-inside kayaks.

Because there is no cockpit, however, paddlers are exposed to the sun, wind and water.

OLD TOWN

LOOKSHA 17 KAYAK TOURING Perfect for: Skilled kayakers looking to travel long distances on calm water Length: 16 feet + Weight: 50 to 80 pounds, depending on length Price Tag: $600 and up Good to know: Depending on the design, these vessels are able to carry heavy loads. The touring kayak’s long, slim hull makes it easy to paddle and fast, but less stable and less maneuverable.

OLD TOWN HERON 9XT KAYAK

SIT-INSIDE Perfect for: Paddlers of all skill levels Length: 10 to 12 feet Weight: 30 to 50 pounds, depending on length Price Tag: $350 and up Good to know: The enclosed cockpit keeps the kayaker warmer and drier than its counterpart. Beginners should look for kayaks with a high degree of “initial stability,” which is a measure of how stable the kayak feels when sitting upright directly over the center of the boat.

“I BOUGHT MY KAYAKS AS A QUICK, CONVENIENT WAY TO GET OUT ON THE WATER AND TO GET SOME GOOD CARDIOVASCULAR EXERCISE IN A FUN WAY FOR MYSELF AND THE KIDS.” – Grace Hundley

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FIND THE BOAT THAT’S RIGHT FOR YOU CANOES

Ah, canoes. They probably hearken back sun-filled summer camp days. The nostalgia often associated with canoes might keep eager paddlers away from them, thinking they are obsolete crafts.

However, they are just as relevant today, especially for couples, families or groups looking to float together. These vessels move more slowly through the water than kayaks, making them the perfect choice for those wanting to take their time in the great outdoors. Two important factors to keep in mind when shopping are the bow’s entry line (the blunter, the slower; the more narrow, the quicker) and the canoe’s bottom (the flatter, the more stable upon entry; the rounder, the more stable in rough water).

For transport, roof racks or a trailer are a good option.

OLD TOWN SANARAC 160 CANOE

RECREATIONAL Perfect for: Flat-water paddling Length: 16 feet, on average Weight: 50 to 75 pounds Price Tag: $500 and up Good to know: Athough its stability is a plus, it also makes it a little less versatile than other styles. Recreational canoes are ideal for birding, photography and fishing.

OLD TOWN PENOBSCOT 174 CANOE

MULTIPURPOSE Perfect for: Calm lakes or whitewater rivers, extended trips Length: 16 to 17.5 feet Weight: 50 to 75 pounds Price Tag: $250 to $1,000+ Good to know: The longer the canoe, the more speed it can pick up, yet the more difficult it is to control. These canoes can easily accomodate a week’s worth of camping equipment.

“I BOUGHT MY CANOE BECAUSE IT EASILY FLOATS CREEKS THAT HAVE LOW WATER. IT IS GOOD FOR CAMPING AND STAYING DRY IN WINTER MONTHS.” – Susan Taylor Guttmann 28 mobilebaymag.com | june 2020

YOLOBOARD 10’6 ORIGINAL PADDLEBOARD, SERENITY

PADDLEBOARDS

Although paddling of any sort is great exercise, paddleboarders tout the calorie-torching combination of strength, balance, core and endurance (hello, previously unused muscles!) needed to power these stand-up crafts. To determine what size board you need, there are a few factors to consider: your height; intended use (yoga vs. cruising); typical water and wind conditions; and if you plan to share it with others.

TIME TO LAUNCH

When looking at options, it is always best to invest in a board that will get the most use. Getting your board to the water will require a roof rack and/or tie-down straps (be careful, the board’s fin can act as a sail). Practicality aside, stand-up paddleboards (SUPs) offer a fun way to navigate the water from an unusual perspective — standing affords a unique vantage point of the water below and the horizon ahead.

text by HANLON WALSH

From the swampy waters of the Delta and tranquil creeks of Foley to quiet stretches of the Western Shore’s most well-known rivers and bayous, this list encompasses a wide range of waterways for any type of paddler out there.

MAGNOLIA SPRINGS Just southeast of Fairhope lies the charming, sleepy town of Magnolia Springs. Begin your journey at Jesse’s Restaurant, where a public boardwalk leads down to the bank of the Magnolia River. From small, cold-spring-filled channels, to wide and calm stretches of the river, Magnolia River is a paddler’s dream. If you’re feeling brave, take a plunge into the legendary “cold hole,” the perfect way to cool off during a hot summer’s day of paddling. Afterward, follow the locals inside to Jesse’s for a round of appetizers and cocktails.

BON SECOUR Tucked away from the touristridden, traffic-filled Highway 59 is the laid-back fishing community of Bon Secour. Large shrimp boats line the water’s edge, and residents leisurely go about their business in this quaint and historic little town. Start your journey at Aquila Seafood and wander up the quiet, remote waters of Bon Secour. If you don’t own a boat, start further up the river with Beach ‘n’ River Canoe and Kayak Rentals, a local outfitter that offers both rentals and guided tours. Finish your day with cold beers and raw oysters on the shaded patio at the Tin Top Restaurant & Oyster Bar.

ARLINGTON PARK Just off the east end of Broad Street sits this oftoverlooked launch (both literally and figuratively — it’s a popular gazing spot for birders and gator-seekers, yet it’s not frequently thought about when paddling). From the launch, paddlers can head south into Arlington Channel, which borders Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley. Those looking for a longer excursion can head north, winding left at Garrows Bend and into Garrows Channel. For a post-paddle shady respite, picnic gazebos are onsite.

FLY CREEK The ultimate three-for-one paddling special: Fly Creek, Rock Creek and Mobile Bay, all in the same trip. Start your trip at the launch at the end of Fairhope’s Sea Cliff Drive, across from Sunset Pointe, and hug the shorelines of the Bay, heading north until you arrive at Rock Creek, a small and shady creek only accessible by water or private land. Once you’ve explored enough, turn around and

head back up the Bay to Fly Creek. If you don’t mind some maneuvering around logs and branches, channel your inner Columbus and continue paddling past any sign of civilization for a true wilderness experience. Paddle to shore just before sunset to enjoy the view with a signature dish and a specialty cocktail from Sunset Pointe at Fly Creek Marina.

FOLEY Sometimes all it takes to discover a new area is just a simple turn off the main highway. There’s a lot more to Foley than the outlet mall and the beach express. Just off the Foley Beach Express and down County Road 20 lies Wolf Creek Park, a quaint establishment and part of a movement by the City of Foley to promote ecotourism. At the launching area, paddle out of the small cove and head north until you arrive at the intersection of two creeks: Wolf Creek and Sandy Creek.

Both creeks are typical of many smaller waterways found throughout Baldwin County: peaceful, narrow and shady with cool temperatures and rope swings aplenty. Once you

FIBERGLASS Perfect for: Recreational paddlers, long-distance excursions, racers Length: 9.5 to 12.5 feet Weight: 30 pounds Price Tag: $400 and up (more fiberglass equals higher price) Good to know: Fiberglass SUPs travel smoothly and quickly.

They are, however, easily dinged or cracked.

PLASTIC Perfect for: Paddlers looking for a more affordable option Length: 9.5 to 12.5 feet Weight: 50 pounds Price Tag: $250 to $600 Good to know: Plastic SUPs are very durable and have onboard storage. They can be customized (unlike fiberglass models) by adding fishing rod holders or seats with backrests.

INFLATABLE Perfect for: Beginners, travelers, paddlers with limited storage Length: 9.5 to 12.5 feet Weight: 17 to 22 pounds Price Tag: $200 and up Good to know: Depending on the manufacturer’s quality, inflatables are just as rigid as other boards and are extremely stable. When deflated, they roll to the size of a sleeping bag.

“THE STAND-UP PADDLEBOARD IS A GREAT ALTERNATIVE FOR THOSE OF US WHO ARE TOO TALL FOR A KAYAK. I ALSO FAVOR IT BECAUSE IT PROVIDES A MUCH BETTER VIEW OF THE WATER BELOW.” – Buddy Oldshue

ISLE SURF & SUP EXPLORER INFLATABLE PADDLEBOARD

BIC SPORT 10’6” PERFORMER TOUGH PADDLEBOARD

feel paddled out, head to Wolf Bay Lodge for their famous “Cha Cha” dip and a salty margarita to complete your Foley fill.

CHICKASAW CREEK Begin your journey at Williams Brooks Park, a spacious park with a boat launch and pavilion located next to the Highway 43 bridge. With very little boat traffic and several routes to choose from, this is a perfect destination for those who like to stray from the beaten path and explore different inlets and tributaries.

Afterward, enjoy ice cold beers (if you have any left) from your cooler under the shady pavilion at William Brooks Park.

FISH RIVER If you’re more of a pointto-point paddler, take two cars and follow the crisp, cool current of Fish River.

Begin your journey with a leap from the rope swing at Bohemian Park before making your way downstream. Enjoy the winding, tranquil upper stretches of the river for the first half of the trip, with no motorboats anywhere in sight. The current gradually begins to stop, and the

river starts to widen as you journey down the river. If you want to deviate from the main course, there are several smaller intersecting creeks that make for great additional side trips.

Leave your other car at Big Daddy’s Bar and Grill and reward yourself with a bowl of gumbo and a margarita on the riverfront.

SPANISH FORT If you’re a Delta newcomer like myself, there’s no better place to get your feet wet than paying a meager $5 launching fee at Buzbee’s Fish Camp, located just off of the Highway 225 bridge in Spanish Fort. Start your journey by heading east up the wide, quiet waters of Bay Minette Creek, and keep an eye out for several small side channels to explore along the way. On your way back, paddle past the launching point and under the bridge into the calm, marshy waters of the Bay Minette Basin just in time for sunset. Reward yourself for a long day’s worth of paddling with fresh seafood, cold beer and live music on the deck at the Bluegill Restaurant.

DOG RIVER Embark on your journey at the launch next to the River Shack, near the Dog River bridge. (At the time of print, the restaurant is under renovation, but the launch is open.) Head west around the bend as you admire the impressive fleet of boats at the Dog River Marina before making your trek north across the open water. Once you reach the other side, continue paddling as the river narrows and make your way into Perch Creek. The sound of motors begin to fade in the background as you wind around the open creek waters, surrounded by abundant marshland.

The water gradually narrows and straightens with several different routes to choose from.

FOWL RIVER Leave the people behind and head to Memories Fishing Camp, the countyowned launch on Fowl River Road. From the launching area, paddle north and explore these peaceful waters on your own terms. When the river is no longer navigable, turn around and slowly make your way back into civilization. As you head

south from the starting point, the river gradually winds and widens.

When it’s time to call it a day, head over to Pelican Reef Restaurant for their famous garlic crab claws and a glass of wine.

BAYOU LA BATRE Head south to the “Seafood Capital of Alabama” where Forrest and Bubba made their mark, the peaceful little fishing town of Bayou La Batre.

Begin your paddle at the public launching area where the bayou meets Portersville Bay before making your way up the bayou. Shipbuilders with hard hats diligently work while fisherman on massive shrimp boats set out for another day on the job. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to see one of the boats pass under the bayou’s famous vertical lift bridge. If shrimp boats and shipyards aren’t your thing, take a detour from the industrial bayou to Carls Creek, where excellent swimming and a massive rope swing await. At the end of the day, quench your American or Asian hunger cravings with a stop at Von’s Market & Eatery.

LIKE WHAT YOU SEE? SHOP LOCAL. FAIRHOPE BOAT COMPANY (702 N SECTION ST., FAIRHOPE) CARRIES AN ASSORTMENT OF BRANDS AS WELL AS ANY ACCESSORY YOUR PADDLING HEART COULD DESIRE.

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FOOD | BAY TABLES

Cooking on the Coast

PHOTO BY ELIZABETH GELINEAU

text by MAGGIE LACEY

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At a time when being home gives a comforting sense of safety, local kitchens cook up Mobile Bay’s version of comfort food. These classic seafood recipes have fed the area for generations and continue to do so with a fresh approach.

The bounty of the Bay is best served on a breezy porch or shady wharf with your loved ones nearby.

That’s our kind of comfort.

WEST INDIES SALAD SERVES 10 Mobilian Lucy Lott shared her recipe for West Indies salad — perfect for dining outdoors on a hot summer day. It’s a classic Mobile-area recipe that is widely known and always appreciated.

1 medium onion, finely chopped 1 pound fresh jumbo lump crabmeat, picked through for shells 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1/4 cup cider vinegar 1/2 cup cold water 1 head Bibb lettuce leaves 1 sleeve saltine crackers

1. Line the bottom of a serving bowl with half the chopped onion. Add crabmeat, and top with remaining chopped onion. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour oil, vinegar and water one at a time over crab and onion layers. Do not stir. Cover and chill for 2 to 12 hours. Serve cold over Bibb lettuce, alongside crackers or both!

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FOOD | BAY TABLES

PHOTO BY CHAD RILEY

PHOTO BY ELIZABETH GELINEAU

SHRIMP REMOULADE

Nothing beats a big pot of crabs boiled right on the wharf.

If you have enough self-control, pick the meat and save it for decadent crab cakes.

If not, just dig right in.

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PHOTO BY ELIZABETH GELINEAU

PHOTO BY CHAD RILEY

GLUTEN-FREE CRAB CAKES

SHRIMP REMOULADE

SERVES 6

A classic cold, delicious starter and a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, this dish is a favorite menu special at Regina’s Kitchen.

2 pounds medium-sized shrimp, boiled and peeled 1 1/2 cups mayonnaise 3 tablespoons Creole mustard 3 tablespoons hot sauce (Mary Ann and Regina prefer Crystal.)

4 tablespoons capers, drained 1/2 purple onion, minced large handful flat leaf parsley, chopped 3 ribs celery, finely chopped fresh cracked black pepper, to taste Creole seasoning, to taste (Mary Ann and Regina use Tony Chachere’s.)

1. Toss all ingredients together until well combined. Refrigerate for about 3 hours before serving.

GLUTEN-FREE CRAB CAKES SERVES 6

Take extra care flipping these cakes in the skillet; gluten-free items are particularly delicate.

1 ear fresh silver queen corn 1 egg, lightly beaten 1 tablespoon sour cream 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon Creole seasoning 1/2 cup almond flour 1/4 cup red onion, finely diced 8 ounces fresh lump crabmeat 1/4 cup fresh chives, chopped 1 tablespoon butter

1. Cut corn from the cob into a mediumsized bowl. Add egg, sour cream, mustard, salt, Creole seasoning, almond flour and red onion. Use a fork to combine. Gently fold in crabmeat and chives.

2. Divide dough into fourths and form into 1/2-inch thick patties. Place on a platter lined with wax paper. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

3. Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Add 1/2 tablespoon of butter and let melt, coating pan. Add the crab cakes and cook 4 to 5 minutes on one side without moving, until the bottoms are browned. Very carefully lift each crab cake with a spatula. Add some of the remaining butter to the pan and lower each cake back into the skillet. Cook another 4 to 5 minutes. Serve immediately. june 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 33

FOOD | BAY TABLES GULF CRAB CAKES

PHOTO BY CHAD RILEY

Countless piers along our shores stand ready for fishing. If you can throw a cast net, a shrimp or mullet feast might be in your future.

PHOTO BY ASHLEY ROWE

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PHOTO BY CHAD RILEY

Local seafood markets do all the work for you! Look for head-on shrimp so you know it’s fresh, with antenna in tact so you know they’ve been handled carefully.

TACKY JACKS SHRIMP AND GRITS

FOOD | BAY TABLES

GULF CRAB CAKES

MAKES 24

Serve this rich and flavorful summertime app while the crab boil simmers.

6 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 1/2 cups each, diced: onions, celery and green bell peppers 1 1/2 cups mayonnaise 3/4 cup sour cream 3 eggs 1 tablespoon Tabasco 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce 3 tablespoons lemon juice 2 tablespoons Creole seasoning 1 tablespoon dry mustard 3/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 1/2 cups chopped scallions 3 pounds lump crabmeat, rinsed and picked clean 5 1/4 cups panko breadcrumbs, divided 3/4 cup olive oil Smoky Remoulade Sauce (see below)

1. Heat sauté pan over medium heat.

Add butter. Cook onions, celery and peppers until tender.

2. In large bowl, combine next 10 ingredients. Add vegetable mixture.

3. Gently fold in crabmeat and 3/4 cup breadcrumbs to mixture. Stir gently, careful not to break up crabmeat. Portion into 2 1/2-ounce patties and dredge in remaining breadcrumbs.

4. Heat nonstick sauté pan over medium heat. Add 3 tablespoons olive oil and 6 crab cakes.

5. Cook on both sides until golden brown. Leave cooked crab cakes in warm oven. Repeat process. Serve with Smoky Remoulade Sauce.

Smoky Remoulade Sauce 2 1/4 cups mayonnaise 3/4 cup ketchup 1 tablespoon Tabasco 2 tablespoons lemon juice 2 tablespoons smoked paprika 1 tablespoon minced garlic 2 tablespoons Creole seasoning 2 tablespoons horseradish 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce 6 tablespoons minced cornichons

1. Combine all ingredients, mix thoroughly. Store in refrigerator.

TACKY JACKS SHRIMP AND GRITS

BATTLES WHARF TROUT AMANDINE

SERVES 10 9 tablespoons butter, melted 3 1/2 pounds (70 - 90) raw shrimp, peeled 2 tablespoons lemon pepper seasoning Cheese Grits (see below) 1/2 cup chopped green onion

1. Heat butter in sauté pan until melted. Add shrimp and sauté over medium heat. Add lemon pepper and cook for about 6 minutes, until shrimp are pink.

2. Immediately ladle over warm Cheese Grits. Garnish with chopped green onions on top.

Cheese Grits 9 cups water 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1/4 cup Crystal Hot Sauce 1/4 teaspoon chicken base 1 cup butter 1/4 teaspoon minced garlic 1 pound quick grits 4 cups shredded cheddarJack cheese blend

1. Add water to large, heavybottomed pot over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Add salt, hot sauce, chicken base, butter and garlic to boiling water. Stir well.

2. Stir in grits slowly, continuing to whisk until all grits are incorporated. Decrease the heat to low and cover.

3. Remove lid and whisk frequently, every couple of minutes, to prevent grits from sticking or forming lumps. Cook for 5 - 7 minutes or until mixture becomes creamy.

4. Remove from heat and gradually whisk in the cheese a little at a time.

BATTLES WHARF TROUT AMANDINE SERVES 6

“Mr. B,” William Bullock Inge Jr., always loved to fish for anything, but perhaps his favorite catch was speckled trout.

This recipe is his hedonistic version of trout amandine that his wife, “Miss” Ippy Inge, prepared for him often.

2 eggs 1/2 cup milk 6 trout fillets 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup melted butter, divided 1 1/2 inches of vegetable oil for frying 2 lemons, cut into halves 1/2 - 1 cup sliced almonds, toasted 1/3 cup minced parsley

1. Preheat the oven to warm.

2. In a large bowl, beat the eggs with a fork until fluffy. Add the milk and beat well. Place the fish in the egg mixture. Let soak for a few minutes.

3. Mix the flour and salt together on a sheet of waxed paper. Remove the fish from the egg mixture, one at a time, and dredge in the flour mixture. Shake off the excess flour.

4. Dredge in the flour again, making sure the fillets are well coated and the excess is shaken off.

Place floured fillets on a sheet of waxed paper.

5. Heat 6 small serving platters in the oven. Pour a small amount of melted butter onto each platter and keep warm. Reserve remaining butter.

6. Heat 1 1/2-inches of vegetable oil in a cast-iron skillet. Add 2 - 3 fillets at a time to the skillet.

Do not overcrowd. Fry until the fillets are golden brown.

7. Place the fried fillets on warm buttered platters. Squeeze the lemons over the fillets. Sprinkle with toasted almonds. Drizzle with the remaining melted butter and sprinkle with parsley.

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SHRIMPIN’ THE BAYOU

THE STORY OF BAYOU LA BATRE IS ONE OF WIND, RAIN, OIL AND SHRIMP. text by EMILY BLEJWAS

Excerpt from the book “The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods”

I

n August 2010, two months after tar balls from the oysters and clams. By the early twentieth century, following BP oil spill washed ashore in Bayou La Batre, Alaa major hurricane in 1906, Bayou La Batre was known as a bama, I visited the Boat People SOS office in town, small fishing village on the tenuous Alabama coastline, with unsurprisingly abuzz with activity. I soon sat with an identity entirely separate from the city of Mobile. four Vietnamese American seafood processors and Vinh Beginning in 1915, shrimp canneries opened in Bayou Tran, a Bayou La Batre native who translated for us. All La Batre, making it the center of Alabama’s seafood industry. four of the processors had worked in the seafood industry By 1923, Bayou La Batre boasted five canneries and twenty since their arrival in Bayou La Batre at least twenty years seafood dealers. “Some three hundred families make a living prior. They had been out of work since the oil spill nearly working in shrimp in the dreamy, drifting town of Bayou la four months earlier and had received checks from BP, but Batre,” wrote a WPA worker in 1939. these provided a bare minimum of assistance.

In the 1950s, shrimp became commonplace in cookWith no other job skills and no English language skills, books and restaurants across the nation. Shrimp production their opportunities for other work were extremely limited. increased 60 percent in Alabama in 1950 and reached an Yet they had no thought of leaving Bayou La all-time high in 1952. Bayou La Batre had reBatre. Their families were there, their complaced all of its canneries with freezing plants “...EARLY IN THE munities, their homes, and hopefully someby 1965.

MORNING, THERE day soon, their jobs. So there was nothing However, the same freezing technology to do but wait until they could work again, that created the modern shrimp industry in IS A PEACE, A QUIET though they had received no indication of America also paved the way for foreign imIN THE MARSHES when that would be. “Everything is a wait,” ports. By 1960, shrimp from forty nations THAT CANNOT BE one woman explained. “We sit and wait for flooded inland markets, and because it entered DISTURBED EVEN the shops to call us back. It is suffocating.” the United States untaxed and below market

BY THE ROARING OF In Bayou La Batre, from Native Amerivalue, foreign shrimp slashed the demand and THE ENGINES OF cans to French settlers to today, residents have the price for Gulf Coast shrimp. Desperate THE BOATS.... ” always drawn sustenance from the sea. In the to keep up, many Gulf Coast shrimpers purshallow waters of the sound and farther into chased larger boats to get farther into the Gulf, — Julian Rayford, Whistlin’Woman and Crowin’Hen:TheTrue Legthe Gulf, they shrimped, fished, and gathered substantially increasing their personal debt. end of Dauphin Island and the Alabama Coast

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St. Margaret’s Catholic Church instituted the Blessing of the Fleet in Bayou La Batre in 1949 at the urging of parishioner Clarence Mallet, who believed God’s blessings are essential to a good harvest from the sea. PHOTO BY ELIZABETH GELINEAU june 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 37

At the same time, the cost of fuel skyrocketed along with operating expenses and loan interest rates. The year 1974 was a solemn one for Bayou La Batre shrimpers. Several processors went out of business, and sixty to seventy boats out of the fleet of three hundred were sold. Ironically, shrimp were abundant that year, but it didn’t pay to catch them because diesel was expensive and prices were low. Beginning in 1975, shrimp farming took off, adding more pressure to Gulf Coast shrimpers.

In the late 1970s, an influx of Southeast Asian refugees, including Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians, settled in the Gulf Coast after fleeing war and genocide in their homelands.

Gulf Coast geography, weather, and landscape resembled the tropical wetlands of Southeast Asia, and many of the refugees arrived with highly developed fishing skills, “usually the product of several generations of experience at sea.” Bayou La Batre saw its first wave of immigrants in 1979. Within five years, Southeast Asians made up one-third of the town’s population.

Most took jobs in the seafood industry, first as processors, and later as fishermen and shrimpers. Vietnamese immigrants began buying shrimp boats in 1982, and after five years, had amassed a fleet of sixty boats. In 1984, a Vietnamese processing plant opened.

Local reaction to the newcomers was mixed. Some local shrimpers resented Southeast Asian shrimpers who increased competition over a limited resource in a difficult market. Language barriers caused clashes over the rules of the sea. On the whole, however, the immigrants were regarded as diligent and tireless workers in a town that had always prided itself on hard work.

Southeast Asian immigrants also infused local communi-

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ties with a new cultural element. They opened Asian markets, restaurants, and shops that now pepper the Alabama coastline around Bayou La Batre. This cultural exposure helped to desegregate seafood processing work in Bayou La Batre. New job opportunities opened for African Americans, who were traditionally marginalized in lower paying work.

But although Southeast Asian immigrants carved out homes and livelihoods along the Gulf Coast, shrimping was never an easy profession. From 1980 to 2007, American annual consumption of shrimp jumped from 1.4 pounds/person to 4.1 pounds, largely due to the increasing popularity of seafood restaurant chains. But foreign imports, governmental shrimping regulations, high gas prices, insurance costs, and interest rates continued to shrink profit margins for Gulf Coast shrimpers.

In December 2003, the Eat Alabama Wild Shrimp Committee formed to support Gulf Coast shrimpers who found themselves battling “the worst economic slump in the industry’s history” due to an influx of inexpensive foreign imports that had dropped the price of domestic shrimp to lows not seen in thirty years. But before the committee’s work could begin in earnest, came Hurricane Katrina.

On August 29, 2005, Bayou La Batre found itself at the eastern edge of Hurricane Katrina’s path. The storm surge, the worst on record in American history, swelled to nearly twenty feet and flooded the town. As Mayor Stan Wright put it, “what Bayou La Batre experienced from Hurricane Katrina was pure hell.”

Eight hundred homes were flooded beyond repair, only 8 percent of which were covered by flood insurance. More than 2,000 of the town’s 2,300 residents were forced from their

homes, at least temporarily. A total of 200 of Bayou La Batre’s 300 shrimp boats were destroyed, dozens of which lay eerily stranded in trees along the coast. Virtually all of the waterfront businesses were in ruins.

Yet, despite the wreckage, most Bayou La Batre families stayed to rebuild. As Mayor Wright says, “it seems like these people here are special, they can take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. They’re tough folks.”

It was a difficult road back, with boats, traps, fishing equipment, houses, stores, and offices destroyed. Two months after the storm, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had refused to remove twenty-nine of the thirty-two moored shrimp boats and had delivered fewer than half of the trailers promised to stranded Bayou La Batre residents. Many simply returned to their storm damaged homes.

The stranded shrimp boats were ultimately recovered in September 2006 through funds raised by former US presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush. Yet, those who returned to shrimping found the industry tougher than ever. The cost of fuel was still high, the price for shrimp still low, and the hurricanes kept coming. The year 2008 brought Hurricanes Gustav and Ike and gas prices higher than four dollars per gallon.

Shrimp production fell to its lowest level since 1975. In 2009, domestic shrimpers struggled to bring in 250 million pounds of shrimp while foreign imports surpassed 1.2 billion pounds.

Further, a nationwide recession reduced domestic demand for shrimp. But incredibly, there was more to come.

On April 20, 2010, a British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, one hundred miles from Bayou La Batre. The spill quickly became one of the worst ecological disasters in American history.

On May 2, 2010, less than two weeks after the oil spill, Bayou La Batre citizens gathered for the town’s annual Blessing of the Fleet, a centuries-old tradition originating in southern European fishing communities. I slipped in for the final minutes of mass.

The church was cool, bright, and crisp with the scent of incense, a blunt contrast to the groggy rural summer festival outside: the food aromas, spurts of music from the stage, and the train fashioned from a tractor with plywood cars that children ride for a dollar. “Even in this time of anxiety,” the archbishop announced, “we give thanks.”

Outside, the festivities stretched from the Vietnamese food booth behind the church to the boats decorated and moored at the docks. When the moment arrived for the Blessing of the Fleet, the archbishop of Mobile, Thomas Rodi, and the Vietnamese American priest of St. Margaret’s, Rev. Bieu Nguyen, stood together at the podium of a raised platform in front of the water and festooned boats. Archbishop Rodi called to mind the biblical seas teeming with life and asked God to bless these boats, their equipment, and all who used it. He asked God to fill the nets of his disciples, to give them an abundant catch.

And he addressed the palpable anxiety over the oil, which

had not yet reached Alabama’s shore. No one knew whether it would, or what to expect if it did.

About a month after the Blessing of the Fleet, on June 6, the oil reached Bayou La Batre, with tar balls washing ashore. A federal moratorium on shrimping and fishing came just before the start of the 2010 shrimping season. At the start of the oil spill, thousands of Gulf Coast shrimpers and fisherman struggled to get reimbursed for lost wages. Because they were usually paid in cash under the table, most did not have the documentation required to make claims against BP for lost wages. BP responded by accepting affidavits from boat captains in lieu of tax returns and W2 forms to evidence a fisherman’s income.

But because these affidavits would have been signed admissions of tax evasion, most boat captains did not provide them.

The oil spill was particularly devastating for coastal Southeast Asian American communities, 80 percent of whom worked in the seafood industry, including many whole families. The lack of English language skills prevented many fishermen from navigating BP forms, resources, and customer service lines.

Claims forms and posters initially appeared in English only.

The whole claims system was online, and many fishermen lacked internet access. Fishing area closings were announced on English-speaking radio stations, costing Southeast Asian American fishermen citations from the coast guard.

At the time of the spill, Southeast Asian Americans operated at least one-third of the fishing boats on the Gulf Coast, and Vietnamese Americans owned roughly half of those. The first Vietnamese American translators BP hired for safety and cleanup training spoke with a North Vietnamese dialect and used Communist terminology to address Vietnamese American shrimpers who had fled the North Vietnamese Communist regime thirty years earlier. These translators were replaced, but a general shortage of translators persisted.

Some Southeast Asian American fishermen and shrimpers did receive the standard BP checks providing $5,000 for boat owners and $2,500 for deckhands. For families falling behind on home and boat mortgages, however, these payments offered little comfort. Others worked for the Vessels of Opportunity program, which chartered local boats and paid fishermen for oil spill cleanup. Yet, this work was only temporary and only a small fraction of those who enrolled were activated.

Even so, the people in the Boat People SOS office did not wear a posture of defeat. They greeted and talked with each other, played with the babies, smiled at me. Upon leaving, I drove to the Vietnamese Buddhist temple, located down a nondescript red dirt road. In the depth of summer, the figure of Buddha shined a stark white against green pines and blue sky. MB Opposite, left A statue of Jesus stands on the lawn of St. Margaret Catholic Church overlooking the harbour. “The Lord be with you at home and on the water,” reads a portion of the annual Blessing of the Fleet. PHOTO BY ELIZABETH GELINEAU.

Opposite, right Local shrimp, as shown here, has been a mainstay throughout Bayou La Batre’s history. PHOTO BY MATTHEW COUGHLIN

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Whether picked at a roadside stand or in your garden, summer vegetables are demanding their moment to shine. text by MAGGIE LACEY photos by ELIZABETH GELINEAU Local pottery this page by Chuck Solberg

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A

long the side of the highway in communities from Wilmer to Elberta, roadside stands have popped up in recent weeks offering the promise of fresh, locally grown produce. Handpainted signs tease the first silver queen corn while mountains of okra pile up next to crookneck squash and Japanese eggplant. Before long, watermelons will be swimming in a horse trough of ice water in the parking lot, calling your name as you drive by. Shoppers can enjoy the social distancing advantage that open air markets afford, and let’s not forget that spending your dollars with local farmers and business owners always feels good, too.

On the other hand, those who planted a “Corona Garden” are now harvesting baskets of zucchini so plentiful that no chocolate zucchini bread recipe could ever use up. What seemed like a good way to spend quarantine at home has now consumed more than just free time, and first-time gardeners may be up to their ears in cherry tomatoes. Nothing is sweeter than summertime fruits and vegetables still warm from the lower Alabama sunshine, and now is the perfect time to try out a fresh new recipe for the tried and true local offerings.

Grilled Squash Ribbons and Prosciutto with Mint Dressing SERVES 4

Adapted from a recipe in Food and Wine Magazine 1 teaspoon lime zest, finely grated 1/4 cup fresh lime juice 1/4 cup mint, chopped 2 garlic cloves, very finely chopped 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for brushing salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste 2 medium zucchini, sliced thinly, lengthwise on a mandolin 2 medium yellow squash, sliced thinly, lengthwise on a mandolin 6 ounces prosciutto, thinly sliced bamboo skewers, soaked in water

1. Heat a grill. In a small bowl, combine lime zest and juice with mint, garlic and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

2. Skewer zucchini, squash and prosciutto in alternating ribbons until each skewer is full. Lightly brush with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

3. Grill the skewers over high heat until the edges of the vegetables are lightly charred, about 1 1/2 minutes per side. Remove to a platter and drizzle with the mint dressing. Serve immediately.

Roasted Ratatouille SERVES 4 3 3 2 6

cups eggplant, cubed cloves garlic, minced cups cherry tomatoes, halved ounces roasted red peppers, cut into 1/4-inch strips 6 sprigs fresh thyme, plus more for garnish 2 tablespoons capers, drained 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste toasted rustic bread, for serving

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees with a large ovenproof skillet on the center rack. Meanwhile, add all ingredients to a large bowl and toss to coat.

2. Remove skillet from oven and add vegetables. Roast, stirring twice, for 15 minutes or until eggplants are soft and tomatoes have burst. Sprinkle with fresh thyme leaves and serve with slices of bread.

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COOK’S NOTE Normally a side dish, we think this would make a great family-style appetizer when pulled right from the oven.

Ser ve with toasted rustic bread and allow family to tear and dip right into the ratatouille.

COOK’S NOTE There’s no need to cook thinly sliced squash and zucchini — just give the produce a little char around the edges and some smoke flavor from the grill.

GRILLED SQUASH RIBBONS AND PROSCIUTTO WITH MINT DRESSING Local pottery by Susie Bowman

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CORN ON THE COB WITH BASIL BUTTER recipe page 46 Local pottery by Chuck Solberg

TOMATO GALETTE

ROASTED RATATOUILLE recipe page 42

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Tomato Galette SERVES 6

Avoid a soggy bottom on this rustic pie by making sure to drain the tomato slices well before assembling.

1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, diced 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/3 cup shredded Parmesan cheese 5 tablespoons ice water 1 1/2 pounds heirloom tomatoes, sliced 1/4-inch thick 1 1/2 cups finely grated firm cheese, such as cheddar or Gouda 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced 1 large egg, beaten flaky sea salt, to taste freshly ground black pepper, to taste 1 tablespoon chives, finely chopped 1 tablespoon basil leaves, finely chopped

1. Add butter, flour and Parmesan to a large bowl and quickly mix with a pastry mixer until well combined. Add ice water 1 tablespoon at a time and use a fork to incorporate it into the flour.

Add enough water until a shaggy dough forms. Use your hands to finish pulling the dough together and form into a disk.

Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour or overnight.

2. Meanwhile, arrange tomatoes on a double layer of paper towels. Sprinkle with salt and allow to sit for 20 minutes until a good bit of moisture has been released.

3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Unwrap dough and roll out on a lightly floured sheet of parchment paper to a 14-inch circle. Transfer parchment to a baking sheet. Scatter cheese over dough, leaving a 1 1/2-inch border. Pat tomatoes dry and arrange tomatoes over cheese. Sprinkle with garlic slices. Bring edges of dough up and over filling, overlapping as needed to create about a 1 1/2-inch border. Brush dough with egg wash.

Sprinkle tomatoes with salt and pepper.

Chill in freezer 10 minutes.

4. Bake galette, rotating once, until crust is golden brown and cooked through, about 45 minutes. Let cool slightly on baking sheet. Sprinkle with chives and basil and serve hot or room temperature.

Local pottery by Bob Haskins

Local pottery by Susie Bowman

Oven-Roasted Okra COOK’S NOTES Galette dough can be made two days ahead and kept in refrigerator.

QUICK TRICK Trace a 14-inch circle on the back of your parchment with a pencil, then flip the paper when you are ready to roll out the dough, following the circle as a guide. While galettes are meant to be rustic, this helps the tart have a more uniform shape.

SUBSTITUTIONS Although the recipe calls for firm cheese like cheddar or Gouda, any kind of cheese works.

With home cooks making less-frequent grocery store runs and store shelves often bare, we just used up what was in the fridge: slices of Colby left over from sandwiches, shredded Mexican cheese from quesadillas and manchego from a charcuterie board. High and low, it all tastes like summer tomato perfection.

SERVES 4

Crispy oven-roasted okra is healthier and far less messy than fried okra, while tasting every bit as good. Prepare more than you think you’ll need — the okra cooks down to nothing.

6 cups okra, sliced 1/4 cup olive oil kosher salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Place okra on a rimmed baking sheet and top with olive oil, salt and pepper. Stir to coat, then spread out in an even layer.

2. Roast for 35 minutes, stirring once or twice during cooking, until the okra is charred and crispy. Serve immediately.

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Corn and Zucchini Orzo SERVES 6

This pasta salad makes a great vegetarian lunch, or pair with oven-roasted salmon for a perfect hot-weather dinner. It would also be wonderful topped with grilled shrimp!

3 ears corn, shucked 1 large zucchini, quartered lengthwise, or several smaller zucchini, halved lengthwise 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided kosher salt, to taste pepper, to taste 1/2 pound orzo 1/4 cup tahini 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice 1/2 teaspoon chili powder 1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped cilantro, divided 1 tablespoon red onion, thinly sliced 2 ounces feta, crumbled

Local pottery by Chuck Solberg

Corn on the Cob with Basil Butter SERVES 6 1 stick unsalted butter, softened 1 cup lightly packed basil leaves 1 garlic clove, finely chopped kosher salt, to taste 6 ears local white corn, husked flaky sea salt grated Parmesan, for serving lemon wedges, for serving

COOK’S NOTE The basil butter can be refrigerated overnight. Bring to room temperature before using.

THERE’S MORE 1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

Meanwhile, combine the butter, basil and garlic in a food processor until slightly whipped, scraping down the bowl as needed. Add salt to taste and let food processor combine one more time before removing butter to a small bowl. Set aside.

2. Place corn in the boiling water and cook for 5 minutes. Use tongs to remove corn and set aside on a platter to cool until it can be handled.

3. Generously slather the basil butter over the corn and sprinkle with sea salt and a little Parmesan cheese. Serve with lemon wedges.

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Extra basil butter makes a quick and easy pasta dressing and is fabulous spread on fresh baked bread.

1. Light the grill. Place corn and zucchini pieces on a large plate and brush with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Grill over medium heat until charred, about 10 minutes.

Transfer to a cutting board and let cool. Remove the kernels from the corncobs and chop the zucchini. Transfer to a large bowl.

2. Boil the orzo in salted water until it is al dente, according to package instructions. Drain and rinse under cold running water.

Remove to a tray lined with paper towels to dry completely.

3. In a large bowl, whisk the remaining 3 tablespoons of olive oil with the tahini, lime juice, chili powder and 1/2 cup of the cilantro. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Add the orzo, corn, zucchini, red onion and the remaining chopped cilantro and mix well. Transfer to a platter and top with crumbled feta, for serving.

COOK’S NOTE Think of this recipe as your roadmap to dinnertime success, regardless of what’s in your pantry. The orzo can be replaced with quinoa, rice or other pasta. The corn and veggies can be swapped for eggplant, avocado or cherry tomatoes.

Use goat cheese instead of feta, basil instead of cilantro.

You get the idea!

Local pottery by Susie Bowman

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BOATY KNOWS IT If you want to outlive Boaty Campbell — fireman, fisherman, homebuilder and storyteller — you’d better get busy.

text by BRECK PAPPAS • photos by MATTHEW COUGHLIN

B

oaty Campbell says he’s no good over the phone. Thirty years on a fire engine without a lick of hearing protection made sure of that. “When I take these hearing aids out,” he adds, “I can’t even hear it thunder.”

He says he’s gotten to where he can read his wife Jolee’s lips pretty well and figures he could read mine, too. He invites me over for a visit on his screened-in porch in Point Clear. “It’d be better if we could look at each other,” he concludes.

Or maybe he thinks it’d be better if I could look at him. Boaty’s a master storyteller, and he knows it. He knows that’s why I’m calling. And I know that interviewing Boaty over the phone is like asking a prize fighter to enter the ring with one arm tied behind his back. He’d still land some punches, but it’d be tough to score a knockout.

“Boaty’s a nickname,” he drawls over the phone, explaining his knack as a “little feller” for making a vessel out of anything that could float.

It should come as no surprise then that that little feller grew up to pilot the Ramona Doyle, Mobile’s

65-foot fireboat. Stationed on the Mobile River, where the cruise terminal sits today, Boaty and his crew either flew to the boat or the fire engine, depending on the nature of the call that came in.

He estimates the station was averaging 180 runs a month when he retired 18 years ago.

“Business was good. I don’t think I missed a disaster. It got so bad the last few years I was there, people would say, ‘Yeah, I’d love to go on that fireboat, but I don’t wanna go on Boaty Campbell’s ship.’” Jolee used to tell him that God needed somebody to straighten things out, so He sent him. “Damn,” Boaty would say. “I wish he didn’t have so much faith in me.”

I’ve been told that Boaty’s sick. Cancer. But before our phone call, I didn’t know much more than that.

He tells me it was 11 years ago this month that he got his lung cancer diagnosis. Six years since the news about his liver — a cancer with no relation to the one in his lung. Two surgeries later, they’d removed a third of his liver. Or as Boaty puts it, “They cut me open like a catfish.” Six months later, the cancer was back.

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“They got me on a new stem cell inhibitor now,” he says. “Hope and pray it works. They keep me pretty much quarantined. Won’t even let me go to the post office. Why don’t you come see me? I ain’t scared.

We’ve got a big screened-in porch, and there’s always a breeze here.”

He promises to tell me about the best dog he’s ever had, the story of Bubba and the chicken trap, and all the doctors who have told him just to go home and die peacefully. Boaty won’t have any of that. “I ain’t scared to die,” he says. “But I kinda like living, too.”

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Old Dog, New Tricks I find a 68-year-old Boaty at the end of a gravel driveway in Point Clear that bears his great-grandmother’s name. He wears a white fishing shirt, a gray mustache and a knowing smile. “I’ll be Boaty,” he says.

He walks us around to the Bay-side of the house where three baby bluebirds, just this morning, have fallen from the birdhouse Boaty built for them. They stand awkwardly in the grass as Boaty explains that he built the human house, too — completed it in 59 days in 2004. Until that point, he had spent his entire life across Mobile Bay, on the western shore, but Mobile County needed to build a drainage pipe, and Boaty’s house was in the way. With no intention of leaving the Bay, he bought this property from his father’s second wife. His ancestors staked their claim to this spot in 1840, but a surveyor once estimated that the oak tree between the porch and the Bay probably had them beat by at least 50 years.

“So what are you looking for?” he asks, settling into his fire-engine-red rocking chair, worn at the arm rests. Stories, I tell him. “Well, I’ve got some of those.”

Boaty reckons it was the nuns at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School that’ve kept him out of prison all these years.

“The only reason I didn’t break the law was because I was scared one of them might quit and become a prison warden,” he says.

He’s gone to church his whole life, but he has fun with religion. It comes up a lot in his stories. He remembers the “piece of junk” five horsepower outboard he tinkered with as a kid. Remembers how, after venturing too far in his 12-foot boat, his dad punished him by selling the outboard for 50 bucks.

Remembers seeing that outboard two weeks later, with some poor old fella yanking on its rope.

“I hollered at him, ‘Hey, Mister!’ I said, ‘That motor ain’t gonna crank unless you cuss it.’

“He said, ‘What’s that?’ “‘I’m telling you, that motor ain’t gonna crank unless you cuss it. It used to belong to me, and my daddy sold it.’

“He got all indignant, poked his chest out. He said, ‘Son, I don’t curse. I’m a man of God. I’m a retired minister. I don’t even know any curse words, and if I ever knew

any, I forgot them all a long time ago.’

“I said, ‘Well, you just keep pulling on that rope. They’ll all come back to you.’”

Jolee likes to say there’s “an element of truth” to every one of Boaty’s stories, and I start to see what she means. While reliving a scuffle in a DIP bowling alley, Boaty taps the middle of his forehead. “An 8-ball hit me right there,” he says. Granted, I’ve never taken a billiard ball to the forehead, but it’s hard to believe that someone would take the time to note exactly which ball it was that collided with their skull. But there’s no denying one thing — that detail, however slight, does make for a better story. And Boaty knows it.

He shifts in his chair. “They took three liters of fluid off of me this morning,” he says, a result of his liver not working properly. “Never had that before.”

One thing about all this cancer business, he says, is that it has a way of making your moods swing. “One day you’re thinking about living, the next day you’re thinking about dying.” But Boaty’s looked death in the face a few times, aside from the cancer.

There was that white-knuckled night on the fireboat during Hurricane Frederic. There was the day in 1977 when his fire engine collided with a moving train, sending him soaring through the air (“I remember thinking, This must be what Superman felt like.”) He reckons he’s used up about eight of his nine lives. That thought brings him to cats.

“You like cats?” he asks. I shrug.

“I hate cats. Best dog I ever had was A-Bear. Named him that because he looked like a little bear. He was solid black. Just a little ball of fur. I mean, black mouth, black gums, black fur — shoe polish would’ve made a white mark on him. We had him for 18 years. I guess probably in a 4-year period, we had us a total feline cleansing on Hollinger’s Island. You know how a cat’ll bow up on a dog? You didn’t bow up on A-Bear. He’d just hit ya — just like a bowling ball.

“There was one cat left down there on that beach that I know of. Belonged to an old widow about three or four houses down.

She had one of them big, white, fluffy Persian cats. That cat weighed 20 pounds.

Anyway, I come home from the station one morning, about eight o’clock, and there on the porch was the dog. And there on that top step was that cat. He was clawhammer dead. Oh my God, I thought. She’s gonna put out a contract on my dog. I looked, and I seen her car was gone. She drove a little Plymouth Valiant. I said, well, it’s Thursday.

The old bitty’s gone to the beauty parlor.

“So I come back up on the porch, and I looked at the cat. He wasn’t all mauled, he was just dirty, you know? I picked him up and took him inside. Laid my newspaper out on the bar, and I went to cleaning him up. I got all the dirt off of him. I even got Jolee’s hairdryer. I fluffed him all up. I had him looking fine. I broke run down the beach with him and put him back in that rocking chair and laid him down where I’d seen him a hundred times. And I went on back to the house. I guess it was two or three hours later, I was out on the wharf, fiddling with my soft crabs. And I heard the old woman screaming down there. I’m gonna be a good neighbor and go help her, you know.

“I came in off the wharf, and when I got to her, she’d backed off out in the yard. I run up behind her and she had her hair all piled up on her head in a bun. ‘Ms. Bertolina, what’s wrong?’

“JOLEE USED TO TELL ME THAT GOD NEEDED SOMEBODY TO STRAIGHTEN THINGS OUT, SO HE SENT ME. ‘DAMN,’ I WOULD TELL HER, ‘I WISH HE DIDN’T HAVE SO MUCH FAITH IN ME.’” – Boaty Campbell

Opposite page, top to bottom Boaty supplemented his firefighter income with commercial fishing for most of his life, pulling Boaty-built crab traps into a Boaty-built vessel. Boaty surveys the Bay at the helm of his boat, 1988. When asked by Joanna how he managed to put her through college without burdening her with any debt, Boaty replied, “One crab at a time.” Captain Boaty takes a rare break from crabbing to admire Middle Bay Lighthouse in 1988. “One year in August, I lost 15 pounds,” he says of how hard he was working. “Didn’t stop to eat — you couldn’t!”

Above “I still build wooden boats,” Boaty says, pointing out this vessel at the end of his wharf. “If I’m gonna fish Zundel’s Wharf or around the Grand Hotel, it’s fine for that.”

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“WELL, I KNOW A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO ARE GOING TO LIVE LONGER THAN ME, BUT I DON’T KNOW ANYBODY WHO’S OUTLIVED ME.”

years after that, and I went to the wake.

They had her in that casket. I walked up and I told Jolee, ‘I should have told her how the cat got back in that chair.’ She said, ‘Well, she knows now.’”

I later ask Boaty how to spell “A-Bear,” for the article’s sake. He doesn’t miss a beat.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m not sure that I ever wrote him a letter.”

– Boaty Campbell

In the Alligator’s Mouth “‘My God, my cat.’ That’s all she could say. I walked behind that chair, and I shook that rocking chair, and of course that cat didn’t move. If he’d a moved, I woulda left that porch. Then I said, ‘Ms. Bertolina, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think your cat’s dead.’

“She said, ‘My God, I know he’s dead. I buried him yesterday.’” Boaty sneaks a peek to gauge my reaction.

“Well now you go ahead and laugh some,” he tells me. “I couldn’t laugh. I just looked at her like she was crazy. If I had opened my mouth, I would have laughed, and it wasn’t no time to laugh. I just went off the end of the porch — I didn’t even come down the steps. I got over into the next yard, I fell down on the ground laughing. I think she thought I was having a seizure or something. I went and let the dog out, the dog was laughing, you know.

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Boaty knew he was in trouble the moment he laid eyes on Jolee. He was 20 — catching fish and killing time before heading to Auburn in the fall — when he backed his 1956 Chevrolet to the door of Hayes Seafood on the Mobile River.

“I got out barefoot, let that tailgate down and she come out to help me unload,” he remembers. Jolee was working that summer for her aunt. “If you don’t believe in love at first sight, you can’t come talk to me. I was smitten.”

Boaty got to looking at his two older brothers. Both were Mobile firemen, working 24 hours on, 48 hours off. Suddenly, their jobs didn’t look so bad. He decided to take the fire department entrance exam.

“The department offered me the job, and I didn’t want to leave her. And so on October 1, 1972, I become a firefighter.”

For the first three years of their marriage, Boaty and Jolee called their 30-foot shrimp boat home. “They pay you enough at the fire

station to exist. If you want a living, you got to get out and get it during those two days off.” The young couple began building their future on a foundation of shrimp dragged from the Mississippi Sound. “We’ve always helped each other,” he says.

Later, when Joanna was born and Jolee started teaching, Boaty would return the favor; it wasn’t unusual to see a group of firemen sitting around the station, grading a pile of fifth graders’ tests.

“Jolee once taught 18 4-year-olds,” he says. “I’d rather run into a burning building every day.”

But Boaty’s job was no less colorful. “For lots of days, I felt like Christopher Columbus going to work. It’s going to be a new world.

Somebody was going to do something you’d never even dreamed of. Getting cats out of trees … they sent me one time to get a monkey out of a tree. We put the ladder up, and that monkey just jumped to the next tree.”

Boaty’s son, Alan, is on the fireboat now.

“Little Boaty,” they call him, although he’s got about 50 pounds on his father. “He’s salty,” Boaty says. “They don’t leave the dock without him.”

I remind Boaty that he promised to tell me about Bubba and chicken trap, so he does. I pay close attention this time, listening as he lays the story’s groundwork, sets its trap and springs it shut. His tale-spinning prowess was made official, you know. His daughter Joanna signed him up, against his will, for the Liars Contest at the 2003 Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo. Boaty quickly flipped through his mental rolodex of stories and breezed his way to first place. His memory amazes me, and I tell him as much.

“The problem with remembering the good is you remember the bad also,” he says. “But the happy memories are what’s supposed to keep you here. That’s the way I am with Joanna. It’s almost four years since we lost her. I don’t think it’ll ever get any better, but the good memories come, you know, and make it tolerable. More tolerable.”

Joanna, known as Joanna Campbell Blake, was a Mobile sculptor making good in D.C. She had little bitty hands, Boaty says. A big mane of wavy brown hair. Couldn’t have weighed more than

115 pounds. People were always surprised that she knew how to weld, how to use all the tools she did. Most of that was Boaty’s fault. She’d talk to her daddy about once a week when she was working on the WWII Memorial on the National Mall. Sometimes she’d call with a construction problem, and he’d get out his drawing board, call her back with a suggestion.

“She was a mess,” he says, quietly. “My best friend and my daughter.” She was killed in a motor vehicle accident in Florence, Italy, on her 39th birthday. Joanna’s husband, Ike, and daughter Myra, now 9, visited not too long ago. “We had her on the beach for a month. She didn’t have on a pair of shoes the whole time she was here.”

My third visit with Boaty comes on the heels of some tough news. The tumor on his liver has grown aggressive, and it appears the stem cell inhibitor hasn’t made a difference.

But Boaty’s always said it’s no use worrying about him. “If you see me in an alligator’s mouth, you help the alligator. I’m in there pulling teeth or something.”

As the afternoon darkens, Boaty turns to me. “So, you got enough stories?”

I assure him I do, more than I could ever fit into one article.

“Well, I know a lot of people who are going to live longer than me,” he says, “but I don’t know anybody who’s outlived me. Jolee said she’s going to put on my tombstone, ‘Sadly missed, but he missed nothing.’ And I didn’t.

I was right in the middle of all of it, all the time. Always the first one down the fire pole, first one on the truck.” And after a long night on the fireboat during Hurricane Frederic, he was also among the first to step outside.

“I never will forget. When it broke daylight, it was just as pretty a day as it is now. Wasn’t a cloud in the sky. That’s when I realized I was wet, soaking wet. Didn’t even realize it. Took that old life jacket off, and the biggest swallowtail butterfly I’ve ever seen in my life, I swear he was as big as my hand, just come fluttering by. ‘Where in the hell was you last night?’”

He laughs to himself and looks through the screen towards the Bay. “But I guess that was — maybe that was God’s way of letting me know that everything was all right.” He says he guesses, but Boaty knows it. MB june 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 53

EXTRAS | CALENDAR OF EVENTS

June Brings the Heat!

JUNE 6 CAMELLIA CLASSIC OPEN CAR SHOW 8 a.m. - 3 p.m. Take in hundreds of classic and vintage automobiles.

BELLINGRATH GARDENS AND HOME BELLINGRATH.ORG

KYSER MIREE FISHING TOURNAMENT

JUNE 6

EVERY SATURDAY IN JUNE

JUNE 4 - 14

MARKET IN THE PARK 7:30 a.m. - Noon. Downtown Mobile’s farmers market is back! Check out their new customer guidelines before you go.

“MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS” 7:30 p.m. Th - Sa. 2 p.m. Su. See the Mobile Theater Guild’s production of the musical based on the 1944 Judy Garland film.

CATHEDRAL SQUARE FACEBOOK.COM/MARKETSINMOBILE

MOBILE THEATRE GUILD MOBILETHEATREGUILD.ORG

JUNE 3 4TH ANNUAL BIG RUN 6 p.m. Celebrate National Running Day with a run in our beautiful Downtown area.

SERDA BREWING CO. FLEETFEET.COM/S/MOBILE/EVENTS/THE-BIGRUN-2020

JUNE 5 CRAWFISH COOK-OFF 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. Celebrate the summer with crawfish, sides and beer from Fairhope Brewing Company.

BLACKBURN PARK, BAY MINETTE NORTHBALDWINCHAMBER.COM

KYSER MIREE FISHING TOURNAMENT Noon - 5 p.m. Compete for prizes in various categories at this event benefiting Wilmer Hall.

MOBILE BIG GAME FISHING CLUB KYSERTOURNAMENT.COM

JUNE 8 WORLD OCEANS DAY 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. Learn how to protect our environment through interactive displays and speaker-led topics.

ESTUARIUM AT THE DAUPHIN ISLAND SEA LAB DISL.ORG/EVENTS

JUNE 12 - 14 FLORA-BAMA FISHING RODEO The “funnest” fishing tournament on the Gulf Coast.

FLORA-BAMA MARINA FISHFLORABAMA.COM

JUNE 13 MOB CITY’S STRONGEST MAN III 9:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. Watch contestants compete in various strongman events.

Enjoy live music, beer, food and more.

SERDA BREWING COMPANY MOBILE.ORG/EVENTS

JUNE 3 - JULY 29

JUNE 5 - 21

WONDERFUL WEDNESDAYS AT BELLINGRATH GARDENS AND HOME 10:30 - 11:30 a.m. Wednesday sessions include discussions about home gardening and horticultural techniques.

“SISTER ACT THE MUSICAL” 7:30 p.m. F, Sa. 2 p.m. Su. Sister Act is the feel-good musical comedy smash based on the hit 1992 film that has audiences jumping to their feet.

JUNE 13

BELLINGRATH GARDENS AND HOME BELLINGRATH.ORG

JOE JEFFERSON PLAYHOUSE JOEJEFFERSONPLAYERS.COM

CROWN HALL FIZZIFEST.COM

FIZZI FEST 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Wear your best white and your dancing shoes. Enjoy champagne, cocktails and hors d’oeuvres.

 To have your event included in the online or print edition of Mobile Bay Magazine, email calendar@pmtpublishing.com.

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JUNE 20 LIVING HISTORY CREW DRILL 8 a.m. - 3 p.m. World War II comes to life aboard the BB-60. Reenactors demonstrate wartime life aboard a ship.

USS ALABAMA BATTLESHIP MEMORIAL PARK USSALABAMA.COM

JUNE 24 FOR KING & COUNTRY 7 p.m. Two-time GRAMMY award-winning Australian duo explores themes of new beginnings, forgiveness, hope and love.

MOBILE CIVIC CENTER MOBILECIVICCTR.COM

JUNE 25 - 27 DIGITAL STREAM: DISTINGUISHED YOUNG WOMEN NATIONAL FINALS 7 p.m. Distinguished Young Women will award over $100,000 in cash tuition scholarships during the three-night event.

DIGITAL BROADCAST DISTINGUISHEDYW.ORG

JUNE 27 RAPTOR TREK AND HERP JOURNEY 11 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. Learn about Alabama’s native species of raptors and experience hands-on learning.

BLAKELEY STATE PARK BLAKELEYPARK.COM

JUNE 27 TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND 7 p.m. The American blues and rock group performs with special guests St. Paul and the Broken Bones and Gabe Dixon.

THE WHARF ALWHARF.COM

TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND PHOTO BY SHERVIN LAINEZ

* Check event websites for most current status.

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LUKE BRYAN

[JULY HIGHLIGHTS]

JULY 4 FOURTH OF JULY FIREWORKS 8:45 p.m. Spend the day at the park and then enjoy Foley’s best firework show.

OWA VISITOWA.COM/EXPLORE/EVENTS

JULY 10 LUKE BRYAN 7 p.m. The country superstar, songwriter and American Idol judge comes back to the beach.

THE WHARF ALWHARF.COM

JULY 18 CHRISTMAS IN JULY BOUTIQUE BASH 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. A family-friendly day of shopping, all in support of the girl-empowering Whatever Ministry. Girls’ night out and general admission tickets available.

Santa will be there, too!

THE GROUNDS WHATEVERMINISTRY.COM/CHRISTMAS-IN-JULY

JULY 18 - 19 ABBA SHRINE CRAFT & ATTIC SHOW 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Sa. 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Su. Over 100 vendors displaying and selling arts, crafts, antiques and much more.

ABBA SHRINE AUDITORIUM, HITT ROAD ABBASHRINERS.COM

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HISTORY | ARCHIVES

Once Along the Bay Horse racing, an outdoor movie theater, a roller coaster — and incredible Bay views — are a few things we’re missing. text compiled by DR. ALLEN PERKINS, FR ANK DAUGHERTY and MB STAFF

P

eople arriving in Mobile for the very first time often have one question in common: Where’s the water?

They’ve heard of Mobile’s status as a major port; they’ve seen maps showing the city’s location on rivers and the Bay. Yet the beautiful waterfront views they expect are nowhere in sight. It wasn’t always that way. Up until about the 1950s, the city’s commercial waterfront was freely accessible to the public, and a massively used recreational waterfront existed, as well. All of this is still within living memory; in sultry, pre-air conditioning days, the waterfront, with its cool breezes, was the place to be.

Mobile in the 1840s was a rollicking cotton port, and the Bay played an important role in the recreational life of Mobilians. At

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the foot of Conception Street was a tollbooth leading to a shell road that hugged the shoreline. This area was known as Frascati and is said to have catered to the recreational needs of the city’s upper-crust. Henry Nabring, who owned the famed Battle House hotel in Mobile, started the park in 1866. A carriage rider might stop there for a picnic under the trees. Or, after paying the toll keeper, the carriage could roll along the Bay, passing the home of Captain Monroe, and head towards the artesian springs and the large oaks where Bienville had his house and gardens.

In the 1890s, a country club was started on Bay Shell Road near Frascati. (It later moved to higher ground in Spring Hill along another shell road.) Also on the road was the Arlington Fair

WATERFRONT TIMELINE 1730s

1924

1980s

Bienville builds his “chateau” in area now known as Garrows Bend.

Babe Ruth hits home run in Monroe Park.

Title to Arlington pier passes to city, then to Mobile Airport Authority.

1818 Captain Monroe builds his house in Mobile.

1860s Site for Fort Sidney Johnson, southern defense for the city of Mobile.

1888

1946

Mobile Airport Authority takes possession of city’s Brookley interest.

Late 1980s Mobile banana docks razed to make way for a new convention center.

1995 Mayor Mike Dow proposes Monroe Park as the site for Hank Aaron Stadium.

2002 Committee to restore Monroe Park forms.

2004

1959

2010

Hurricane washes away Bay Shell Road.

Industrial waterfront causeway completed, cutting off access.

Arlington Park is developed and opened by the Alabama State Port Authority.

1916

1969

Hurricane destroys Mobile Yacht Club and many buildings at Monroe Park.

Brookley Field closes; title to Brookley wharf at old Arlington Park passes to City of Mobile.

GulfQuest Maritime Museum opens.

1906

The pier and yacht club at Monroe Park, circa 1900. PHOTO COURTESY

Brookley reaches peak employment.

1980s

Monroe Park no longer listed in the phone book.

First motion picture in Mobile viewed at Monroe Park.

DETROIT PUBLISHING COMPANY.

1940

1942

1897

AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH ALABAMA.

Fort Whiting built on southeast corner of Arlington Fairgrounds.

Hurricane levels Frascati.

Monroe Park founded as a streetcar destination.

A horseless carriage (automobile) on a drive down Bay Shell Road, circa 1905. COURTESY TOM MCGEHEE, THE DOY LEALE MCCALL RARE BOOK

1936

1893

1893

TION, THE DOY LEALE MCCALL RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH ALABAMA.

Baseball stadium moved to Ann and Tennessee streets.

Southeast Army Air Depot construction started (became Brookley Field).

Map shows Frascati, Bay Shell Road.

From top left This undated rendering shows Monroe Park, complete with roller coaster, outdoor theater and pier. ERIK OVERBEY COLLEC-

1926

1923 State Docks authorized.

The Mobile Cruise Terminal opens.

2015

1970s McDuffie coal terminal built.

june 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 59

Grounds. Horse breeding and racing had long been important to the area. Used throughout the year, the fairground’s building also included permanent exhibits and hosted county fairs, as well as racing.

In 1893, a massive storm leveled Frascati, and it wasn’t rebuilt. Instead, a streetcar company constructed Monroe Park on an oakfronted field facing the Bay as a destination to drum up weekend streetcar customers. The park itself was a pay-as-you-go enterprise that catered to the new class of urban workers looking to enjoy their leisure weekends and disposable incomes. A roller coaster, carousel, human oddities and other amusements were all located on the grounds. Bay Shell Road ran between it and the Bay and functioned as a strolling path.

The water was used for bathing and boating, although the lack of sewage treatment rendered it somewhat ripe in the summer.

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In the 1900s, a baseball stadium was built just off Washington Avenue, and in 1913, season attendance reached 100,000. The park was lit electrically at night and was open late on the weekends during the summer. To the left of the ballpark was the Crystal Pool, an amusement built on an artesian spring. The water was more yellow than crystal, but it offered a pleasant place to swim on a hot day. A little further down on the right was Arlington Point.

Designated as the city pier, it was a peninsula created from fill going out a quarter mile into the Bay. A wooden extension took it out even further. Amusements included a movie theater, a rock garden and the Buccaneer Yacht Club clubhouse. It also was well lit and open late on

Clockwise from top left The onceBayfront Mobile Country Club, 1909.

PHOTO COURTESY DETROIT PUBLISHING COMPANY.

The Wonderland theater at Monroe Park, 1895. PHOTO BY E. M. COFFIN, COURTESY EARLE SIGLER.

Benches at Monroe Park’s “Electric City,” where the 10-cent admission promised an “Educational Exhibit for Cultured Brains.” S. MARION COFFIN COLLECTION, THE DOY LEALE MCCALL RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH ALABAMA.

Undated photo of the theatre at Monroe Park. ERIK OVERBEY COLLECTION, THE DOY LEALE MCCALL RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH ALABAMA.

Friday and Saturday nights. Further down the road still were shadier entertainment venues appealing to a more adult audience.

Later, in the 1930s and 1940s, several nightclubs such as The Night Spot lined Bayfront Road. Built out over the water, they featured dancing to big band and nickelodeon music.

Then, step by step, all of the access to the waterfront was lost to industry and the Brookley Field Air Force Base. When the Bankhead and Wallace / I-10 tunnels blocked access to the Alabama State Docks for deep-draft oceangoing ships and the docks began to expand south of the tunnels, the recreational waterfront seemed doomed for good.

Today, there is only a shadow of the former recreational waterfront. Looking out from the porch of an old outbuilding of the Frascati House, to the left you can see the oaks that once lined the waterfront at the tollhouse. The undulation of the land under these oaks might be left over from the country club’s golf course but may well be the remains of Civil War fortifications. The Crystal Pool spring is now piped into a culvert. Fort Whiting stands on the site of the fairgrounds, with the newer “Fairgrounds” on Cody Road not having any association with horses. Arlington Point is fenced in and used by the Coast Guard for buoy storage.

If you look closely enough and squint, you can see how this must have been a neat place to sit and watch people. MB

Dr. Allen Perkins, chair and spokesperson of the Committee to Save Monroe Park, became an advocate for a recreational waterfront when he moved to Mobile thinking it was on the water, but found “if it was, it was a well-kept secret.”

Perkins worked closely with the environmental group Mobile Bay Watch to ensure that a public waterfront facility would be built, along with the ASPA container facility. “People are realizing that just housing and jobs and food are not enough to make a city,” he says. “They’re realizing now that we have to work for a city with greater quality of life.”

Clockwise from top left This 1920 photo shows the proximity of the Bay to Monroe Park’s theater. ERIK OVERBEY COLLECTION, THE DOY LEALE MCCALL RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH ALABAMA.

Monroe Park’s octagon building. S. MARION COFFIN COLLECTION, THE DOY LEALE MCCALL RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH ALABAMA.

Shade trees and Bay views at Monroe Park, circa 1900. PHOTO COURTESY DETROIT PUBLISHING COMPANY.

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THE ARTS | LITERATURE

The Magnolia Tree and Its Gift The slightest scent can take you back — and up. excerpt from the book THEY CALL ME OR ANGE JUICE by AUDREY MCDONALD ATKINS

T

here is a cranny way back in the farthest corner of my brain. In that cranny lives a memory. Buried far beneath the births, deaths, tragedies, joys, holidays, and everydays that have piled on top of it, this little fragment has languished, long undisturbed.

At least, that is, until the other day when, Ka-blap! Just like that, it came rushing back all at once. A deluge of images. Like watching telephone poles race by the car window.

What, you may ask, drew this memory out from its peaceful, dark hidey-hole?

A magnolia — rather the scent of a magnolia.

It was about dusk. Husband and I decided to take a stroll through our neighborhood because that’s what you do on a hot, summer night when you’re too restless to stay inside but not motivated to do much of anything else. You walk.

Slowly. Aimlessly. Feeling the still night air wrap you in its swampy embrace.

When the air is motionless and heavy, the summer scents seem enhanced, heightened, ponderous. And as we passed an ancient magnolia tree, the sweet, lemony tang of its perfume engulfed me and lifted me up to the tippiest of its tiptop branches, and suddenly I could see out over the piney woods of South Alabama. At least in my mind’s eye.

You see, as a child, I was a climber. I’d climb any tree just to see if I could, and I had decided to climb Granny’s magnolia tree. The one way down by the road. The one by the gate. The one I’d never conquered. A relatively low-hanging branch was all I needed. My arms reached for it. One great

heave. Get a knee up! A leg! Push! Push!

And just like that I was on my way up.

Like a ladder, I climbed that old tree. Climbed until the branches were thin and the trunk swayed under my weight. Climbed until I couldn’t climb anymore. So I sat. I sat in the shade of its thick leaves, shiny and velvety. Sat among the blossoms. Sat breathing in the fragrance of its great, white blossoms. I sat for what seemed like a long, long time drinking in the sounds around me, the sights, the smells.

Looking toward Granny’s house, I wondered if it was getting close to lunchtime. Had they called for me? Would I even be able to hear them? Would they hear me if I called out? Would they even miss me if I got stuck in that tree, never to be seen or heard from again, pecked apart by the buzzards that always seemed to circle?

The number one thing a tree-climber learns is that going up is easy. The trick is getting down. And now, for the first time, I wondered if I could.

With hands slick from sweat and grimy from the bark, I slowly made my descent. Don’t look down. Just feel your way. Don’t panic.

One foot. One hand. There’s a good branch. There’s another. Hold on. Breathe. Just fill your lungs with the soothing scent of mother magnolia, and she will gently let you down to earth again.

And that she did, way back then, and the other night when a faint breeze blew the scent and the scene away.

Olfactory memory. That’s what it’s called when a mere smell triggers something deep within you.

A gift. That’s what I call being transported back in time forty years straight to the top of a tree. MB

 Born and raised in Citronelle, Atkins shares stories about growing up and living in the South in her book, “They Call Me Orange Juice,” and at her blog audreyatkinswriter.com.

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HISTORY | ASK MCGEHEE

Is it true that a piece of Oakleigh artwork is displayed at the Palace of Versailles? text by TOM MCGEHEE

The oil portrait of Mobile-born Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont is on exhibit at the museum at Versailles until this month. The canvas had been on display at the Historic Oakleigh House Museum since 1965, when it was bequeathed to the Historic Mobile Preservation Society by Alva’s daughter, Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan. Balsan stated that she wanted Mobile to have something of her mother’s since she grew up hearing stories of Alabama’s port city.

The Smiths Alva Smith was born in 1853 in her parents’ recently completed mansion on the southwest corner of Government and Conception streets. Alva’s father was a successful cotton factor named Murray Forbes Smith, and her mother, Phoebe, had high aspirations for social success in Mobile. The two-story Gothic-style home built by the couple in 1852 was covered in smooth gray stucco scored to resemble stone. No one in Mobile had seen anything quite like it.

Phoebe ordered her furniture and the family’s wardrobes from Paris. She attempted, with little success, to be a social leader in Mobile, but her parties always fell flat.

Meanwhile, young Alva may have been wearing French finery, but it didn’t keep her from getting into physical confrontations with neighborhood boys. When one saw her climbing a tree and told her girls couldn’t do that, Alva chased him down the street and tackled him. A neighbor had to intervene.

The family left Mobile around 1860 and moved to New York and then later to France. It was during her years in France that Alva became a true Francophile, which is what ultimately led to the exhibit at Versailles more than 85 years after her death.

Above The portrait of Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont, painted by Benjamin Curtis Porter, circa 1879, is on display at the Palace of Versailles until this month. PHOTO COURTESY HISTORIC MOBILE PRESERVATION SOCIETY

The Vanderbilt Connection In 1875, the 22-year-old Alva married William Kissam Vanderbilt, an heir to one of the nation’s largest fortunes, in a New York ceremony. They arrived in Saratoga by private railway car, and Vanderbilt registered at the hotel as “William Kissam Vanderbilt, wife, two maids, two dogs and 15 horses.” Alva would soon prove to be more than just “wife.”

Alva discovered that, as far as old New York was concerned,

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the Vanderbilt money was a bit too new. She followed her mother’s lead and built a unique home — a French chateau on Fifth Avenue covered in white limestone. It stood out brilliantly among the dark brownstone houses around it, and her housewarming party in 1883 took place with nearly 1,200 costumed guests in attendance. Alva had certainly succeeded where her mother had failed.

Marble House — French Inspiration In 1888, Alva and William purchased property in Newport, Rhode Island, for a summer “cottage.” Four years and $11 million later (about $315 million today), Marble House was opened for the summer season. The design of the house was greatly influenced by the neo-classical Petit Trianon at Versailles. This smaller chateau on the grounds of the palace of Versailles had been completed in 1768 and was a great favorite of the ill-fated Marie Antoinette. The current French exhibit explores the late 19th century nostalgia for the architecture and fashion developed at Versailles a hundred years earlier, before the revolution and the guillotine ended the parties. The French rediscovered the palace in the mid-19th century, and by the 1890s, the government was using the palace to receive foreign dignitaries and hold important assemblies.

Tastemakers from Paris to California took note, and architects and eminent artists were influenced in their work by designs discovered during the enthusiastic restoration of Versailles. Alva Vanderbilt’s love of all things French led to her portrait being displayed at Versailles — it is one of 350 objects that “trace a period of art when Versailles played a role in literary, pictorial and musical motifs.”

The circa 1879 portrait was painted by Benjamin Curtis Porter (1843 – 1908) who was a member of the social set Alva sought to join. He captured Alva in her late 20s, about the time she demonstrated her ability to break into New York’s upper crust. And she did it with the same determination that proved to a little boy in Mobile that girls could do anything they set their minds to — including climbing a tree. MB

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END PIECE | IN LIVING COLOR

The Virginia, 1930 Photo courtesy S. Blake McNeely Collection, The Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of South Alabama • Colorization by Dynamichrome Limited

By the time this photo was taken, the Virginia had already logged 60 years’ worth of nautical miles in Mobile Bay. According to records, the schooner-turned-yacht was built in 1865 on Fish River, and from there it sailed almost continuously, in one capacity or another. The 46-foot vessel was initially used in the oystering and fishing industries but shifted to personal use at the turn of the century.

An annual list of vessels identifies Mobile physician Charles O’Gwynn as the 1930 — and first non-bayman — owner of the Virginia. After an onboard fire in 1931 (under whose ownership is unclear), the yacht reentered records as a motorboat, then research vessel and then fishing boat, this time in the Gulf of Mexico. The Virginia is now owned by the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia.

Do you know any of the women enjoying a day on the Virginia? Let us know! Email ahartin@pmtpublishing.com.

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