this is water, this is water, this is water...

vintage 1977 han solo blaster pistol

My nephew, who is known by all as Uncle Dill, is turning five years old next week.  His parents will not let me give him a switchblade to mark this milestone, so I am doing the next best thing and giving him this fine weapon which I have carried for the last thirty years. He is a genuine Star Wars freak, so I think he is going to be very excited. I wish I could be there to see his face, but I will get to hear all about it when we meet them in Kingsport later this month.

fried and smoked

Thirty racks of ribs and about three hundred fifty chicken wings were served.  It was an awesome feast.

under the halls river bridge (high tide)

She will turn eight this week.

my lovely girls

They insisted on going swimming in the river despite the windy overcast conditions, so they spent the trip back to the dock hiding in the cabinet where the life jackets are stored, trying warm up out of the wind.

mumblelard family portrait (jacksonville, florida)

My grandparents lived in that house for more than thirty years.  I can see every inch of it in my memory right now.  I can tell you where the best hiding places are and which ones my little brother will pick.  I can tell you the three easiest places to start climbing the tree in the back yard and the highest place you can jump out and not bust ass on a root. I can tell you where the candy is hidden and where the extra candy is hidden. I can tell you the coolest spot of concrete to lie on in the summer.

I will see all of these people except one tomorrow and many more as well and my daughters will play with the children of children who had not been born when this picture was taken. Some will have driven five hundred miles to spend the two days together.  It will be a fun weekend.

[uncle, uncle, grandfather, father, uncle

aunt, cousin, aunt, mumblelard, grandmother, brother, mother, aunt]

jacksonville church clothes

mumblelard, girl cousin, little brother

floyd risks death in the jaws of the leucistic alligator

Often confused with the far less terrifying albino alligator which can also be found in Silver Springs, Florida.

Every polaroid we took of this psychically powerful beast turned out like this.

treehouse at meemaw’s

She lived in a trailer off of a dirt road in Middleburg, Florida next door to a retired highway patrolman who raised goats. We made cane bows and used old lawn mower blades for machetes. We played at hunting snakes and rabbits with our improvised weapons and we drank out of the hose instead of going inside.

She had a fort built for us and underneath it was her potting shed and lawnmower. When my brother and I stayed at her house she drank cokes sweetened with Wild Turkey while we drank cherry cokes made with a half jar of cherries at a time. She always had plenty of treats for us, but when she cooked, she pan-fried chicken for us in Crisco and a cast iron skillet and had green beans simmering all day in the crock pot.

She had a constantly rotating cast of male friends some good to her and some not so much. When she remarried she sold the trailer but after her second husband died, she moved to a fishing shack by Lake George that seemed more like her kind of home. She lived there until the Wild Turkey got the better of her once and for all.

After harrassing relatives for a year, this is the only picture that I could find of the fort that my brother and cousins and I played in when we were kids.  In the picture, it is still under construction.  Eventually the ground floor was totally enclosed and there was screen tacked over the windows of the fort to keep the mosquitoes out. I can still see every angle of it in my head including the view from the roof as we dared each other to jump of onto the soft sandy ground below.

My dad is almost done building a fort for my daughters in his back yard.  We are taking lots of pictures and I have forbidden them to jump off of the roof.