A weekend destination for many in Inglis
and the out-lying areas of the Levy county. A boy here could earn
his soda money by keeping score for the weekend horseshoe match or selling
his sister's Girl Scout cookies. And if he didn't pay attention, he
could very easily get bit by a cotton mouth water moccasin, chased by
a hungry backwater gator, or teased by some drunk old coot.
The summers were too good to be
true, catching stump-knockers on bread balls in the scorching blue afternoon
and counting coots, the birds -- not the drunks, in their awkward
take-offs and graceful flights. The two-plays-for-a-quarter
juke box held The Oak Ridge Boys and Eddie Rabbit, which weren't too
scratchy. On a good night there would be a local band
on this local stage. Music for the people, by the people... the band would
pull a kid out of the audience to work the thimbles on the
washboard. And that rockabilly would shake the dusty mounted fish
lining the walls with their cracked bravado of years past, and Carl and
Marty and Schmitty would crack open them cans of Old Milwaukee and the
cue ball would snap on the break and the hot breeze would rustle the pine trees
and slam the screen
door, and you almost couldn't hear the trucks without
mufflers, banging their rusty doors and pinging that old Circle-K gasoline as
they drove up in the dusky backwater hours.
| Home | Next |