The Jimmy Chronicles part 3

Selah Reverie
Jun 12
3 min read

Updated: Jun 12

Fort Walton Beach Florida. This was our vacation destination for about ten years. Every year, without fail, Jimmy would ask, "Princess, are you ready to go to FORTWALTONBEACH??" I'm not sure how it became one word or why the heavy emphasis, but that's how he said it and I can still hear it clearly.

Florida in the 70's wasn't very different from the Florida we go to now. With the exception of high rise condos, it all kind of feels the same. But there's one major piece of my childhood missing.

The Howard Johnson Hotel. Don't think for a minute Jimmy would go anywhere else. I guess a few good experiences resulted in a devotion only to be rivaled by his devotion to The Sizzler Steakhouse.

Plus, he said, they have the best free continental breakfast around. And fresh squeezed Florida orange juice. (served in glasses smaller than a shot glass but who's complaining?)

The smell of wet carpet and stale cigarette smoke= eau de Howard Johnson. I'd buy the candle.

Hole in the wall shell shops with ice cold A/C, blasting Paul Simon's, Slip Slidin Away and Cool Change by the Little River Band. I get chills thinking about it.

(side note- I've recently rediscovered the Little River Band. How have I been sleeping on this for so many years? Lonesome Loser? Cool Change? Take it Easy on Me?? The best music ever. I'm determined to get to a concert now.)

Riding with windows down. Swimsuits and bare feet all day. Sun overdose.

I don't remember what we ate after that great continental breakfast. Maybe that was the food plan. Fill up for free and get on with the day. Stop at the little gas station/souvenir shop for rafts and off we'd go.

Ahhhhh, I'm an ocean girly through and through and he knew it. We'd get to the boulevard and he'd pull over to the side and say "RUN PRINCESS" and run I did. Up the sand dunes, first one to see the ocean. I wanted to be there, in the sand, in the surf, but mostly.... out to sea.

I couldn't explain it then and still can't today but there's a longing in me. To go out far, where the sky meets the water and there's no land to be seen. I wanted to be with the whales and the dolphins. Who even knows what lies beneath the surface?? All those creatures I poured over in the big encyclopedias at home, I needed to see that.

So I begged. Pleeeease Jimmy. PLEASE take me out there. I want to go farrrrr and swim with the dolphins. Days and days of that kind of whining would send the best parent to the loony bin. And one day, to my total shock, Jimmy said ok. "Get your raft and let's go." And off we went, me straddling the raft like a horse, Jimmy ahead, pulling me with a rope. Past the surf, over the smaller waves. Now the hard part is getting over the wave break. But like Tom Hanks in Castaway, we persevered and barely made it through.

We passed the first sandbar. Then the second, where the waves began rising into slow hills. Jimmy's feet had long since left the ocean floor, but he swam on, farther and farther, until.... nothing. Quiet. It gets real quiet out there. Past the breakers and all the beach noise. No boats, no sound. Just me and Jimmy and whatever secret, mysterious things were beneath us.

I looked back and could barely make out what looked like a tiny speck of a frantic mother, jumping up and down, waving her hands like a lunatic.

Jimmy kept swimming along, leading the half drowned princess on her now semi deflated horse. And I said,"we can go back now" and he silently turned around and swam back to shore.

Now, I don't know WHAT he was thinking. Sharks, waves, rip currents, things that kill people every year along the Gulf Coast. But I am forever grateful he did it. For that moment, until reality hit, I was OUT THERE. In the open water, in the quiet of the sea. It felt like.....God.

I've felt that in other places since, on top of a mountain during a blizzard. At 2 am on the edge of Big Bend in Texas.

So thanks Jimmy, for saying yes to a little girl with a wild heart and a yearning for the unknown.