09/28/2024
I didn’t write this,but what a great description of our beautiful community!
When I moved from Perry to Panama City in middle school, I tried to describe our county’s beaches and always said “it’s like a country beach.” I was explaining in my own way how different it was from the sugar white sandy beaches those kids were used to. This little slice of Florida that I now know is called “The Nature Coast”, was a place where doors remained unlocked all day. Spots on the beach have funny names like Hagan’s Cove, Dark Island, Piney Point, Fish Creek, Big Grassy, Jabo, Dekle or Ezell. Collectively to outsiders it was called “Keaton Beach”. And when you reached Deadman’s Curve as you held your breath, you knew you were almost there. Families would gather to spend all day on the water while remembering to go out and come in with the tides and sometimes outracing the thunderstorms rolling in. The cousins would scallop until all were tired, hoping to gather enough to feed the masses before heading back, and still being ok if we only came back with enough for an appetizer.
Keaton and Dekle beaches were where we "got away" for a weekend or vacation when I lived in Perry. My Granma Ruth spent her summers working and staying in one of the old sponge houses that had been converted to little waterfront apartments, which were more like unconditioned cypress shacks with wood floors and squeaky iron post beds. The store she worked at had an endless array of candy, a real bottle coke machine, pinball games and a small assortment of board games for visitors to play with on a rainy day. We, kids, were allowed to roam free, coming and going as we pleased, even though there was not really far to go except to the one pay phone in the sand, that’s if we had a dime leftover that wasn’t spent earlier at the store. We crabbed off the cypress dock and if successful, Granma would cook them in a big pot for dinner. I still have a scar on my leg where the barnacles from the steps going down to the water scratched me at high tide. The dock is long gone, torn apart by the Storm of the Century in 93. And sadly, the home of my Aunt and Uncle built themselves that hosted our yearly Family Reunions is now gone too, taken last night by the powerful storm surge of Helene.
The people of Taylor County are “Salt of the Earth” kind of people. And, they could really use our prayers. It’s always been hard to describe what an idyllic special place these beaches are to this community. So, I’ll just leave it at how I described it when I was 12, it’s “like a country beach.” 🙏😢❤️
