Page 26 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

One block past the bridge over the creek was Williams’ store where we reached into a
soft drink box of crushed ice and ice cold water to fish out a 12-ounce bottle of Pepsi
Cola or RC Cola. On hot summer days, we were refreshed by a cold drink and a Ward’s
Tip-Top Chocolate Devil’s Food Cake. It had a marshmallow center that made it really
yummy. The taste was very much like today’s Little Debbie Swiss Rolls.

We often bought a loaf of bread, using pieces from the soft white center for bait to fish
for bream and shiners. We carried the bream home to eat, but if we were lucky enough
to catch a shiner, would use it as live bait to catch a bass. I tried to catch one
unsuccessfully for several years. Finally, after five years I dropped a hand-line with a
shiner from the high point of the bridge. The float bobbed for about a half hour.
Suddenly, I saw my float rapidly move away. I slowly counted to ten and then yanked
the line to hook the fish. Standing on the bridge about 20 feet above the water, I slowly
pulled on the line, hand over hand. As I hoisted it from the water up to the bridge
railing, all I could see was the large mouth of the fish with my line disappearing deep in
its throat. I couldn’t wait to get home to show everyone the prize I had caught.

We usually walked bare-footed from the bridge to our home on Blount Avenue. The
hot summer sun often melted the asphalt (tar) pavement so that it would stick to our
feet. When an occasional car came by, we had to step aside, often into a patch of
sandspurs. Often during the hot summer, the sandspurs were so thick that we had to
endure the pain of walking on the gummy asphalt. We wore tennis shoes to explore the
woods off Timuquana Road. Our neighborhood was separated from Ortega Forest by a
small lake called Loon Lake. It was surrounded by drainage ditches and a corner with a
few small hills covered with pine straw. We could slide down these slopes on the slick
pine needles as easily as if it was snow. To circle the lake, we’d have to jump over
several drainage ditches, often soaking our shoes when we landed in the soggy muck.
We never saw a snake or alligator in the years we explored those wilds, although I sure
a few of them had spotted us.

The Atlantic Coast Line railroad was a couple of blocks to the east. When we heard a
train coming, we’d put a penny on the tracks to see what the locomotive would do to it.
After the train passed, we’d find a hot, flattened piece of copper that once was the coin.
In later years, I wished I had saved one of the silver-colored zinc pennies that were only
minted in 1943. In those days all of us kids comic books, like Superman, Batman, and
Captain Marvel. Whenever we went to their homes, there was usually a stack of them in
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