previous chapter 60
CHAPTER 61 YACHTERS, GOOD, BAD AND UGLY BOB AND BEVERLY
Bob and Beverly Baker;
In the realm of social misfits Bob Baker was at the head of the pack and the woman that loved him Beverly McDonald
was ready to follow him and his eccentric dreams wherever they might lead.
This was a time in American history when disgruntled disillusioned Americans vented their disgust at the government
and the political unrest that divided the country.
In February 1972, a 31 year old Boston resident dropped out of the system in a raging blizzard, tall lanky resolute
Bob Baker cast off the mooring lines of his 35 foot wooden sloop Sabrina for anywhere south…Beverly was at his
side.
Bob had just dissolved a marriage gone sour and his little contracting business wasn’t producing enough to pay the
bills.
Beverly had left a small Nova Scotia mining town and immigrated to America in search of the American dream.
Believe me there are a lot better ways of leaving town than on a sailboat especially in the dead of a Boston winter
and in a blizzard to boot.
separates the masses from the truly dedicated social misfits…enter Bob Baker!
separates the masses from the truly dedicated social misfits…enter Bob Baker!
This was not a lark or a picnic, this was savage reality heavily diced with brutal physical hardships with the very
existence of life teetering on the edge of oblivion.
Cold, wet and determined, the snow covered their deck and turning back was NOT an option.
Right from the start it didn’t seem like things couldn’t get any worse…but they did.
Going through a bridge in a blinding snow storm and driven down stream by a screaming ebb tide current with a
twelve foot tidal range, Bob’s engine failed. Bob managed to lasso a bridge fender piling as his floating snow
covered home Sabrina heeled to the gunwale while the cascading ebb tide waters gushed over the gunwale. The
straining mooring lines held the vessel heeled into the cascading current to the point of popping fastenings at an
alarming rate. They felt sickeningly doomed but their basic instinct of survival somehow prevailed.
At the height of Bob’s hopeless despair the bridge tender hollered down from his control tower above to Bob; “give
you a nickel for your boat mister!”
Freedom has its price but if achieved the rewards are priceless.
If ever there is a true test of a relationship it is put to the ultimate trial on a small vessel especially under these
adverse conditions. The struggle for survival can pull people together with super human force, but hunger,
exhaustion and physical discomforts can have an explosive dividing effect. This trip south under the most stressful
and trying of circumstances put Bob and Beverly to a incredible test of their personal relationship.
Like a magnet little old St. Augustine drew this team of two into its magical spell.
This had been a very hard trip but it may have saved both Bob and Beverly a life of sinking into the depths of a hum-
drum go-no-where meager existence.
They had actually taken that giant step of going beyond just dreaming a dream…they now had a well earned degree
in self-esteem, something not for sale at the university, and they passed at the top of their class.
In the early 1970s in St. Augustine, dockage for rent was nearly non-existent with only one choice.
Xynides run down barebones flea-bag boat yard was it.
After their dead of winter Boston escape and subsequent voyage south the appeal of living aboard their cramped
quartered 35 foot sailboat at Uncle Harry’s Boat Yard with only cold sulphur water showers under a hose in the open
air rapidly became unromantic and Bob and Beverly rented a waterfront cottage across the San Sebastian River on
Cherokee Street.
Beverly took a job in the admitting office of Flagler Hospital. Then for Dr. Plant/Dr Farrow as a secretary in their
office and Bob went to work at Desco Marine, (Diesel Engine Sales Company) the world’s largest producer of
trawlers, as a carpenter.
Sure as fate drew Bob and Beverly to St. Augustine and Xynides Boat Yard so did fate draw Jane and I to St.
Augustine and Xynides Boat Yard. This is where fate stuck our boat Dursmirg directly along side Bob and Beverly’s
sailboat Sabrina.
We were soon to meet and become life long friends and share many an adventure together.
Xynides Boat Yard was not in any stretch of the imagination an upscale establishment, in fact it was as low-scale on
amenities as old Uncle Harry, the miserable miserly old curmudgeon owner could squeeze out of his clients.
Harry Xynides loved to be called Uncle Harry by all of his customers that he was financially screwing. He was
gleefully putting the thumb-screws to everybody he could with a mentality that worked overtime 24 hours a day
conniving how to nick his customers in every way possible.
We always knew that when Harry insisted upon being called “Uncle Harry” that he was preparing that person for
some kind of fleecing.
Collecting his rents on a daily basis when it suited him best and then he would change to a monthly rate. Then he
would switch back to by the day rate and soon it became evident that as the months rolled by old Uncle Harry was
picking up lots of extra days of rent.
Unconscionable old Uncle Harry was so totally unmerciful about padding the bill with extra charges that we have
actually seen grown men cry when dear old Uncle Harry gleefully handed over his excessively padded yard bill.
This is where, just before Christmas in 1972 Jane and I met Big Bob Baker.
At this time Jane and I had just arrived in St. Augustine on the maiden voyage of our home built 46 foot Dursmirg
down from Wisconsin.
We had just sold all of our worldly possessions that we couldn’t sail away with. This included my business, cars, and
two homes that Jane and I both owned.
St. Augustine is where we would spend this winter season because of an accident I had onboard our boat while
passing through Savannah, Georgia.
(Read about this episode in Volume 1 Chapter 8 of Travels of Dursmirg).
At this season the only other resident at Uncle Harry’s boat yard was Robert White from Bayou La Battre, Louisiana:
this long lanky Cherokee Indian with a distinct Cajun drawl came to St. Augustine aboard the beat-up worn-down
Gulf coast shrimp boat named Little Derrick in December of 1972.
Captain L. T. Miller, an old-timer down-south cajoling country gentleman who was as crafty and sly as any guy was
out to turn a quick buck and had just made the purchase of the nearly derelict Gulf coast shrimp boat named Little
Derrick.
By a strange string of fateful coincidences Captain L. T. Miller in his wanderings ran across this poor old over-
worked ragged-out toilet of a vessel that the owner was more than likely very happy to be rid of.
Next in this auspiciously extraordinary sequence of coincidental happenings Captain Robert White emerged into this
peculiar chain of events when he hired on to bring the very work-weary Little Derrick from Bayou La Batre, Alabama
to the Xynides Boat Yard on the San Sebastian River in little old St. Augustine, Florida.
This is where the rogues and social misfits all seem to converge and congregate so Jane and I naturally got
acquainted and melded right in.
Captain L. T. Miller being the crafty soul that he was had the plan to apply a coat of fresh paint, nail on a few boards
here and there and then bring the freshly, though superficially rejuvenated Little Derrick down to Key West just in
time to be there for the opening of their winter shrimp fishing season.
Captain L. T. Miller would soon come home with his cash profit and we would be richer by far for our new
acquaintances.
Jane and I just happened to be at the Xynides Boat Yard by another strange string of fateful circumstances all of our
own this December of 1972.
Captain Robert White lit up our life with a completely new and different slant on living that we had never ever
contemplated before. Our lives were definitely better for this enlightening encounter with an Oklahoma Indian that
through a fateful string of events went to sea.
Jane and I got acquainted by the mere fact that we were neighbors with Captain Robert White aboard the Little
Derrick who was a solitary lone wolf sea drifter just looking for a little human companionship.
Jane and I too were strangers to this new water world and different environment and strangers to all the local
populace.
We were on our own escape voyage for the first time out of our hometown area and birthplace in the frozen
northland of Northern Wisconsin.
This man Robert White’s life read like a Louis L’amour mystery thriller and we had never actually come face to face
with a genuine social misfit of this caliber before.
We felt fortunate to have this fascinating real life character Captain Robert White as part of our lives.
To our many friends back in Wisconsin we were super adventurers and in many ways we were. But we had
methodically laid out our five year plans and executed them all plus going to school for boat handling and navigation
and saved the loot for our bailout from the mainstream. To us we had led a very conservative life jumping through all
of the required preparatory hoops and gotten all of our ducks in a row before we ventured out of town and out to
sea.
Now in St. Augustine we stood out amongst all of our new acquaintances as conservative straight arrows.
After all everything is just really relative.
Robert on the other hand had winged his way through a perilous life where only the strong willed and very lucky
would ever survive…and here we crossed paths at Xynides Boat Yard.
Captain Robert White was early to rise being the seasoned sailor that he had become.
On these cold December north Florida mornings he would stick a pot of freshly brewed strong black coffee in our
companionway to rouse us with its eye opening freshly brewed bouquet.
The tantalizing aroma wafted through our boat in seconds and triggered some hidden conditioned response to
spring into action.
This is when we became acquainted with the traditional down south coffee with chicory.
Robert brewed his coffee hot and strong and maintained that coffee that you couldn’t stand a nine pound hammer
up in handle first just wasn’t fit to be called coffee.
Well, we became acquainted with Roberts’s coffee and soon became loyal consumers of this strange and different
product that essentially addicted you into adapting that acquired taste for “Luzianne coffee with chicory”.
As soon as Jane and I could get properly dressed we would invite Robert over to our boat to warm up and have
breakfast.
Robert was quick to respond but reluctant to have anything to eat. He always maintained; “I never eat on an empty
stomach”.
We had some interesting in-depth conversations with this renegade square peg who happened to be literally lost in
a strange non-conforming time warp and this made Robert into a complete social misfit in this particular time and
place.
Robert was an Oklahoma Indian who had been trapped and was living in the wrong century.
Captain Robert White was a self taught intelligent who was knowledgeable, well read and extremely battered by a
harder than imaginable life’s struggle for basic survival.
We were extraordinarily impressed by the enormous number of scholarly books we could discuss in depth with this
deep thinking individual.
Robert had natural talents with music, playing the guitar and harmonica with accomplished flair and flamboyance.
Whenever we had a gathering and Robert was around he just naturally picked an instrument and made sure that
one and all were entertained. He wasn’t there to steal the show; he instinctively worked the group to get everyone
involved and participating.
His natural story and joke telling abilities set him apart as a gifted speaker captivating his audience with his
memorable mesmerizing tales accentuated with his colorfully unique Cajon enunciation.
We heard of Robert’s earlier life when he was a happily married man and running his own honky-tonk bar and
restaurant. Those were the golden years of his cherished life’s existence that were now just a distant faded memory
washed away forever onto the abyss of eternity.
He told of an incident that in an instant changed his happy life forever and wiped away all that was so dear to him.
Robert broke up a fight at his bar in which a man was killed and then the judge sent the Oklahoma Indian Robert off
to prison for murder.
In America and especially down in the bigoted south a man like Robert wouldn’t stand a snowballs chance in Hell
being an Indian caught up in Americas legal system.
The revolting fact was that if Robert had been the white son of the town banker he would not have served a single
night in jail and might have even sued the deceased man’s estate for the inconvenience.
The rule here is that it is far better to be rich and guilty than poor and innocent especially if you just happen to
belong to a minority group of “those other people.”
That was the end of Robert’s marriage, his business and his good life after his release from prison.
Robert was then left to be a cast out to wander the world by himself for evermore.
It was December 1972, Christmas Eve day and all was very quiet at Xynides Boat Yard on South Riberia Street in
old St. Augustine as the sun came over the yardarm Robert White delivered to our companionway his steaming hot
pot of Cajun coffee blacker than smut. This pleasant aroma enticed Jane and I out of our cozy warm front berth.
We invited Robert over to our boat to share breakfast with us; he came but declined our invitation to eat as usual.
I commended him on his piping hot pot of Joe that was placed in our companionway as usual early this A M. “Robert
you are going to make us totally dependant on you to get us out of bed every morning.”
There always seems to be something strange, quiet and distant about a Christmas for displaced persons on this
holiday.
On this cool silent morning Big Bob Baker wondered into the boat yard and out onto the dock to check on his
sailboat, Sabrina tied alongside Dursmirg and we invited him in.
There we four misplaced persons were. Cajun Robert from the Bayou country of Louisiana, Big Bob Baker escapee
from a Boston blizzard and Jane and I who had flushed all of the toilets of our proverbial previous life and sailed off
into a strange new world of uncertainty but filled with a freedom we had never known or tasted before.
As morning turned to afternoon the idea of going out somewhere for the day came up; Big Bob Baker was the only
one in the group that knew the city at all so we trusted his judgment.
In the sleazy bar department old St. Augustine only had a limited number of choices, The High Chaparral, Shrimp
Haven and the Dixie Bar. Big Bob knew them all and drove our little group over to his number one pick the Dixie Bar
on Old South Dixie Highway.
This place lacked even the remotest shred of any cultural saving graces and the regular hanging-out clientele was
exclusively southern red-necks, the beer bottle busting Bubbas just drinking beer and killing time.
A juke box was booming out hillbilly and country western and that set the atmosphere. A breath stealing suffocating
stench of blue-gray stale dingy cigarette smoke was all pervasive and commingled with a long time accumulation of
spilt stale sour smelling beer set off instinctive reflexes to regurgitate while it burned our eyes.
Outwardly the Dixie Bar appeared to send a message of the laid-back, don’t give a shit, out back cypress swamp
Florida cracker of the previous century with its unpainted clapboard siding. It obviously took a long, long time of total
neglect to become this weather-grayed with age battered and worn siding streaked with rust stains down from every
weathered nail.
The dirt parking lot sported dusty, rusty beach buggies and Bubba pick-up-truck beaters with oversized knobby
tires, dog cages filled with yapping hounds and rifle racks in their back windows. Make no mistake about it this was
the Dixie Bar on Old South Dixie Highway and it was for sure deep in the “Heart of Dixie”.
The Stars and Bars Confederate flag was everywhere in your face.
We drank beer, played pool and shuffleboard and it looked to our small group like this was about all that there would
be of our Christmas Eve day.
Then Big Bob Baker got an idea for the evening…it so happened that he and Beverly had had an altercation and he
was afraid to face her alone. So, Big Bob got the idea to fill the ranks as he humbly marched back to their riverfront
cottage over on the San Sebastian River.
Surprise! The four of us appeared at the door. Big Bob sprung the news on Beverly who proved to be a really sweet
and genuinely nice person and upon being introduced to these drop-in strangers generously invited us all in to
share a lovely Christmas Eve dinner. Beverly had obviously put together this feast with meticulous attention to detail.
Judging from the loving care Beverly put into this elegant banquet she had prepared not knowing if she would dine
alone or not. We were all overjoyed to be sharing it together.
This proved to be a very special Christmas and there was real joy in the air as we all rejoiced in our good fortune to
have each other.
We were now a family of five that had all left a whole world behind us to strike off over the horizon not ever to return
to our old way of life, our decisions had been made and this destination was final.
Like jumping off a sky scraper the decision had been made, the commitment was irreversible, we all had made that
fateful leap and turning back was no longer an option. Our fates were sealed…a new life of uncertain destinations
awaited us all.
Yes we five shared a special something that few will ever know.
Our leap into the abyss had felt like a unique occurrence to each of us at the time but by a strange quirk of fate and
by the magical magnetic attraction of little old St. Augustine we all were caught in the crosshairs of time and
convergence.
This was truly a rare happening.
I believe that this special evening had a profound impact on the consciousness of us all that may have inspired each
and every one of us to strive off to yet further unexplored horizons of our own free spirited dreams.
A friendship was cemented that evening that has lasted us over all these years.
A couple of weeks later Captain Robert White returned to St. Augustine from Key West on a bus to visit us. He had
found a family link with us and the feelings were mutual.
Robert, bless his Cajun Indian heart brought us a special gift from his shrimping business down in Key West.
Robert was not flush with cash and tended to spend every last cent he made aboard the shrimp trawlers from
paycheck to paycheck…the drunken sailor syndrome.
Well, when Robert arrived in St. Augustine his pockets were dreadfully hanging out. The shrimping season in St.
Augustine was over and times were so tough that employment in the old city was nearly impossible.
What Robert brought us from Key West in his carry-on luggage aboard the Greyhound Bus had an all pervasive
stench that would have sent even the hungriest of stray cats scurrying off for a breath of fresh air.
What was this special gift that Robert brought us that we have cherished over all of these years?
The suspense was too much especially when Robert told us with a smirky chuckle that he had the whole end of the
bus to himself all the way up from Key West.
When Robert finally zipped open his tote bag to reveal this treasure, we all gagged and wretched reflexively fighting
back regurgitation.
The stench of rot was as bad as it gets. Bigger than a human head, over a foot long and nine inches in diameter,
this queen helmet conch sea shell was a jewel from the depths of the sea. We have not to this day ever seen one to
equal its size and still prize it dearly.
The only problem was that it had been dead for over a week and its flesh had putrefied into a state of semi-
liquefaction, wretchedly oozing and dripping.
Believe it or not I had the perfect solution to this problem that was quick and easy.
Remembering from my childhood what we did to clean turtle shells I took this odiferous bomb shell out to a vacant lot
and placed it atop an ant hill.
Two days later I returned to collect the cleaned and polished shell and thanked the ants for their arduous labors.
We had a glad reunion but alas in a couple of days Robert White had to return to his Key West shrimp boat and
make some more money to perpetuate his endless cycle of earn and splurge.
When Big Bob Baker heard how much a bus ticket cost he told Captain Robert to put his money into the gas tank
and we all could drive down to Key West for a vacation trip.
That was that and off we all went.
Big Bob Baker, Beverly, Captain Robert White, Jane and I hit the road vacation bound!
No matter how many trips you have made down into the Florida Keys you will never find anything to compare.
The highway to Key West is only there because of a St. Augustine connection.
This is Henry Flagler’s dream come true of his “railroad to the sea” that was an extension of his FEC Railroad to Key
West. After the devastating1935 hurricane the railroad track over countless islands linked by bridges was replaced
with a roadway.
I had visited Key West several times previously but now I would get a totally different prospective. With a Gulf Coast
shrimp boat captain from Bayou La Batre, Alabama that knew real hard time as our guide to the seedy side of this
end of the planet.
Key West is literally the end of the road, the last resort of spaced out honky-tonks awash in barroom floozies that
was about to be our vacation destination.
Long lanky Captain Robert White knew this end of the world like a seasoned veteran of countless campaigns.
From our first den of iniquity to our last Robert was known on a first name basis by all the honky-tonk bar tenders,
beer-maids, waitresses and flirting floozies. It was in the front door of one bar and out the back of the next; on and
on we went without retracing our steps.
Oh my God! How could one man have become so well known in this wild world of waterfront wonders?
The answer was that our friend Robert was totally committed to this environment and knew no other.
To preserve some semblance of sanity to this whirlwind binge, we all diverted for solid sustenance and found out
that the little island of Key West held us captive to tourist rip-off prices. So, not much ever changes.
Captain Robert White singing along to banjo music wouldn’t let the party die.
The show must go on and we were off to adjacent Stock Island for a beery afternoon. Key West had lots of shrimp
boats but Stock Island had hundreds. Of course with that many shrimp boats there are always lots of thirsty, horny
sailors with cash in their pocket and the only natural solution to that mix is an establishment or two to satisfy their
needs.
Captain Robert had his next boat trip lined up so he felt free to cut it loose.
A friendly fickle floozy caught Roberts’s eye and took him by the arm and this was the last that we ever saw of our
friend Captain Robert White.
(Read about Captain Robert White in Volume 1 of Travels of Dursmirg)
The winter season in St. Augustine was a turning point in our lives. All of our old friends and business associates
back in the work-a-day world in Wisconsin skeptically told Jane and I that we were workaholics and would never be
able to adjust to another pace of life. They would more than likely have been right about Jane and I except for the
fact that we were both exceptional about focusing on our end goals.
Our goal now was to be free to control our own time, not someone else’s agenda and we worked hard to that end of
self fulfillment.
I must admit that it was at least six months before we both felt we could leisurely eat a meal unrushed and enjoy it to
the fullest. Likewise to have the unhurried time to enjoy a good book, not just read it and to do the hobbies that were
purely for our own pleasure.
Convalescing from a broken shoulder was a bad break but not totally. As my dear old Dad always used to say to me;
“nothing is ever so bad it isn’t good for something”.
Here I had time to reflect on that jewel of profound wisdom.
Yes, slow down, you go too fast and look at the pleasure of feeling good and above all sharing all of these good
times with my pal, very best friend and wife Jane.
Well, our friends Bob and Beverly were like minded free spirits especially Bob.
This winter while Beverly took a job with Dr. Plant as a secretary Bob had a hard time finding steady work though I
don’t think that he was as dedicated to that end as Beverly. Consequently Big Bob, Jane and I would load into
Beverly’s little red Mazda sports car while Beverly was at work and hit the road.
We scrounged around every used book store in a 50 mile radius and put together a small mountain of good reading
material.
Both Big Bob and Jane were lightning fast readers and usually got through a book a night. I tagged along at my own
pace. These were good times.
Big Bob had lived out many of his adventure fantasies through books and one author in particular was his all time
favorite; John McDonald whose novels were set in the Florida Keys where his main character Travis McGee lived
aboard a house boat named “Busted Flush”.
On our North Florida day trips with Big Bob we haunted boatyards and prospective anchorages and anything else of
interest.
Big Bob was looking for good deals and North Florida abounded in them in these days of government sanctions and
Arab oil embargoes.
North Florida was a place at this time for someone with cash and patience…two things that Big Bob was deficit in.
Bob knew quality and fine workmanship wherever he saw it but maintenance was something that he was nearly blind
to.
Big Bob was happy-go-lucky and found it a lark to go off gunk-holing in Beverly’s little red Mazda sports car when it
was running right but one day when the three of us were in Jacksonville the clutch began making trouble. Instead of
getting it fixed, which in the end only required adding break fluid…Big Bob got super pissed at the car.
Soon Big Bob enticed his father Bob, “little Bob” to visit St. Augustine that springtime. Big Bob’s father instantly fell in
love with the place and made plans to settle in.
A word about Big bob’s father; Big Bob was a strapping 6 foot 4 inches and his father was a slight 5 foot 10 inches.
Little Bob was well educated with an engineering degree but was a victim of a crashing New England economy. His
tragic employment story was compounded by his withdrawal and denial.
One day he was shocked to find that he had been laid off from his job that he had faithfully fulfilled for many years.
He just couldn’t come to grips with the situation and devised a charade to buy himself time.
Every morning for the next two years he packed himself a lunch and went off to a make believe job for the day. It
was definitely time to flush that stinking toilet and go on with his life. This whole mental fiasco was only done to
appease his iron willed Polish wife, Florence.
St. Augustine was a lark for Little Bob senior and his son Big Bob who was feeling good just to have bailed his dad
out of his depressed mental quagmire.
Big Bob has a special kind of do-gooder in him and felt happy when he was making someone else happy.
The following fall when Jane and I were anchored down on the Indian River Big Bob coordinated a group tour of
Disney.
Big Bob, Beverly, and Little Bob drove down to Melbourne early one Saturday morning for a planned rendezvous.
Jane and I rowed our dinghy in from our anchored boat Dursmirg and the five of us had a fabulous fun filled day to
remember.
This was definitely a turning point in Little Bobs life and in the end it was all about attitude and he went from negative
to positive. He got himself a respectable job at Deltona Corporation as a construction site engineer and coordinator,
sent for his wife Florence and they bought a canal front lot at Treasure Beach south of St. Augustine and put up a
house.
Not bad considering that times were really hard in St. Augustine…all it took was a positive attitude.
Big Bob soon got investment fever but lacked cash. With terrific visions and good building skills all he needed was a
handyman special and the cash to close the deal. Well he found his deal and was ready to move into the two
buildings on Bridge and Sanford Streets but couldn’t quite get his banker friend to commit the cash that Big Bob
needed. Bob was desperate to close the deal he worked so hard to find.
Clutching at straws Big Bob approached his folks. Florence, his mother was willing to put up the money but this was
not to be a goodwill gesture and hard dealing Florence got a formal mortgage drawn up and recorded. She wasn’t
going to take any chances, just to cover any inconveniences she might experience Florence slapped on an interest
rate that was at loan shark rates and I said ouch! Two percent above prevailing bank rates this loan smacked of
usury.
Big Bob and Beverly did what they had to do and both Bob and Beverly jumped into their restoration project with
dedicated zeal.
The property upgrade was astonishing and leveraged their financial commitment.
Soon the whole neighborhood became noticeably more upscale and Big Bob and Beverly were able to attract a
better class of renter at a better rate…this was a win-win situation.
These were good times for Bob and Beverly.
Life now was a lark and Beverly bought a beach buggy, (An open air four seated fiberglass body bolted onto a VW
beetle chassis).
With the most fantastic beach in the world at their finger tips and now the time to enjoy it, Bob and Beverly were in
seventh heaven where the living was good and easy.
Beverly went back to school, got her degree and was at the top of her graduating class in nurses training.
Big Bob continued upgrades to their apartment complex and fit in handyman carpentry jobs on the side.
Between the two of them they became solidly established and an integral part of the community.
Starting from scratch with even a borrowed down payment, buying an eye-sore they had turned their fortunes
around and in the course of a couple of years created the most prestigious corner in their neighborhood.
Their renovations became contagious and soon the downward slide of the neighborhood was reversed.
This all sounds easy and quick but it wasn’t. Their struggle was fraught with a myriad of obstacles and hurdles to
cross. Thrown in with all of their hard work and determined efforts came a tenant they inherited with the purchase of
their properties.
The proverbial fly in the ointment was this innate tenant who was a slovenly lowlife and deadbeat they eventually
tagged; “George the slob”.
Well, George the slob existed on some kind of meager government remittance. His upstairs apartment was totally
unkempt to the point of being at garbage dump status.
George the slob was a chain smoking binge drinker that couldn’t afford his own excessive consumption of cheap
cigarettes and booze.
An old man that lived alone down the block named Seymour used to lend George the slob a few bucks now and then
so that George the slob could perpetuate his binge.
Eventually George the slob became so dependant on old Seymour’s generous hand outs that when old Seymour
would occasionally run low on cash George the slob would give poor old Seymour a thrashing.
Bob the slob had a self destructive death wish and the local consensus was the wish that poor old Seymour would at
least out live drunken George the slob.
It soon came to pass, George the slob drowned in his own booze swill and yes, old Seymour got to say a final good
by.
Another living entity that Big Bob and Beverly inherited with their Bridge Street property was a Spanish street dog or
(callejero) they named Dumb-dumb Dora.
This street savvy hound had to be a direct descendant of the early Spanish settlers of old St. Augustine. This hound
through generations and over the centuries of honed street wit genetically improved its canine linage of street savvy
adaptability.
Dumb-dumb Dora never relied on a single source of sustenance. Mornings Dora would rise early to sniff out the
premises for any easy hand out at her adopted home and eat whatever there was. Then she would be trotting off
through the neighborhood to scarf up any loose morsels and Dumb-dumb Dora was not fussy, cat food, dog food,
table scraps or whatever was there for the taking. She got up early to beat most of the competition and didn’t linger
anywhere because this was her extensive practiced route and it was a big one that took her through the city center
past all of the tourist shops and restaurant garbage cans. I must admit that Dumb-dumb Dora’s most ingenious
caper was daily pulled outside the local ice cream shop.
Patiently Dumb-dumb Dora would sit and wait for some parent to come out with toddlers and ice cream cones in their
hands; this was it!
With a flick of her very long agile tongue Dumb-dumb Dora would deftly send a scoop of ice cream from the toddlers
nose high cone to the ground where it was never contested…Dumb-dumb Dora daily got her dessert.
Big Bob and Beverly were always up for a road trip or some adventure. When the time was right we delivered new
shrimp trawlers from Desco Marine or St. Augustine Trawlers to distant ports and then would fly back home to St.
Augustine.
We also spent many a happy time aboard our boat Dursmirg fishing, eating, swimming, playing cards, telling stories
and confabing about our dreams, travel plans and politics. We always stuffed ourselves beyond capacity on
whatever came out of the river from our crab traps and cast nets. Jane’s cooking diversity with seafood was
unmatched and she never missed the opportunity to top off every meal with some of her specialty baked goods. Her
honey whole wheat bread and her different pies like Key Line or honey pecan never survived one pass around our
group.
We always had memorable parties whenever our paths would cross.
One summer Big Bob and Beverly had some free time and we all planned to sail up through the Georgia Sea Islands
to Daufuskie Island, South Carolina aboard our boat Dursmirg.
Bob and I spent two days swimming down at near slack tide scrapping our boat bottom. The marine growth on the
boat’s bottom could impede our vessel’s way through the water like having a dragging anchor and if the propeller
wasn’t meticulously cleaned the prop wash would literally be slung out at right angles to the boat. When the
propeller is clean the stern wash is straight out the stern and the thrust is immediately felt the moment that the clutch
is engaged.
With a clean bottom we were off for two glorious weeks of fun filled adventure eating almost exclusively from the sea.
This included quahog clams and coon oysters that were in what seemed to us to be unlimited quantities just waiting
for us to eat our fill. When harvesting these tasty gems we always packed along some limes and hot sauce to spice
the tender morsels and eat them raw on the half shell; as fresh as they get.
Eventually Big Bob and Beverly sold their apartment complex and hit the road.
They bought a motor home and went cross country headed on a trip to Alaska.
They finally settled down in south Florida to outfit a 46 foot sailboat they planed to sail away on and the story
continues.
Dursmirg headed through the draw of the Bridge of Lions in late 1978.
next chapter
CHAPTER 61 YACHTERS, GOOD, BAD AND UGLY BOB AND BEVERLY
Bob and Beverly Baker;
In the realm of social misfits Bob Baker was at the head of the pack and the woman that loved him Beverly McDonald
was ready to follow him and his eccentric dreams wherever they might lead.
This was a time in American history when disgruntled disillusioned Americans vented their disgust at the government
and the political unrest that divided the country.
In February 1972, a 31 year old Boston resident dropped out of the system in a raging blizzard, tall lanky resolute
Bob Baker cast off the mooring lines of his 35 foot wooden sloop Sabrina for anywhere south…Beverly was at his
side.
Bob had just dissolved a marriage gone sour and his little contracting business wasn’t producing enough to pay the
bills.
Beverly had left a small Nova Scotia mining town and immigrated to America in search of the American dream.
Believe me there are a lot better ways of leaving town than on a sailboat especially in the dead of a Boston winter
and in a blizzard to boot.
separates the masses from the truly dedicated social misfits…enter Bob Baker!
separates the masses from the truly dedicated social misfits…enter Bob Baker!
This was not a lark or a picnic, this was savage reality heavily diced with brutal physical hardships with the very
existence of life teetering on the edge of oblivion.
Cold, wet and determined, the snow covered their deck and turning back was NOT an option.
Right from the start it didn’t seem like things couldn’t get any worse…but they did.
Going through a bridge in a blinding snow storm and driven down stream by a screaming ebb tide current with a
twelve foot tidal range, Bob’s engine failed. Bob managed to lasso a bridge fender piling as his floating snow
covered home Sabrina heeled to the gunwale while the cascading ebb tide waters gushed over the gunwale. The
straining mooring lines held the vessel heeled into the cascading current to the point of popping fastenings at an
alarming rate. They felt sickeningly doomed but their basic instinct of survival somehow prevailed.
At the height of Bob’s hopeless despair the bridge tender hollered down from his control tower above to Bob; “give
you a nickel for your boat mister!”
Freedom has its price but if achieved the rewards are priceless.
If ever there is a true test of a relationship it is put to the ultimate trial on a small vessel especially under these
adverse conditions. The struggle for survival can pull people together with super human force, but hunger,
exhaustion and physical discomforts can have an explosive dividing effect. This trip south under the most stressful
and trying of circumstances put Bob and Beverly to a incredible test of their personal relationship.
Like a magnet little old St. Augustine drew this team of two into its magical spell.
This had been a very hard trip but it may have saved both Bob and Beverly a life of sinking into the depths of a hum-
drum go-no-where meager existence.
They had actually taken that giant step of going beyond just dreaming a dream…they now had a well earned degree
in self-esteem, something not for sale at the university, and they passed at the top of their class.
In the early 1970s in St. Augustine, dockage for rent was nearly non-existent with only one choice.
Xynides run down barebones flea-bag boat yard was it.
After their dead of winter Boston escape and subsequent voyage south the appeal of living aboard their cramped
quartered 35 foot sailboat at Uncle Harry’s Boat Yard with only cold sulphur water showers under a hose in the open
air rapidly became unromantic and Bob and Beverly rented a waterfront cottage across the San Sebastian River on
Cherokee Street.
Beverly took a job in the admitting office of Flagler Hospital. Then for Dr. Plant/Dr Farrow as a secretary in their
office and Bob went to work at Desco Marine, (Diesel Engine Sales Company) the world’s largest producer of
trawlers, as a carpenter.
Sure as fate drew Bob and Beverly to St. Augustine and Xynides Boat Yard so did fate draw Jane and I to St.
Augustine and Xynides Boat Yard. This is where fate stuck our boat Dursmirg directly along side Bob and Beverly’s
sailboat Sabrina.
We were soon to meet and become life long friends and share many an adventure together.
Xynides Boat Yard was not in any stretch of the imagination an upscale establishment, in fact it was as low-scale on
amenities as old Uncle Harry, the miserable miserly old curmudgeon owner could squeeze out of his clients.
Harry Xynides loved to be called Uncle Harry by all of his customers that he was financially screwing. He was
gleefully putting the thumb-screws to everybody he could with a mentality that worked overtime 24 hours a day
conniving how to nick his customers in every way possible.
We always knew that when Harry insisted upon being called “Uncle Harry” that he was preparing that person for
some kind of fleecing.
Collecting his rents on a daily basis when it suited him best and then he would change to a monthly rate. Then he
would switch back to by the day rate and soon it became evident that as the months rolled by old Uncle Harry was
picking up lots of extra days of rent.
Unconscionable old Uncle Harry was so totally unmerciful about padding the bill with extra charges that we have
actually seen grown men cry when dear old Uncle Harry gleefully handed over his excessively padded yard bill.
This is where, just before Christmas in 1972 Jane and I met Big Bob Baker.
At this time Jane and I had just arrived in St. Augustine on the maiden voyage of our home built 46 foot Dursmirg
down from Wisconsin.
We had just sold all of our worldly possessions that we couldn’t sail away with. This included my business, cars, and
two homes that Jane and I both owned.
St. Augustine is where we would spend this winter season because of an accident I had onboard our boat while
passing through Savannah, Georgia.
(Read about this episode in Volume 1 Chapter 8 of Travels of Dursmirg).
At this season the only other resident at Uncle Harry’s boat yard was Robert White from Bayou La Battre, Louisiana:
this long lanky Cherokee Indian with a distinct Cajun drawl came to St. Augustine aboard the beat-up worn-down
Gulf coast shrimp boat named Little Derrick in December of 1972.
Captain L. T. Miller, an old-timer down-south cajoling country gentleman who was as crafty and sly as any guy was
out to turn a quick buck and had just made the purchase of the nearly derelict Gulf coast shrimp boat named Little
Derrick.
By a strange string of fateful coincidences Captain L. T. Miller in his wanderings ran across this poor old over-
worked ragged-out toilet of a vessel that the owner was more than likely very happy to be rid of.
Next in this auspiciously extraordinary sequence of coincidental happenings Captain Robert White emerged into this
peculiar chain of events when he hired on to bring the very work-weary Little Derrick from Bayou La Batre, Alabama
to the Xynides Boat Yard on the San Sebastian River in little old St. Augustine, Florida.
This is where the rogues and social misfits all seem to converge and congregate so Jane and I naturally got
acquainted and melded right in.
Captain L. T. Miller being the crafty soul that he was had the plan to apply a coat of fresh paint, nail on a few boards
here and there and then bring the freshly, though superficially rejuvenated Little Derrick down to Key West just in
time to be there for the opening of their winter shrimp fishing season.
Captain L. T. Miller would soon come home with his cash profit and we would be richer by far for our new
acquaintances.
Jane and I just happened to be at the Xynides Boat Yard by another strange string of fateful circumstances all of our
own this December of 1972.
Captain Robert White lit up our life with a completely new and different slant on living that we had never ever
contemplated before. Our lives were definitely better for this enlightening encounter with an Oklahoma Indian that
through a fateful string of events went to sea.
Jane and I got acquainted by the mere fact that we were neighbors with Captain Robert White aboard the Little
Derrick who was a solitary lone wolf sea drifter just looking for a little human companionship.
Jane and I too were strangers to this new water world and different environment and strangers to all the local
populace.
We were on our own escape voyage for the first time out of our hometown area and birthplace in the frozen
northland of Northern Wisconsin.
This man Robert White’s life read like a Louis L’amour mystery thriller and we had never actually come face to face
with a genuine social misfit of this caliber before.
We felt fortunate to have this fascinating real life character Captain Robert White as part of our lives.
To our many friends back in Wisconsin we were super adventurers and in many ways we were. But we had
methodically laid out our five year plans and executed them all plus going to school for boat handling and navigation
and saved the loot for our bailout from the mainstream. To us we had led a very conservative life jumping through all
of the required preparatory hoops and gotten all of our ducks in a row before we ventured out of town and out to
sea.
Now in St. Augustine we stood out amongst all of our new acquaintances as conservative straight arrows.
After all everything is just really relative.
Robert on the other hand had winged his way through a perilous life where only the strong willed and very lucky
would ever survive…and here we crossed paths at Xynides Boat Yard.
Captain Robert White was early to rise being the seasoned sailor that he had become.
On these cold December north Florida mornings he would stick a pot of freshly brewed strong black coffee in our
companionway to rouse us with its eye opening freshly brewed bouquet.
The tantalizing aroma wafted through our boat in seconds and triggered some hidden conditioned response to
spring into action.
This is when we became acquainted with the traditional down south coffee with chicory.
Robert brewed his coffee hot and strong and maintained that coffee that you couldn’t stand a nine pound hammer
up in handle first just wasn’t fit to be called coffee.
Well, we became acquainted with Roberts’s coffee and soon became loyal consumers of this strange and different
product that essentially addicted you into adapting that acquired taste for “Luzianne coffee with chicory”.
As soon as Jane and I could get properly dressed we would invite Robert over to our boat to warm up and have
breakfast.
Robert was quick to respond but reluctant to have anything to eat. He always maintained; “I never eat on an empty
stomach”.
We had some interesting in-depth conversations with this renegade square peg who happened to be literally lost in
a strange non-conforming time warp and this made Robert into a complete social misfit in this particular time and
place.
Robert was an Oklahoma Indian who had been trapped and was living in the wrong century.
Captain Robert White was a self taught intelligent who was knowledgeable, well read and extremely battered by a
harder than imaginable life’s struggle for basic survival.
We were extraordinarily impressed by the enormous number of scholarly books we could discuss in depth with this
deep thinking individual.
Robert had natural talents with music, playing the guitar and harmonica with accomplished flair and flamboyance.
Whenever we had a gathering and Robert was around he just naturally picked an instrument and made sure that
one and all were entertained. He wasn’t there to steal the show; he instinctively worked the group to get everyone
involved and participating.
His natural story and joke telling abilities set him apart as a gifted speaker captivating his audience with his
memorable mesmerizing tales accentuated with his colorfully unique Cajon enunciation.
We heard of Robert’s earlier life when he was a happily married man and running his own honky-tonk bar and
restaurant. Those were the golden years of his cherished life’s existence that were now just a distant faded memory
washed away forever onto the abyss of eternity.
He told of an incident that in an instant changed his happy life forever and wiped away all that was so dear to him.
Robert broke up a fight at his bar in which a man was killed and then the judge sent the Oklahoma Indian Robert off
to prison for murder.
In America and especially down in the bigoted south a man like Robert wouldn’t stand a snowballs chance in Hell
being an Indian caught up in Americas legal system.
The revolting fact was that if Robert had been the white son of the town banker he would not have served a single
night in jail and might have even sued the deceased man’s estate for the inconvenience.
The rule here is that it is far better to be rich and guilty than poor and innocent especially if you just happen to
belong to a minority group of “those other people.”
That was the end of Robert’s marriage, his business and his good life after his release from prison.
Robert was then left to be a cast out to wander the world by himself for evermore.
It was December 1972, Christmas Eve day and all was very quiet at Xynides Boat Yard on South Riberia Street in
old St. Augustine as the sun came over the yardarm Robert White delivered to our companionway his steaming hot
pot of Cajun coffee blacker than smut. This pleasant aroma enticed Jane and I out of our cozy warm front berth.
We invited Robert over to our boat to share breakfast with us; he came but declined our invitation to eat as usual.
I commended him on his piping hot pot of Joe that was placed in our companionway as usual early this A M. “Robert
you are going to make us totally dependant on you to get us out of bed every morning.”
There always seems to be something strange, quiet and distant about a Christmas for displaced persons on this
holiday.
On this cool silent morning Big Bob Baker wondered into the boat yard and out onto the dock to check on his
sailboat, Sabrina tied alongside Dursmirg and we invited him in.
There we four misplaced persons were. Cajun Robert from the Bayou country of Louisiana, Big Bob Baker escapee
from a Boston blizzard and Jane and I who had flushed all of the toilets of our proverbial previous life and sailed off
into a strange new world of uncertainty but filled with a freedom we had never known or tasted before.
As morning turned to afternoon the idea of going out somewhere for the day came up; Big Bob Baker was the only
one in the group that knew the city at all so we trusted his judgment.
In the sleazy bar department old St. Augustine only had a limited number of choices, The High Chaparral, Shrimp
Haven and the Dixie Bar. Big Bob knew them all and drove our little group over to his number one pick the Dixie Bar
on Old South Dixie Highway.
This place lacked even the remotest shred of any cultural saving graces and the regular hanging-out clientele was
exclusively southern red-necks, the beer bottle busting Bubbas just drinking beer and killing time.
A juke box was booming out hillbilly and country western and that set the atmosphere. A breath stealing suffocating
stench of blue-gray stale dingy cigarette smoke was all pervasive and commingled with a long time accumulation of
spilt stale sour smelling beer set off instinctive reflexes to regurgitate while it burned our eyes.
Outwardly the Dixie Bar appeared to send a message of the laid-back, don’t give a shit, out back cypress swamp
Florida cracker of the previous century with its unpainted clapboard siding. It obviously took a long, long time of total
neglect to become this weather-grayed with age battered and worn siding streaked with rust stains down from every
weathered nail.
The dirt parking lot sported dusty, rusty beach buggies and Bubba pick-up-truck beaters with oversized knobby
tires, dog cages filled with yapping hounds and rifle racks in their back windows. Make no mistake about it this was
the Dixie Bar on Old South Dixie Highway and it was for sure deep in the “Heart of Dixie”.
The Stars and Bars Confederate flag was everywhere in your face.
We drank beer, played pool and shuffleboard and it looked to our small group like this was about all that there would
be of our Christmas Eve day.
Then Big Bob Baker got an idea for the evening…it so happened that he and Beverly had had an altercation and he
was afraid to face her alone. So, Big Bob got the idea to fill the ranks as he humbly marched back to their riverfront
cottage over on the San Sebastian River.
Surprise! The four of us appeared at the door. Big Bob sprung the news on Beverly who proved to be a really sweet
and genuinely nice person and upon being introduced to these drop-in strangers generously invited us all in to
share a lovely Christmas Eve dinner. Beverly had obviously put together this feast with meticulous attention to detail.
Judging from the loving care Beverly put into this elegant banquet she had prepared not knowing if she would dine
alone or not. We were all overjoyed to be sharing it together.
This proved to be a very special Christmas and there was real joy in the air as we all rejoiced in our good fortune to
have each other.
We were now a family of five that had all left a whole world behind us to strike off over the horizon not ever to return
to our old way of life, our decisions had been made and this destination was final.
Like jumping off a sky scraper the decision had been made, the commitment was irreversible, we all had made that
fateful leap and turning back was no longer an option. Our fates were sealed…a new life of uncertain destinations
awaited us all.
Yes we five shared a special something that few will ever know.
Our leap into the abyss had felt like a unique occurrence to each of us at the time but by a strange quirk of fate and
by the magical magnetic attraction of little old St. Augustine we all were caught in the crosshairs of time and
convergence.
This was truly a rare happening.
I believe that this special evening had a profound impact on the consciousness of us all that may have inspired each
and every one of us to strive off to yet further unexplored horizons of our own free spirited dreams.
A friendship was cemented that evening that has lasted us over all these years.
A couple of weeks later Captain Robert White returned to St. Augustine from Key West on a bus to visit us. He had
found a family link with us and the feelings were mutual.
Robert, bless his Cajun Indian heart brought us a special gift from his shrimping business down in Key West.
Robert was not flush with cash and tended to spend every last cent he made aboard the shrimp trawlers from
paycheck to paycheck…the drunken sailor syndrome.
Well, when Robert arrived in St. Augustine his pockets were dreadfully hanging out. The shrimping season in St.
Augustine was over and times were so tough that employment in the old city was nearly impossible.
What Robert brought us from Key West in his carry-on luggage aboard the Greyhound Bus had an all pervasive
stench that would have sent even the hungriest of stray cats scurrying off for a breath of fresh air.
What was this special gift that Robert brought us that we have cherished over all of these years?
The suspense was too much especially when Robert told us with a smirky chuckle that he had the whole end of the
bus to himself all the way up from Key West.
When Robert finally zipped open his tote bag to reveal this treasure, we all gagged and wretched reflexively fighting
back regurgitation.
The stench of rot was as bad as it gets. Bigger than a human head, over a foot long and nine inches in diameter,
this queen helmet conch sea shell was a jewel from the depths of the sea. We have not to this day ever seen one to
equal its size and still prize it dearly.
The only problem was that it had been dead for over a week and its flesh had putrefied into a state of semi-
liquefaction, wretchedly oozing and dripping.
Believe it or not I had the perfect solution to this problem that was quick and easy.
Remembering from my childhood what we did to clean turtle shells I took this odiferous bomb shell out to a vacant lot
and placed it atop an ant hill.
Two days later I returned to collect the cleaned and polished shell and thanked the ants for their arduous labors.
We had a glad reunion but alas in a couple of days Robert White had to return to his Key West shrimp boat and
make some more money to perpetuate his endless cycle of earn and splurge.
When Big Bob Baker heard how much a bus ticket cost he told Captain Robert to put his money into the gas tank
and we all could drive down to Key West for a vacation trip.
That was that and off we all went.
Big Bob Baker, Beverly, Captain Robert White, Jane and I hit the road vacation bound!
No matter how many trips you have made down into the Florida Keys you will never find anything to compare.
The highway to Key West is only there because of a St. Augustine connection.
This is Henry Flagler’s dream come true of his “railroad to the sea” that was an extension of his FEC Railroad to Key
West. After the devastating1935 hurricane the railroad track over countless islands linked by bridges was replaced
with a roadway.
I had visited Key West several times previously but now I would get a totally different prospective. With a Gulf Coast
shrimp boat captain from Bayou La Batre, Alabama that knew real hard time as our guide to the seedy side of this
end of the planet.
Key West is literally the end of the road, the last resort of spaced out honky-tonks awash in barroom floozies that
was about to be our vacation destination.
Long lanky Captain Robert White knew this end of the world like a seasoned veteran of countless campaigns.
From our first den of iniquity to our last Robert was known on a first name basis by all the honky-tonk bar tenders,
beer-maids, waitresses and flirting floozies. It was in the front door of one bar and out the back of the next; on and
on we went without retracing our steps.
Oh my God! How could one man have become so well known in this wild world of waterfront wonders?
The answer was that our friend Robert was totally committed to this environment and knew no other.
To preserve some semblance of sanity to this whirlwind binge, we all diverted for solid sustenance and found out
that the little island of Key West held us captive to tourist rip-off prices. So, not much ever changes.
Captain Robert White singing along to banjo music wouldn’t let the party die.
The show must go on and we were off to adjacent Stock Island for a beery afternoon. Key West had lots of shrimp
boats but Stock Island had hundreds. Of course with that many shrimp boats there are always lots of thirsty, horny
sailors with cash in their pocket and the only natural solution to that mix is an establishment or two to satisfy their
needs.
Captain Robert had his next boat trip lined up so he felt free to cut it loose.
A friendly fickle floozy caught Roberts’s eye and took him by the arm and this was the last that we ever saw of our
friend Captain Robert White.
(Read about Captain Robert White in Volume 1 of Travels of Dursmirg)
The winter season in St. Augustine was a turning point in our lives. All of our old friends and business associates
back in the work-a-day world in Wisconsin skeptically told Jane and I that we were workaholics and would never be
able to adjust to another pace of life. They would more than likely have been right about Jane and I except for the
fact that we were both exceptional about focusing on our end goals.
Our goal now was to be free to control our own time, not someone else’s agenda and we worked hard to that end of
self fulfillment.
I must admit that it was at least six months before we both felt we could leisurely eat a meal unrushed and enjoy it to
the fullest. Likewise to have the unhurried time to enjoy a good book, not just read it and to do the hobbies that were
purely for our own pleasure.
Convalescing from a broken shoulder was a bad break but not totally. As my dear old Dad always used to say to me;
“nothing is ever so bad it isn’t good for something”.
Here I had time to reflect on that jewel of profound wisdom.
Yes, slow down, you go too fast and look at the pleasure of feeling good and above all sharing all of these good
times with my pal, very best friend and wife Jane.
Well, our friends Bob and Beverly were like minded free spirits especially Bob.
This winter while Beverly took a job with Dr. Plant as a secretary Bob had a hard time finding steady work though I
don’t think that he was as dedicated to that end as Beverly. Consequently Big Bob, Jane and I would load into
Beverly’s little red Mazda sports car while Beverly was at work and hit the road.
We scrounged around every used book store in a 50 mile radius and put together a small mountain of good reading
material.
Both Big Bob and Jane were lightning fast readers and usually got through a book a night. I tagged along at my own
pace. These were good times.
Big Bob had lived out many of his adventure fantasies through books and one author in particular was his all time
favorite; John McDonald whose novels were set in the Florida Keys where his main character Travis McGee lived
aboard a house boat named “Busted Flush”.
On our North Florida day trips with Big Bob we haunted boatyards and prospective anchorages and anything else of
interest.
Big Bob was looking for good deals and North Florida abounded in them in these days of government sanctions and
Arab oil embargoes.
North Florida was a place at this time for someone with cash and patience…two things that Big Bob was deficit in.
Bob knew quality and fine workmanship wherever he saw it but maintenance was something that he was nearly blind
to.
Big Bob was happy-go-lucky and found it a lark to go off gunk-holing in Beverly’s little red Mazda sports car when it
was running right but one day when the three of us were in Jacksonville the clutch began making trouble. Instead of
getting it fixed, which in the end only required adding break fluid…Big Bob got super pissed at the car.
Soon Big Bob enticed his father Bob, “little Bob” to visit St. Augustine that springtime. Big Bob’s father instantly fell in
love with the place and made plans to settle in.
A word about Big bob’s father; Big Bob was a strapping 6 foot 4 inches and his father was a slight 5 foot 10 inches.
Little Bob was well educated with an engineering degree but was a victim of a crashing New England economy. His
tragic employment story was compounded by his withdrawal and denial.
One day he was shocked to find that he had been laid off from his job that he had faithfully fulfilled for many years.
He just couldn’t come to grips with the situation and devised a charade to buy himself time.
Every morning for the next two years he packed himself a lunch and went off to a make believe job for the day. It
was definitely time to flush that stinking toilet and go on with his life. This whole mental fiasco was only done to
appease his iron willed Polish wife, Florence.
St. Augustine was a lark for Little Bob senior and his son Big Bob who was feeling good just to have bailed his dad
out of his depressed mental quagmire.
Big Bob has a special kind of do-gooder in him and felt happy when he was making someone else happy.
The following fall when Jane and I were anchored down on the Indian River Big Bob coordinated a group tour of
Disney.
Big Bob, Beverly, and Little Bob drove down to Melbourne early one Saturday morning for a planned rendezvous.
Jane and I rowed our dinghy in from our anchored boat Dursmirg and the five of us had a fabulous fun filled day to
remember.
This was definitely a turning point in Little Bobs life and in the end it was all about attitude and he went from negative
to positive. He got himself a respectable job at Deltona Corporation as a construction site engineer and coordinator,
sent for his wife Florence and they bought a canal front lot at Treasure Beach south of St. Augustine and put up a
house.
Not bad considering that times were really hard in St. Augustine…all it took was a positive attitude.
Big Bob soon got investment fever but lacked cash. With terrific visions and good building skills all he needed was a
handyman special and the cash to close the deal. Well he found his deal and was ready to move into the two
buildings on Bridge and Sanford Streets but couldn’t quite get his banker friend to commit the cash that Big Bob
needed. Bob was desperate to close the deal he worked so hard to find.
Clutching at straws Big Bob approached his folks. Florence, his mother was willing to put up the money but this was
not to be a goodwill gesture and hard dealing Florence got a formal mortgage drawn up and recorded. She wasn’t
going to take any chances, just to cover any inconveniences she might experience Florence slapped on an interest
rate that was at loan shark rates and I said ouch! Two percent above prevailing bank rates this loan smacked of
usury.
Big Bob and Beverly did what they had to do and both Bob and Beverly jumped into their restoration project with
dedicated zeal.
The property upgrade was astonishing and leveraged their financial commitment.
Soon the whole neighborhood became noticeably more upscale and Big Bob and Beverly were able to attract a
better class of renter at a better rate…this was a win-win situation.
These were good times for Bob and Beverly.
Life now was a lark and Beverly bought a beach buggy, (An open air four seated fiberglass body bolted onto a VW
beetle chassis).
With the most fantastic beach in the world at their finger tips and now the time to enjoy it, Bob and Beverly were in
seventh heaven where the living was good and easy.
Beverly went back to school, got her degree and was at the top of her graduating class in nurses training.
Big Bob continued upgrades to their apartment complex and fit in handyman carpentry jobs on the side.
Between the two of them they became solidly established and an integral part of the community.
Starting from scratch with even a borrowed down payment, buying an eye-sore they had turned their fortunes
around and in the course of a couple of years created the most prestigious corner in their neighborhood.
Their renovations became contagious and soon the downward slide of the neighborhood was reversed.
This all sounds easy and quick but it wasn’t. Their struggle was fraught with a myriad of obstacles and hurdles to
cross. Thrown in with all of their hard work and determined efforts came a tenant they inherited with the purchase of
their properties.
The proverbial fly in the ointment was this innate tenant who was a slovenly lowlife and deadbeat they eventually
tagged; “George the slob”.
Well, George the slob existed on some kind of meager government remittance. His upstairs apartment was totally
unkempt to the point of being at garbage dump status.
George the slob was a chain smoking binge drinker that couldn’t afford his own excessive consumption of cheap
cigarettes and booze.
An old man that lived alone down the block named Seymour used to lend George the slob a few bucks now and then
so that George the slob could perpetuate his binge.
Eventually George the slob became so dependant on old Seymour’s generous hand outs that when old Seymour
would occasionally run low on cash George the slob would give poor old Seymour a thrashing.
Bob the slob had a self destructive death wish and the local consensus was the wish that poor old Seymour would at
least out live drunken George the slob.
It soon came to pass, George the slob drowned in his own booze swill and yes, old Seymour got to say a final good
by.
Another living entity that Big Bob and Beverly inherited with their Bridge Street property was a Spanish street dog or
(callejero) they named Dumb-dumb Dora.
This street savvy hound had to be a direct descendant of the early Spanish settlers of old St. Augustine. This hound
through generations and over the centuries of honed street wit genetically improved its canine linage of street savvy
adaptability.
Dumb-dumb Dora never relied on a single source of sustenance. Mornings Dora would rise early to sniff out the
premises for any easy hand out at her adopted home and eat whatever there was. Then she would be trotting off
through the neighborhood to scarf up any loose morsels and Dumb-dumb Dora was not fussy, cat food, dog food,
table scraps or whatever was there for the taking. She got up early to beat most of the competition and didn’t linger
anywhere because this was her extensive practiced route and it was a big one that took her through the city center
past all of the tourist shops and restaurant garbage cans. I must admit that Dumb-dumb Dora’s most ingenious
caper was daily pulled outside the local ice cream shop.
Patiently Dumb-dumb Dora would sit and wait for some parent to come out with toddlers and ice cream cones in their
hands; this was it!
With a flick of her very long agile tongue Dumb-dumb Dora would deftly send a scoop of ice cream from the toddlers
nose high cone to the ground where it was never contested…Dumb-dumb Dora daily got her dessert.
Big Bob and Beverly were always up for a road trip or some adventure. When the time was right we delivered new
shrimp trawlers from Desco Marine or St. Augustine Trawlers to distant ports and then would fly back home to St.
Augustine.
We also spent many a happy time aboard our boat Dursmirg fishing, eating, swimming, playing cards, telling stories
and confabing about our dreams, travel plans and politics. We always stuffed ourselves beyond capacity on
whatever came out of the river from our crab traps and cast nets. Jane’s cooking diversity with seafood was
unmatched and she never missed the opportunity to top off every meal with some of her specialty baked goods. Her
honey whole wheat bread and her different pies like Key Line or honey pecan never survived one pass around our
group.
We always had memorable parties whenever our paths would cross.
One summer Big Bob and Beverly had some free time and we all planned to sail up through the Georgia Sea Islands
to Daufuskie Island, South Carolina aboard our boat Dursmirg.
Bob and I spent two days swimming down at near slack tide scrapping our boat bottom. The marine growth on the
boat’s bottom could impede our vessel’s way through the water like having a dragging anchor and if the propeller
wasn’t meticulously cleaned the prop wash would literally be slung out at right angles to the boat. When the
propeller is clean the stern wash is straight out the stern and the thrust is immediately felt the moment that the clutch
is engaged.
With a clean bottom we were off for two glorious weeks of fun filled adventure eating almost exclusively from the sea.
This included quahog clams and coon oysters that were in what seemed to us to be unlimited quantities just waiting
for us to eat our fill. When harvesting these tasty gems we always packed along some limes and hot sauce to spice
the tender morsels and eat them raw on the half shell; as fresh as they get.
Eventually Big Bob and Beverly sold their apartment complex and hit the road.
They bought a motor home and went cross country headed on a trip to Alaska.
They finally settled down in south Florida to outfit a 46 foot sailboat they planed to sail away on and the story
continues.
Dursmirg headed through the draw of the Bridge of Lions in late 1978.
next chapter
| THE ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS Chapter 61 |
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