IT ALL STARTED WITH A BOAT RIDE. I remember the vessel was a goodlooking Caribiana with a wicked, rakish bow. A long, narrow craft, it seemed too skinny for a big man...or a clumsy one. It heeled when I moved to starboard and when I shifted to port. I was a little uneasy even before we untied from the dock at Big Daddy's Grill. Leave it to my old friend, the writer Sonny Brewer, to buy a boat so easy to fall out of. "No bull sharks in this river that I know of," he told me. "But alligators? Oh, yeah." I found a good, steady place right in the middle, and we idled into the flat calm of the Fish River, headed for Weeks Bay. It has been 20 years, but I can still see the Caribiana's high bow split the water like a knife.
I don't know if it was a good boat to fish from, since we never even tried. We just rode and told stories and lies. I remember how the thick trees clung to the dark water and that, if you moved fast enough, you could outrun the humidity and the biting yellow flies. After a while, we turned in a slow are to go back. On impulse, I plunged one hand into the river, like a child feeling for the breeze through a car window.
The water was as warm as blood on the surface but icecold deeper down, as if the river had a tunnel in it that led someplace new. It probably had to do with currents, tides, or underground springs-or maybe just some kind of weird South Alabama swamp magic. You'll believe things on a river you wouldn't on a sidewalk. I guess it doesn't really matter now. It was just one more little story, one more scrap of mystery in what I would come to see as a charmed city here on the Eastern Shore along Mobile Bay. Even the name of it sounded made-up, like something from an old children's story: Fairhope.
この記事は Southern Living の April 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Southern Living の April 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Forging a Legacy - A Fredericksburg, Texas, couple is creating a new class of heirloom cast-iron cookware
When Jay Mallinckrodt pitched the idea of crafting cast-iron cookware to his wife and business partner, Heather, in 2020, she was hesitant. I immediately said no, she recalls with a laugh. But I finally agreed as long as we made something that we would actually want to use ourselves. Like many others during the initial throes of the pandemic, their multigenerational family operation, Heartland Enterprises (which specializes in machining parts for jet engines and gas and oil equipment), was seeing a lull. “No one was flying; no one was drilling, says Jay. So we had time to try something different.
A Butterfly Haven - In the Texas Hill Country, a conservationist is helping monarchs adjust to the changing world
Twenty-four years ago, Monika Maeckle bought a small property on the Llano River in Central Texas as an escape from fast-paced San Antonio. A journalist and marketing professional by trade, she didn't at first realize the value of the location on which she and her husband would later build their ranch. She also had no idea how this decision would eventually transform her life.One October evening a few years later, a friend invited Maeckle to their nearby house, which sat on a watershed with several large cypresses. All these butterflies dropped from the sky and started to gravitate toward the trees, she recalls. Stronger people who could swing a big 12-foot-long pole began trying to capture them, and we waited. By the end of the evening, we'd tagged a couple hundred butterflies, and I left there enchanted.
Oktober Feast!
While I respect your right to serve spooky food in October, you won't find any gory grub at my house this month. Instead, I'm hosting a gathering that's inspired by biergartens across the pond. The focus of the menu is a fondue made with Gruyère cheese and crisp Riesling-like beer-cheese dip but more elevated. It's served with a smorgasbord of dippers such as smoked sausage, grapes, apples, and a few amped-up store-bought snacks, like Mustard-Glazed Pretzel Bites and Smoked Paprika Potato Chips. (Just one taste, and you'll want to add this spice to every bag you open.) Pour yourself a Cider Shandy, and get ready for a good time. Prost, y'all!
The Roast With the Most
Embrace the changing seasons with a cozy pork supper
Roll With It
Company's coming? Bake a batch of these apple-stuffed delights
VIRGINIA PASTORAL
IN MIDDLEBURG, THE COMMONWEALTH'S MOST STORIED SMALL TOWN, OCTOBER WELCOMES A HOST OF TREASURED TRADITIONS
TAKING ROOT
Turn the season's freshest veggies-beets, parsnips, sweet potatoes, carrots-into colorful fall sides
THE FAMILY PLACE
When it came time for a young Georgia couple to make an 1800s farmhouse their own, they took it apart piece by piece-then rebuilt it into a home ready to welcome the next generation
Loving Life in Fayetteville
This Northwest Arkansas college town is easy to love and hard to leave
The Road That Raised Me
This lesser-known drive offers the most breathtaking views in the Smoky Mountains
