Rendezvous at Spanish Fort

Ahhh…. Two weeks without children. School was out for the summer and I'd sent all of my students off to their next teachers. My own three young children had gone for their required two-week summer visit with their dad, and I was doing my best to keep busy. With the first week already gone, I looked forward to what the second week promised.

I’d accepted an invitation to visit friends in Pensacola, Florida for a week of sun and relaxation. 

I looked forward to spending the week with my friend Angel and her mom, who were like family to me. We would sleep in every day, and take trips to the beaches of Pensacola for sugar-white sand and views of the blue and turquoise Gulf of Mexico.


And when not at the beach, we’d lounge around and drink bucket loads of sweet tea with lots of lemon and ice, and catch up on our summer reading.


And maybe even more than lounging on the beaches of Pensacola, I looked forward to the prospect of meeting up with my old childhood friend, Jack.


Dear, sweet Jack who had memorized every step I took and every time I laughed. His adoration had both embarassed and flattered me all through elementary school. I’d not seen him in the twenty-two years since my sudden departure from our childhood home in the Virgin Islands.


But a few years earlier, Jack (who had left the island when he went away to college) had happened to be back on the island the same time as my youngest brother, George. And one morning they ran into each other in our friend Jack Bishop’s popular Cruzan Gold jewelry shop. Jack gave his phone number to George to pass on to me - just like in grade school!  

And so it was that after more than two decades, Jack and I were back in touch and spoke occasionally on the phone.


So when I found out I’d be in Pensacola for the week, I gave Jack a call and suggested we get together for dinner one night during my visit. He lived just an hour to the west in Mobile, Alabama. And this would be my chance to meet his family. 

The date was set. We’d meet for dinner at the 'Boy on a Dolphin', a Greek restaurant overlooking Santa Rosa Sound in Pensacola for dinner Friday night. I could hardly wait.


The first couple of days in Pensacola, we hit the beach and did some window shopping. 

Then on the night of August 1st, we watched reports of Hurricane Erin approaching the Atlantic coast of central Florida. On the 2nd she crossed over Florida and began to pick up steam again over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.


By that night, meteorologists predicted that she’d bypass us and head over to New Orleans instead, and we eventually all went to bed, relieved to know we’d not be affected other than maybe a good heavy rain.


But in the wee hours of the morning, sometime around 3:00 a.m., I was awakened by a nagging need to sneak downstairs and turn on the weather channel. 

I just knew Erin would be paying us a visit here in Pensacola. 

And sure enough, meteorologists were announcing that they had called it wrong. 

Erin had taken a turn to the northwest and now lay on a straight course for the fair beaches of Pensacola.

I breathed deeply and decided not to wake anyone. We had taken preparatory measures the day before, just as a course of precaution. 

We had filled fifty-gallon barrels with fresh water, purchased extra batteries and made sure flashlights were in working order.


So knowing that waking the others would serve no purpose, I climbed the stairs and tossed and turned, sleeping fitfully until I heard the first stirrings below in the early light of day.


Around midday, Hurricane Erin blew ashore with 100-mile-per-hour winds and thunder and lighting. 

We stood by the kitchen door at the start, marveling at the buffeting winds and torrential amounts of rain. Trees danced and bowed like savages trying to appease the gods, but to no avail. The winds only got stronger as time went by and we neared the eye wall of the hurricane.


Suddenly a huge limb broke loose from the hundred-year-old pine in the back yard and came crashing down just missing the kitchen door where we huddled to observe the fury. We deemed it best to move deeper into the house.


But shortly after that, the howling of the winds stopped almost instantly and we all looked at each other and realized we were holding our breath.


“It must be the eye,” Angel and I said at once and then laughed in the odd silence.


And we all jumped up from our seats and headed toward the back door. Cautiously at first, we eased the door open like Dorothy after her house landed in Oz. And the world we stepped into seemed almost as strange.


Though all of the landmarks were familiar, everything seemed so unfamiliar. The sinking air in the midst of the eye had a high pressure sensation. The raging winds had ceased and though there were no clouds overhead, the sky wasn’t blue, but had an odd green hue instead.


And not a sound could be heard. After the howling of the winds and the thrashing of trees and thunder and lightning, now the silence weighed heavily like a smothering blanket.


We wandered around the yard close by the house, not knowing how wide the eye would be or how quickly the back side of the eye wall would hit. 

I was not surprised to find that several of the hundreds of tall, spindly pines on the property had snapped right in half, whereas the bulkier oak trees with their shallow root systems had merely been toppled over, exposing wall of roots.


The corrugated roof of Skip’s work shed had been peeled back as though by a giant can opener and power lines lay in muddy puddles. But before we could explore further, the winds began to pick up, indicating the stronger back side of the hurricane would not be far behind.


We hurried indoors and prepared for the other half, knowing that the winds would not only be blowing the opposite direction, but with a fiercer vengeance.

Before sunset, Erin had passed over the panhandle of Florida leaving moderate destruction in her path. We were blessed to have had little damage other than several ruined trees and a damaged shed roof. Others were not so fortunate.


Night fell quickly and we gathered in the living room, huddled around a hurricane lantern and taking turns reading aloud from Men Are From Mars, each reading a chapter at a time. And we read long into the night, none of us wanting to go off to bed alone in the darkness.


The next several days were spent in hurricane clean up; chopping up downed limbs, hauling off debris and broken branches. And the heavy humidity pressed down upon us in tangible form. Angel and I would work for a while and then climb into her mother’s pickup truck and turn on the ignition just to feel a few minutes of air conditioning before returning to our labors.


And at night we’d once again huddle ‘round the hurricane lantern, taking turns reading aloud, learning to enjoy each other’s company in the darkness. No lights, no stereos or televisions or dishwashers. Just the croaking of frogs and the chirping of locusts and the intuitive words of Dr. John Gray through friendly voices, passed from friend to friend as each chapter came to a close.


Phone lines were down and cell phone towers had suffered damage, so it took a few days before I could call Jack, who had been saved from most of the storm and had just had lots of rain. 

When I did reach him, he informed me that the Greek restaurant where we’d planned to meet for dinner had been washed out to sea with the storm surge. So we began to work on an alternative plan.


We’d meet him halfway to Mobile at a Spanish Fort, a local historical tourist spot. Then we’d go back toward Mobile and find a restaurant, as few if any would be open in our area.


So Angel and I set out in plenty of time, not sure how long it would take us to get to Spanish Fort, and wanting to get there before our 5:30 rendezvous. It was barely past 5:00 when we pulled into the rest stop area built upon the site of the original Spanish fort that had once stood overlooking Mobile Bay and protecting it from attack.


We parked in the small parking lot nearest the road and looked around us. Restrooms off to the right; a circular drive coming back around to the small parking lot; and the short connector road back to the highway. It would be impossible not to see Jack, nor for him to see us.


We walked over and hopped up on the thick rock wall looking to the southwest and the expanse of Mobile Bay. And we reveled in the slight breeze that came up from the bay, but couldn’t lift the damp tendrils of hair from our damp necks. My smart looking rayon dress clung to me in the heat, and as I swatted at the hundredth mosquito to buzz by my ear, I nearly pulled a gold hoop earring out of my ear.


“How will we know which one is him?” Angel asked, eyeing a car that pulled into the parking lot. “What color is his car?”


“Um…. I didn’t ask. I just assumed I’d recognize him,” I said.


“Well when did you last see him?”

“…uh….when we were both fourteen!” I laughed, suddenly feeling stupid.


“Does that look like him?” she asked.


But the man just sitting in the car was obviously too tall and slender. “No, that’s not him,” I assured her.


The car started up and slowly circled around the circular drive, driving slowly past us, and then parked again.


“That’s weird,” I said, looking at Angel.


“Maybe he’s a tourist and wanted to take a look at the bay,” she said. But he continued to sit in his car, occasionally looking our way.


“You sure that’s not him?” she asked.


“No, I’m sure.” Even if Jack had sprouted another nine inches since I last saw him, that was not him.


Another car pulled into the small parking lot and sat idling, windows up. After several minutes, it, too, slowly circled the looped drive driving past us. Both Angel and I leaned down and looked into the car as it passed by the wall where we sat, all decked out and waiting for our dinner host. I leaned down and tried to peer into the tinted windows of the car, but I didn’t recognize the driver, nor did he seem to recognize us. But he too parked and just sat there.


Half a dozen other cars pulled into the scenic rest stop with the same odd behavior. Park. Wait several minutes, then very slowly circle around by us and park again. Some made a second loop around, and others simply waited several more minutes without getting out of their cars and then just left.


And each time a car slowly looped around in front of us, we’d lean over and look into the car as I tried to recognize one of the middle aged men as my childhood beau, Jack.


After about a half hour and at least a dozen cars following the same odd routine, a van pulled in and slowly circled around without stopping first in the tiny parking lot. He pulled around the loop and as I leaned to look in his window, I knew him in a heartbeat, despite his greying hair and spreading physique. The dimples and twinkle in his eyes were undisguisable.


He pulled into the lot next to our little pickup truck and we jumped in the van with him, thankful for his air conditioning.


The other few cars in the lot all started up and left before I’d finished introductions. And we buckled our seatbelts and headed off to meet Jack’s wife, Michelle. I delighted in meeting her and their daughter, Medina and son, Jack Jr. We had a wonderful evening over Italian food and old stories of childhood antics. We had such a jovial evening that Jack even managed to talk the picky-eater in me to try calamari! (Ugh!)


All too soon we reluctantly went our ways after lots of hugging and drawn-out good-byes and Jack dropped us back off at Spanish Fort and watched us until we climb safely back into our pickup.


Angel’s parents were waiting up for us and greeted us at the door with the hurricane lantern and a hundred questions about our evening and Jack and his family.


Eventually we got around to telling her folks about the odd behavior of all of the cars and their drivers who had pulled into the lot at the rest stop and circled and parked again and circled again before leaving.


“Where was this?” Angel’s mother asked. “That sounds really weird…”


“It was a place called ‘Spanish Fort.’ 
Apparently it was an old Spanish Fort in the days of early American History. It has a great view of Mobile Bay from the east…”


“Spanish Fort?!” her drill sergeant marine father bellowed. And then he began laughing so hard several moments passed by as we women folk looked at each other in confusion.


“Have you heard of it?” I asked stupidly when he wiped the tears from his eyes as he stopped laughing to catch his breath.


“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of it!” he laughed, slapping his thigh with his hand. “I heard about it on the evening news a couple of weeks ago! Turns out it’s become quite the spot for commuting workers to pick up hookers on their way home from the office!” he howled.


Angel and I both turned bright red with shame thinking of how we must have appeared to the men who had pulled in and circled slowly by as we leaned over to check them out, trying to see if they looked familiar.


I have to say, we must have been the best dressed hookers the place had seen, having dressed up to make a good impression on an old friend.


“I can just imagine some of the unflattering things those horny, disgruntled men must’ve muttered about you two selective street walkers who thought you were too good for them!” Skip chuckled, still getting a huge kick out of these two proper school teachers being mistaken for hookers.










No miracles this time. Or even morals to the story... Just a chance to find humor in the insanity that is life. Lessons I learned this time...?






I learned....






....that sometimes your hunches are right regardless of what others say.


....that Jack is never allowed to choose the meeting places any more.  EVER!


....that you can find a lot of joy in eating cold chili from the can and listening to friends read aloud by lantern light.


....that the humid heat of summers in the south without air conditioning is unbearable when you're used to 15% humidity.


....that you shouldn't wear rayon in the humidity of the south.


....and of course, that the Lord stands by you through the horrible winds of life and watches over you even when you unwittingly and naivel pose as hookers!




Liz Carson Rosas
2 June 2009






"I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." Genesis 28:15