I can remember the summer of 1976. I was at Stetson University and my girl friend, Cindy, was at fsu. As Summer approached, we both took summer jobs to help pay for the year ahead. 

I went to work for UPS in Jax, the southeast regional hub. We would load trucks with boxes up to 50 lbs, had to move a box every 30 seconds or be let loose.  Hard, demanding work. Until I grabbed a box with some kind of blade sticking out and slit my finger to the bone. Nasty, bloody, scary. The boss almost passed out driving me to the hospital.

The big bosses freaked. I was a 19 yo kid, and they were envisioning all kind of lawsuits as my dad was well placed in the military. I simply asked for a couple weeks to let the finger recover. They were so relieved they gave me 4. All my pay and extra cash. I figured I had literally given them the finger and just wanted to ride it for a little fun. I was 18 and invincible, a little cut could not possibly keep me down.

Cindy had taken a job at an Episcopal summer camp, Camp Weed, as a camp nurse on the Gulf coast, just south of Tally. She had left her car behind and I arranged with her folks to drive it over to her. So I packed my bags, recorded a bunch of Jimmy Buffet, Three Dog Night, Rolling Stones, and various artists cassettes, and took off for the Big Bend.  

Now there are few perfect moments in life. Very few. But this was a perfect medley of moments, merging into a harmonic cacophony of a roadtrip. Gorgeous summer, no clouds. Driving a brand new Pontiac Ventura, Havana Day Dreaming my way down the road. I can remember the colour of the sky, so intensely blue, and the smell when it rained, metallic and somehow oily from the road. The taste stopping to buy a roadside snack from Stuckey's, I can still feel it on my tongue. There was a truckstop right at the Jasper/Live Oak I10 exit that served great grits and biscuits. I would kill for them now lol. Reminds me of a girl, maybe I will talk about her some other time.

I remember cutting off on the Crawfordville exit on 319 and taking it thru Sopchoppy. Finally driving thru Carabelle alog the coast, and arriving at the camp. A lot different back then. Isolated. Real isolated. Spooky road

We had no mobile phones unless you were very rich and willing to carry a thing half your body size. PC's were a futuristic dream, Cable TV was something we were told we would have when we had jet cars. I used a written map and directions to find the camp. And it was storming as it only can on the Florida panhandle.

Pulled into the Camp. All the kids were gone, they had camp during the week and the councelors refreshed on weekends. Cindy was shocked to see me, but so happy, we were engaged. She was amazing, Blonde hair, blue eyes, gorgeous bod, personality, sense of humour, brains. We spent the weekend swimming in the gulf, sail boating, snorkeling, sunning. I may never know paradise, but if it is like that week I will recognize it.

I was 19, running around in shorts and no shirt with a beautiful girl who adored me, eating scallops and clams every night, freshly hoisted from the gulf, and drinking with our fellow travelers till dawn, and then retiring with my lady to the tunes of Dan Fogleburg (she dug him so I did too

) and James Taylor. I could have died happy then. It was perfect, more perfect in memory than I have experienced since. Looking hard I can find flaws. But, in reality, they were too small to be noticed by anyone without a truly pedantic soul. I could have died then and never regretted anything. One of the few small windows of perfect happiness I have ever experienced. Very small and incredibly few.

We spent the next few weeks in paradise, I will never know anything so innocent and monumental again. Not that we were innocent or virginal in our actions. But our intent was pure. I can not remember one moment of raised temper or anger that entire time, even though the camp had a large staff. It was incredibly easygoing, laid back, sincere, whatever the #badword# you want to call it and I am not a new age kind of guy.

One of the times that make life worth living.