Is this a food related post? You bet your clam it is, but first we’re going on an adventure. Here’s a short story about seafood, fishing, hurricanes, barfights and love.
Today I rode in the car with my dad and my 13 year old son to Cedar Key just to eat lunch (but I knew it was more).
My folks live about an hour East of Cedar Key. The ride out there is somehow both short and long down while driving down the often hypnotizing straights of Hwy 24 out of Gainesville.
According to the Cedar Key Chamber: “Cedar Key is a quiet island community nestled among many tiny keys on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Long admired for its natural beauty and abundant supply of seafood, it is a tranquil village, rich with the almost forgotten history of old Florida.”
But, to me, Cedar Key is a community full of fishermen, wanna-be-fishermen, clam farmers, oyster farmers, bikers, tourists, fishing memories, long-lasting day dreams, seafood, bar fights and love.
See folks, I’ve been going to Cedar Key fishing as a kid since I can remember. It’s where my wife and my parents met for the first time. Even as someone who grew up in Germany, whenever we came back to the states and made it to Florida, I begged to go fishing in Cedar Key with my Dad and my Uncle Andy. The fishing legends of those two in Cedar Key always seem to expand depending on who you ask, but I’ll save that for another time.
Did I mention Uncle Andy is a clam farmer in Cedar Key? Because of course he is…also, a story for another time.
Fish and Chips
One of my earliest memories of Cedar Key is spending the day fishing off the pier and eating salt & vinegar potato chips with fishy-shrimp slimed hands. On that pier, I learned a lot. Among the lessons and the sunburn, I learned that digging into a bag of Charles Chips with fishy-shrimp slimed hands wouldn’t kill me and that people I saw and met were all characters in my story.
As a kid I remember making mental notes to myself about the characters I encountered as we walked along the rickety, aging, wooden gray pier and fished for the day. Some of those people were fishing for fun, some of them were fishing for dinner and some were just passing through.
I never understood why people chose to stay during a hurricane until today.
Hurricanes are a way of life when you live in Florida, especially in a North Gulf Coast island. I lived in South Florida for a while and lived through my share of hurricanes; mostly by leaving. Whenever a hurricane was heading to Miami or Fort Lauderdale, I hauled ass out of town headed North.
As we drove around the sleepy island of my memories today, I found myself imagining myself like Lt. Dan in the movie Forrest Gump screaming at the storm as it barreled into Cedar Key.
Why? Why now? I think I have the answer. Even though I don’t live in Cedar Key, Cedar Key lives in me.
Bar Fights
Not many people know this story and I think that’s what makes the story and this picture so great.
See this picture of my dad, me and my son? Sweet family picture, right? Well…let me tell you a quick story about this very spot and why we’re standing there today.
Years ago my Dad, Uncle Andy, my brother Alex, my brother Chris and I went on a Father’s Day fishing weekend in Cedar Key.
My younger brother Chris I were perfectly drunk sitting on the barstools in this bar at the Steamers restaurant having beers and just shooting the shit.
I have no idea what happened or why, but mid-sentence, I look over my right shoulder and see Chris off his bar stool, staring at me with his hands on top of his head, using his fingers to make horns and he started to stomp his foot like a charging bull and said “Tatanka” and flat leveled me off the bar stool without warning and without explanation.
Chris and I are rolling around on the floor of the bar punching each other and the bar manager comes over yelling “HEY NO FIGHTING! NO FIGHTING!!” — I yell “it’s okay, we’re brothers!” as if that’s the answer and the manager says “I DON’T GIVE A SHIT, NO FIGHTING!”
Chris and I get up, dust ourselves off, get back on our bar stools and swig our beer as if nothing happened ya know, because “we’re brothers.”
Some of y’all know this and some of y’all don’t, but Chris passed away a few years ago and that “tatanka” moment is one of my favorite memories of him. Today my son heard it for the first time, laughed his head off and then he got to stand with my Dad and me where Chris and I rolled around and drunkenly punch each other.
Love
Would you believe that there’s love in such a small town? The same restaurant where I was “tatanka’d” (I’m making that a verb) off a bar stool, is the same restaurant we ate at when my wife and my parents met for the first time just before we got married. That day is a day of infamy in our family too because during that lunch, nerves and all, my wife shot a crab leg shell across the restaurant off her fork and hit a waitress in the ass – very “Pretty Woman” style. I will never not laugh about that when I remember it.
How could I ever leave Cedar Key?
I’ve passed these stories on to my family, especially my son and now I’ve passed them on to you.
Now, with these stories and these pictures, Cedar Key is part of y’all too.
I hope you have the pleasure one day of going to Cedar Key, having some seafood, having a beer, yacking it up with the locals, maybe finding love and having your own tatanka moment.
Love and food.
xoxo,
Mike