Fowler St. Pier
Thurs., Feb. 25, 1926
Finally the piles for our new mooring are ready, and after waiting two or three days more for someone to tow us, we at last got started. It was fun being pulled up the river by a tiny motorboat. The towing man claimed to know the Caloosahatchee River, its channels and tides, but when we were about one hundred feet from the new pier, the boat stuck on the he bottom, and pull as he would, he could not budge it. So he left it there and we were stranded for the night.
About 2 A.M. the doctor, feeling the rise of the tide, began to pole the boat ahead, and before long, with the aid of the rest of us awakened by the movement, had the boat tied up at the new platform. It was still a couple of days, though, before we had electricity, and as yet there is no water.
Although the remainder of the lengthy pier is empty, another boat has docked so near that we can almost touch it. No one being on hand to direct the pile driving man, he did the easiest thing--used one of our piles and drove in only one new one. The doctor and Mother W. are very unhappy with the situation, not only because of the lack of privacy, but because the other boat is in bad repair, and hence detracts from the renting or selling value of this one. Mother W. has offered to pay for the driving of new piles and the bowing of the other boat further down the pier. The pile driver man told Bill that because he got stuck when here before, he would not come in again. So that is that.
The first Sunday in Ft. Myers we drove to Crescent Beach for a picnic. Bill and I went bathing, strolled on the beach and found delicate shells, sea urchins, lovely orange and purple seafans, several kinds of sponges, and a type of seaweed that, when dry, resembles a snake’s skeleton.
Another day we drove to Punta Russa, the little fishing village on the gulf where the news first arrived of the sinking of the battleship Maine. We were fascinated by a line of pelicans diving through the air to catch in their huge beaks, before it touched the water, the refuse thrown overboard from a fishing boat nearing the shore. Every post of the pier was decorated by a pelican finial.
One day at Estero we visited a strange community called “The Koreshan Unity.” Koresh, the founder of the semi-religious, semi-scientific sect, believed that we are living on the inside of the planet Earth, instead of the outside. Upon entering the “Unity” the hundred or so members give all their worldly goods to the community and work without pay, the Unity supplying their needs. In charming thatched huts they ply their various crafts, and at the moment many are preparing for an exhibition of their handiwork.
One peculiar old codger undertook to explain their “inside the earth” theory: out into the bay for several miles stakes were set at right angles to the shore, all supposedly the same height above the water and equidistant from each other. He contended, though it didn’t look that way to us, that the stakes farthest out are above the level of those nearby, thus proving to them that we live on a concave, not a convex, surface. No ship disappears under the horizon, in their book.
He later took us in his motorboat for a delightful trip down a narrow, winding river, while telling us stories and reciting doggerel of his own manufacture. Probably a poser, a bluffer, or even a charlatan, he was nevertheless entertaining.
For some unknown reason a reporter came to the boat the other day to ask us all “How come?” To Mother W. and the doctor--how come the houseboat, and to Bill and me--how come the motorcycle. We all tried to explain at once, with the most confusing result, as evidenced in this morning’s paper. Bill, recently turned thirty, was termed, “a youngerly man just entering middle age.” His mother rose up in arms saying, “Why, the very idea! He is barely out of his twenties!” Bill’s explanation of his stock market activities was more than wasted, for the report said he had “a deep insight into some sinister methods.” Dr. Strobel was practically in tears about his quoted remark that he had “forgotten surgery,” being afraid one of his colleagues at the Memorial Hospital in New York would see it. The poor reporter must have been dazed by the various stories shouted at him and pinned the tail on the wrong donkey, so to speak.
At last we are well settled at the Fowler St. Pier. New flower boxes have been made and filled with geraniums, and the water pipes are connected. One never realizes what a blessing running water is until it has to be carried in buckets. River water is too salty for plants or even for cleaning. Water in the artesian well on shore is too sulphury to drink without boiling, but all right for cooking; the sulphur evaporates entirely when it stands long enough. The water is terrible everywhere in Florida.
It is lovely at this pier in spite of the closeness of the other boat. Sunsets across the mile-wide river are magnificent, especially from the upper deck; the moon rises over the exotic gardens on the estate of Burroughs, the adding machine magnate; and an exquisite odor of orange blossoms is wafted on the air.
Crab fishing off the back porch was fun the other day. All we did was to fasten a chunk of meat to a nail at the end of a string, and we caught 21 crabs in as many minutes. At the moment a crab feels the air it tries to drop off. The trick is to give it a quick flip into a pail at the water’s surface. With practice we became expert. As Mother W. had planned something else for supper, we threw them all back, thinking we could not provide a meal at any time. But the next day, when we needed them for supper, not a bite did we get. So we have never tasted Florida crabs.
At first the state seems dull and “samey,” but on closer look the plants and birds are most varied and colorful; everytime we go for a ride we bring home armfuls of new and different flowers. The tall straight, ringed, cement-like trunks and feather-duster plumes of the Royal Palms, lining most every road in Ft. Myers, are very impressive. One luxuriant evergreen with spines on trunk and branch is called the Monkey Puzzle Tree. Many plants blossom the whole year around--a continuous performance, orange trees even bearing fruit and blooms at the same time.
We have just had new spokes put in the wheel of the sidecar, and it nearly broke us. Prices are very high here, the only cheap thing being grapefruit. At the local packing house, we can get all we want free by simply helping ourselves to “culls”--fruit with blemishes on the skin or of odd size. I wanted to send some to Mother, but decided they were too ripe to pack. I did send her a box of nuts, shells, seafans, coconuts, women’s tongues, etc., packed in heavy underwear we no longer need.