Saturday, July 16, 2016

Reunion time Down South

Traveled to Florida for Chris's high school reunion. Not exactly her reunion but her sister Ellen's, who was just one year behind Chris as a member in good standing of the Seabreeze High School Fighting Sandcrabs. Sandcrabs can be particularly feisty when males fight each other during mating season and when attacked by predators. Humans feel the crab's pinch when they step on gnarly crustaceans while strolling through the surf.

We met mostly congenial Crabs at the reunion at the Hilton, the convention hotel directly across from the Daytona Beach Ocean Center. The convention center and hotel are new additions since these 18-year-olds graduated in 1976. Their name badges featured their photo in the bicentennial annual. The guys were longhairs, many of them surfers. Seabreeze sits a half block from the beach. If the surf was up, well, attendance was down. The school district built a fence to pen in surfing youth, especially since a McDonald's was en route to salt water. Fences are made to be climbed or, on occasion, dismantled. Coaches served as border guards. One of Ellen's classmates told us how he and his pals handcuffed an unsuspecting football coach to the fence. They had to run laps the rest of the year, but the surf was worth it.

At reunions, people tell stories. Almost all are true, although they get reimagined over the years. While the classmates shared, I listened. Some of the guys knew my brother Pat, surfer and football player, class of '74. My sister Eileen was in the '76 class. And many of Chris's friends. They partied together in high school and shared a beachside house while attending the local community college. Even though Chris attended school with a bunch of heathens, she sang in Daybreak, a Catholic singing group. Her questionable singing skills led her to a spot in the back row jangling on the tambourine. 

Seems funny, but they were of a different generation. I was class of '69 at Father Lopez Catholic High School six miles from the beach. School named after the priest who accompanied Ponce De Leon to Florida. Our mascot -- the Fighting Green Waves. I wore a uniform to school. Green Wave coat and tie. Attended weekly mass. You skipped school at your peril. Sister Bernandita would be in your face the next day. Not your face, really, as she was four-foot-ten and barely reached my chest. She roared like a lion, Punishment could be severe. The nuns hit and punched us. The priests took out the paddles. Just a look from Sister Norbert could freeze a linebacker in his tracks. 

The Crabs had a different experience. Principal a drunk. Teachers lackadaisical -- and some dated students. Every night a party night. Students allegedly engaged in s-e-x, unlike their Catholic brethren and sistren.  

As the current Pope might say: Who am I to judge? Chris's sister and friends are amazing. Remember how confusing it was to be 16? Remember how important friends were? High school can be the best of times and/or the worst of times. The first half of the 1970s meant sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll. In the South, it also meant integration. The school had a riot, or at least va major disturbance. Blacks and whites treated each other with suspicion. Until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (and slightly thereafter) Daytona was a sundowner town. African-Americans weren't allowed on the beachside after sundown without a work permit. To be there otherwise, you risked arrest or a beating or worse. Blacks lived on the other side of the bridge in the Second Avenue neighborhood adjacent to Bethune-Cookman College, a traditional African-American college founded by noted educator Mary McLeod Bethune.

Daytona has a lively history. The baseball stadium on City Island is called Jackie Robinson Ballpark or "The Jack." In 1946, Daytona Beach defied segregation laws and was the first Florida city to allow Robinson to play in public with his Brooklyn Dodgers farm team. Noted African-American author Zora Neale Hurston from nearby Eatonville wrote on her houseboat in Daytona. Stephen Crane spent a night in Daytona after he was shipwrecked while on his way to cover the Cuban dust-up in 1897. This was the genesis for Crane's much-anthologized story "The Open Boat." The now unknown Robert Wilder (only one of his books still in print) wrote a Hemingwayesque book about Daytona's early days entitled "God Has a Long Face." Walter M. Miller, Jr., the tormented and reclusive World War II veteran and author of "A Canticle for Leibowitz," committed suicide in Daytona. He announced his death in advance with a call to the police, telling them that there was a dead man in his front yard (thanks to Denny Bowden and his excellent blog Volusia History for this info). Fireball Roberts (see comments) and Dale Earnhardt both died in wrecks at Daytona International Speedway. NASCAR started with races on the hard-packed sand of the beach. Early stock-car racers refined their skills by outrunning "revenooers" in the Appalachian hills.

It's all about stories and relationships. Can't have one without the other.

5 comments:

RobertP said...

It is a long way from Daytona to Cheyenne. I had heard about Jackie Robinson's time in Daytona, but not Walter Miller's. A Canticle for Leibowitz is a damn fine book and may have to read that again.

I am still amazed at the state of racial separation in the South in the 1960's. I remember driving down to Hartwell, GA to my grandmother's house in 1964 and stopping at a Gas Station with 3 restrooms, Men's Women's and Colored.

Growing up on the South side of Chicago I had been going to completely integrated schools since kindergarten. Though my high school, Morgan Park, was a bit of an anomaly. And while the school straddled the color line, the streets in the neighborhood were pretty much either white or black.

There were a lot of Catholics in my neighborhood, including my best friend. But the discipline in my Grammar and High School was pretty strict. The Catholic kids did things at school we would not dare do.l One thing for sure, neither Catholic or Public school kids ever cut school to go surfing!

Bob

Michael Shay said...

I hear that surfing on Lake Michigan is the best in the Midwest. That's what my daughter tells me -- she's in Chicago now.

Larry Staley said...

Great storyMichael, just a couple of clarifications..., as a Seabreeze grad (class of '73) I have to say race,relations during my time there were actually very good. Unfortunately, it was during my brothers time ( maybe your brothers time as well), for a short period there were some tough times , but was resolved fairly quickly. I wouldn't necessarily call them riots, but whatever. Secondly, you're correct about Dale Earnhardt dying here at the speedway, but Fireball Roberts, while he lived here, was actually injured in a crash at Charlotte, NC, later passed from the burns he received in that crash. Thanks for the memories!
Larry

Michael Shay said...

Larry: Thanks for the clarifications and corrections. As I mentioned, my high school years were over by 1969 and my experiences at Lopez were a bit different from yours and my wife's at Seabreeze. Segregation was still the rule in '69. Our Lopez basketball team included two black players -- Marvin Benford and Willie Prince -- and we played teams in the mostly white St. John's River Conference. We had a few scuffles at some of the away games. We also played Seabreeze and usually lost. Same goes for Campbell, an all-black school at the time. My memories are mostly good from those times although, as a writer, I know it wasn't the same for everyone.

Michael Shay said...

Larry: Thanks for the clarifications and corrections. As I mentioned, my high school years were over by 1969 and my experiences at Lopez were a bit different from yours and my wife's at Seabreeze. Segregation was still the rule in '69. Our Lopez basketball team included two black players -- Marvin Benford and Willie Prince -- and we played teams in the mostly white St. John's River Conference. We had a few scuffles at some of the away games. We also played Seabreeze and usually lost. Same goes for Campbell, an all-black school at the time. My memories are mostly good from those times although, as a writer, I know it wasn't the same for everyone.