Stepping back in time

Anybody that has read my blog at all knows that I try to spend the majority of my time away from modern society. The Florida Folk Festival, while filled with many modern comforts, is a place where I sometimes go back in time

At first glance it seems that these pictures could have been taken 50 or 60 years ago. Sitting underneath our ancient tent looking out over this spectacle and listening to people square dance in the distance, I can imagine being back in old Florida. Back in a simpler time. Back when people had a sense of identity and a sense of place. Back when Floridians didn't have to put a disclaimer on our heritage.
This feeling overcomes me even more while at the annual Battle of Olustee reenactment. Dressed in gingham and wool and warming my hands near a fire in the middle of an ancient longleaf pine forest, I can hear "Dixie" and the yells of people joyously dancing echoing through Old Florida. For a time, I have an inkling what life may have been like for my great, great, great grandfather.

Standing in the middle of a tick-infested battlefield sweating by the gallon while being rocked by cannon and musket fire all around me, the sulfurous smell of black powder thick in the air, the screams of men giving orders, the screams of men falling around me. I can, for a moment, feel the terror, the confusion, the treachery that my ancestors experienced while fighting in battle. I am humbled as I fully realize the courage of the men in that war, Southern and Northern, who stood honorably in defense of their families and country while their boyhood friends died in agony around them.

We don't need time machines to bring us back in time. All we need to do is seek out places like the Florida Folk Festival and the Battle of Olustee reenactment, and we can imagine what it was like to live years ago.

Have you ever experienced something that brought you back in time?

Folkin' it up

How did this teen spend his first weekend of the summer and celebrate the unofficial end of his high school career? He spent it with the best folks in America, of course, at the Florida Folk Festival.

I was disappointed when my Uncle Stuart Pacetti informed me in the end of April that he would not be able to make it this year, as he would be visiting his son in Tennessee. Unfortunately, by that time it was too late for me to sign up as a participant, so I could not set up a little castnet display of my own. Therefore, instead of spending the weekend working on castnets under our usual sprawling live oak tree, I spent the weekend with my dad talking about reenacting with passing spectators. Of course, we had a great time doing that, too.

The Olustee CSO's old tent has seen better days, but that worn look caught the attention of a lot of people. It respectably held its own against Friday morning's driving downpours of rain. Nonetheless, it will probably be replaced soon, and this nice A-frame tent will likely end up in my hands in exchange for a donation to the CSO. Yet another step soon to be taken to become a full-fledged authentic reenactor!



This is a first-person view of how I spent much of my weekend. Shaving down a cow bone for a catnet gauge stick, working on my net in progress, and spinning embellished tales with some old crackers were favorite pasttimes. I really seem to fit in better with these old folks than with people my age. It's not that I'm a loner at school...That's a post for another time.

The 7-foot mullet net, my first, is nearly finished! Two more hours of work, and it's ready for the water! I finished attaching the leadline and eight pounds of sinkers at the festival, and it will be completed as soon as Uncle Stu returns from Tennessee.

The most valuable results of attending events like the Folk Festival, besides the experience of being among kindred spirits, are the connections and friends that one makes. My dad and I happened to be set up next to the Save our Suwannee organization, and I had a good talk with the people there about the river. When one of the members heard that I cast my own sinkers for my castnets (I melt down scrap lead and mold them into sinkers), he came over and informed me that that he had two buckets of lead he needed to get rid of. He used to be a diver and a stained glass artist, both of which required lead, and he had a lot of scrap that he was willing to give to me. I came home with about 40 pounds of good scap lead that will make about 500 sinkers.

In the absence of his father, Sam Pacetti awed the crowds yet again with his amazing fingerstyle guitar picking. I will post some videos of him playing soon, but you can visit his MySpace page and hear his amazing work now if you wish.

I have rambled enough for tonight. More on the Folk Festival will be posted on Tuesday. HurricaneTeen's officially returned for a nice long summer of hopefully blog-worthy events.

Mullet Part Three: What to do with your mullet

Just a quick note: I'm sorry it has taken so long to write and post part three of this series. I have already written 3 papers for my English class alone this year, so my writing time and skill is usually taken up by those. One I am writing right now is about the Florida Skunk Ape, and I may post it on here when I finish. I'm still aiming for at least one post per week throughout the school year, though. Now, let's get started on part three of our series on the mullet.

So you have your mullet and you're wondering what to do with them. Many people at this point will take this great food source, butcher it in many horrible fashions, and use it for bait to catch other fish. My very resourceful family does not see the logic in this...Why catch fish to bait other fish when you can just catch fish and eat those fish instead of going through the trouble of catching the other fish? Know what I mean?

Many people will argue that mullet tastes bad. These are the same people that will tell you catfish tastes bad. I believe that they are just judging the fish on the people that eat it: The mullet (along with the catfish) is widely considered a "poor man's fish." This is partly true, as I have never seen a rich man order the fried catfish or smoked mullet at Singleton's Seafood Shack. Well I guess I've never seen a rich man at Singleton's Seafood Shack, but that is beside the point...You will be hard pressed to find a rich man anywhere who will lay their soft hands on this fish. This does not mean the fish tastes bad! Mullet is not nearly as powerfully fishy-tasting as tuna, and I know you will be hard-pressed to find an American who has never eaten tuna before. Mullet simply suffers from a bad image, this does not mean it's a bad fish!

Getting away from that rich man/poor man spiel, the point is, DO NOT USE THIS FISH FOR BAIT.

COMING SOON: Mullet Part Four: A Recipe for St. Johns River Mullet

Mullet Part 2: How to Catch Mullet

Naturally, after reading Part One of the series on this great fish, and becoming enlightened about its extensive history in Florida, you will want to go catch one for yourself. There are three things that you must have or know how to do in order to catch this prize fish:

1. Saltwater anywhere along the Atlantic or Gulf coast (in the U.S.) south of Chesapeake Bay in Virginia.
2. A good, durable castnet with 1-inch mesh. At least 6-foot radius recommended. You also must have the knowledge to throw the net.
3. The knowledge of how to "snag" mullet?

1st Requirement: Saltwater
Mullet are considered saltwater fish, but they can also be found in brackish rivers, including the St. Johns River, which flows slowly through my homeland. They can be recognized as the fish that leap out of the water for no apparent reason, and fall back down with a nice splash. It is thought that they may jump to get away from predators or to be able to breathe better when they are living in waters that have a lower oxygen concentration. Although mullet can be found in brackish river water, I have been told to NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, eat a "St. Johns River Mullet". I've been told that they are disgusting...Horrible...Foul...Rancid...Abominable...Repugnant. On the contrary, my good friend and cousin, Stuart Pacetti, has shared with me a recipe that tells how to prepare St. Johns River Mullet. That recipe will be posted in a future instalment of this series. However, the recipe can only be successfully made be Minorcan Crackers (the recipe calls for Datil Pepper), so others should only attempt to prepare mullet caught on the beach.

2nd Requirement: Castnet
My mom has fond memories of going to the beach when she was a child. She and her family would drive right onto St. Augustine Beach in the middle of the night to go "turtle eggin'" and mullet fishin'. (Turtle eggin' is something for a future post.) To catch mullet, my grandfather would stand at the ready with his net in hand, while my grandmother would shine the headlights of the car into the water. The bright light would spook the mullet, and they would begin jumping, indicating where their schools were located. My grandfather would throw his net so that it fell over where the mullet were jumping, and hopefully would haul in a load of fish for the dinner table. Today, the beaches are, for the most part, closed to vehicular traffic, and this method can no longer be used. However, native Floridians still catch mullet with castnets on the beach. The video below shows how a castnet is thrown. [I'm sorry for the poor video quality, but it's the only video I could find that uses the same technique I use. It was filmed casting for shrimp in the St. Johns River.)

Most nets today are handmade, but I am learning how to knit castnets by hand from Stuart Pacetti. Coastal Living Magazine featured him in this article in June 2006, and I also wrote about this dying art in this archived post. This is my castnet as it stands right now: coming up on 4-feet-long and aiming for a goal of 7 feet. I'll have it finished by next summer.

3rd Requirement (can take the place of 2nd requirement): Snagging Mullet

I had not heard of this technique of catching mullet until today in my English class. My English teacher said he used to tie two large fish hooks together, cast into a school of Mullet, and "snag" one of them with the hooks. It is necessary to do this because a Mullet will never (okay, rarely) bite a baited hook, as they are bottom feeders. He did not eat the mullet, though, he would use them as bait for snook and other large game fish. This leads into the next instalment:

Mullet Part 3: What to do with Your Mullet

Mullet Part One

A couple months ago, I was driving down the road on my way to visit some family in the city of St. Augustine, and I came across this advertisement for our local newspaper:



You Floridaphiles are probably having a nice chuckle. Oh, how that fish has defined our culture here in north Florida! For those of you who are not enlightened on the subject of Mullet Culture, please allow me to tell my story...

When my ancestors came to Florida in 1768, they were treated as slaves for nine years on the plantation of the tyrannical Englishman Dr. Andrew Turnbull. They worked year-round in the hot, humid, mosquito-infested hell that Florida was years ago. The majority of the Minorcan colonists died of dieases and famine, and those that managed to survive barely did so. The mullet, a species of saltwater fish that "runs" in schools along the beach during the summertime, was a very important part of the Minorcan diet during those rough years.



When the mullet "ran" along the beach, it meant that food would be pleantiful, and that life would not be quite as miserable as usual. This led to the common Minorcan expression "Mullet on the beach!" which means "Good times ahead."

This is the beginning of a multiple-part series on the Mullet. I will add that this is likely the only blog in the blogosphere on which you will find a multi-part series on this fish...Only from a Minorcan! You will find out why later.

Have a good Sunday! Go Pittsburgh Steelers!

"Florida Attacks"

So, I had something happen yet again today, something that has been plaguing me increasingly over the past two years or so. This something is a thing that saps my strength and completely prevents me from concentrating on anything else.

...Yes, it's love...

A spurt of loving pessimism (ha ha) that I have come to know as a "Florida Attack."

Sometimes these Florida Attacks can be good (such as when I strike inspiration in the swamp), and sometimes they can be bad...
Today's was bad, and, as usual, it happened at a bad time.

I stepped out of my 5th period class into a choking haze of smoke blown down from the land of Georgia (God help them.) As I began my daily walk outside toward my 6th/7th period block class, it hit me like a sack of p'taters....
I can't really descibe the feeling. Just thoughts like "Once it's gone, there's no turning back," and the likes of that.
I walked into my freezing cold chemistry classroom and immediately went back outside to lengthen my walk and to think.

...What I thought...I can't put on paper (er, keyboard?) right now, so you will have to wait on that...

However, it did succeed in putting me in a bad mood all throughout 6th/7th block, to the dismay of the people sitting around me (sorry, guys.)

When I walked outside to the parking lot after my Chemistry class period was over, I was beginning to cool off. I was just glad the school day was over and I could go home and have some time alone. Then I heard the THUD and BEEP, BEEP, BEEP sounds of construction (the developer's word for "destruction") behind my school, and this set me off on another loop. My school is currently situated in the middle of the woods, in the remnants of this once rural area of my county. That will not be true in a few years, as the expansive pine plantation surrounding my school are slated to be clear-cut for yet another development.

As these thoughts ran through my mind, I spotted a raccoon wandering in the palmettos just outside of the parking lot, and I thought Where is HE supposed to go? Where's a cracker supposed to go? I suppose we're both slated for extinction, just as that development is slated to destroy.

Just another day in the life of a Floridaphile.

Wow, this post was so horribly written, it ought to not even be posted. However, I must put it out there. This is the way we humans think sometimes.

A Victory for Minorcan Heritage in Florida

The St. Johns County School District is constructing a new middle school on my family's old land grant in Mill Creek, FL. The school is located in the World *choke* Golf *gag* Village, and will serve those residents and the kids from the rural areas (the remaining portion of our land grant) surrounding it.

I have wondered for some time what they would name this school, and an elementary school they are building in the same area. I always thought that it would be cool if they named the school after my Minorcan family (Pacetti) in some way.

At a school board meeting last Tuesday, these were the main proposals for the two schools:
Elementary School
Ward's Creek Elementary School
World *choke* Golf *gag* Village Elementary School

Middle School
Pacetti Bay Middle School
Fairways Middle School

....And the winners are....
WORLD GOLF VILLAGE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
PACETTI BAY MIDDLE SCHOOL

It's a good thing that Pacetti Bay beat out Fairways, because I would just have to go bang my head on a brick wall if they caved in to naming BOTH schools after golf...

I look at it this way...
Golf has been in Mill Creek for 8 years.
Pacettis have been in Mill Creek for 203 years.

Thank God they let us keep this little sliver of culture in a place where culture is being pushed out for fairways and "World Golf."

You can read the whole story at http://staugustine.com/stories/041107/news_4525033.shtml.