The sting of growing up

My essay from “The Gift of Florida,” a St. Petersburg Times collection of stories from “America, made from concentrate.”

When I was young, my parents taught me about the ocean. From our orange-tree home near Gladden Park, the gulf, they said, lay in wait on the horizon. But I was young, and my ocean was my plastic kiddie pool, blue, shallow and safe. What I knew was traced in tiny wet footprints across my backyard porch.

As a boy my parents enrolled me in swim lessons at the neighborhood pool. They buoyed my arms in neon floaties and watched me doggy-paddle frantically to safety. One day, when I was old enough, they took me to the beach.

On the shore, I stood awestruck. The water yawned endlessly, dreadfully, into space. I was spooked and overwhelmed. On afternoons I ventured out to punch the waves, one boy battling the invading unknown.

The ocean of my imagination harbored countless horrors — great white sharks, giant squids, man-eating creatures of the depths — but the worst was the stingray. My dad had told me about their razor-barbed tails, which drilled through bone, leaving boys hideously deformed.

I was taught the Stingray Shuffle, and in those dangerous months I shambled dutifully. But I did not feel safer; I felt like a zombie. Fear, I thought, makes us do strange things.

Through all my sunburnt mornings at Pass-a-Grille and Fort De Soto, through jellyfish stings and horsefly bites, I never encountered a stingray. And as life became busier, more complicated — even, at times, terrifying — the specter of the stingray seemed to fade from view.

One afternoon years later, when I was no longer a boy, my girlfriend and I went to the beach. We had just entered the surf when I felt a sudden sharp jab in my foot. Back on the sand, I saw a bloody dime-sized divot. Finally, I had been stung.

The gouged chunk, maybe the work of a baby ray, looked shallow and unremarkable — nothing like the gore I had imagined. As we cleaned the wound, I thought about my fear, and what my parents had taught me about the ocean. A few minutes later, we waded back in.

Georgetown, Texas

Jada

The family dog lay dead in her bed. Her eyes were open. Her jaw hung loose, exposing a sharp canine tooth. Her paws hung limply off the side of the bed, and her underbelly showed shallow traces of her rib cage. Her golden fur was flecked with fleas.

My parents found her the morning after Easter at their home in south St. Petersburg. When I got there, they were still sobbing. My mom was pacing the house, gathering mementos on the breakfast bar. My dad was in the backyard, digging a shallow grave.

In dog years she was 91. In 1998, when we adopted her, she was the calmest golden retriever at the shelter. She was to be a companion for our graying cocker spaniel, Mitsy, who grew more fragile by the day. Volunteers had named her Sweetpea. We named her Jada.

Jada was docile and quiet, obedient and eager to please. After Mitsy died, and I left home for college, my parents grew closer to her, taking long walks to the dog park. She slept at the foot of their bed. She never ran away; when my parents accidentally locked her outside, she waited at the front door.

In recent weeks she seemed to wither. Her zeal as backyard guard, hunting cardinals and squirrels, had dulled, and she preferred cooling under the shade of the backyard patio. She stopped eating; for the last two weeks my mother had hand-fed her dog food, pepperonis and American cheese. One afternoon she collapsed on the pool deck. My parents planned to put her to sleep that week.

In the kitchen, near Jada’s things, I hugged my mom for a long time. My dad returned from the backyard, sweaty and browned with dirt, and I hugged him too. Together we stepped outside to the patio. We crouched next to Jada’s bed and rubbed her fur. “She’s chasing squirels now,” my dad said. He and I lifted her bed and walked outside.

My dad dug the grave below my rickety childhood playground, wooden with broken slats. Somewhere nearby was Mitsy’s grave. On the bed my mom laid Jada’s collar, a Milk-Bone, some small white flowers and an angel figurine, “to watch over her.” We eased her into the ground.

She shook under the first shovelful of dirt. My mom said it looked like she took a breath. My dad, his face wet with tears, dug feverishly and with purpose. He covered her body, setting two twigs aside for a cross. Then he said, “Goodbye, girl,” and scattered dirt over her eyes.

Austin, Texas

Dunedin, Fla.

Letters from prison

After I wrote in the Times about the popularity of honey buns behind bars, a prisoner advocate named Carmen mailed the story to a few inmates. She forwarded me their handwritten responses, sent from their cells.

I found their insights and complaints fascinating. I figured others might like them, too.

Here are a few of those letters.

Manuel Rodriguez, 47, serving a 30-year sentence at the Desoto Annex Correctional Institution, wrote:

Yes as you already know honey buns are full of sugar & fat with well over 600 calories. All though the honey buns serves many purposes as you’ve described; cakes, selebrations and to settle depts; the honey buns #1 soul purpose for most that are able to afford them is that it sticks to the gut and fills the gap left from the state food that’s badly prepped, overboiled and at times spoiled to a point that it’s uneatable. Not to mention that we the inmate population in here don’t get the total or near 2000 calorie count so that the Department of Corrections can save themselves the extra $’s. So to fill the gaps and to stop the hunger pains at night or thru out the day for most it’s that iced honey bun, peanut butter & ect…

It’s either honey buns and other junk food snacks of T.V.P. (textured vegetable protein) that not even the cats around here will eat nor the farmers will except because their pigs won’t eat.

No Mr. Harwell we do not receive 2700 calaries a day. We don’t even receive 2000 calories 4 out of 7 days a week which is why the honey buns, bear claws, soups, saltine crackers and other canteen items are needed.

Thank you for your interest in this unknown justice that takes place in a place that goes unheard of or seen by the real world, where a voice goes on without ears a world within a world forgotten …

Please feel free to contact me at any time. I’m not hard to find and at times not hard to speak with …

One prisoner wrote:

Honey buns, as reported, are the most popular item on the canteen. The reason is that they meet the USRDA of all three of the prison food groups: they are big (and therefore filling), they are (relatively) cheap, and they taste good. The food served here is maintenance only. It is tasteless, poorly prepared, and made from the cheapest, bottom-of-the-barrel crap that is possible to obtain. I seriously dispute the DOC contention that it is 2750 calories. I know food and I would put that number at 2200 max. If the food service actually served the portions on the menu, perhaps. But they “shake the spoon” to save money. If it happens to be your turn to eat last they always run out of something and use leftovers from whenever. Once they ran out of the vegetable so I was served frozen carrots. Not prepared carrots that had once been frozen. FROZEN carrots.

At roughly a dollar honey buns are a convenient medium of exchange. They are used to gamble with (cards, sports events, spider fights, footraces, etc.) They are used to tip barbers, bartered for sex, and used as an ingredient in more complex desserts.

Mr. Harwell’s article is accurate and he touches on most of the reasons why they are so popular. But it wouldn’t matter what the product was. If it cheaply and fillingly and tastily supplement the slop we get from food service ANY product would sell like, well honey buns.

A second prisoner wrote:

What’s the haps? Thanks for the story about the life of a honey bun in prison. Almost sounds like a “prison bitch” story — only honey bun would be plural as in honey “buns.” Whatever. …

I’ll just say that as far as the honey bun itself it is a universal system of bartering in here (1.00) and is still one of, if not the best, bargain for 1.08. A meal in itself. As far as all of the calories and being “bad” for you no one in here cares about that. That measly 600 or so calories is nothing because you will not get fat in prison on the regular prison food diet! Believe that cause I eat a honey bun every day for breakfast (I dont go to chow in the a.m.). And I’m a pretty rock solid 190 lbs. with very little body fat. Course, I work out religiously but you still need a lot of honey buns to get obese in here. You will not see a whole lot of fat people in here, yes some because they just lay around or have physical or mental problems, but by far most are not overweight. …

We are issued 1/2 bar of soap (1) one roll toilet paper a week. One (1) tube of toothpaste (made in India) a month. Cut backs everywhere in here for us, we wear rags for clothes and I’ve had to buy my own socks because they only gave me one pair when I got here. Where’s the 1 billion budget going? To the top heavy upper echelon of white (shits?) in every camp and their benefits and salary. I can go on and on but that’s enough for now.

Well, time’s up for today — I’m sooo busy! I know you can appreciate my warped sense of humor! We’re all doing time! Stay safe! (my handwriting sucks — I know) I got spoiled on the laptop.

Leanna and Melvin enjoy a day of painting.

Rajah, a Siberian-Bengal tiger “mutt,” paces along his corrugated-steel pen at the Survival Outreach Sanctuary outside Spring Hill, Fla. He weighs 800 pounds.

Thoughts on our coverage of the Koran burning

The St. Petersburg Times ran two front-page stories on the Rev. Terry Jones on Thursday: one, from the wires, on changes to his planned Koran burning; and another, by me, on the man himself. A reader e-mailed me:

I know you’re just doing your job but … why is the sptimes (like every other media organization in the country right now) intent on giving free press to a backwoods lunatic spewing hate speech? He is not representative of a major American constituency that I know of… unless the Times has polling data to suggest a large portion of Americans support Koran burning. Obviously now that the President, the FBI and Pentagon are involved there is a legitimate story here (oy veh) but playing up the rantings of this kook for the mere fact that he’s polarizing and offensive is wrong.

It was a thoughtful criticism — one I’ve read (and repeated) several times, only aimed at other media outlets. The idea that, in covering the story, I had potentially become part of the problem still bothered me. So, for the reader and myself, I responded:

Thank you so much for your intelligent feedback. You’re very, very right, and you share the opinion of myself and several other reporters and editors with the Times.

In the last week, as the fervor spread to national news, we attempted to shine very little light on Terry Jones and his tiny congregation with the express purpose of not aggrandizing an event so bigoted and insignificant. We had no reporters on the first days there; I just hoped he would go away. But by Wednesday, the day of our first story, Petraeus, Clinton and the White House had issued statements and elevated the story to something of news import, especially for us, representing the biggest paper in the state. Even then, John Barry’s story talked less about the event and more on the myth of the man, with lots of details to point out just how deluded his flock seemed to be. (“Jesus had just one part of the world down on him. We’ve got the whole world.”)

I began on my story in today’s paper, detailing Jones’ recent history of hate speech, late yesterday afternoon, after Obama had appealed to Jones for sense. There was a lot of material on Jones that readers of the Gainesville Sun might know, but that people around here might not — stuff we felt would help our readers understand the church’s backwards mindset. But even then, the editors had cold feet around 3 p.m., and there was a lot of discussion over whether it was right and fair and responsible to reward a man seeking the spotlight. They decided to trim our profile of Jones to a few paragraphs. Then he began his strange on-again, off-again routine, and with that they decided this man needed a little more backgrounding.

I’m sadly aware of the role we play in making stories like this happen, and I agree that he represents a minor fringe. But in this case, as the story grew legs on its own, we did the best we could to report it honestly.

Thanks for reading. Next time I hope it’ll be something more fulfilling, for all of us.

Update — He responded:

Thank you for responding sir. I am glad your editors are taking a thoughtful approach to this story. My email was probably more of a response to my usual diet of media consumption rather than your story in particular. Thanks again for the response and for helping maintain a higher standard of reporting at the Times.

And me:

Thank you for holding us accountable.