Life of a Caxambas Kid - Part Two

One of the most vivid memories of Pettit’s time at Caxambas came when Hurricane Donna hit the island in 1960. Pettit was just five years old. Joe Dickman, known as the Hermit of Kice Island, was part of those memories. Kice Island is an island just south of Caxambas. Dickman came to the fish camp often.

"He was a very nice man,” Pettit said. "He had a boat he putted around in. He would come to the fish camp for a beer. And he'd hang out around there. He worked for the man that had bought Kice Island. The man was supposedly going to come and develop it and send him a check every month. But he never came to develop it.”

"He was kind of tall. Rugged-looking man,” Pettit said of Dickman. “Always wore shorts and he always carried a limb with him for swatting at the mosquitoes.

"Whenever Hurricane Donna hit, he comes to the fish camp, and if not for him, ain't no telling what would have happened. We were going to stay in the big house.”

Dickman talked them into going to a safer location. They went to what is now known as Otter Mound in the estates area of the island.

“We went to Ernie Otter's place,” Pettit said. "Mr. Ernie Otter left during the summer. They told my dad, 'Look, if ever there's a storm just go up and break in.' The water started coming up and my dad decided that he was going to take and move us over to Mr. Otter's place. And Mr. Dickman was there, and my dad swam and gathered up a bunch of rope and tied it together, and he swam across to the Otter Mound and tied off to a tree limb. Then he came back, put us all in one of the skiffs and we all pulled across with Mr. Dickman's help and he stayed with us. It destroyed his place. So he bought a trailer and was going to stay there at the fish camp. The fish camp turned out to be a little too wild and too many people coming and going for him.”

 "I was about five and a half whenever Donna hit,” Pettit remembers. “But, I mean, the memories are vivid. For the most part, I think everybody fared pretty decently. Those houses back then were built sturdy. The people knew what they were doing. I know our cottages withstood the test of time."

Pettit has fond memories of hunting local wildlife outside of the fish camp. Much of the hunting was not necessarily legal.

"It used to be when you said, 'Hey, there comes a flock of birds,' it would block out the sun,” Pettit said. "And I mean, for minutes on end, just these flocks of birds flying over. You know, I worry people think I like to exaggerate. I hate to admit this, but I didn't find out until just earlier this year that hunting curlew has been illegal since 1928. Shucks, we went out all the time.”

"And I'm going to tell you, man, just talking about curlew, my mouth starts watering. Just craving some. They are much better than chicken. A lot of people, when they get wild game, they want to take that wild out of it. They want to soak it. Now you pull the feathers and you throw him in the frying pan. A lot of people make stew out of it. I'm not too crazy about the stew, but you throw that sucker in a frying pan, I'll fight for my part. It's just got a unique flavor to it. Truly unique, real flavorful.”

"There used to be a lot of quail around the fish camp. So we'd get quail. And plover. That's another good-eating bird. And you can take a shot. And, I mean, there used to be a thousand birds in one flock out there on the mudflats at low tide. Just pecking around. Get out there in the boat and let the boat drift up and pop! And you'd see the birds go flying. Then you jump out and gather up what you'd got. Couldn't hardly miss. Back then, you could walk around with a 12 gauge and nobody would say anything.

Looking back, Pettit feels his family had an ally in the local game warden.

"Ben Whitehead,” Pettit said, "he used to be the game warden. He'd come over and talk to my dad and all. And I don't know if he was telling my dad where he is going to be so we could go somewhere else to get our curlew. But he'd always tell my dad where he is going to be and we'd go somewhere else and get some mess.”

Pettit also used to flip turtles on the beach.  An activity that wasn’t uncommon among Marco Island pioneers. 

“Loggerhead turtles,” Pettit said, “we used to turn a lot of them. You get out there at night or early morning and you cruise up and down the beach and you look for a sign where one's crawled up or you spot one crawling up. A good hunter will wait and let it go up and lay its eggs and then wait for it coming back down. And the whole thing is you let it get as close to the water as you can so that your boat's right there because they're heavy. Then you just jump out of the boat, flip it over, take your ax and split the belly, and then grab your meat. It is good eating. We never messed with the eggs. We left the eggs alone so that there'd be some for later on."

Pettit is comfortable in his own skin.

"I got to be true to myself,” he said. "Yeah, to hell with what anybody thinks of me. I'm true to myself. And as long as I can live with myself, I don't care if you like me, hate me, whatever. That's your choice. I try to be polite, kind, and courteous. If and if you let me, I think for the most part, I am. But if you want to get a bad attitude, I'll show you a bad attitude. I ain't got no problem with showing you a bad attitude. You'd rather not because it leads to bad things.”

He visited the site of the old fishing camp recently.

"I cried just thinking about it,” he said solemnly. "I cried going over there. I can't look in the mirror without a tear coming to my eye because I got that little scar on my nose. I fell off the dock when I was just learning how to walk."

"I was blessed to have got to spend that time there. And to see the island as it was back then. And I wish the people that live there now could really see it. To understand more what I feel was lost. What I feel was taken.”

Pettit shared a story of an experience he had while walking down Marco Beach shortly after the modern development of the island had begun. By that time there were a handful of condominiums on the beach. He had a confrontation with an older man.

"I go walking down onto the beach,” Pettit recalls. "Thank God he was as old as he was. Here comes this man down out of that damn condominium and tells me to get off of his beach. Tells me, the boy that's been born and raised here on this beach, to get off of his beach. I said, 'Sir, you don't know what you're telling me.' He says, 'Yeah, I do. I'm telling you to get off my beach.' I said, 'Well, sir, I'm going to give you a piece of advice. You turn around right now before you open your mouth to me again and you get back up there into your condominium. This is my beach.’ He said, 'Well, I'm going to call the law.' I said, ‘That's a good idea.' The law came. And do you know what the law did? They told me if I didn't leave the beach immediately, that I would be arrested and taken to jail."