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I could tell Cathy wasn’t pleased by the way she said, “Is this the only one they had?” Well, no, it wasn’t. But it was the least expensive. It required minimum assembly. And I figured a mailbox is a mailbox.
George Bush the first was in the White House at the time. And I figured any correspondence he needed to get to me would be just as safe in a “reasonably priced” letter holder. The small wooden slats that gave this cheap mailbox a country look began to fall off the week after I got it set up. Hurricane Opal gave it a slight list to the northeast. Dick Lamberson backed over it in 1999. A city truck accidentally nudged it almost back to vertical in 2011.
Of course, that run down mailbox was the last thing on our minds Wednesday morning, October 10th, as we watched Hurricane Michael roar up the Gulf...RIGHT AT US! Cathy and I sat glued to the Weather Channel. Jim Cantore in Panama City was frightening enough. But when they actually placed a correspondent in Port St. Joe we realized this wasn’t going to end well.
We were anxious, but not scared. We worried about our children...worrying about us. And we marveled, and took great comfort, in the unbelievable number of family, friends and acquaintances that had reached out to us over the last twenty-four hours.
Jane Hill got in touch; as did Pam, Lana and Bobby King. All childhood friends...from two eons and a light year ago! The entire 1968 Sewanee baseball team checked in wanting to know what they could do to help. Friends, who had moved away from St. Joe, “reunited” to say they were thinking about us. We could hear the fear, and concern, and love, in every single voice, through every text, in every email.
Kinfolks, near and far, let us know that we were in their hearts. I was afraid Cathy’s siblings were going to move down here! Josh and Jesse called with the exact same message, “Daddy, don’t sit there another second, get to my house as fast as you can!”
It was a little hard to explain. First of all, this now category 4 (bordering on a 5) hurricane had been barely a 1 just a short day and a half ago. We were caught off guard for sure. And we probably would have left if we’d known the real extent of this thing from the outset. But maybe not! We are both older now. No children depending on us…and this is our home.