Turkeys:
Turkey hunting season had begun that weekend, and the roads were crawling with hunters patrolling for prey. I arrived at the
tiny grocery store we had designated as our meeting spot. As I waited for Brian I struck up conversation with hunters. They
had lived in Apalachicola
their entire lives, and their perspectives and personalities were fascinating in the extreme. I do not have the skill
to record their accents or speaking styles, but if you saw one in a movie, you wouldn't have believed for an instant
that they really existed.
Brian showed up, and we resumed our creeping procession down the road---I trailed my car about 1/4 mile behind Brian's.
Like the other drivers on the road, we were on the hunt.
As I hustled back into the car after photographing this nicely lobed Pinguicula lutea,
I saw Brian waving his arms at me. I drove towards him and was
bemused to see him literally jumping and twirling; one leg in the air, then the other; ecstatically
waving his arms about as if fending off giant bats.
It was one of the most astonishing things I had seen on the trip. Brian continued his gyrations even as two old pickup trucks filled with
grizzled turkey hunters slowed down and gave him the hairy eye as they passed him. Brian didn't care.
