Today’s post brought to you by: A Chevrolet ute
Grateful for: Ben, Joanne and Jerry
Trying hard to accept: The ringing in my ears
Those are my legs. That’s a loaded Ruger .22 caliber revolver.
Today has been one of the best days of my trip. It can be broken down into: people, food and guns.
Let’s start at the very beginning. A very good place to start.
Ben’s friends Joanne and Jerry invited us to their house about an hour into the back of beyond to eat a fish fry.
Drove right into the heart of Trump land. See those baseball caps, Peter? See your head? Put 2+2 together. Just kiddin’, my little redneck.
Across the road from the Trump stand I was struck with my new career idea. Buy smokes at $2.99 a packet, fly home, sell them down the pub for $39.95. Easy as cherry pie (which Joanne made for dessert tonight, served with Cool Whip. Yum).
Joanne and Jerry farm bees and have a shop up the road that sells … would you believe it … honey, and lots of other things like pickles made by local Mennonites, soaps, BBQ sauce, seasoning, candles and more.
Out in the parking lot, Don was cooking up boiled peanuts.
“What’s a boiled peanut?” I asked Jerry when we’re out in the Chevrolet. “You ain’t never had a boiled peanut?” he asked incredulously.
Before I had a chance to explain that peanuts don’t exactly grow on trees in NZ (first one to point out the obvious wins a prize) he’s on the phone to Don getting him to mix me up a half-regular, half-Cajun order.
Now, like me I’m sure you’d think that buying peanuts from a roadside truck would mean a small bag. Well think again folks.
Out in these parts it means a low-country boil. Jerry jumps back in the ute carrying a box the size of 3 phone books. In case the peanuts got lonely there was corn, carrots and potatoes. And if you think boiled peanuts sound pretty bland you’d be pretty much mistaken. They are unbelievably good.
Joanne and Jerry built their house in the 70s. And I mean built with their own 4 hands.
It’s on a huge section with the bees of course but also a massive processing and packing ‘shed’ built by Jerry, 14 utes, trucks, tractors and ride-on mowers, a great big lake next door and a menagerie of wild animals including alligators, turkeys and black bears.
Jerry said he’d show me the Ocala national forest up the road. Disappears off to the bedroom to grab something. That something turns out to be a Ruger revolver.
I asked the same stupid question everyone asks when confronted by a real gun for the first time. “Is that thing loaded?”
Well it sure was. Bullets the size of your middle toe. As was the other revolver and the 4ft high shotgun that also shared the room.
When I picked it up it was so heavy I almost dropped it. Would’ve really shot myself in the foot then.
It was scary, thrilling, scary, and unreal. It’s like all those movies you watch coming to real life. The revolvers were so heavy I couldn’t imagine how you’d whip one out of your buckle, release the catch, point it and shoot all before the other guy beat you to it.
“Us good old boys out here never go anywhere without our guns. We just don’t”, Jerry explained as we drove and I held the gun like a baby, with my gob hanging open. “You typically have one down your boot and one in your buckle.”
Then he told me all these stories about what happens if someone comes onto your property, how it helps to know the local judge’s brother-in-law, why you should never stop if someone waves you down on the side of the road, and why there’s no need to instal an alarm on your property.
We drove into the pine-laden Ocala national forest across white quicksand tracks that’ll claim your vehicle in 5 mins if you don’t know what you’re doing/don’t have an all-wheel drive.
Past campsites with anti-bear metal trash boxes and right up to the lake edge. Half expected a black bear to come leaping out of the trees. Lucky it didn’t ‘cause the revolver was only strong enough to injure it, which I can imagine is something you don’t want to be doing when your ute is parked facing forwards in the bleedin’ lake.
We returned home to start frying the fish. As I’m sitting at the kitchen table trying not to eat all the boiled peanuts in one go, Jerry comes in from the deck and asks if I want to fire the revolver.
I was out on that deck faster than a bear swiping a honey pot.
“Hold it like this, pull the catch, line it up, hold tight, hit that bucket square on. Easy.”
Pretend you’re Farrah Fawcett, hold it with two hands because otherwise you’ll drop it, line it up, hold tight, completely miss the bucket, and jump in fright at the force of the kickback and the incredibly loud, high-pitched noise that probably reached The Villages and rings in your head for the next hour.
I then went and shot more things, namely the breeze, with Jerry while he fried the fish and hushpuppies in big cast iron pots over gas burners.
This is a fish fry. It was a plate of pure southern delight. Go clockwise from 12 o’clock. That’s corn on the cob. Obvs. Then:
- Boiled peanuts
- Pickled okra
- Giant hushpuppies
- Cornmeal coated and deepfried snapper
- Cornmeal coated and deep fried orange roughy (you know that stuff we pay $42/kg for in NZ!)
- Cheese grits
- Broiled (grilled) snapper
- Shrimp in butter
- Homemade beans kind of like Boston baked beans made with pork and honey and spices
- Carrot and potato from the boiled peanuts feast.
I can’t even begin to tell you how delicious that whole plate was. I can’t even give out my usual best-thing-on-the-plate award because it was all so very very good.
Joanne and Jerry made me feel so incredibly welcome and invited me and Ben back for the big family fish fry on New Year’s Day. If only …
Armed Gail – I’m afraid….