A Boca Grande love story, dancing to the jukebox, married on Banyan Street
BY KATHY Y. FUTCH
It was 10 p.m., on a February evening in 1975 at the intersection of Hwy. 41 and SR 776, which was very dark and desolate back then and only used by those who lived off it. A young man, named Mark, had gotten off a bus from Tampa where he had driven his grandfather, Daniel Webster and his wife Nellie Futch to the Veterans Administration Hospital and left their car with them. He began to cross 41 to call his friend Gary Maltezo to pick him up, when he saw one car approaching. Instinctively he put out his thumb.
It was me, heading home from work in Venice to my apartment on Englewood Beach. I stop. He says he is trying to get home in Boca Grande. I hadn’t the foggiest where that was and told him I was going as far as the Beach. As fate would have it, I ended up taking him to his destination. Yes, he was young, good looking and pretty persuasive. Then, there we were, upstairs at the Pink Elephant Bar dancing to the tunes on the jukebox, like “Blue Bayou,” “Cut the Cake,” and “Back to the Island.”
Forward ahead a mere two months, the first couple to be married on Banyan Street.
I soon learned he was already headed on a hereditary path, which I fully embraced. His great-grandad came up from Key West in 1876 and settled with his Creek Indian wife from Apalachicola on Gasparilla Island. They had eight sons and three daughters. This led to a saying around, “you shake a tree and a Futch’ll fall out.” Not far from the truth. He started up the largest stop-net fishing operation in those parts. This background led to Mark becoming a third-generation tarpon fishing guide following his grandfather, Capt. Daniel Webster and father, Karl “Muddy” Futch with the charter boat “Sitarah,” which to my understanding means Star of the East, the guiding star. Lasting 43 years until his sudden passing in 2018. The Sitarah is still in The Pass under the capable hands of Capt. Chris McBride. A blessing.
A great life. Living on and off the water; two great children, Matt and Rey; a seaplane air-taxi for 35 years flying people anywhere in Florida; being in the movies, like “Gone Fishin” with Danny Glover and Joe Pesci; Hulk Hogan’s “McCinsey’s Island.” National TV and print ads: NutraSweet; “Visit Florida,” narrated by Jason Robards; Ten Cane Rum; Cole Haan Shoes; and production coordinator, mobilizing local talent and boats for the 1998 Sperry Topsiders calendar photo shoot on Boca. The two of us catching live bait together; hand lining squirrel fish, dipping for Pass crabs, netting mutton minnows by the railroad tracks. It was the best.
Postscript: Our 50th Anniversary would have been this past April.
