GUEST ESSAY: Memories of my first days in 1970s Boca Grande
BY K.Y. FUTCH
When I first started my secretarial business, I had to use the typewriter at Capt. Charlie Wheeler’s home on Tarpon Street, where I and my husband, Mark, also lived. Charlie was quite the ladies’ man – meaning he did like the ladies. A favorite quote of his was, “I can play a woman’s breast like a Stradivarius.”
Need I say more?
It was a very educational introduction to Boca Grande after picking up my future husband Mark while he was hitchhiking and marrying him two months later, on Banyan Street in 1975. It was a needed enlightenment about life on the Island for me. I would type my clients’ letters while Charlie played “Mule Train” by Frankie Lane on the phonograph and cracked the air-whip together with gusto when it came to the place in the song. He told me stories, like every captain has stories. As it should be. Life on the water always has stories to tell. Thank God I was around to hear them.
He ran a crew of shrimp boats for several years and because of it, procured some very beautiful seashells. A glass-top table encased his beloved shell collection, one of beauty, built by master island craftsman Jack Silcox. Charlie kept in communication with Cornell University in regard to the shells. One caused quite a thrill, discovering they had never seen this particular shell before, therefore named it the “Wheeler Eye” in honor of him. Charlie chuckled at this because he had several more at home.
Going to each individual’s home to take dictation was quite an experience for a 30-year-old inner-city child of Detroit. To introduce my new service, I wrote an advertisement to run in our local paper, as well as sending a lovely, if I must say so myself, trifold card stock advertisement to all post office box holders.
My first customer was Mr. Hunting Howell, the unofficial Mayor of Boca, who in turn recommended me to Darryl Polk as a treasurer for the B.G. Fire Department and in turn was hired as treasurer for the Episcopal Church by Herbert Jacques.
That was the way the island worked. Someone of standing within the community would speak and introduce you as being good and trustworthy.
This had also been the way charter boat captains had sponsors who invested in having a boat built for them and then be their primary customer, pretty much.
It was quite a system.
This was prior to the time tarpon fishing in Boca Grande Pass, the deepest natural harbor in Florida, became well known worldwide for attracting the feisty Silver King, because of its abundance of bait for them.
As Mark would say, they were very lazy fish. But the excitement and thrill of catching a tarpon will be for the next installment.
Catch ‘em up.
Kathy Futch is longtime island resident and the wife of longtime seaplane and fishing captain Mark Futch.
