The Island

Back in the mid through late 80’s, my friend and I spent a great deal of time going on camping adventures on an island almost every weekend while we were in high school, and during school breaks we’d often go out for a week or two at a time. Back in those days you could still do that kind of crazy stuff and not worry about the intentions of other people. (I feel bad for kids these days who have no clue about how to be a kid and have a “real” childhood.) We’d bring our dogs with us for protection, and most of the time we had zero issues while camping on the island. We did have to “release the hounds” on a drunk guy once because he kept trying to make himself too friendly to the dogs in his attempt to get closer to us, and the dogs were having none of it. As the rule of camping goes, be friendly and polite unless the situation deems otherwise.

We paddled out late one Friday evening around 10pm, canoe packed to the gills with supplies since this would be a week-long stay. As we paddled closer to the island, we realized we wouldn’t be alone this trip because there was a trimaran sailboat already parked but no signs of life to be found. It wasn’t unusual for people to stop at the island to party during the weekends, so we thought nothing about the situation except to move further away to give them some space. It was a warm evening, so my friend and I decided to sleep outside under the stars rather than set up the tent for our first night.

First thing the next morning we unloaded the canoe and set up camp, then ventured out to collect firewood and see what kind of weird but useful stuff might have washed ashore. Our dogs had gone off exploring as well but were set off barking by something unseen to us. I recalled my Husky, but my friend’s dog wouldn’t listen and she kept yelling, “Nickie! Nickie!” It was at that moment that a dude materialized from inside the trimaran: blond, thin, disheveled looking. The noise level must have been too much for him because he screamed, “WHAT?!” at full volume. My friend (aptly described by my mother as a bull in a china shop) screamed back in a not-so-nice way “I’m calling my FUCKING dog, asshole!” There was a momentary pause before the guy yelled back, “Your dog’s name is Nickie? That’s my name!”

Nick, the occupant of the trimaran, stayed hidden for the rest of the day until dusk when Lisa and I started making dinner – our infamous tuna fish tacos along with whatever else was on the menu for that evening. Nick wandered over to our campsite from his boat to officially introduce himself, and we invited him to join us for dinner, which he was very appreciative of because it had been a few days since he’d last eaten. Over dinner, he told us about the series of unfortunate events leading up to him being on the island – caught in a storm in the Gulf that crashed his boat onto rock formations in shallow water in the dead of night before he somehow managed to get himself steered to safety on the island. He told us he was a Vietnam Veteran who, like many, had found that his return to the United States after the war was without fanfare and he had a difficult time assimilating back into good society. He’d spent many years in Costa Rica doing some running back and forth with the Ticos and Columbians until he was no longer welcome down south by multiple governments and eventually made his way back to the States. He told us he was married at one point in his life and had two daughters about our age (we were around 16 back then; he was probably 38) but his marriage had ended after he returned because he wasn’t the same person he was prior to his experience in Vietnam.

For a week, we shared our food and company with this man who, despite his background, was a genuinely good soul. It was difficult leaving the island knowing that he had no resources, but we arranged to come back out the following weekend with the promise of groceries and whatever money we could scratch together for him.

Upon my return home I told my mom about the situation on the island. She was genuinely concerned – two teenage girls alone on an island with this random dude for a WEEK? I reassured my mom the best I could that nothing inappropriate had happened during the week, eventually appealing to her nature to help those who needed help. (She was a nurse, after all, and spent the early part of her career caring for WW2 veterans at Walter Reed Medical Hospital after she graduated from nursing school.) I told her that Lisa and I were going back the following weekend once we got out of school that Friday afternoon and she resignedly agreed.

During the week leading up to us returning to the island, a territorial dispute of sorts had kicked up and the local newspaper had become involved. A certain politician who lived on the intracoastal had taken issue with the fact that this derelict vessel was “ruining his sunsets” and he wanted Nick and his boat off the island immediately. My mother and father both were very well connected in St. Petersburg, my mother through her career and my father through his associates at the Yacht Club and local golf courses. A few phone calls later and my mom had arranged for Nick the legal backing he desperately needed to remain on the island until he could make other arrangements.

The following weekend we paddled out again to camp. Nick’s boat still hadn’t moved from its spot on the island, but there was an additional vessel anchored slightly off the island that looked like someone’s homemade pontoon project that was business as usual on the deck but had a second story built onto it for living quarters. Sharing space on the island with Nick was one thing, but with the addition of this new boat – whose occupants we hadn’t been introduced to yet – made us wonder what we’d gotten ourselves into. There was also a small jon boat on the island, which some kind stranger had given to Nick to get back and forth to the mainland. During that week, Nick had secured employment for himself at the local seafood restaurant after they had read about him in the newspaper, so he at least had some money coming in and a guaranteed meal each day. Nick informed us about the flurry of activity that had occurred after the newspaper had become involved and was thankful for the legal intervention that allowed him to stay. As promised, we’d brought the groceries he had requested along with $50 in cash, and the conversation eventually turned to inquiring about who the pontoon belonged to. Nick stated that this guy had showed up who looked like Captain Quint from Jaws, in addition to some other ragtag looking dude and his girlfriend.

Captain Quint and his cohorts gave off an odd vibe. Whereas Nick was polite and protective around us, Quint and the second dude kept making comments about how lucky Nick was to have “two young girls to keep him company.” Nick had zero tolerance for that implication and kept them away from us, until peace was restored at dinnertime (Quint had made – in his words – “a mean batch of rice” to go with the meal Lisa and I prepared) and we spent the rest of the evening with the six of us around a campfire trading stories and listening to the Moody Blues and passing around Oreos.

The camping adventures went on for a few more months. With each passing month and his continued employment at the seafood restaurant, Nick managed to save enough money to get his trimaran repaired. He ‘d also gained some weight and looked healthier than we’d seen him in a long time. We knew our time on the island with Nick was coming to a close, which saddened us, and at some point our next camping trip could very well mean that we’d paddle up to the island and our friend would be gone.

A few years passed and Lisa and I continued to camp on the island. By then, we had graduated from high school. I went to work for the newspaper that brought light to Nick’s situation, the same newspaper who continued to cover the politician’s aspiring career, and Lisa started attending a humanities school to learn massage therapy. When the Vinoy Hotel in St. Petersburg was revamped and everyone who was anyone attended the reopening, Lisa and I mingled amongst their ranks until we came face to face with the dickhead politician who took umbrage with Nick’s presence on the island. To say we publicly humiliated the man would have been an understatement, but revenge was ours. Nothing like having the last laugh.

One night while Lisa and I were out driving around seeing what sort of mischief we could find, we stopped at a public parking lot on one of the local causeways overlooking the water. There was an assortment of various vessels anchored off shore but the light pattern of one caught my eye and I pointed it out to Lisa. Not many people own trimarans but there, 1000 feet or so from the shoreline, was a boat that seemed oddly familiar with a large raft attached. Someone was puttering around on deck, and we screamed repeatedly to get their attention, motioning for them to come ashore.

We were disappointed to realize that the guy who met us onshore wasn’t Nick, but it was definitely Nick’s boat we had spotted. After a brief conversation the guy said, “Yeah, I know Nick. I can call him if you want…” Pay phones were still a thing back then, so we offered up a quarter for the phone call. The guy kept our identities secret in his phone call to Nick since we wanted it to be a surprise. A half hour later, a yellow taxi pulled up and Nick was the driver. Upon realizing who we were Nick immediately smiled and the three of us hugged. He looked great and had gotten his life together but had retained ownership of the trimaran which now housed his friend in need.

We never saw Nick again after that. Years later, while I was bored and surfing the internet at work one afternoon I happened to look him up and realized he was living in Leon County, Florida. There was a mugshot of him sporting a puffy black eye, arrested for passive resistance against a police officer.

Good ol’ Nick. Some people just aren’t meant to live within the confines of good society.

May you go down fighting, my friend. You are missed every day.

 

Thank you! No, I was a "copy kid" back in the day.

 

Not surprised LCSO roughed him up. Great story-have a couple older friends who grew up in St Pete and one of them grew up on the water a couple decades before you, but seemed to have similar fun.

 

I wish I could be THAT enthusiastic about anything as an adult. Miss those days of pure innocence and fun. Life did send another Vietnam Veteran my way back in 1997 that I was friends with for 13 years. That was a whole other level of camping adventure with a militaristic twist to it. Sadly lost him to cancer (typical Agent Orange situation) in 2010.

 

@Jennyjo14 I love this story. Absolutely love it. I think our society is generally pretty judgemental towards people that differ from us, which really gets in the way of being able to develop important, meaningful, and helpful relationships.

Your story shows that just a little kindness towards someone is usually all it takes to for us to see who somebody else really is, and for us to see there’s so much in common. What a special connection you guys made for that period of time! It was temporary connection, but permanent at the same time, for both you, your friend, and Nick. I wonder if Nick got that black eye in the act of “passive resistance”. If so, I guess it’s pretty badass badge of honor for him (not that anybody wants those kinds of awards lol).

Some food for thought…(because your story really does make me think)….

I’m drawn to the comment that you miss those days of innocence and fun, and that they were the days when kids didn’t have to worry about the intentions of others. Were they actually though? Innocence usually goes together with (and is maybe the same as) naivety and lack of knowledge. I submit to you that what you and your friend did was in fact “adventure of the highest order”, and was actually a very risky thing to do. I don’t say that as a bad thing, but just the opposite. Let me explain. The risk you guys took were measured, you sought out advice from adults. It’s obvious they were not taken blindly, because you planned for, recognized, and responded to dangers as they came up. The risks you took resulted in direct help for others, that help was passed on by Nick to others, they led to others being motivated to help, they led to an opportunity to publicly shame a politician, and no doubt led to forming you as an adult!!!!

My opinion is a lot of what has changed with kids is not the kids…it’s that society is so averse to risk, that it’s socially unacceptable to allow kids to experience dangers. That comes from adults not trusting kids (at appropriate ages) to navigate dangerous situations. It comes from adults not wanting kids to get hurt (maybe like they were hurt as kids). It comes from wanting to protect kids from “bad people” (which are defined as everybody else, just to be safe).
And since kids have less opportunity to experience risky situations, they can’t learn to manage risks, or deal with getting hurt. Maybe society has gotten better at protecting kids from the dangers in the world, but at the expense of making a lot of kids that are anxious, and very suspicious of others. I think adults have kinda painted themselves into a corner with how kids are brought up nowadays. The sad irony is that kids are just as vulnerable given the online influences they are constantly exposed to (adults are just as easily led astray by this too).

In the end, I think your story shows that connecting and relating to others is important. (It’s kinda of thing that we do as people). It shows that connecting with others will always involve actual real physical and mental risk (true for adults as well). The fact that real risks exist interacting with strangers is what usually lead us to be judgmental about people in the first place…it’s just that we’re often wrong, and we can be hurtful in the way we do it. And it also shows that kids are made better if adults help them navigate those risks instead of eliminating the risks for them! I think your parents should be commended for how they responded and how they helped you to help Nick. That can be a scary place to be as a parent! Nick should also be commended, for playing his part in backing you up against the folks with the creepy vibes.

You know you’ve got a great story when you can get somebody to think about it this much lol!!! I think this is what makes traveling out in the boonies, even alone, an exciting thing. Sure, I’ve run into some sketchy types, but I’m often surprised at some of the positive interactions I’ve had as well. There’s so much more I can pick through in this story. Thanks for sharing it!

 

Thank you, Jennyjo, for sharing your story with us. That was awesome.

And thanks, too, to Nick -- wherever he may be now -- for "having been there," way back then. "Welcome home, Nick," from some random guy on the internet, darn near 50 years later.