In my drive up the west side of the Florida coast I stopped for the night at a beautiful little state park north side of the Tampa Bay.
After I settled in I went on a short walk just before dinner. The peaceful scene was broken by angry voices from just beyond the small camp ground building with showers.
A man and a woman were yelling at each other across from their picnic table. The man, a very large African American, was bellowing at a smaller but still large white women. She was being equally aggressive with her volume and her less than gentle language.
"Then you just get your $#%@ and get out of here!” The woman's screaming a few inches from the man's face.
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere!" he shouted.
It looked to me like this wasn’t the first argument for these two. Not their first rodeo. What was I about to see here? I do not like to argue or hear other people argue. And I sure didn’t want to become “the witness” they both turned on. You know, the one that gets caught in the crossfire. The thought of that visualized in my mind.
I quickened my pace and scurried into the building. The voices followed me through the louvered windows, bouncing off the block walls.
Maybe I should mosey back to my campsite and find another spot -- farther away, I thought to myself.
Then I thought of calling the park ranger, especially if I heard any slapping or worse. Like gun shots. My imagination was speeding up.
I decided it might be better to wait a bit. Safe inside the confines of the cement brick walls. I could see the couple through the top louvers. One advantage of being tall.
“He called you! Why did he call you?” The man leaned forward. He had a cooking spatula in his right hand. He pulled it backward.
It looked like he was about to whack her. Then his body froze. The spatula hung suspended, gripped in his fist, in mid swing. He took a step back.
Undeterred, she continued to yell obscenities at him, leaning even more forward toward him in a provoking stance.
“But he called you, didn’t he!” He took another step back, lowering the spatula a little more even as he kept yelling. They were shouting over each other. “He wouldn’t have called you unless you had given your number!”
“I didn’t! I didn’t! I … just…” Then she slumped and began to cry.
The man lowered his head and his hand. She sat down at the picnic table with her back toward him. He began walking in a circle, and then walked away from her.
The situation seemed safer now. I felt safer. At least enough to make my way back to my campsite. Away from, as Bob Marley & The Wailers sang, the fussin' n fighting. Back to the safety inside ARGO’s metal walls.
Back to my peaceful little camp next to the palm trees, just off the water. Get an undisturbed (hopefully) good night's sleep, wake up and then it's on down the road I go ....
Ahead is partying on Boubon Street in New Orleans. Then crossing the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, the longest straight bridge over water in the world to spend a few days at the Marine Pilots Institute. That is a cool school for the people who dock the supersized tankers and container ships when they come into port.
