Jimmy please post more of your writings

[dawgfan]

I sure wish Jimmy would post more of his writings and photos from his adventures during the off season as well as his time from location to location while on tour.

Here is a link to his writings and photos from his travels down the east coast on Margaritaville.com.

Jimmy please share more!!!

http://www.margaritaville.com/index.php?page=obx

[z-man]

Fun stories; thanx for the link!

[flipflopgirl]

Very cool!! Thanks for posting this Keith!!!! and i agree!!! YES JIMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We want to hear more!!!

[Karacal]

Keith...thanks for sharing!!!!

I hope Jimmy keeps on posting his writings!!!

[baadbobby]

Yes, more stories please.

[Grams]

Can you imagine driving along and spotting the "Green Tomato' at a restuarant or better yet pass it??? Thanks for sharing!!

[baadbobby]

Can you imagine driving along and spotting the "Green Tomato' at a restuarant or better yet pass it??? Thanks for sharing!!

I was in Nags Head that weekend, had I stayed into Monday, like I was contemplating, I was going to go to the Wright Brother's Memorial. Monday is the day Jimmy was there. Not meant to be I guess.

[ParrotHeadInThe Making]

Very cool! Jimmy, please post more of your writings. Very fun to read indeed!

[palmettopirate]

I read the diary entry Friday. I had to laugh at one line Jimmy wrote. He said they strapped a big SUF to the van to keep from paying a UPS freight bill to get it to Florida. You don't reckon ole Jimmy would squeeze a nickel, do ya?

[Tiki Bar]

"Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Outer Banks Odyssey and yes, I think there could be a new song or two that comes out of this trip.

-JB"

I love that Jimmy / Margaritaville posted this diary and pics, and am really looking forward to Part 2, AND BEYOND!

Did you see the pic of Jimmy on the SUF??? Damn! Muy caliente!!

Thank you for posting the link, Keith!

[Frank4]

What a great read, I had forgotten what a fabulous writer Jimmy was...

[TropicalTroubador]

I read the diary entry Friday. I had to laugh at one line Jimmy wrote. He said they strapped a big SUF to the van to keep from paying a UPS freight bill to get it to Florida. You don't reckon ole Jimmy would squeeze a nickel, do ya?

It's no doubt how he gets to keep so many of them.

[palmettopirate]

"It's no doubt how he gets to keep so many of them."

Amen!

[Frank4]

Not to sound like one of those people who thing Jimmy should or should not do this...I see a great future for him as a travel writer.

[citcat]

[in a child's English accent] "Please sir, may I have some more ?"

[ParrotHeadInThe Making]

[in a child's English accent] "Please sir, may I have some more ?"

More! More! You want more?

Seriously, there really should be a law against human beings having more fun than they should be allowed to have, but thankfully, there is no law against having all kinds of fun, so good for Jimmy. I love the way he writes. He writes in such a way that just for a little while I can picture myself being on some of those adventures.

[palmettopirate]

"He writes in such a way that just for a little while I can picture myself being on some of those adventures."

That's what separates the writers from the wannabes.

This is lengthy but check it out for a visual. From Pat Conroy.

AN OYSTER ROAST... LIKE TASTING HEAVEN


"You like those oysters, teacher?" asked Jake Washington.

"They taste good?"

Thirty years ago, at an oyster roast on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, Jake Washington had come up to me as I was devouring oysters he had gathered from the Chechessee River earlier that day. The afternoon was cold and clear, and I washed them down with a beer so icy that my hand ached even though I was wearing shucker's gloves.

"Heaven. It's like tasting heaven, Jake," I answered.

"You know what you're tasting?" Jake said. "You're tasting last night's high tide. Them oysters always keep some of the tide with them. It sweetens them up."

An oyster roast must take place on one of South Carolina's coldest days for it to work its proper magic. And you should invite only those friends who have never heard of Proust. This is not a milieu that induces euphoria among highbrows. There will be a lot more pickup trucks than Lexuses in the parking lot, and the dress code is decidedly casual.

Great sacks of oysters are cut open with knives, and men tend to an oak fire with a piece of tin laid over it on cinder blocks. It does not have to be tin, but it does have to be a metal that will not melt. When the tin is iridescent and glowing from the fire, bushels of oysters are shoved onto it and covered with wet croaker sacks. The waiting crowd cheers. Another cheer goes up when the heat forces the first batch to pop open, the juices hissing noisily on the tin causing a redolent steam to rise in the air. The restless onlookers now grab them up, hot as bricks in a kiln, warming their gloved left hand as they pry the shells open with their right. There is no labor at an oyster roast. The fiery heat has done all the work for you. Your one job is to eat as many oysters as you can while they are still steaming off the fire. A lukewarm oyster is a disappointment to the spirit.

When I first arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1961, I had never eaten an oyster or entertained any plans to do so in the future. Though I grew up surrounded by salt marshes and rivers, my mother had a landlubber's disdain for all varieties of seafood and held the lowly oyster in special contempt. I remember her wrinkling her nose as she held a pint of oysters aloft and saying, "I wouldn't eat one of these in a famine." A Catholic, my mother had to prepare a seafood dinner each Friday night, and she solved this dilemma by serving her seven children fish sticks. To this day, my brother Mike says he does not like to eat a fish unless it is rectangular.

But we had come to the land of the great winter oyster roasts, where friends and neighbors gathered on weekends armed with blunt-nosed knives and dined on oysters that had been harvested from their beds at dead low tide that same day. Among Daufuskie Islanders and folks from Bluffton and Hilton Head there is a running argument about which river produces the most delicious and flavorful oysters: the Chechessee or the May. I have partaken of the bounty of both waterways, and the sheer ecstasy of trying to make the subtle distinctions inherent in arguments like this makes me shiver with pleasure.

Of all the oysters I have eaten at the many oyster bars I have frequented in my life, none has come close to the sheer deliciousness of the tide-swollen oysters I consumed one long-ago morning on the May River. My boat had broken down, and I drifted into an oyster bank. I spent the hours awaiting rescue by opening up dozens with a pocket knife. The oyster is a child of tides, and that cold morning it tasted like the best thing that the moon and the May River could conjure up to crown the shoulders of its inlets and estuaries.

A raw oyster might be the food that my palate longs for most during the long summer season in Beaufort, when we give our oysters their vacation time and they grow milky from their own roe. But then I remember my first roasted oyster, dipped in a bath of hot butter. I love to dip my oysters in butter. Some Lowcountry people swear by catsup and horseradish. I have known people who carry whole lemons and would not consider adding another condiment to so distinct and natural a taste. Others believe that any addition at all is heresy, and they eat their oysters as God made them, savoring that giddy, briny essence just as it comes from the shell.

To the half-shell people, an oyster roast sounds like an abomination unto the Lord, but this tradition dates back to the Yemassees and the Kiawahs and other tribes that once roamed these forests. Is a roasted oyster ever as good as chilled oyster on the half shell? Perhaps a Chilmark, a Sailor Girl, a Point Reyes Pacifica, a Cotuit, or that Rolex of oysters, the snooty Belon? No, it's not. Not to me. But it's still terrific all the same. And the camaraderie, gossip, and sheer goodwill of the oyster roast itself sets it apart as something particularly southern and indigenous — a rite that poor people have access to because our rivers are open to everyone, and our oyster banks are fecund and public and healthy.

Last year I bought two bushels of oysters from an oysterman on St. Helena's Island for a roast of my own.

"Sir, are these oysters local?" I asked.

"No, sir. Gotta be honest. I harvested these oysters over three miles from here."

Once I was spending the night with my friends Dana and Sallie Sinkler on Wadmalaw Island. Before dinner, Dana and I rode out in his boat to an oyster bank across the river, where we gathered the evening meal with tongs. We recrossed the river at sunset, the water turning gold around us and our boat kicking up a more startled wake of gold behind us.

Before we left, Dana had started an oak fire in his hearth and had laid a piece of tin across it. And we roasted those freshly harvested oysters right there in the living room. Sallie brought bread and bacon-laced coleslaw from her kitchen. There was beer and wine and friendship and grand talk as we sat in front of the fire and opened the oysters and told each other the stories of our lives. It was heaven.

— by Pat Conroy, Gourmet, November 2000

[Frank4]

"He writes in such a way that just for a little while I can picture myself being on some of those adventures."

That's what separates the writers from the wannabes.

This is lengthy but check it out for a visual. From Pat Conroy.

AN OYSTER ROAST... LIKE TASTING HEAVEN


"You like those oysters, teacher?" asked Jake Washington.

"They taste good?"

Thirty years ago, at an oyster roast on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, Jake Washington had come up to me as I was devouring oysters he had gathered from the Chechessee River earlier that day. The afternoon was cold and clear, and I washed them down with a beer so icy that my hand ached even though I was wearing shucker's gloves.

"Heaven. It's like tasting heaven, Jake," I answered.

"You know what you're tasting?" Jake said. "You're tasting last night's high tide. Them oysters always keep some of the tide with them. It sweetens them up."

An oyster roast must take place on one of South Carolina's coldest days for it to work its proper magic. And you should invite only those friends who have never heard of Proust. This is not a milieu that induces euphoria among highbrows. There will be a lot more pickup trucks than Lexuses in the parking lot, and the dress code is decidedly casual.

Great sacks of oysters are cut open with knives, and men tend to an oak fire with a piece of tin laid over it on cinder blocks. It does not have to be tin, but it does have to be a metal that will not melt. When the tin is iridescent and glowing from the fire, bushels of oysters are shoved onto it and covered with wet croaker sacks. The waiting crowd cheers. Another cheer goes up when the heat forces the first batch to pop open, the juices hissing noisily on the tin causing a redolent steam to rise in the air. The restless onlookers now grab them up, hot as bricks in a kiln, warming their gloved left hand as they pry the shells open with their right. There is no labor at an oyster roast. The fiery heat has done all the work for you. Your one job is to eat as many oysters as you can while they are still steaming off the fire. A lukewarm oyster is a disappointment to the spirit.

When I first arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1961, I had never eaten an oyster or entertained any plans to do so in the future. Though I grew up surrounded by salt marshes and rivers, my mother had a landlubber's disdain for all varieties of seafood and held the lowly oyster in special contempt. I remember her wrinkling her nose as she held a pint of oysters aloft and saying, "I wouldn't eat one of these in a famine." A Catholic, my mother had to prepare a seafood dinner each Friday night, and she solved this dilemma by serving her seven children fish sticks. To this day, my brother Mike says he does not like to eat a fish unless it is rectangular.

But we had come to the land of the great winter oyster roasts, where friends and neighbors gathered on weekends armed with blunt-nosed knives and dined on oysters that had been harvested from their beds at dead low tide that same day. Among Daufuskie Islanders and folks from Bluffton and Hilton Head there is a running argument about which river produces the most delicious and flavorful oysters: the Chechessee or the May. I have partaken of the bounty of both waterways, and the sheer ecstasy of trying to make the subtle distinctions inherent in arguments like this makes me shiver with pleasure.

Of all the oysters I have eaten at the many oyster bars I have frequented in my life, none has come close to the sheer deliciousness of the tide-swollen oysters I consumed one long-ago morning on the May River. My boat had broken down, and I drifted into an oyster bank. I spent the hours awaiting rescue by opening up dozens with a pocket knife. The oyster is a child of tides, and that cold morning it tasted like the best thing that the moon and the May River could conjure up to crown the shoulders of its inlets and estuaries.

A raw oyster might be the food that my palate longs for most during the long summer season in Beaufort, when we give our oysters their vacation time and they grow milky from their own roe. But then I remember my first roasted oyster, dipped in a bath of hot butter. I love to dip my oysters in butter. Some Lowcountry people swear by catsup and horseradish. I have known people who carry whole lemons and would not consider adding another condiment to so distinct and natural a taste. Others believe that any addition at all is heresy, and they eat their oysters as God made them, savoring that giddy, briny essence just as it comes from the shell.

To the half-shell people, an oyster roast sounds like an abomination unto the Lord, but this tradition dates back to the Yemassees and the Kiawahs and other tribes that once roamed these forests. Is a roasted oyster ever as good as chilled oyster on the half shell? Perhaps a Chilmark, a Sailor Girl, a Point Reyes Pacifica, a Cotuit, or that Rolex of oysters, the snooty Belon? No, it's not. Not to me. But it's still terrific all the same. And the camaraderie, gossip, and sheer goodwill of the oyster roast itself sets it apart as something particularly southern and indigenous — a rite that poor people have access to because our rivers are open to everyone, and our oyster banks are fecund and public and healthy.

Last year I bought two bushels of oysters from an oysterman on St. Helena's Island for a roast of my own.

"Sir, are these oysters local?" I asked.

"No, sir. Gotta be honest. I harvested these oysters over three miles from here."

Once I was spending the night with my friends Dana and Sallie Sinkler on Wadmalaw Island. Before dinner, Dana and I rode out in his boat to an oyster bank across the river, where we gathered the evening meal with tongs. We recrossed the river at sunset, the water turning gold around us and our boat kicking up a more startled wake of gold behind us.

Before we left, Dana had started an oak fire in his hearth and had laid a piece of tin across it. And we roasted those freshly harvested oysters right there in the living room. Sallie brought bread and bacon-laced coleslaw from her kitchen. There was beer and wine and friendship and grand talk as we sat in front of the fire and opened the oysters and told each other the stories of our lives. It was heaven.

— by Pat Conroy, Gourmet, November 2000

Well, now I am hungry

[docandjeanie]

"Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Outer Banks Odyssey and yes, I think there could be a new song or two that comes out of this trip.

-JB"

I love that Jimmy / Margaritaville posted this diary and pics, and am really looking forward to Part 2, AND BEYOND!

Did you see the pic of Jimmy on the SUF??? Damn! Muy caliente!!

Thank you for posting the link, Keith!

Yes, please keep the stories coming. Hey JoAnn, yes I did He's looking quite buff these days

[citcat]

I still ain't eatin' an oyster. Ever. Or a snail.