The Sunday Morning Gentleman's Club - Chapter One

Chapter One

Not Sure How We Got Here

We know the story of why it started.  We just cannot remember how it became a ritual.  The Sunday Morning Gentlemen’s club may seem to me, all of these years later as some nebulous dream-like memory that part of my daily consciousness seems to view silently.  The Club was so much more than this though.  There are people at possibly every corner of the world that just may be telling a story or two about a Sunday morning at 111 Avenue J in Port Aransas Texas.  When they think back upon it, it probably amounts to a pleasurable blink in life.  I also wonder though if when they think back, they are reminded of a girlfriend or boyfriend that was a permanent part of their life at the time, suddenly remembering some exact way that it felt to be next to them.

By definition, the Sunday Morning Gentleman’s Club was 4 guys that met at 10 AM every Sunday at the home of my father and I, so that we could drink beer and play darts. The permanent members, Steve, Glenn, Joe (my father) and I made up the core club.  The event took place in our much too old mobile home on Avenue J in Port Aransas.  A small kitchen just to the right of the door coming into the living room.  The ceiling was low with a bamboo curtain covering the entire surface to probably block watermarks and possibly holes.  The floor in the living room was a series of checker board like (but many color) squares put together from remnants of Odette’s former construction jobs.

Drinking in public was prohibited before noon on Sunday mornings.  For reasons that we understood back then, in context, this was not tolerable whatsoever.  But, it was a major inconvenience to have to hide your beer on the beach on Sunday morning.  It never was an option to just NOT drink till after noon.  This was potentially expensive since the TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission) patrolled the beach handing out $120.00 tickets to offenders.  You could save $2.00 by buying Milwaukee’s Best instead of Lone Star, then get nailed by the TABC for drinking 120 minutes too early.  That has got to be it’s own form of irony.  The Sunday Morning Gentleman’s Club prevented this danger by keeping us safely under cover.

We were all from somewhere else.  Islanders all seemed to be from other places because at this point in time, I was hard pressed to find someone that was born and raised in Port A. I am aware that this logic probably only applied to MY group of friends. Natives were there, I was not finding them, except perhaps those out there were my sister's age of 15 or so.   I subliminally decided that Port Aransas was a place were people even at younger ages landed in and then never actually left again.  I think this is why after 3 years I was so afraid to get stuck there forever myself.  I think I could have.  I learned later, that Port Aransas to those I thought may have been "lifers" may have actually been a small dot of an island to land in an ocean a million miles wide, that we crash landed on and stayed for a few years while we nursed our wounds in a Jimmy Buffett - Margaritaville sort of way.  Of course some never made it off the island, and that is OK.  That is it's own unique honor.

Being an island in the very salty Gulf of Mexico in South Texas, things rusted A LOT.  When you live on a small island where your vehicle runs in short bursts of 15-30 mph, you need to get it up to 55 miles per hour every now and then.  For this, there was Park Road 53, the road, also known as "18 Mile Road" that headed south down Mustang Island to Fish Pass that would cross onto South Padre Island.  Right about where our road, Avenue J was, Park Road 53 changed from 30 to 55 mph. When it was time to "exercise" your rusted out vehicle, you would stomp on the accelerator to "clean the cobwebs out" and many times inadvertently, "blowing the muffler off the exhaust system".  Let's just say, there were many loud vehicles in Port A.  That section of Park Road 53 an un-designated graveyard where old mufflers went to die.

Steve would usually arrive first.  Steve originated from the Fort Worth area. This punctuality despite a very unambitious life.  He was a stay at home Dad, but not in the widely understood definition of the title.  I always got the impression that somewhere in time, he kicked some serious corporate/business butt. But now, at the 38-40-ish that he was, he appeared to have found a permanent landing zone here in Port A.  Steve was very intelligent and funny.  His raspy Texas drawl was often laced with laughter and over all was an entertaining person to be around. He was a gingery medium built guy, with a red-ish beard with sort of a softer edge Treat Williams.

Steve would stay home in his chair and drink beer all day and smoke a little pot. (Actually, it would be easier to name the people who DID NOT smoke pot.)  He’d nap whenever he felt like it and his 2 year old son Johnathan would do things like, attempt cooking or dump 5 lb bags of flower all over the dark blue carpet in the living room or decide to go for a walk several blocks away from the house.  Steve’s wife Cathy was a school teacher and obviously the only bread winner in the house.  She never really seemed happy (go figure) and there seemed to be something brewing just below the surface with her but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I always got the impression that she was screaming inside.

Next comes Glenn.  Glenn was from somewhere in New Mexico.  Glenn was truly unique.  He worked in the public works department with my Dad. He was tall and very slim.  Tanned from his lawn care side business that he maintained. Brown hair that just about reached halfway down his back and a scrappy beard that did not grown in fully.  Glenn was and still is one of the most well-read people I have ever met.  Glen was like my brother although he was closer to my Dad's age than mine.

By 10:05 AM, all members present, beer, cigarettes,darts and Joan Jett, Little Feat, and Jim Morrison all at the ready, we all sort of recapped the highlights of our week.