PARADISE FOUND

The Gulf Islands National Seashore at one time was known as and is still called Johnson Beach by many long time locals. It was named after Private Rosamond Johnson, a black guy from Escambia County, who joined the Army during the Korean War.  He pulled two wounded soldiers to safety during a battle and was awarded the Purple Heart. Unfortunately, he was also the first soldier from the county to get killed. He was just seventeen. Long before he got greased though it was known as a Blacks Only beach - a segregated beach. Since this is Lysol injecting, Trump ass kissing drone country, I'm sure there's a shitpot of locals who have the Confederate flag tattooed on their bicep or tits (depending on the sex of the MAGA) who wished it had remained that way.

It's the most beautiful beach in the Pensacola/Alabama area but Pensacola Beach gets the most tourists because of all the bars, nightclubs, and shop after fucking shop that feed the consuming, narcissist  masses that flood the area to drink, fight, vomit, get 3rd degree sunburns, get arrested for disorderly conduct and wind up getting cornholed in Escambia County Jail, or drown in riptides.

Which is just fine with me. You can walk for miles on Private Johnson's beach and not see a soul except for the occasional nude sunbather or primitive camper. One time I thought I had spotted Bigfoot but it was just a guy strutting up the beach buck ass naked. This lad must have weight three hundred minimum, was as hairy as a fuckin' ape, and was wearing one of those stupid straw hats that Bing Crosby and booze hound Dean Martin used to wear. The talent-less Britney Spears brought that stupid ass style back for a nano-second...I think that was after she shaved her head and attacked a car with a baseball bat...but I digress.

The first night I saw Johnson's Beach, five of us were sitting quietly in a boat with the lights extinguished, waiting for a plane to fly over and drop some Square Grouper bales for us to pick up. It was my first big assignment since I had taken the job but the other men were veterans of this sort of clandestine activity. When we heard the plane we had waited until the four clicks that we were anticipating were heard on the radio and the Captain fired up the boat and we headed for the drop spot. The water was like glass that night with just a slight breeze and the bales bobbled gently in the water in an almost perfectly straight line.  We loaded up all the bales (I don't think we left one soldier behind) and head for Ft. Pickens where we offloaded the cargo into a haze gray truck.

We docked the boat in downtown Pensacola and headed for this bar called The Barrels on Navy Blvd that was just two quonset huts that were side by side giving the dump the appearance of a barrel cut it half. A wet t-shirt was just winding down and we wound up closing the joint down. After that we all got in our separate cars and went our separate ways. I had met a Navy chick who seemed heavily medicated and her friend, a totally shitfaced older woman named Doris, who was employed on the base.

They wanted to continue the party so we drove back out to the scene of the crime - Johnson's Beach - where we smoked some Mexican brick weed and killed a case of brew and wound up in a tangled threesome that lasted until the insanely beautiful sunrise. Paradise found! 

But that was then!

Mahalo