Truth be told, I did not discover author Randy Wayne White by surfing on Amazon or even cruising an actual bookstore. Instead, the Brawny Sherpa and I happened to be on a day trip to Sanibel Island, FL before the entire universe shut down. Being, as it was, prime time for snowbirds to be perched in the South, traffic was a little crazy. So with a little help from Google maps and the magic words “restaurants search nearby,” we landed happily at a place called Doc Ford’s Rum Bar & Grille.
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Who is Doc Ford: A Rum Bar and Bookstore?
Some days—like when you are tired of being in the car, and it’s hot, and traffic moves slowly—one is just grateful to find a restaurant where there’s no line, no attitude about not having a reservation, in short—no hassle. There is just a brief delay as we approach the hostess, just long enough for me to wonder, what are all of these books doing in the entrance?, before we are seated.
Who is this Doc Ford guy? I wonder as I choose to make friends with a pina colada before we indulge in raw oysters, corn and crab chowder, and a lobster roll and black beans.
I soon learn that Doc Ford is a fictional character in a series of novels by Randy Wayne White. Even better—and more apt for these coronavirus-challenged times—is White’s history. He’s enjoyed a long career crafting mysteries set in Florida, authoring travel books chronicling his own adventures (who knew there were fresh-water sharks?), and writing for Outside magazine, but it’s his start—as well as his stories—that I admire.
Randy Wayne White and Adaptation in the Time of Coronavirus
Back in the late 1980s, White served as a fishing guide. Some may not remember a big stock market crash in October 1987 that upended the world for a number of years. But that general calamity became a more specific one when the bay White worked as a fishing guide closed to powerboats. Randy Wayne White was out of work.
Here’s where his experience foretells ours. What White did when he lost his livelihood was adapt. He’d had an interest in writing; with a bit more down time, he turned that interest into his first book, a mystery called Sanibel Flats featuring what would become a recurring character: Doc Ford, part Indiana Jones, part mild-mannered marine biologist with a healthful lust for living. And a few other activities.
“We’re all going to have to adapt or die,” an author colleague noted soon after the entire planet went into shutdown and, incredibly, the U.S. Congress began contemplating giving a fairly substantial sum of money to residents to stimulate the economy.
You know it’s going to get bad when the government, without you even asking, sends you a check. Or just makes direct deposits.
Yeah, it’s all going to change. It all already has changed. People in my personal universe are in various stages of accepting that fact: denial, anger, bargaining, depression. Few, if any, have reached the point of acceptance. It all seems so surreal. We were all having a great year, a great time, planning ahead, going out. And now we are doing none of that; we are cowering indoors, watching Netflix, and cobbling together ridiculous looking outfits while deluding ourselves into thinking these get-ups—scarves as masks, paper towels as gloves—will make us immune.
Armchair Travel with a Purpose
What many of us have not entirely come to grips with is that our work lives likely will change. Even if things turn around in two months, six months, 18 months, everyone laid off will not be invited back. No matter what employers are saying right now. A well-charted plan for the next five years may just map out a life march on a path—and in an industry—that no longer really exists.
Just look at who is laying off already. Or furloughing. Or making sure they pay their office lease but not you. Hiring freezes, travel freezes, budget tightening is just the tiniest of starts. Where’s the advertising for media? Where’s the travel industry? Where is every business that has not been deemed essential or one that closely services an essential industry? If you are home right now and not working, you’re going to have to adapt. Or die.
How Randy Wayne White Came to Write Sanibel Flats
So start looking for people who did, and a real person who did was author Randy Wayne White. He’s now dozens of books into an alternative career, and also, now there are restaurants. How he will change again, how restaurants will do in the future, general readerships don’t yet know. But we know he had the resilience in the past to do this.
And, hopefully, we can be guided by his experience. Start with an easy beach read, Randy Wayne White’s Sanibel Flats, and learn a little along the way about Sanibel, about Central American politics in the 1980s, about artifact smuggling, and about those fresh-water sharks and whether they are more ferocious than their salt-water kin.
It’s your future. How will you write it?
—Lori Tripoli
Lori Tripoli is the editor and publisher of Bashful Adventurer. Based in the New York City vicinity, she writes about travel for a variety of publications. Contact Lori at loritripoli @ bashfuladventurer.com.
Care to Be an Armchair Traveler to Sanibel, FL?
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Photo credit: M. Ciavardini.
Looking forward to reading Sanibel Flats, gotta find out about these fresh water sharks!!! Yikes😬
I won’t be a spoiler about those sharks, but you can borrow my copy of the book if you want!