Two sleeps remain at Tybee, the quirky island I affectionately call “Mayberry on Drugs by the Sea.”

I head off on my favorite final walkabout. The north end back river.

Few are in the campground. The season is grinding down like the gears of a well-worn clock that never stops, just slows.

You can hear a collective sigh of relief.

I enjoy September and October at the beach, but I will be gone, as usual. Also when hurricanes want to visit during this time.

The Tybee Public Works folks are busy this morning. Around midnight last night, a westward wind and rain slammer hit us. Limbs need picking up, and it’s garbage Monday.

As I hit the back river beach, I see a set of giant footprints. I appear to be on the trail of Bigfoot.

The prints lead me towards the bay and to Grape and his dog, Clyde.

Grape is a big black man about my age, a man with a big smile.

Ebony black. That kind of black is truly absent of color. You could walk upon him at midnight and never know he was there.

And when I say BIG, think of Tyrus, the wrestler BIG times again. He has a shiny and toothy smile. I am guessing a belly laugh.

“Morning, friend.”

“Well, suh, good mornin’ to ya.” His smile radiates over you and warms the soul—a man in love with life.

He’s wearing “Big Smith Since 1916” cutoff bibb overalls and a boonie hat large enough to sink a six-pack with accompanying ice. Should you want to use it that way. The hat’s brim alone casts a shadow on me.

A tan, well-worn fishing vest with enormous bulging pockets covers his attire.

“Sir, you’re one big fella.” I can say that with impunity, having been eyeball to bellybutton with Shaq one day at the IGA.

My eyes continue looking further upward.

“Name’s Grape,” he says. And smiles. We fist bump.

Grape says he got his name from his childhood love of Grapette soda. This morning, he’s “fishing” on the back river.

“Whatcha fishing for?” having fished here for a few years with my friend Randy, I am curious. We caught some enormous sharks back here.

“Suh, anything that comes a-long,” in a voice indoors that would be booming.

He has the essentials: a patriotic Yeti cooler and a fishing cart. A fiberglass pole stuck in a PVC pipe. A tight line is thrown into the middle of the channel.

Grape says he grew up near that big old nuke plant in south Georgia. On a sharecropper’s farm with his Momma and Daddy, eight brothers, four sisters, and a nephew. Oh, and an assortment of critters: chickens, cows, hogs, a mean peacock, and more than one wayward dog and a passel of barn cats.

That was until his 18^th birthday when he took himself to Uncle Sam in 1964.

“There was no sense waiting around, boss,” again that smile. “Pretty sure I wouldn’t be a tunnel rat.” Now, I hear it, a deep belly laugh.

“Became a shell loader and ‘fitty’ hauler in the 2/11^th Arty. Explains why I talk loud,” again that laugh.

He retired from the Army and became a long-haul truck driver, and when COVID hit, Grape said enough and has been fishing ever since.

We trade life stories for a bit. He checks his line now and then. And as our sharing is winding down, I expect to move along.

“Before you go,” he says, standing up, head on a swivel, sounding conspiratorial, and looking down at me as a BIG man looks at a little man, “You wanna meet my dog?”

Let me set the record straight for those who don’t know me. I spent my entire life being situationally aware.

Nothing, even at age 73 years of age typically escapes my senses. Perplexed is the best word at which I can arrive.

If I miss a dog, something is happening to me in the aging process.

Because there is no dog. Nowhere. No how. I’ve done two 360 head swivels. No dog.

If you get caught with a dog on the beach at Tybee, they will smilingly relieve you of $250 plus court costs.

I know what dogs look like. I have had many dogs. There is no dog nor sign of one anywhere.

Now. Had Grape said, you wanna meet my cat?

Tybee-ites love cats. Cats anywhere. Feral cats dominate the island.

A feral cat and a cop could walk up to your door and demand ransom for your dog, and you would pay for it because all the cops look the other way and whistle when it comes to cats.

A cat shoots a dog. Self-defense.

A cat poops in your yard. Free country.

Whether he covers it or not. Your problem.

It’s like the feline mafioso run this island.

Speak ill of a Tybee cat, and you will get an immediate hex thrown on you, your entire family, and all your in-laws, not to mention your dog, hamster, or related pets or former wives.

“Well, do ya?” That grin again.

“Why, of course, Grape, I want to meet your dog,” playing along with the unknown punchline of obviously a joke.

And with a hand as large as past small country ham hocks we’ve used to cook beans, he reaches into the side anymouse pocket of his vest and produces a dog.

Sitting in the middle of his palm is the tiniest and sweetest looking elderly, black-on-white, half-dozing chihuahua.

Says Momma named him Clyde from some song she liked.

“She loved miniature chihuahuas,” he grins. “And this is hers. Clyde’s getting long in the tooth. That is if she had any left.”

“Grape, I tell you, my Mom would be so envious. She loved little dogs, too. Even if she was the Cat Lady of McLin Street,” and I smile.

Then he laughs, his body shakes, his grin explodes, and the sound would echo across the bay if it could.

And then, as gently as any man possibly could, he strokes her with his finger. And coos at her. She wiggles and adoringly looks at him.

“My baby girl, these days.”

Here we are, a ginormous man, loving on the smallest dog I’ve ever seen, and we are grinning ear-to-ear when we hear the reel starting to drag.