Cruise of the Pintail: A Journal

Prologue

prologue / 1 What boy is unmoved in the face of true adventure? As the Great Depression overwhelmed families and its blanket of hopelessness fell over the South, young people sought relief wherever they could. In the 1920s and 1930s there was a feast of new media tantalizing the imagination; Frank Buck and Buck Rogers built mythologies too compelling for many youngsters to ignore. First there came illustrated pamphlets to scour, Jack London’s spellbinding books and next those delicious, cheap comic books, and then, finally, the “silver screen”—painted with dramas for an audience starving for adventure in a world of wonder and away from a world of dreariness. The radio, too, featured dramas that told of a life of brave deeds, science fiction, and ordinary people doing extraordinary things. One hero of the silver screen was Buster Crabbe, who starred in the primitive, film-adventure version of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes. The thrill makers sought real jungle sets that Louisiana could supply like no other area north of the Orinoco and the Amazon. Tarzan fought the good fight against evil and braved the challenges of an untainted wilderness. He was like Rousseau’s natural, undiluted human: smart, good-looking, creative, and virtuous. Boys were transported to the steaming jungle and its exotic canopy of derring-do. Three boys that had a few remarkable adventures under their belts were now young men who needed to move on into adulthood. It was 1932 and they were lucky. They were twenty-one years old, and they were in that transitional zone between dependence on adoring parents and departure to the humdrum of the real world and a life on their own. They needed to start making a living, but they yet needed to try to fulfill their dreams and to polish and promote their reputations, their desires for fame and glory. This before they got too awfully serious about the real world. And who knows, perhaps their foolhardiness, courage, and skills could be transformed into a paying proposition? Thus freedom was to hold the line against growing up too quickly. It was what young men everywhere know perhaps subconsciously—that steady employment and real freedom are incompatible. So they undertook an adventure they Prologue could barely afford, in a twisted jungle they could barely imagine, in a boat barely more than Bogart’s “African Queen,” for the higher purpose of combining the two forces of young manhood: thrilling adventure and becoming millionaires. Their leader was Fonville Winans, first mate was Bob Owen, and second mate was Don Horridge. In time the story of our first and second mates became lost to history, but Fonville’s story became part of Louisiana’s list of legacies. As many readers will know, Fonville Winans became a rather famous photographer, and this diary of his adventures in south Louisiana comes alive with his early attempts to make a go and to record a remarkable era of Louisiana history. Fonville was a precocious youth, full of mischief and curiosity. At the age of fourteen or so, he took all his savings to buy a watch and settled instead on a camera. He bought the film and other supplies on credit. Not long after, he took a picture from the roof of a downtown building in his hometown of Fort Worth. In a local competition it won first place and a $15 prize—an enormous sum. He was hooked on the power of the little box to record compelling images and on the idea of people paying him real money for the trouble. He paid off his loan, finished high school, and set off with his friend Clyde Carmichael to California in a Model T Ford. Amazingly, he kept a journal and wrote to his mother telling about each day’s activities. He took pictures along the way. They made it to California and back, limping on their rims into Fort Worth some six months later. The pictures didn’t amount to much, but the adventure got under his skin and he remained keen to discovery for the remainder of his life. When you read his Louisiana diary, you will come to know not only a fascinating bit of history but the literate and sensible story of a very bright and forthright man of promise. He tells his story simply, correctly, enchantingly. It is not expanded upon unnecessarily, nor is it too brief. Where did this literary talent come from? How was it possible that...