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 You would always see him cutting grass at the entrance of American Beach not his job but he wanted to make the news, he would paint signs like "Say no to Drugs," "Keep American Beach Beautiful", he would do weird things like hang peat moss on hitching posts at the Jiffy Store at the entrance of American Beach and burn incense, not like old Rudy an Uncle Tom Negro who would sit around the store like a shiftless Negro on the street corners and give white folks an account of the goings on there. Someone made a bench for old Rudy, Rudy made the papers, the bench was made as a memorial even before he died, Rudy was real sick, was on a respirator for a while, Rudy did not like me, but he did take a liking to my son who worked at the store for a while. They would talk, I was a different type Negro, Rudy's chair is there now he is gone. There is a write up about him on the window of the store, just below the chair, a white man who befriended him made the chair, but there is no memorial for Maxwell Wilson, he was very energetic for an old man before he became physically ill. From my account he was never mentally stable, he would take his prayer rug down to the ocean and pray. Mostly for show, the lady at the store, a white woman talked about it for he had to tell her he did it, cause she never came to the beach. Its my impression he wanted to be wambar "elder" or "root man" of the community, he owned a house on both sides of the street, having a large family, he is very proud of his accomplishments. Nowadays you don't see him out and about, he stays in for a year or two he has not been doing well. There is an old man who lives alone, I call him Dog Boy, he also lives on Lewis Street, he reminds you of an old woman. Most old men on the beach are rumored to be homosexual, one I know who my son would cut his yards, he died a few years ago somewhere around the time of old Rudy. Now Dog Boy and I call him so for he makes a journey down to the ocean each morning and a few times throughout the day, he has long retired, he once had a large dog who would shit on the beach, you know like the white folks who bring horses onto the beach, this would vex me. The dog died some time back now he has a very tiny dog on a leash, what's so wrong about Dog Boy is that, every time he would reach affront our house he would break into this "Jeepers Creepers" whistle each time. Most morning we would still be resting, and this creep would upset our rest, many times I would be tempted to go out and kick him square in his old evil ass. He reminds you of an old Black American Indian, sandy gray hair, walks with a slight hump, bending over stumbling as he walks, always stopping some white person giving his report, like Rudy he is also an Uncle Tom. Saw a white man pat him on his back one morning, you know the "good Nigger" pat.   Now the most insane of all is the so called "Beach Lady" who is purported naturalist who has festooned the beach with false flowers, the man who lives in the boat house at Lewis Street and Mary, rumor is the whole family is "crazy." There is a statue of Mary which faces Mary street, once there was only one statue of Christ, now the whole damn yard is full of them with crucifixes all about, looks like the yard of an old folk artist but nothing of originality or primitive works. One day I saw him and The Beach Lady walk about the next day I saw where The Beach Lady had cursed his already mad installation with those fake flowers, even in summer the fake flowers are Autumn replicas. I see these flowers throughout the community sort of like an animal would mark its territory with its scent. You know speaking of scent everybody who knows The Beach Lady knows of her hygienic  practices or lack thereof, when a strong wind comes up you can smell her a good quarter of a mile, I think just as an animal she can do it at will. Most people will not talk about this, writers never do, it doesn't seem to bother any of her white friends they seem to love her. I think she is really just a sideshow for them, very colorful you know. She like an animal moves from one location to the other, under this house one summer at the other house in the winter.
Her sister Johnetta B. Cole, ex-president of Spelman College would send her $175 a month, bought her an old used travel van, she parked on Quinton Jones' property on Lewis Street and never moved it, rot set in after a while it was used she called it her "museum." She would decorate the yard in plastic spinwheels and plastic flowers, if one would view it, it would tell you she had long left reality. Like her sister a devout feminist, young women would travel for miles just to sit at her feet, little did they know, she was evil in my eyes you see I knew her back then she had a great energy...  In the year 1982, I lived with her at the Afro-American Life Insurance Company downtown Jacksonville, Florida, Union Street, just before the family totally lost it. There were a group of apartments attached to the building, she would fix me vegetarian sandwiches etc., bananas sliced almonds and honey, when I would finish my meal, she would like an animal lick my plate clean, never washing it. She wanted me to cut my wrist and she hers, that we make an Indian blood pact of course I did not. I was a young man about 25, she must have been around 45, she was trying to cast her spell, she told me she was writing an opera of her own and I was a part of it. She did not really like men, for in Europe she had a bad experience, no one really knows just what. See Russ Rymer's book American Beach, A Sage of Race, Wealth, and Memory.
 She told me she did not like humans just animals this was before Russ Rymer's book, she said god made a mistake in humans. On full moon lit nights she would be heard howling at the moon. She only like men who went tothe extreme like Dick Gregory known for his fasting, Tristan Jones the old sea captain was her friend, she gave thousands of dollars to Green Peace. Her little room at the Afro was aligned with checks where she gave all her fortune from her family to "Save the Whales", and many other nature causes, there is a whale named after her who comes along the beach each year. The irony of it all is that she has no land or home of her own and she claims and is known by the media as the foremost exponent of trying to save American Beach founded by her grandfather A.L. Lewis. She bought a home that cost well over $200,000 for a Robert Pyle and his wife in the early eighties around the time I lived with her, and all she has to show for it is that he put her name in his book The Field Guide to North American Butterflies.
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ROBERT MICHAEL PYLE was born on July 19, 1947 in Denver and raised in nearby Aurora, Colorado. His B.S. in Nature Perception and Protection (1969) and M.S. in Nature Interpretation (1973) from the University of Washington were followed in 1976 by a Ph.D. from Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. In 1971, during a Fulbright Fellowship at the Monks Wood Experimental Station in England, Pyle founded the Xerces Society for invertebrate conservation, and later chaired its Monarch Project.