Magazine articles
Columns from the coast.
For years Watt has written a regular column for Mobile Bay Magazine — dispatches from the swamp, stories from a Point Clear boyhood, and the people who turn up in both. 64 of them, all free to read.
- Published in
- Mobile Bay Magazine — covering Mobile and Baldwin counties since 1971
- Running since
- 2012
- Two of these grew into books
- Among the Swamp People and Bay Boy
- May 2018 When the Dealin’s Done One Saturday in May, a traffic jam of boats converges upon a handful of river camps up in the Mobile Delta for the Poker Run. Read →
- Jul 2017 The Point Clear Library Established in 1920, the diminutive Point Clear Library was born out of a reading circle. Read →
- Jun 2017 I’llNeeda Even a remote community such as Point Clear had its share of transients. Sometimes they arrived on bicycles, sometimes on foot. Read →
- May 2017 Major’s Creek With Gulf Shores, Mobile Bay and the Mobile-Tensaw Delta in our own backyard, there is no shortage of water to get lost on. Read →
- Apr 2017 Batter Up! When there are only nine boys in your high school class, sports are not always optional. Read →
- Mar 2017 The Necklace Here in the South, many boys consider killing their first deer a necessary step toward growing up. Read →
- Feb 2017 The Big Ride Immediately after college, I returned home to live with my parents again in Point Clear. I didn’t have a detailed life plan. Read →
- Jan 2017 Dove Hunting In Point Clear, the first sign that waterfront activities are over is the sound of doves cooing and fluttering in the tree limbs. Read →
- Nov 2016 Convicts Before they were famous, we called them sheepshead. They were as useless as a channel cat. Trash fish. Read →
- Oct 2016 Shrimping A Mobile-made Stauter boat has long served as the vessel of choice for father-son fishing expeditions. Read →
- Sep 2016 Gone to Texas As a youngster, I couldn’t even imagine what other people did in summer without Mobile Bay to entertain them. Read →
- Aug 2016 Crawfishing Ditches, dip nets, and a bucket — the cheapest afternoon on the eastern shore. Read →
- Jul 2016 The Honeybee Man A chance encounter following a bee infestation changes Watt’s mind about the buzzing, stinging insects. Read →
- Jun 2016 Smokey the Squirrel Early spring on the Bay brings high tides and wet, windy weather like a fitful ending to a nasty winter. Read →
- May 2016 The Perfect Pond A couple of years out of college, I was still living with my parents in Point Clear, but I was ready for a project. Read →
- May 2016 Man of the Wild When I was a boy in Point Clear, I occasionally saw a mostly-naked man swimming past my grandparents’ wharf in the dead of winter. Read →
- Apr 2016 Point Clear Towing Point Clear never really had enough year-round residents to support a whole bunch of services. Read →
- Mar 2016 Dirty Jobs First and foremost in my memory of horrible tasks was cleaning out the grease trap. Read →
- Mar 2016 Outbound Part two of the bar pilot story. It’s late December, and I’m looking forward to making my run. Read →
- Feb 2016 Into the Wild: Part II I was determined to spend two weeks in the Alabama River bottom swamp with little more than a bow. Read →
- Feb 2016 Ascending the Ladder A little after noon on a clear, unseasonably warm October day, I find myself on the way to Dauphin Island with a bar pilot. Read →
- Jan 2016 Into the Wild: Part I The fourteen days in the Alabama forest that became the backbone of Alabama Moon. Read →
- Dec 2015 A Tennis Racket Employment opportunities have never been abundant for 13-year-olds in Point Clear. Read →
- Nov 2015 Government Housing What turns up when you go looking through the outbuildings of a childhood home. Read →
- Oct 2015 Let George Do It Whether he’s playing polo with princes or sailing the coast in search of shrimp, George Radcliff leads a one-of-a-kind life. Read →
- Oct 2015 The Ghost of Zundel’s Wharf A typical Point Clear morning in October finds light, cool east breezes filtering through the pine trees. Read →
- Sep 2015 Landfall As a youngster in Point Clear, it never crossed my mind that hurricanes weren’t something everyone in the world dealt with. Read →
- Aug 2015 The Runaway I was 16 years old, and I’d had enough. I was sick of chores. I was sick of curfews. Read →
- Jul 2015 Arrival When I was 15, I told my father I wanted to work construction. He suggested I get in touch with Kenny Horton. Read →
- Jun 2015 Pajama Fishing As summer slips into the heavy heat, afternoons on the Bay turn rough and windy. Read →
- May 2015 The Grand Hotel Point Clear has always stood on its own, but the Grand Hotel is what put it on the map. Read →
- Apr 2015 First Cars I always assumed the clandestine street racers I heard late at night had connections with the shade-tree mechanics. Read →
- Mar 2015 Our Wild Pet Rooster Late winter on the Bay is wet and windy and cold. I recall staring out the front windows, watching waves crash. Read →
- Feb 2015 A Night at Middle Bay Lighthouse A few miles off the end of our family wharf and a little to the left lies a famous Gulf Coast landmark. Read →
- Feb 2015 Good Ole Lucy Zeddie Armstrong wanted a bird dog. Specifically a German Shorthaired Pointer from Spencer Bach. Read →
- Jan 2015 The Green Station Wagon When I think of Point Clear in the depths of winter, I recall the sounds. Read →
- Dec 2014 The Longest Day of the Year By the time Christmas arrived in Point Clear, the Bay was too cold and rough and shallow to enjoy. Read →
- Nov 2014 Hunting Season Fall in Point Clear is like a party that is over, cleaned up and waiting until summer again. Read →
- Oct 2014 The Bird Nest “I’ve got an idea,” I told Jeremy. “We’ll build a nest. A huge one, way back in the woods.” Read →
- Sep 2014 Arts and Crafts We didn’t have video games, and we didn’t watch much television growing up. Read →
- Aug 2014 A Kid’s Best Friend Across the blacktop from my childhood home is a vast wetland of tall pines, briars and pitcher plants. Read →
- Jul 2014 The New Old Point Clear I suddenly find myself at the age where I’m telling my kids how it used to be when I was growing up. Read →
- Jun 2014 A Swamp Writer’s Guide to the Delta I’ve been going into the Mobile-Tensaw Delta swamps for nearly 20 years now. I built a camp, made friends with the swamp people. Read →
- May 2014 Back to the Muck The first time I met my neighbor Ace, he told me he was going to kill me. He never did. Read →
- Apr 2014 Seen and Heard about the Delta Overheard out on the water — swamp bandits, late nights, and things that may or may not have happened. Read →
- Mar 2014 Diesel Upgrade All swamp men eventually feel the urge to upgrade to diesel. “Why do you need it?” my wife asked me. Read →
- Feb 2014 Airboats in the Night I liken Jack’s airboat to a magnolia leaf with an airplane prop attached. Read →
- Jan 2014 Deltona 500 Chickory Creek is one of the most beautifully isolated and forgotten creeks in the Delta. Read →
- Dec 2013 The Christmas Gift December in the Delta can be windswept, cold and lonely. At times, this is exactly what I’m looking for. Read →
- Nov 2013 Swamp Jokes No swamp full of men is free of practical jokes — at least no swamp worth visiting. Read →
- Oct 2013 The White Car It wasn’t until we were standing in a dark, rutted-out dirt parking lot at the edge of the Tensaw River that it dawned on us. Read →
- Sep 2013 Out of the Gloam – Part II I knew I was in trouble long before I would admit it to myself or anyone else in the boat. Read →
- Aug 2013 Out of the Gloam Although the Tensaw Delta appears as one piece on a map, the upper and lower regions are very different. Read →
- Jul 2013 Neighbors Since it’s always a good idea to stay on friendly terms with swamp neighbors, I don’t waste time introducing myself. Read →
- Jun 2013 The Chuckfee Revival I spent the month before reinforcing the mudsills under the camp and nailing up extra floor joists. Then I called my insurance agent. Read →
- May 2013 Random Proud It may have been the worst looking vessel I’d ever seen: a blue-hulled houseboat about 40 feet long, tied to a plank. Read →
- Apr 2013 Swamp Writer: The Landing Pie owns the landing where I launch my boat. Her office is an old abandoned nightclub on the riverbank. Read →
- Mar 2013 Catching Alligators I learned about catching alligators from my neighbor, Butch Dobson. Read →
- Feb 2013 Swamp Writer: The Trailer Park There is a place deep in the fetid Delta backwater that we call the Trailer Park. Read →
- Jan 2013 Swamp Writer: Delta Heckler A friend of my brother Reid’s says he has a pontoon boat that sunk in Lake Martin. All he needs is a hand. Read →
- Dec 2012 Swamp Writer: Football and the Gator One of the main adventures at the camp is a ride down Chicory Bayou. Read →
- Oct 2012 Swamp Writer: A Camp Man and His Man Tools Most sportsmen know about the camp man — the person who organizes activities and does most of the work. Read →
- Aug 2012 Swamp Writer: My First Night in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta In the spring of 1996 I was determined to rebuild an old camp in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. Miles from any road. Read →
- Jul 2012 Swamp Writer: Dispatches from the Most Remote Area of Alabama The air is still cool with the tailings of spring and the sky is deep blue. The river sparkles and flows deep. Read →
Where the columns came from
The same two places, over and over.
The Mobile-Tensaw Delta is roughly 260,000 acres of wetland north of Mobile Bay, and there is no way into it except by small boat. Watt found it in his twenties, leased a rise of high ground deep inside, built a cabin out of driftwood, and has been going back most weekends since. The swamp columns are what he saw out there.
The other half is Point Clear, on the eastern shore, back when it was a sleepy resort town that emptied out every winter — jubilees, shrimping, dove season, hurricanes, and a boy with a Stauter-Built boat and nothing to do but be outside.
Both eventually turned into books.