Do you have regrets? Pottsi has a life of lost loves

GULFPORT — A stranger named Robert Potts called and left a rambling message on my voice mail. Something about the jumbo sailfish he and his boy caught recently during a charter trip into the gulf. "We got a great picture. I'd love for you to come over and see the picture.''

I enjoy looking at sailfish pictures, but not if I have to drive across town. As I prepared to delete the message, the guy kept talking. He talked about a failed marriage and his attempts to reconnect with his boy after many years. He talked about his famous smoked fish spread, his bad hips, cowboys, cow manure and a horse named Zorba.

And, oh yes, he said, everybody knew him as "Pottsi.''

I called back and said I looked forward to seeing his cool sailfish photo. Turned out I got more than I bargained for. From Pottsi, an old-fashioned, talk-your-ear-off bohemian, I learned about regret.

We sat at a table in the driveway at the house he shares with his girlfriend and three cats. A small volcano of cigarette butts rose from the ashtray. Pottsi smokes, drinks coffee and watches the blue jays for hours at a time. He is only 56 but already has a fake knee and fake hips and arthritis. His great pleasure is talking. Two phones lay on the table.

He is big and burly and usually unemployed except for the occasional cooking gig. Two marriages didn't take. One ended poisonously with two kids never wanting to see him again. Pottsi told me about the son who got old enough to be curious about his old man, and about his idea for a fishing trip that might make things right.

Renting a charter boat is expensive, Pottsi admitted, too expensive for a man who doesn't have a regular job. He sold his beloved staghorn ferns to raise part of the money and begged his parents for the rest. Pottsi and his 19-year-old son, Jacob, got their fishing charter and headed out.

A sailfish swallowed the bait and jumped and pulled hard and they reeled like mad, the two of them, father and son, until the mate was able to drag their trophy into the boat. Pottsi likes to eat fish — his art is smoking fish, using a secret recipe — but this sailfish was just too pretty to kill. They got their photograph and watched their trophy swim away.

Nice story. As I prepared to go, Pottsi went on talking. I remained seated and opened my notebook again.

• • •

He said he was the son of an Air Force VIP. Said his sister, like their dad, was a high achiever. Pottsi went into the Air Force and pleased his dad. But afterward he became a hippie and hit the road.

He was a cook in the Pacific Northwest in a tavern where Woody Guthrie once strummed his guitar and he lived in a tepee with a couple who had an Indian sweat lodge. Pottsi built his own sweat lodge near a beaver pond. "That's why I have irritable bowel syndrome to this day. I drank that impure water.''

In Chesaw, Wash., on the Canadian border, the other cowboys called him "Giddyup" because he knew nothing about horses. They put him on Zorba, who bit him on the shoulder.

"They picked on me because I was a greenhorn. They had a cow ready to give birth. They told me to stick my arm deep in there to check on the calf. When I did, the cow let loose with its bowels all over me.''

Cowboy humor.

"But you know, I loved it. I only got $30 a month. One dollar a day. But I got my food and drink and a place to live. I lived in an old blacksmith shop built in 1890. I had a lantern for a light."

After a while he hitchhiked to Santa Cruz to be with his old girlfriend. It was something less than love. One day she gave him $500 and told him to beat it. She was going to the Mediterranean to marry a Greek fishing boat captain.

"Goodbye. So I ended up in Chinatown, in Frisco, cooking in a restaurant, and living in the YMCA for $16 a night. It wasn't bad, but I ran out of the money she gave me and my sister sent me money to come back East.''

• • •

I told him I had to go this time for real. I took a last look at Pottsi's sailfish photo. In the picture, his son has his arm draped sadly over his lost dad's shoulder.

"I'm glad Jacob and I caught that sailfish," Pottsi said. "I hope it's the start of a new relationship. Jacob's like I was, a little. Thinks he's smarter than other people. I hope he doesn't follow my path.''

We all have our regrets, some large, some small.

"I should have stayed out west,'' he said. "I'd probably own a little piece of property out there by now. I could have made something of myself.''

Jeff Klinkenberg can be reached at klink@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8727. His Web site is jeffklinkenberg. com.