Andy Marlette

News Journal Cartoonist

Drifting to the end of our gentle November on the Gulf Coast, we are mindful that some things in life are more important than elections or politics or presidencies. Oysters are some of those things.

And even if you hate slurping the salty molluscs, there’s a very cool oyster-honoring project fronted by one of Pensacola’s native sons that every Gulf Coast culture-lover ought to check out.

It’s called “The Torchbearers Collection” — a creative new jewelry line that is a living tribute to the Gulf Coast’s heritage oyster industry. But to get why the project is so special, you’ve got to look at where it came from.

It is a tale of three cities — Apalachicola, Pensacola and New Orleans — with each coastal community contributing a patron creator.

From Apalachicola: Rodney Richards, the old-school, multi-generation oyster-tong maker who hand forges heritage oyster-harvesting tools with muscle, fire and his daddy’s hammer.

From New Orleans: Ashley Porter, the young, dark-eyed, French Quarter-based jewelry priestess and founder of Porter Lyons jewelry who works beautiful voodoo with objects like stones, skulls and bronze alligator backbones.

And from Pensacola: The writer and idea man, our hometown’s own, Terry Strickland.

I have never met a human being more reverent toward oysters than Terry. To listen to him is to hear a gospel preached about sanctified shellfish.

Terry is a proud Pensacolian — son of a Navy man like so many other proud Pensacolians. He is 24. Tall, smart, friendly, clean cut. No visible tattoos or piercings. Don’t think I’ve ever heard him cuss. He’s the kind of kid you’d want dating your daughter.

He’s also a reformed newspaper reporter turned marketing consultant and magazine writer. It was in that latter capacity that Terry started covering Apalachicola’s oyster saga a couple years ago, and that’s when he met Rodney.

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The Torchbearer

According to Terry, “It’s fair to say that Rodney is one of the last oyster-tong makers in Florida.” Oyster tongs consist of long handles with two heavy, steel rake heads at the bottom. That’s what Rodney, and his father before him, make by hand. He pounds out each tooth of each rake on an anvil. Terry says Rodney’s muscle memory is such that the individual teeth are remarkably uniform when he’s done pounding on them. Remember, he uses the same hammer his father swung. He also burns fires from the same fuel source that his father drew from. A decades old train wreck behind the family property dumped a mass of charcoal that still fires the forge today, according to Terry.

A father’s hammer. An age old train wreck. Oysters and hard times. If this ain’t the stuff of Florida folk legends, I don’t know what is.

Anyway, there are mechanical methods for harvesting, but on public reefs in Florida, Terry says tongs are the legal method. Still, demand for Rodney’s oyster tools isn’t what it once was. Such is the collapse of Apalachicola oystering.

These days, Rodney mostly makes a living building cabinets. When Rodney quits forging oyster tongs, Terry says it’s not clear that anyone else will know how to — certainly not the exact way that Rodney and his father did it. Thus, Rodney remains “The Torchbearer.”

A New Orleans saint

Terry left a reporting assignment in Apalachicola with a few of Rodney’s oyster-tong teeth chinking around in his pocket. They fast joined wallet and car keys as regular, daily pocket occupants. Soon, the teeth were starting conversations. “What have you been working on?” someone might ask. “Well check these out…” Terry would say. Next thing you know, a stranger in Pensacola was learning all about the legend of Rodney in Apalachicola.

That’s when the idea for this project bubbled up. Terry was struck by the way people were fascinated by the small, handmade spikes. “Little objects — these oyster-tong teeth — got people talking about the bigger story of Apalachicola. And that’s Rodney’s story, too. I was interested in the way that one man’s story bears out everything the industry has suffered. Getting people to talk about that, that’s really the goal.”

If they could create something with the teeth, some way that other folks could carry around Rodney’s work the way Terry had been, then maybe more people would talk about the story of Rodney and Apalachicola.

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So Terry sought out Ashley Porter. She’s a renowned young designer who has a studio in the French Quarter and her designs are around the necks of celebrities like Taylor Swift and Miranda Lambert. She’s famous.

More importantly though, Ashley’s work is crafted with the shapes and symbolism of cultural and environmental heritage. A portion of all her sales go to environmental preservation. In other words, it ain’t just jewelry. She’s all about crafting graceful objects imbued with larger meanings. So it was almost destined that she be introduced to Rodney’s oyster-tong teeth.

Terry contacted Ashley, not expecting a response. Surprise. She actually had family in Perdido Key. She was soon visiting and agreed to meet up for coffee. She was taken by Rodney’s story and the hard beauty of his oyster-tong teeth. She was in. Terry drove back over the Perdido Key bridge that day with a new campaign to launch. Ashley Porter — one of the South’s most celebrated young designers — had agreed to create “The Torchbearers Collection.”

And there it was, faster than an Amtrak, our Gulf Coast lines connected. From New Orleans to Pensacola to Apalachicola. Back to Rodney. Back to “The Torchbearer.”

The launch

The project launches with a kickstarter campaign any day now. Basically, the group has to get enough buy-in or pre-orders to move forward with a larger line of jewelry that will incorporate Rodney’s handmade oyster-tong teeth. Not only do sales support Rodney and keep his father’s hammer in full-swing, but the project will direct a portion of profits to restoration efforts in Apalachicola.

The first pieces available are pendants for men and women featuring Rodney’s oyster-tong teeth. Check out https://torchbearerscollection.com/ for more information.

The timing seems right for Terry’s project. An awareness about oysters is in the air. Florida is still fighting Georgia for ravaging Apalachicola in the ongoing “water wars” that seem destined to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. Whatever the resolution, the Apalachicola oyster industry may not ever return to what it once was. All the more reason to treasure guys like Rodney now.

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But Terry also points out how culturally, we’re seeing renewed pride for our seafood heritage and locally grown food. He points to Donnie McMahon’s Pensacola Bay Oyster Company that’s farming oysters right off Scenic Highway as an example. Folks value what’s homegrown and authentic and that’s exactly what the tong-teeth jewelry line captures so artfully.

To me, the coolest part about all this is the way Terry became the nexus connecting different worlds and distinct creators. It’s symbolically fitting that he’s a Pensacolian since our city is almost the perfect geographical midpoint on roughly 400 miles of coastal roadway between Apalachicola and New Orleans. The South is a small place, for better or worse. Stories like this side for the better.

Terry understands the big, swirling world that revolves around the lowly oyster — the science, the politics, the economics, the culinary artistry, the Gulf and the sometimes-Southern Gothic lives of the men and women who’ve struggled along our shorelines.

He also gets how creative projects like this just might be able to save something that’s at risk of being lost, and give new meaning to the old traditions of a Gulf Coast craftsman like Rodney Richards. So y’all check it out. Because in the end, even “The Torchbearer” needs torchbearers.