First, the name: not my invention, honestly, but part of the setting of my early life on Big Bayou. Unbeknownst to the original author, who emblazoned it upon the transom of his smallish wooden inboard, "Byo Gal" was a name I took to heart. Like so many larger-than-life persons who disappoint on closer inspection, the skipper did not live up to the image I constructed of him as down-to-earth friend of Nature and common folks. But the name came to mean more to me. Now in (ahem) maturity, whenever I slap my paddleboard into the shallows and draw my first salt-infused breath, I feel like I'm back.
I feel like I never left.
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