Peter Jenkins is famous for his walk across America, which he did around 1974 and turned into a bestseller book of that name. I have that book, somewhere on a shelf or in a box, and will someday read it. Meanwhile, I had another of his books conveniently at hand, Along The Edge Of America, so a couple of months ago the wife and I read it aloud. We picked this up as a used copy somewhere along the line, and it has been waiting quite a few years for us to read it.

It wasn’t what I expected. By “the edge of America” he means our southern water border, the Gulf of Mexico. After much planning, Jenkins went by boat solo from the tip of the Florida Keys to the Texas border with Mexico at the Gulf. While it was something I didn’t expect—and don’t ask me what I did expect—it did not disappoint.

Jenkins started by telling about his divorce, from the woman he met (I think in New Orleans) on his walk across America, who he married and who finished the walk with him. He made his money off the first book, bought land in the hills of Tennessee, and went there to live rather than back to his native Connecticut. He married again. But his feet became restless, and decided to do something else. Meanwhile, since his first, famous walk, he had done others and published the stories.

He decided to follow our southern coast. Buying a boat, he engaged teachers of boatsmanship (that may not be a word), navigation, survival, and whatever else he needed. He went to the coast and, after shakedown, he was off. His starting point wasn’t Key West, but  uninhabited American islands beyond Key West named the Dry Tortugas. Thence to the better known keys. Thence up the west coast of Florida, thence along the Florida panhandle, thence across the Alabama coast…well, you know your geography and get the picture.

Along the way, he met lots of interesting people. Let’s see, there were commercial fishermen in southern Florida; marijuana trans-shippers further north, old friends in New Orleans, victims of repeated hurricanes in western Louisiana, and modern pirates in Texas. He made a trip up a river into Alabama, a hundred miles inland, and met interesting people there.

While often he was solo, he had his new wife and baby come for a while, as well as his older children. When he stopped, it wasn’t for a night, but for months at a time. The book describes many interactions with local people he encountered along the way. This is as much a part of the book as his time on the water.

Jenkins talked about how he quickly picked up the knack of operating the boat, how he built relationships with people. Sampling of various native foods was part of it.

This is a good book, easily read. My wife and I read it aloud in the evenings. Seldom were we bored, and never did we want to skip a day. I give this book 5 stars.

But is it a keeper? Alas, no. Too many books in the house already, and, my criteria for keepers nowadays is two-fold: 1) will I ever want to read this again? and 2) is it part of a larger collection I want to keep intact? The answer is no to both of these. So it has gone into the donation/sale pile. A trip to a thrift store is likely to happen this week, and this will go. Now, where did I put that other Jenkins book?