It was a quiet Monday inside the shop at John's Bayou Marina, and storekeepers Lana Middleton and Ruthie Eike sat at a table chatting and smoking cigarettes.

The store felt like a clubhouse. Beat-up armchairs occupy the corners. A pool table at the center ties the room together.

A glass-fronted cooler behind the counter is stocked with beer. Sliced bread, bags of potato chips, canned goods and other groceries line a shelf on the opposite wall.

Trophy fish decorate a wall above the windows. Polaroids of people having a good time cover a bulletin board next to the door.

Middleton doesn't work at the store normally but was filling in for a friend. She's lived in the Bluff Creek community, located off Mississippi 57 in Jackson County, since 1979.

Eike moved there about two years ago.

"I love it here," she said. "I've lived other places, but it's special here. I've met the kind of friends that if you need them at 2 o'clock in the morning, they'll come."

Moments later, the screen door flew open and four guys in swimming trunks walked in. Three of them made for the pool table, racked the balls and started a game.

The fourth, Gerald Dickerson, grabbed a bottle of Miller High Life from the cooler.

He cracked it open and took a sip. Then he paid.

Trulon Pitts, a small man with a wrinkled face, joined Dickerson by the cash register. Dickerson joked that Pitts is the oldest man to ever pose in Playgirl magazine.

Pitts smiled.

They'd been tooling around in Pitts' pontoon boat. Dickerson bought more beer. The younger guys leaned their pool cues against the wall and headed for the boat.

Pine Island was their next stop. The island is the hub of the area's social scene.

"It's just an island," Middleton said. "People go water-skiing, play dominoes, soak up the sun. Years back, we had a volleyball court out there, but it got vandalized. You'd be surprised at how many people don't know it even exists."

Pine Island

Pitts has navigated the twisting bayou off the Pascagoula River since retiring to the area from Jones County 12 years ago.

He gripped a Miller Lite and piloted his pontoon boat toward Pine Island. He revels in the easy-going lifestyle along the river.

Before boarding the boat that Saturday morning, he relaxed with a group of his friends and neighbors in his garage, drinking beers and bloody Marys as if tailgating before an Ole Miss game.

Posters featuring bikini-clad models and Bud Light and Miller Lite banners decorate the garage walls.

"It's a good time," he said, steering the boat. "All the neighbors, we get together and cook out all the time."

He pointed to a big house on the banks. The side of the house facing the water seemed entirely composed of windows.

"You know the band 3 Doors Down?" he said. "One of them, I don't know which one, owns that place."

There's a rope swing on Pine Island's shore. Camping tents were pitched on a bluff overlooking the beach.

Monty Holden relaxed in a beach chair next to his boat. It was quiet, and Holden's was the only boat "parked" on the small beach.

"You won't be able to find a place to park in a few hours," he said.

Holden, 50, has lived about a mile through the woods from Pine Island his entire life. A pipe supervisor at Northrop Grumman Ingalls shipyard, he splits much of his leisure time between dog-hunting deer and carousing on the river.

"I still hunt the same place I hunted 40 years ago on the river," he said. "... Vancleave is one of the fastest growing places, so it's unusual to have a place to hunt that hasn't changed."

Pine Island is his weekend hangout.

"We come out here every Saturday, at least ever since February," he said. "There's tons of characters out here."

Holden said Pine Island is a local treasure.

"About the same people come out here that came out here 40 years ago," he said.

Susan Holden said there are adults visiting Pine Island now whom she remembers scurrying around there as children

"We're not changing their diapers anymore, we're giving them beers instead," she said.

About a dozen beer cans were strewn along a steep bank behind Holden.

He said they do their best to keep the island clean.

"You see that right there," he said, pointing to the beer cans. "That won't be there when we leave."

Sumerlin Bayou

Pitts steered the boat south of Pine Island into Sumerlin Bayou. Wild rice grows along the banks at the bayou's entrance. Farther downstream, the bayou narrows and houseboats form a long, winding line on the edge of the woods.

Most of the houseboats have covered porches. One of the boats is nothing more than an old camper set on a barge.

"Usually when I come through here I put a Cajun CD on and people come out and dance," Pitts said.

Larry "Goober" Salter stood on the deck of his houseboat and dropped a fishing line into the water.

Salter, 63, wore a baseball cap high on his head. He had a pouch of chewing tobacco in his pocket. He got the nickname while working at the shipyard.

"People thought I was a nut," he said.

Salter bought his houseboat more than six years ago.

"The fishing here is usually pretty great," he said. "I've been fishing and going through here for 30 years."

He said he's proud of the river neighborhood.

"Everybody out here has got a concern about keeping it nice," he said. "It's a treasure that needs to be protected."

Pitts navigated through the twisting bayou and overhanging tree limbs. The woods, thick with ferns, seem prehistoric.

It started sprinkling.

"This won't last long," Pitts said.

He was wrong. It poured in sheets for more than 20 minutes.

Soaked, Pitts turned the boat around and headed home.

He returned to his garage where he got himself a beer and took a load off.

Soon friends arrived, also Jones County natives, and sat down at the plastic table.

In the ensuing discussion, someone suggested Pitts get a job. He smiled.

"I had a dream about work the other day," he said. "It was a nightmare."

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