FLORIDA’S FORGOTTON COAST: LIFE ON THE APALACHICOLA BAY
WORKING THE BAY
Melaine Cooper Covell
James Hicks
Monette Hicks
Monica Lemieux
Carl McCaplan
James & Betty McNeill
Charles & Rex Pennycuff
A. L. Quick
Henry Tindell

TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Wes Birdsong
Corky Richards
Bobby Shiver
Charles Thompson
Genaro “Jiggs” Zingarelli

PROCESSING THE CATCH
Terry Dean
Grady Leavins
Lynn Martina
Fred Millender
Janice Richards
Anthony Taranto
Tommy Ward

THE SWEET SIDE
Donald Smiley
George Watkins

VINTAGE APALACH
Seafood & Honey

WHERE TO EAT
Apalach Eateries

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Interviews & photographs by Amy Evans

This project sponsored by the St. Joe Company.

Born to a barber and a beautician in 1942, Corky Richards did not grow up in the seafood industry. But he got in it as soon as he could. Corky’s family moved to Apalachicola when he was a teenager. He immediately got to work on the bay. Using his carpentry skills, he began to make his own oyster tongs. One year in the off-season, a local marine supply company asked him to make tongs for the store. Soon Corky was making and selling tongs to oystermen throughout Franklin County. Business was so good Corky opened a woodworking shop. Originally, he worked in a building on Water Street in downtown Apalachicola. There Corky fashioned pine and steel into custom pieces. Today Corky and his son Rodney work together in a workshop on the edge of town. Now, though, they spend more time making cabinets than tongs. But Rodney still makes and repairs tongs for some of his father’s longtime customers. They are the only ones in town still making them by hand. And they may not be doing it much longer. Corky says that when he retires, Rodney will probably retire too. And the days of handcrafted oyster tongs will retire with them.

Listen to this 2-minute audio clip of Corky Richards talking about how he got into the business of making oyster tongs.
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What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

Subject: Albert “Corky” Richards, tongmaker
Date: January 9, 2006
Location: Mr. Richards’ workshop – Apalachicola, FL
Interviewer: Amy Evans

Amy Evans:  This is Amy Evans for the Southern Foodways Alliance on Monday, January 9th, 2006 in Apalachicola, Florida, on Bluff Road with Mr. Corky Richards. Mr. Richards, would you mind saying your name and your birth date for the record?

Corky Richards:  Corky Richards, April 30th, 1942.

Is your given name Corky, or is that a nickname?

No, that's my nickname. Albert is my real name.

How did you get the nickname Corky?

I don't know. My dad gave it to me when I was a tot.

Are you a native of Apalachicola?

Yes.

How far back does your family go?

Oh, God, I don't know. I know my great-great-grandparents were here. I don't know just right off.

Can you give me a little idea before we start talking about these tongs that you make what it was like growing up in these parts?

I didn't grow up here. I was raised all over Florida—anywhere from Key West to all up and down the Keys—the Miami area—raised mostly down there. But this was always a hometown to us.

What did your family do down there?

My dad was a barber and my mother was a beautician.

Really, okay. So when did you come back to Apalachicola?

About 1958 and then—I was the onliest child. They moved on, and I stayed here. I was tired of moving all over, and I hadn't left since.

And you were telling me earlier that you oystered and fished and all, and we saw that picture of all that mullet. When did you start working on the bay?

Back about 1960—'59—about '59 and started then, and then I worked the bay oystering and crabbing, some fishing. And I was always good at working wood, and I would do odd jobs in my spare time. And then eventually it just revolved into all this.

So how did you get to working on the bay? Was it something that you just wanted to do. or something that everybody else was doing so you did it?

It was a necessity. [Laughs] To make a living, you know, it was the onliest thing around here at the time.

——-

We were talking about you working the bay and then you had a way with wood and got into tong making. How did that develop?

When I was oystering, I would make my own tongs and my own handles in my spare time. If it was bad weather or something like that. And then it just kind of snowballed from that. Once we used the—our bay used to close June, July, and August—three months out of the year. The whole bay would close, and then they'd open everything back up in September. And during that three months I would fill in with the odd jobs, or I'd crab, or I'd be doing something. And one summer a local marine supply [business] around here, [the owner] wanted me to build him some handles. So I did, and that's what really got it started.

Was that Wefing's Marine?

Wefing's, yes. George Wefing. We all knew each other, and he asked me if I'd build him fifteen pair of handles. I said sure, which was for the summer, you know, something to do and [the business] started from there.

Where were the other oystermen getting their tongs then?

There were different tong makers in town. But I was the onliest one making tongs that had oystered before and knew how I wanted mine to be, and I just started to do it like I liked them. But everybody else liked the, too. [Laughs]

Can you explain what that is? What you like about a tong?

The size of the thickness of the handles. Reaching around them and the shape of them, they're real comfortable in your hand. A lot of them would be big and bulky and rough—real rough wood—and I would smooth mine off real smooth and make them a little bit smaller. Just long as I didn't get them too small where they'd be too limber.

And the handles are [made of] ash [wood], is that right?

[They’re] ash now. It started off with pine. But you don't get the grade of lumber like we used to. So now I went with ash and do a three-part lamination instead of just the solid board. I've gone to laminating everything.

Well do you have an idea of about when it changed from pine to ash?

Yeah, about ten or twelve years ago. It was—the pine was getting flimsy and just—just couldn't get the grades.

Was it local pine that you were getting?

No, it was southern yellow pine.

And then the ash, where does it come from now?

It's local. It's grown in the—this area but then they—it's a northern—on the Eastern Coast.

Well, this is an impressive shop you have here now. What kind of conditions were you working in when you started making handles for Wefing?

Just had a little small shed in my backyard. I lived in Eastpoint, and it was a little sixteen by twenty-four foot shed. And then in 1975 I opened up a shop in Apalachicola right on Water Street, and the place they call the Tin Shed [a retail store]. I was there for about twenty-four years. And then I built this building here, and we moved out here.

When was that that you moved out here?

That was 1997 we moved out here. Nine years, a little over nine years now.

When you established the place on Water Street was it just tongs, or were you doing other carpentry?

Anything out of wood. We’d get making cabinets—oyster tongs mostly back in those days, and I'd fill in with whatever else that came along. But then oyster tongs was priority.

When you started that shop were y’all making the [metal] rakes for the tongs also?

Yeah, we made the whole nine yards. We built new ones and then repaired the old ones whenever they came in.

About how long does an oysterman use a set of tongs?

It varies from the individual. Some of them can get four and five years out of a pair, and then some of them they don't last that long. So it just varies.

And how much did a set of tongs cost when you got started? Do you remember?

Fifteen dollars. For one—for a pair of handles. Now a pair of handles is one hundred twenty-five dollars.

So how much would a whole set cost if you were welding the rake for it, too?

Back when I started, thirty dollars. Now a whole set will cost you two [hundred and] fifty [dollars] and up.

——-

Well can you talk about how you make a set of tongs, like what the steps are and the length and the number of points on the rake?

The handles would just start off by milling the lumber out and laminating them and gluing them together. And then re-saw them and start the millwork after that. The heads are all done right here in the—that little batch there. My son does all the welding now. I don't weld anymore. I build the handles.

Rodney? How long has he been working for you?

All his life.

Is he your only [child] or do you have more kids?

No, I have four—had four. I got three. He was with me since he was in ninth [grade] because he always liked shop building, hanging around with me. And he's been—he's been welding since he was thirteen years old. Or building. Actually building out of wood earlier than that. But he picked up on the welding and on his own just watching me do something, and then he'd copy it. And now [Laughs] I just help him.

I've heard that [tong handles] are generally twelve-feet in the length, but the woman that came to pick up that set earlier you said something about—.

Yeah, they vary anywhere from eight-foot to sixteen-feet. Mostly I build ten-foot, twelve-foot, and fourteen-feet, but I very seldom ever build any sixteens.

Now you said something about the time of year; people right now are just using twelve-footers.

Summertime the tides are higher; wintertime, such as it is now, the water is lower, and you got lower tides, and they work a shallower part of the bay. In the summertime they work the deeper part in the high water.

So would oystermen generally have a few sets of tongs for the different seasons?

Some of them. A lot of oystermen do. Some of them don't. They'll just stick with one size, and if it's too deep he just won't go.

And what about the heads of the tongs?

They vary from what we call a fourteen-tooth up to a twenty-four-teeth. A fourteen-tooth is twenty-nine inches [wide] and twenty-four teeth would be forty—forty-nine inches wide. It's the difference in the length of the heads.

Are those regulated at all as to how far [apart] the teeth are or—?

No regulations on the tongs themselves. But that's the onliest thing you can use in our bay is oyster tongs. And you can't dredge them unless you have a private lease, and right now there's not but two leaseholders in our bay.

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Well what if somebody brings them in to be repaired? Is that generally a quick turnaround and they can just not go out for a day?

Oh yeah, yeah; if—if we're here and not out on a job a lot of times Rodney will jump on them and get them while they wait. But—or they can leave them overnight and have them the next morning for them. He just fixed some up—yeah; I think he got that pair in this morning and just done a little bit of—little bit of welding on them for repair; so.

Well what do you call—is there a name for those long lines that are part of that cage that are above the teeth?

Oh, yeah, that's the braille. These smaller rods here? That's the Braille—Braille rods.

And this is all just designed as a matter of you know—?

It's all basically—every set of tongs like this is the same spacing, the—about the same shape and all. Our teeth are a little bit different from others but other than that—.

How are they different?

By being round. A boy over in Eastpoint, he uses a square tooth and sharpens them off to a point, which is basically the same thing. It's just—they do the same job.

Is it just a matter of liking the way it looks or getting the rod that's shaped like that?

No, it's just according to what—whoever the build is—whatever he wants to build and whether they work right or not.

Would you say that would be a signature? Like I could go out there on the bay and see these and know they're your tongs?

Yeah, if you're working on the bay, you can pretty well look at my work and somebody else's work and tell the difference—who's done the work. Let's see something; I don't see anybody else's old handles here. I had at one time—. [Looking for Tong Handles] Then—see these teeth are squared?
                                                     
Yes, sir.

Now that particular head there was built by an old-timer here in Apalachicola by the name of Roy Smith. He built boats and oyster tongs and shucking machines, where they shucked the oysters. He built the machines, and he's actually—Roy Smith was the first one that laminated handles. That looks like one of my old heads there.

And so how did you get your hands on this?

Just an old head kicking around, and I just hung it on the wall to remember Roy Smith by. [Laughs]

Has he passed?

Oh, yeah. He's been passed away for many years now.

And this—the part that's holding the wood [handle that goes down into the cage] looks different. Or is that my imagination?

Yeah. No, this used to be—this was the onliest type of tongs we would make. It's just called a regular.

Because it holds the wood better or something—that kind of pie shape [in the center of the cage at the end of the handles]?

With that it was just a different style. Actually, the basket tongs, I think, originally came from Virginia.

And that's just like a sickle shape?

Yeah, just a regular head. That was a basket head and a regular head. But it's been years now—those, when I first started building them that's all we—that's all we knew.

How did that change, then, to the basket heads?

Well these came in from Virginia and everybody started using the Virginia heads.

Are they better or easier to make or is there—?

They're easier to make. Whenever you're tonging, these—whenever your heads would come together, your oysters would be in here [in the basket]. Well you'd have this space here real close where you—you know, you'd have to work your tongs and get them oysters out of the way of that [center piece in the basket] before you could pull them up off the bottom. With these, you see, you just got a big round basket there—no problem. [Nothing is blocking the inside of the basket.]

And you'd have more oysters in there?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, they'll hold more.

So what year did you—do you think about this came down here from Virginia?

Oh, my God. Probably in the early [nineteen] seventies, around in there sometime.

Do you think somebody just brought a set down and everybody liked the way they worked?

No, at one time there was Virginia—the Potomac River up that way somewhere had a lot of their oysters died out. Some kind of disease or something happened, and they were needing seed oysters from Apalachicola to reseed their beds with. And a lot of the Virginia boys came down here to work, and they brought their style tongs with them, and that's what got started…But every—everybody worked—all the oystermen here would work loading trucks for the seed [oysters], and then they'd take them up there and plant them and restocked their bay. [Laughs]

[Are there] some people from Virginia who stayed around these parts once they got here?

Yeah, there was a few. I can't recall anybody right off right now, but it was a few I know stuck around, sure was.

——-

Is there anybody who comes in and asks for something new or different or strange about their tongs that's kind of a custom thing or—?

No, they all are pretty well the same. Every great once in a while somebody will want something changed and if it's not—if it's something we can handle rather than changing up our patterns and whatever, you know, we pretty well accommodate them but nothing—everybody knows they work pretty good. So they don't want to change them. [Laughs]

What about like when a young kid is coming up and his father is an oysterman, are there ever like little kind of training tongs that people use or anything like that?

No.

You just get to the big ones?

No, they used to—the young boys when they was out of school they'd be on the oyster boats with their fathers. And they would take it from there, you know—just it wasn't because they wanted to go. Their daddy would say get on the boat, it's time to go. [Laughs] But thank goodness I wasn't. My dad wasn't an oysterman.

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Well so tell me about the shop you have here. How did it evolve, and how does it operate?

Well all the—I was just needing a bigger shop and this was a good location for me and getting out of—right on the point of Apalachicola and so we built this and moved out here.,

Did you leave the [building] where the Tin Shed is on Water Street because of space?

Because of space and the tourism. You know, just more and more people every day, and right there where I was at all the sawdust that I'd make—I knew I was going to have to go. They was going to run me out or either go on my own. [Laughs] But no, it wasn't—I could still work there except for the traffic. And I'd have to put fences up to keep people out now days, you know, to get any work done. But since then, you know, like I said, back along in the [nineteen] eighties oystering started slowing down. We had some bad hurricanes come along in the middle—about [nineteen] eighty-five, somewhere along in there, and it just tore our bay up. And I was running the shop, so I just started building cabinets straight out. And it went from there. Now I've shipped cabinets and doors and windows—anything out of wood—I've shipped them all over the country. [Laughs] So from South Florida up to Massachusetts, Chicago—

How do people find you?

Word of mouth. Simply word of mouth. I met an architect out of Washington, and I've done a lot of jobs for him. And then I meet contractors through this architect…I don't go anywhere. I don't leave Apalachicola. They send me drawings, and I do my shop drawings, and they've sent me field measurements, and we build from there. So but when I met this one architect, he liked my work, and we got along real well so it just went from there. [I get] pretty good sized jobs.

Are you making fewer tongs now?

Very, very few tongs. It hasn't been for all the old customers, things like that, I would probably quit now. But I've been doing it so long, and I hate to just quit because the oystermen has got to get tongs from somewhere. And I think it's one other man that—only one other—it's Charles Golden [in Eastpoint], and he also builds oyster tongs. And so between him and I, we keep them pretty well supplied.

But so if y’all weren't doing it, there wouldn't be any tongs, I imagine?

No, Charles, he's been talking about quitting. If he quits somebody has got to do it.  [Mr. Golden, though, now has a man by the name of Lee Monroe making tongs for him at his shop in Eastpoint.]

[Y]ou're obviously so connected to the people who are working on the bay, what about the people who are working on the bay? Are oystermen kind of dwindling too, or what do you think the future of that is?

There's not near as many oystermen as what there used to be. Back in the [nineteen] seventies there—it was real strong at that time for the oystermen. I had a helper. That's before Rodney started working for me. And me and my helper, we'd stay busy all week long just building and repairing oyster tongs. And then we'd slack up a little bit, and then we'd have some other kind of little wood project to go to. But it was mostly just oyster tong work. We stayed real busy. I built tongs for different companies [like] Jacksonville Fisherman Supply and a couple other places like that and then Jacksonville, run the East Coast, Carolinas, and down South Florida, and we'd send them out to Texas and Louisiana—all over.

So what do you think will happen when your generation is not making them and Rodney is not making them anymore? Where will they come from?

This bay is not long for—the seafood is on the way out, I'm afraid. I hate to say it but it just—the way it's been going. It won't last forever. There will always be an oysterman, but not like it used to be.

So [as] someone who has spent his life hand-making these tools that are used in this industry and that's on its way out during your lifetime, do you have a kind of sense of what that—?

Well it's been a big change in Franklin County, especially right here in Apalachicola. I guess I'd have to say it's a change for the better. Not for the seafood worker. But there's more work, construction work and things like that. [Sighs] Any person coming up now in Franklin County that's their parents was oystermen and their grandparents, the younger generation is not following the seafood work now. It's just not out there; they're doing other things.

——-

Did you ever have anything to do with boat-building?

Yeah, I built a few boats. But mostly it was the oyster tongs and cabinets. It was a lot of boat-builders around at the time, and they could whip a boat out and get it out a lot faster than I could. I was always a little bit more—more of a perfectionist when it come to building a commercial oyster boat and didn't—where it didn't have to be. So I left that end alone.

What about culling irons and things like that? Is that something somebody would get from you or is that on their own?

Very seldom anymore. I used to build them and keep some on-hand for the customers, you know, and just give them away. But we never did sell them.

What would use, just a piece of scrap iron?

Just a piece of flat—flat iron—flat metal and then we'd bend the ends on them and whatever they wanted. No big deal to build one of those.

What about an oyster knife, the old wood-handled ones?

No, I never did build those. It was two or three old men around that built those. But I don't know of anybody nowadays that's building oyster knives. They all—well now, they have to be stainless steel, and you have to have a plastic handle. It can't be wooden handles anymore. The same with the shucking houses—got to be metal or plastic. It's for working around food.

——-

Is there any carpentry work that you do that's like a hobby? Just little things that you make or anything like that?

No, uh-um. [Laughs] Oh I love my woodwork, I enjoy it. I couldn't have lasted this many years if I didn't really enjoy what I was doing.

So you're not retiring any time soon?

Won't be long [and] I'm going to quit. I ain't going to quit. I just will slow down and do what I want to

And so Rodney is here in line to take over the place?

No, he said he don't want it. He said he'll work with me until I—I'd just walk out and give it to him and he said he didn't want it. Too much headache. [Laughs] He's laid back. He'll still help do this work the rest of his life. It's all he knows how to do, me and him.

——-

Might there be anything that you want people to know about tong making?

Just about a thing of the past now; I wish that you know—if it was—if there was a big future in it, shoot then—well Rodney could carry it on and we'd always have someone in training, you know, to pass the skill on. But other than that, there's no future in building oyster tongs for me or him, neither one. We're doing it now mostly out of courtesy because of the past.

Do you think a time will come though when the old-timers kind of fade out and people aren't hand-making tongs anymore and then people will say, “Hey, wait a minute We let this go.” And there will be a resurgence of people wanting to have them?

There'll—there'll always be someone that can—that will build them. A lot of the oystermen are—are handy with their hands and they can build their own tongs. As long as I'm living, you know, or me and Rodney either one and there's someone who needs tongs we can—we can accommodate them some way or another. And then there's—there's others you know that can also—that can build tongs. But they've got other ways to make a living. But I've—me and him been doing it so long it's just kind of second nature to us now to build a good set, and—and plus we've got patterns and the way we set things up we don't just do one pair at a time; we go with several pair at the time…But a lot of the boys right now could take just a skill saw—a hand saw—and cut out a pair of handles and just an old hand plainer and round them off and go from there. That's all it takes. That's the way I started.

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