SEPTEMBER 1999

FEATURES

McMahon

HE REPORTS ON ADVENTURES

By Amy Olk
Special to the Florida State Times

Bucky McMahon claims that he never
really had a plan.

Spread out before him on the kitchen table at his Tallahassee home are an assortment of national magazines-Esquire, Outside, Rodale's Scuba Diving - all featuring articles he's written on subjects ranging from cave diving in Jamaica to surfing in Puerto Rico.

His most recent work, about diving the world's largest lead mines in Bonneterre, Mo., is due to appear in an upcoming issue of National Geographic Adventure. So how did a man without a plan become a successful freelance travel and sports writer for high-profile national magazines? "To tell you the truth, I'm finding out that I've just sort of drifted into travel writing," says McMahon.

The choice of verbs is fitting, as many of his articles are born of aquatic encounters. Research for his article "Two Brothers, One Ocean, No Fish," which appeared in the June 1998 issue of Esquire, consisted of spending a week on a small boat in the Atlantic in quest of swordfish. As the narrative unfolds, we learn of the profound connection between the lives of the brothers and the ocean that is their livelihood. McMahon's writing is tightly woven, rich in imaginative metaphors, and at times quite personal. It is also sprinkled with literary references, revealing an erudition that blends easily with the down-to-earth language of sports and the natural world. McMahon's gift for writing was recognized early by his English teachers.

"I was encouraged by English teachers to write and told I could write, so I took English courses and majored in English." After completing a bachelor's degree at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, McMahon chose the creative writing program at FSU. He completed a master's degree in English in 1986 and stayed to earn a Ph.D. in 1992. His doctoral thesis consisted of a collection of short stories. Of his experience at FSU, McMahon says, "It was a very nurturing environment. I stayed probably longer than I had to, as some people do. It provided a livelihood, a teaching experience, contacts - both through the professors and the writing festivals."

His FSU professors helped him secure his first writing jobs - first with the Florida Flambeau, then the Tallahassee Democrat. McMahon fondly remembers the regular column he wrote for the Democrat, "Barmadillo," which appeared between 1988 and 1994. "This seemed to match what I could do well - odd reflective humor, humor based on observation." McMahon earned national recognition in 1992, with the publication of an article in Outside magazine about the effects of Hurricane Andrew on captive wildlife. Since then, the work has come to him.

"Once I got a piece in [Outside], I think other people started to know that I was out there working. I had just finished taking a certification course at FSU, and I got a call from Rodale's Scuba Diving. They wanted me to take a cave diving course and write about it. . . . I think the magazine had a hard time finding anyone who would do it. So that's how you sometimes get a break, by being willing to do something nobody else wants to do."

With work coming to him, it meant McMahon had to go to the work - in Alaska, Jamaica, Belize, the British Virgin Islands and many other parts of the world. Every writer's dream, right? Well, sometimes. A self-described homebody, McMahon is happiest when surrounded by his books, his four dogs and the local environment, which he enjoys observing from the picture windows of his home among the pines in an unpaved stretch of countryside near Tallahassee . But isn't travel writing like being on vacation? Well, not exactly. Take, for example, the time McMahon spent a week on an island the size of his living room with a photographer and an ex-Green Beret who taught Marine survival.

"We were out on this coral knob in the middle of the ocean, trying to spear crabs to stay alive. We had built a little palm shelter and thunderstorms came every night and knocked it down and there was so much lightning that you were blinded for what seemed like hours. We just prayed we wouldn't be electrocuted."

Or take this excerpt from McMahon's article "Deeper," from the 1996 edition of Outside: "It's a horror hole, just a depression full of springwater with a scum of hydrilla coating its surface and muddy banks that have been stomped by wild hogs. The small, oval mouth of the spring, some 20 feet down, is spitting out gravel, and a large fallen cypress tree, its tangled gray roots clawing at the air, slants, deep into the pool . . ."

As if that weren't enough, he often has close encounters with alligators, crocodiles, giant insects and other uneasy swimming companions.

Uncertain about his final destination, McMahon currently sees himself "drifting purposefully" toward writing about animals, and he's reading up on zoology and biology.

He's also considering a return to the university life as an English professor.

Or perhaps he'll become a welder. In any case, if he continues to work assiduously at not having a plan, he's sure to be a success.

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