Donna Keasler met my Cat Island flight and picked me out of the crowd, probably because she knew everyone else coming off the plane. Donna manages Fernandez Bay Village, a string of wooden cottages lined up along a narrow white beach. Jimmy Buffet stays here, as do truck drivers and German playboys who lie naked on the beach with their girlfriends. There's an honor bar and everybody eats together. Cat Island is not a fancy island. The sign outside one of the better places to eat reads BEER & SWEETS. The only real shopping is at Iva Thompson's house, where she and her sister make palm-leaf baskets. Iva, eighty-two, sits on her porch laughing and singing and stashing the money she makes in her bra.