Florida Frontier Gazette Volume 5 No. 4

CONTENTS

Volume 5 Number 4 Summer 2006

The Florida Frontier Gazette is published quarterly by the Historic Florida Militia Inc.

Page 2.

COVER STORY - Focal Point of Florida Blues

6.

FEATURE - My Hollywood-By-The-Sea

8.

9.

FEATURE - It’s a Jungle Out There!

13.

FEATURE - Rails through the Palmettos

FEATURE - A Matter of Honor

15 FEATURE

- Wildcat (Coacoochee) Talks on the 4th of July 18-22. CENTERFOLD - The Boone Wedding 22.

TALES - Being Born

27. FLORIDA INDIANS

- Looking for the Original People 29. JOHNNY’S CORNER

- Boy, is that an ugly dog!

30. MAMMA’S KITCHEN

- Sinfully & Dangerously Delicious!

32- 34. EVENTS & EXHIBITS

pages of fun filled weekends 35-36. COMMUNITY SPIRIT PARTNERS

COVER PHOTO courtesy of Elizabeth Neily, Gulfport.

Items in the photo were provided by Hula Hula, Corey Avenue, St. Pete Beach and Pete Gallagher, St. Petersburg.

ERRATA

Reflections on Drake’s Raid of 1586, in the Spring 2006 edition, was mistakenly attributed to Tim Burke. The article was actually written by John Philip Ryder (above). John is a Member of the Men of Menendez and a school teacher in St. Augustine. Our most sincere apologies to Mr. Ryder.

     Florida Frontier Gazette

5409 21st Ave. S. Gulfport, FL 33707 (727)321-7845 E-mail: tocobaga@verizon.net This publication has been financed in part with historic preservation grant assistance provided by the Bureau of Historic Preservation, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, assisted by the Florida Historical Commission. However, the contents and opinions do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Florida Department of State, nor does the mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation by the Florida Department of State.

STAFF Grant Administrator: George Watson Editor: Elizabeth Neily Graphics: Hermann Trappman Marketing: Elizabeth Neily Writer/Proof Reader: Lester R. Dailey plus our Special Volunteers - feature writers, artists, and photographers without whom this magazine would not be possible.

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FEATURE

by Peter B. Gallagher, St. Petersburg

Focal Point of Florida’s Blues

—Tampa Bay

In May, musicians from as far away as Pensacola jammed with blues icon Blind Willie James. The St. Petersburg Museum of History rocked and rolled to some great old tunes at its opening of the travelling exhibit, Florida’s Got the Blues During the 1950s and ‘60s, the last remaining traveling tent shows (minstrel, burlesque, medicine, circus, religious) were forced out of business, limping to the end as relics of a bygone time. The explosion of television and the birth of the modern entertainment industry also did in the “Chitlin Circuit,” of black-performed music for black audiences, leaving a good bit of poor America with no connection to name performers and live shows. Many of the traveling troupes wintered along the West Coast of Florida, in camps and small towns from Sarasota to Tampa. When a show failed to crank up in spring, stranded performers and hired hands assimilated into the Sunshine State’s eclectic stew of adopted cultures. The big city black jook joints in Jacksonville, Miami, and Tampa soon went dark, as well.

Famed artists like B.B. King, Solomon Burke, James Brown, and Jackie Wilson, who cut their chops on the blues-inspired “Circuit,” never returned.

Florida had the blues, but for several decades it was awfully hard to find. When I moved to St. Petersburg in 1974, there was only one live music club downtown —“The Stuffed Pepper”— and one alternative music/poetry “open mike” venue, the Beaux Arts, located in nearby Pinellas Park. Anyone interested in alternative (to rock and roll) music such as blues, bluegrass or folk had very few choices and a lot of driving to do. As a newspaper columnist writing about Florida, I travelled extensively throughout the state and the story was the same everywhere. St. Petersburg, in fact, had the blues ignominy of 2

being Ray (Charles) Robinson’s last stop before splitting the state. As the story goes, Ray was so disenchanted with the area that he asked someone to name the furthest U.S. city from St. Pete. He was on a Greyhound to Seattle, Wash. the next day.

Contrast that event with the era of the 30s to the 50s when Charly Brantly and the Honeydippers had ‘em jumping on Central Avenue and along 22nd Street. There clubs such as the fabled Manhattan Casino (now under restoration) and Royal Theatre (recently restored) played host to all the stars of the era, including blues artists who hung around town quite a bit like Guitar Shorty, Noble “Thin Man” Watts, Hank Marr, Clarence Jolley and Billy “The Kid” Emerson.

Then some interesting, albeit unusual, folks began appearing in St. Petersburg in the mid-to-late 70s. The city was nearing the end of its old-folks era as “God’s Waiting Room,” so is it any wonder it attracted folks with the blues?

Out of context, but somehow fitting in with all this was beat writer Jack Kerouac who lived his last days in St. Petersburg, fighting the demons that made him drink, stymied his writing, and sent him to hanging with the pool players at local bars like the Flamingo on 9th Street.

I don’t know how or when he got here, but an old skinny black man with a Cheshire Cat grin and a hexagonal nut for a ring was living at a St. Petersburg assisted living home. He turned out to be Blind Johnny Brown. Johnny had toured for many years with Jimmy Reed and was the author of the classic

“I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You.” Most people figured him for dead, but he showed up on my radar in 1978 while I was researching a feature story about the old folks hanging out at the downtown Neighborly Center. We brought the old boy a guitar and he used that nut for a slide, crooning out gospel and blues songs until his death in the early 80s. He pulled out one last big heaping of life and played the Florida Folk Festival, even appearing on the Florida Folklife program’s ambitious “Drop On Down In Florida” album. His most famous contribution to musical history was the acoustic blues classic “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You.”

“When you’re dead and gone Me and your old lady gonna get it on I’ll be glad when you’re dead you rascal you. “

Joseph “Little Juke” Budris, a guitar master from South Boston, was an important early catalyst in the blues takeover of Tampa Bay. Not long after arriving in St. Petersburg, we became friends and compatriots for the blues and waxed for hours about everything from what happened to Tampa Red to fandangoes about the quiet streets of old St. Pete, starved for the electric jackhammer of the big city blues in Little Juke’s mind.

A moneyed group of savvy businessmen named themselves the Back Track Blues Band, opened up the Ringside Café and lured Juke to St. Petersburg (from Sarasota in the mid-70s) as their lead guitarist. He lived in a rented room atop the Stuffed Pepper with his wife Anne and several pet rabbits. The Stuffed Pepper was a small L-shaped bar on Central Avenue, 26 blocks or so west of downtown. Though it was actually a restaurant that served excellent food, Juke was able to convince owners Jim and Liz Kirchner to allow him to play blues music from a makeshift stage between the two bathrooms in the back of the joint. He began inviting his friends to join him in Blue Monday jams that soon became the talk of the area.

One of Juke’s buddies, a large square man with a deep booming voice, was named Rock Bottom. Rock was known for his prowess on the harmonica, a commanding presence on stage and an obsessive proclivity for firing and rehiring sidemen.

Both Juke and Rock had been members of a deranged blues band called Nick Danger and the Heat, which first emerged in the Sarasota-Bradenton area in the mid 70s. They were a product of the influence of the Allman Brothers and Outlaws bands that spent time honing their “white” blues in the area.

There was a saxophone player named Diddy Waddy Diddy and a bass player called Rev. Boneshaker —you get the picture.

Soon all of these guys were hanging out at the Stuffed Pepper playing the blues.

Also known as Woodlawn Fats, Rock Bottom was a musical mainstay on the west coast of Florida for 35 years, until his death in 2001. His influence stretched around the world and the legion of young musicians he brought into the blues fold has too many names to mention. Once a hitchhiker he picked up in the frozen Norwegian outback, recognized him. All Rock Bottom had to do was hang out for a few nights in a club and it was certified for the blues like former beach bar, Nick’s Seabreeze Lounge on Treasure Island. Nick’s is gone now, a victim of beach development, but remembered in Sarasota Slim’s blues classic “Last Beach Bar.”

The success of the Stuffed Pepper influenced many other clubs to open up live music stages. The ACL, an old railroad station, and the Ringside Café, formerly a boxing club, the Garden, in the city’s old Detroit Hotel, near downtown started offering regular bills of blues music artists.

In 1981, I received a call from then Florida Folk Festival Director Peggy Bulger, who asked if I would drive an 80-yearold gospel singer to the state’s festival, held each year on Memorial Day weekend. Her name was Mary McClain and she was one of several “finds” that Peggy had made during a folk artist canvas of the state. Accompanied by my ten-year-old daughter, Marlena, I drove to the humble wooden abode in East Bradenton that Mary shared with husband Clifford McClain.

During the drive, my daughter held a tape recorder towards Mary’s face and I “interviewed” her for a possible article in the St. Petersburg Times. That’s how I found out that 80-yearold Mary had spent most of her career, not as a gospel singer (which she could do very well) but as the famed blueswoman “Diamond Teeth Mary” of traveling tent show fame. Her “diamonds” were long gone from her mouth; their settings covered with Juicy Fruit gum foil. She had sold them to pay for her mother’s funeral. She constantly carried a white hanky in her right hand (to hide a missing thumb sliced off by a catfish dorsal fin.) She carried her cash in her bosom, believed in Cuban voodoo and spent hours in knick-knack stores buying the beads and flotsam she would fashion into good luck “mojos.”

A huge spirit, Diamond Teeth Mary took St. Petersburg by storm. After the festival, on our way back to Bradenton, I stopped at the Stuffed Pepper and called Little Juke out front Diamond Teeth Mary as she looked in her hey-day. Mary was “discovered” living in obscurity in Bradenton, where she indulged her love for music by singing gospel at her church. to meet Mary. He told me the moment I said “I’ve got a surprise for you out in my car,” that a vision of Dimond Teeth Mary came into his head.

I m m e d i a t e l y, w e b e g a n c o n s p i r i n g t o b r i n g D i a m o n d Te e t h M a r y b a c k t o t h e s t a g e . J u k e ’s “Kingsnake Blues Band” would provide backup.

Charmed by Little Juke, whom she referred to as B.B. King Number Two, Mary was game for the opportunity, 3

both to satisfy her long urging to sing blues again on stage and also to earn some extra money to help her and Clifford’s meager existence. At Mary’s suggestion, we searched throughout the south side of St. Petersburg for Blind Willie James, her astute choice for a piano player.

I found Willie in an old barbershop, getting his hair cut. He was enthusiastic about the opportunity to play piano with Mary and filled me in on more of Mary’s history. He knew her during her performing days when she would perform at St. Petersburg clubs during her traveling show winter layoffs. Willie himself, as an original member of the Blind Boys of Alabama and classmate of Ray Charles at the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind, had a great blues history. Since the shutdown of the chitlin’ circuit, Willie had survived in poverty, playing grandiose gospel piano for various choirs and churches in the area. He learned to play piano by placing his hands atop Ray’s when the famous bluesman played.

Diamond Teeth Mary’s return to the stage lasted two decades until her death in 2000. Wracked with blindness from glaucoma and confined to a wheelchair, she performed almost to the day she died. I managed her career for ten years and Rock Bottom took over from there, hauling her several times to Europe and major US Blues Festivals. The nationally known blues duo Liz Pennock and Dr. Blues moved to St. Petersburg from their home state of Ohio in order to take a turn as Mary’s backup band.

The state’s oldest, and once premier blues club, Miami’s Tobacco Road, named its legendary upstairs performing room The Diamond Teeth Mary Cabaret. In her mid-80s, she performed

there many years in a row, until 3 a.m. to capacity crowds on Christmas Eve – normally a “deadÓ night in most music clubs.

It never failed that each time I visited Mary over the next 20 years, she would always ask me “How is your daughter?” – a testament to her great memory which often spewed out tales about her sister Bessie Smith and the little girl she “took off a garbage truck” in Memphis, the legendary Willa Mae “Big Mama” Thornton.

Shortly after Mary began performing again in 1981, legendary bluesman Little Eddie Kirkland, who had spent time with Otis Redding and John Lee Hooker before embarking on his own career, landed in St. Petersburg. I first ran into him as he lay underneath the engine of his old station wagon parked in front 4

of the Stuffed Pepper. Eddie had just recuperated from a bullet wound to his skull, administered by a madman who had been firing at the band and audience while Eddie was performing in Detroit. It wasn’t long before Eddie began performing with Little Juke and Diamond Teeth Mary and Rock Bottom at the Stuffed Pepper. He actually regenerated his career from the little hole in the wall on Central Avenue. A native of the Georgia backwoods, Eddie remembered the 80-something diva as “Walkin’ Mary” in tent shows that rolled through his home area each year when he was a boy.

Clubs featuring the blues began popping up or transforming their musical bills all over the area. Local performers such as harmonic master T.C. Carr, iconic guitarist Sarasota Slim, pianist Gentleman John Street and many others trampolined to national fame from exposure in the Tampa Bay area. Blues legends James Peterson, who continued to perform in black clubs and overseas from his home base in St. Petersburg, and his equally renowned son, Lucky Peterson, found a wonderful kindred blues community had sprung up around them, as they struggled to make a living akin to the previous generation of musicians from Florida. The work increased and the St. Petersburg/Tampa Bay designation in their musical resumes were marked by those who might not

Folks visiting the Florida’s Got the Blues exhibit get to see memorabilia such as blues guitars, banjos, Diamond Teeth Mary’s stage clothing and a whole lot more. NTS Photos

have given notice before. The same fortune smiled upon blues singer Tommy Walton, whose fame as a singing food hawker at minor league baseball games, rode the Tampa Bay blues train to greater fame with the major league Devil Rays and a welcome to the stage of numerous Florida clubs and festivals, including the Florida Folk Festival, itself.

Suddenly, as the 80s rolled through, St. Petersburg and the Tampa Bay area quickly become a national blues music focal point—sort of the “Chicago” of the south. The exploits of Diamond Teeth Mary and her troupes made the pages of blues magazines all over the world. Impromptu historical events, regular fare in Chicago, Memphis, Austin and other musical centers, began electrifying the Tampa Bay, Florida scene. For example, at his

own expense, the great Texas bluesman Johnny “Clyde” Copeland flew down from Harlem to surprise and perform with Mary on her 90th birthday, the same year he shared the Blues Grammy with Robert Cray – a story reported across the world.

Just last year, legendary New York bluesman and street musician extraordinaire, Sterling McGee, aka “Satan” from the popular NYC cult duo Satan and Adam, was discovered in a Gulfport nursing home by T.C. Carr.

Missing for several years, suffering from bouts of nervousness and in poor health, Satan was dropped off by a girlfriend. Carr brought a guitar over and, before long, the pair were playing gigs around the area.

Itinerant bluesman Willie Green, a sharecropper’s son with a wicked harmonica/guitar style, whose entire musical career labored in a suffered obscurity, grabbed a Greyhound from Cross Creek to St. Petersburg to record his first CD — in seven decades of playing music — with engineer/producer Kelly Green.

Numerous other old blues artists have been rediscovered and NTS Photo brought to fresh recordings and stage shows by bluesman Gene “Sarasota Slim” Hardage over the past 20 years.

And of course, a thriving “market” of blues fans was duly A mock stage invites visitors like Jasriel Reid (12), a collected and formatted, giving rise to the popular Suncoast student at Osceola Middle School in St Petersburg, to Blues Society professional/fan organization. The now-prestigious pose with the mike. She says she loves to sing. Who Tampa Bay Blues Festival is arguably the premier blues music knows­ - maybe “Jazz” is the Diamond Teeth Mary event in the state. No other area of the state boasts a larger they’re looking for. membership in the state’s highest folk music “club,” the gallery of Florida Folk Heritege Award winners. So far, Diamond Teeth Mary, Blind Willie James, Rock Bottom, Tommy Walton and steel guitarist Willie Eason have won the honor. Another Tampa Bay entourage, harmonica whiz T.C. Carr, bandleader Sarasota Slim, Little Juke, both Petersons, guitarist/storyteller Roy Bookbinder and pianist Liz Pennock, among others are waiting as legitimate future candidates. Also in the wings from Tampa Bay, singer/songwriter Sandy Atkinson and Wendy “Soulshaker” Rich, who splits her blues career as Janis Joplin’s stand-in for the still-touring Big Brother and the Holding Company.

Atlanta’s phenomenal Veronika Jackson, who specializes in the folk-style of blues, first groomed her act in St. Petersburg.

These, and many more, are the names, the artists, the personalities of the Tampa Bay blues scene. I spent many hours attempting to portray this scene to Florida State Museum researchers Bob McNeil and Ken Crawford and accompanied them on several trips to area blues “hangouts” such as Dave’s Aqua Lounge, Ka’Tiki, and The Blues Ship, and to “borrow” precious local artifacts for the “Florida’s Got The Blues” exhibit. It seemed amazing to many, that the “state,” which is often portrayed as “evil and intolerant of the blues,” would take an interest in “the Devil’s music.”

Finally, as this is written, a dynamic new “blues” screenplay is being born.

Celebrating the life of blues legend Mary McClain, playwright Levy Lee Simon’s “Diamond Teeth Mary” is filled with 100 years of blues history, comedy and drama, not to mention a wonderful soundtrack of “Mary music.” A national search is on for a singer/actresses to play the roles of young Mary, Bessie Smith and the older Mary. The search has begun right here in Tampa Bay, where the community of black gospel/blues singers is impressive, indeed.• Peter Gallagher, an accomplished muscian in his own right, hosts an open mike night for blues and bluegrass musicians at the Ka’ Tiki Lounge on Sunset Beach, as well as, hosting a weekly bluegrass show on WMNF public radio with Bobby Hicks.

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FEATURE

by Jude Bagatti, Gulfport

Crack! With a knife tip, my grandfather poked a dime-size hole in the narrow end of a chicken eggshell. Then Nonno, as my cousins and I called him, made a pinhole in the egg’s other end. Holding the larger hole to his mouth he sucked the raw egg out and swallowed. I had already seen him make concoctions of raw egg, anisette and coffee. Satisfied, he got another fresh egg from a coop near a rabbit pen, in his yard, pierced its shell the same way and handed it to me. “Mange, mange” (eat, eat), he urged. He spoke little English, and I, less Italian, so there was no discussing the pros and cons of this uncooked offering.

The day before, I had made a face and refused, but today I was game. I would chug-a-lug it like adults do whiskey shots, before my taste buds had a chance to react. I raised the shell and sucked, but my buds were faster. To my surprise, the yolk wasn’t bad. Still warm, it slid down easy, smooth and bland. The white, with thinner, slimy texture, was a different story and went down with effort. I had mastered the raw egg breakfast, but once was enough, even though in those days the salmonella factor wasn’t on the radar.

envisioned a dream city of 30,000. He planned wide boulevards flanked by lakes. He built three large circular areas, like huge helicopter pads, dotting Hollywood Boulevard, the main thoroughfare. In 1921 pine, palmetto, mangrove, and marshland could be had for a mere $175 an acre. Young replaced wilderness tangle with hibiscus, ixora, eucalyptus, bougainvillea, poinsettias, oleander, mango, citrus and avocado, and systematically named streets after US presidents and generals. Architecture and arcades in Mediterranean Revival, Mission, Art Deco and Art Moderne styles harmonized with the landscaping.

By November, 1925 the city was incorporated, and

by January, 1926, Young’s “city for everyone” boasted 18,000 people with 2420 dwellings, 36 apartment

“My” Hollywood-by-the- Sea

1930s view from Hollywood Beach Hotel looking west to Hollywood Boulevrd over Intracoastal Waterway Bridge.

My grandfather, Giovanni (John) Bagatti, emigrated to the US via Ellis Island in 1914. He set up an embroidery factory in Clifton, NJ, after having his machinery shipped over from Italy. In 1926, due to grandmother Giuditta’s health, he left the factory up north and moved to Hollywood, following a business friend who had a winter home on Polk Street A house down the street was for sale. My grandfather bought it.

The showpiece of the city was Hollywood Beach Hotel, visible from Young Circle, like a distant mirage at the ocean end of Hollywood Boulevard. Built at a cost of $3,000,000, it opened in February 1926 with seven floors and 500 rooms.

Nonno worked there as a gardener, and my father, Anselm (Sam), while still single, was a bow-tied waiter.

For Hollywood, 1926 was a big year for one more reason. On September 18, 1926, a vicious hurricane (unnamed in those times) killed 37 and devastated the city. Just five years earlier, the city’s founder, J o s e p h We s l e y Yo u n g , f r o m Wa s h i n g t o n State, 6

Hollywood Beach Hotel, circa 1930.

buildings, nine hotels, 252 businesses, and six and a half miles of oceanfront.

One of those businesses was my Uncle Alfred’s Italian Restaurant situated near Young Circle Park, one of Young’s three circles. That circle intersects Hollywood Boulevard and US Rt. 1. Further west was City Hall Circle, and westernmost was Academy Circle, which housed the Riverside Military Academy. Every Sunday afternoon the cadets paraded on the grounds in full dress and pomp drawing delighted crowds of watchers.

When it wasn’t too hot, we sat in the sun on the grass and watched too.

In that 1940s childhood year of my raw egg encounter, Mom and I spent the summer in Hollywood, while, after his two-week vacation, Dad went back to work in NJ, where we lived. We stayed at Nonno’s house. During our Greyhound bus trip south, I imagined what an exotic paradise Florida must be. I’d been enchanted with coconuts, shells and desiccated baby alligators sent from there, and Mom had an alligator skin purse with its head as the clasp. In my young girl’s mind just the sound of the name, Florida, conjured up lush jungles full of perfumed flowers, strange insects and stranger birds and creatures.

ninth largest Florida city. It has expanded to 27 square miles and its boundaries include a politically independent Seminole Indian Reservation and part of busy Port Everglades. Still standing on Polk Street is Nonno’s old, white frame house in which he remained until he died at age 98. My mother (Louise) now lives in that sturdy home which survived not only the 1926 hurricane but every storm since, including Wilma in 2005.

And heady night-blooming jasmine still conjures up My Hollywood-By-The Sea.

no Non n h (Jo tti). g Ba a

Hermann ademy, Courtesy of Riverside Military Ac of 1965. uated with the class Trappman, who grad Sam Bagatti posed with the Beach Hotel staff with in 1928.

I first knew Hollywood by its original name, “Hollywood-By-The-Sea.” That name on metal auto tag frames, adorned with a palm tree, gave the city a tropical, salty aura. That summer was filled with exploration: discovering prickly pear plants, inhaling the jasmine, climbing trees, and riding the bus to the beach. On the way to the beach, Royal Palm trees, like tall, straight sentinels majestically lining a mile of Hollywood Boulevard, impressed even this kid.

One day while cavorting in the ocean, the tentacle of a Portuguese Man O’War brushed my eye. I wore its badge of redness and stinging, feeling that much more in touch with yet another of Florida’s exotic creatures.

Across the street from Nonno’s house was a private school. Joan Mickelson, the owner’s daughter was my age. I recall happy play days with her and my two younger cousins. Once, like ghoulish brides, we draped ourselves in discarded white curtains which probably also served to keep mosquitoes off.

I cherish our photo posing in them. Only recently I learned that Joan, now a Hollywood Historical Board member, wrote A Guide to Historical Hollywood. Her

paperback by History Press Publishers came out in November 2005. I am eager to read it and reconnect with my first Florida friend.

Today “Hollywood-By-The-Sea” is only the name of a funky beach B&B with vintage décor. Hollywood now has 100,000 more residents than Young envisioned and is the

The curtain br ides Al “Junior,” Ju , Joan Mickelson, cousin de, and cou sin Teresa. courtesy of th Photos e author ’s fa mily. For mor to www.hollyw e, log on oodfl.org.

Jude Bagatti is a freelance writer and photographer and a regular contributor to the Florida Frontier Gazette. Reach her at 727-322-6211 or heyjudebagatti@msn.com.

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FEATURE

by Lester R. Dailey, Largo

I t’s a jungle out there!

The Jungle area of St. Petersburg is one of the prettiest residential neighborhoods in Pinellas County. Its brick-paved streets and waterfront mansions reek of old money. I’m sure the official boundaries of the area are written down somewhere, but for the purposes of this article, I’ll define it as the Park Street corridor between 5th and 22nd avenues North.

The notoriously cruel one-eyed conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez was the area’s first tourist. In April 1528, he apparently missed Tampa Bay, accidentally sailed into Boca Ciega Bay and is thought to have landed at the Indian mound in today’s Jungle Prada Park. From there, Narváez went to a Tocobaga village in present-day Safety Harbor and, when the chief didn’t show him sufficient respect, cut off the chief’s nose and fed his mother to the expedition’s war dogs.

Archaeological digs in the park and on the

An airport, where Tyrone Square Mall now stands, allowed the famous and infamous to come to the Gangplank from all over the country by private plane. Babe Ruth slept at half the hotels in St. Petersburg, plus a few other places that we won’t mention here, but he got married at the Gangplank. Duke Ellington and Count Bassie performed there.

Mobster Al Capone was not only a frequent visitor, but was rumored to be a part-owner. The building is said to still contain a safe that hasn’t been opened since the Capone days. Wonder how Geraldo Rivera, who parlayed the 1986 opening of an empty Capone-era vault beneath Chicago’s Lexington Hotel into the highest rated special in TV history, missed that.

The Jungle Prada is still there, but a Jamaican restaurant called Saffron’s has replaced the Gangplank as its anchor tenant. And Red Stripe April 12, 1925, the St. Petersburg beer has replaced bathtub Times featured the Fuller socialites. gin as the drink of choice.

adjacent Anderson property have been inconclusive about confirming the mound as the Narváez landing site.

But after comparing the geographical features of the area with descriptions of the landing site in the journals of the expedition’s treasurer, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, most historians have concluded that it’s a pretty safe bet that he landed somewhere in the neighborhood.

Developer Walter P. Fuller brought the area to life in the 1920s. His Spanish-style arcade, the Jungle Prada (a.k.a. Jungle Prado), was built in 1924 and has been called Florida’s first shopping mall.

It housed the popular Gangplank Night Club. Any joint with a name like that is bound to have a colorful history, and the Gangplank certainly had one. It was a quintessential Prohibitionera speakeasy, connected to the bay via a tunnel through which bootleggers could deliver their illegal cargo unseen.

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In 1925, Fuller built his Jungle Country Club near the St. Petersburg Country Club golf course that his father, H.Walter Fuller, had built nine years earlier. It was one of the ten great hotels built in St. Petersburg during the boom era of the 1920s, but it never really caught on. After housingArmyAir Corps trainees during World War II, it was sold to Admiral Farragut Academy in 1945 and remains a military school today. A portion of the golf course became part of the school’s 55-acre campus, and the rest was sold as building lots.

TheJunglearea’s15minutesoffamecamein1985,whenscenes of director Ron Howard’s movie “Cocoon” was filmed there.

FEATURE

by David Ekardt, Tampa

A Matter of Honor

The Seizure of the Pensacola Navy Yard

January 12,1861, the United States Navy suffered one on the most humiliating incidents in its history, the surrender of the Warrington Naval Yard in Pensacola, Florida. But, one year later, the Navy would recoup its honor by recapturing the facility.

Trouble was brewing in the nation since before Abraham Lincoln was elected, and matters came to a head in December 1860 when South Carolina and Mississippi seceded from the Union. Florida followed suit on 10 January, 1861. The events that followed the secession of Florida can be considered the first actions of the War Between the Sates.

Just a few days prior to formal secession, Governor Madison Perry of Florida directed state militia units to start seizing federal property in the state. When a unit approached the Federal Arsenal at Chattahoochee and demanded entrance, the civilian workers willingly turned over the facility to the troops. Likewise, a unit showed up at Fort Marion in Saint Augustine and the lone soldier on duty wisely turned over the keys to the fort.

But a real coup for the state, which truly had the potential for armed conflict with the United States Navy, came in the attempt to take over the forts and naval facilities in Pensacola. The Naval Yard was equipped to supply, service, and build naval vessels for the fleet. It was the most important prize in Florida.

The Naval Yard and the entrance to Pensacola Bay were protected by a series of forts. Fort Barrancas, Fort McRee, and the advanced redoubt, were on the mainland. Fort Pickens was located across the bay on Santa Rosa Island. These forts were manned by a small company of fifty men under the command of Lieutenant Adam Slemmer. During peace time as this was, only a small contingent of men was kept on duty to maintain the facilities. Had there been a war footing prior to this, the forts would have been fully manned.

On the night of January 10, 1861, men from the state militia approached Fort McRee, and by accounts, at least two shots were fired to ward them off. The next day, Lt. Slemmer, determined to protect what he could, gathered his men from Fort Barrancas and Fort Mcree, dumped twenty thousand pounds of gunpowder into the bay, and spiked the guns. Then with the aid of thirty sailors, moved all the remaining supplies across the bay to Fort Pickens.

The Naval Yard personnel were put on alert, with the Marine guard of forty men kept under arms. The Marine guards at the main gate were instructed to fire warning shots in case of trouble.

At the time there were only about thirty sailors on duty along with civilian workers.

On January 12, 1861, a force of Florida and Alabama militia under the command of William Henry Chase, the man who had overseen the construction of the forts before he had retired,

headed for the Naval Yard. At a pre-arranged time, secessionist naval officers forced the Marine guards at the gate to allow the rebel force to enter the facility. Chase and his officers met with Captain James Armstrong, commander of the base, who surrendered the facilities. Marine Captain Josiah Watson was summoned to Armstrong’s office and was ordered to have his men surrender their weapons. The Marines were not in favor of surrendering their weapons and accouterments and did so only after much persuasion and direct orders from Armstrong.

Eventually they stacked arms. The militia forces gathered on the parade deck after securing the Marines in a warehouse.

They had been advised to lock them up prior to lowering the U. S. flag. Chief William Conway was ordered to lower the flag. However, when he was chastised by one of the sailors for giving consideration to obeying that order he refused to do

Landing the reinforcements for Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island, April 12, 1861. NHC Photograph NH 73741. so. The militia raised a flag that was described as “a yellow rag with one star�, which was replaced a few days later with a flag fashioned from a U.S. flag. The blue field with stars was removed and replaced with a blue field with one large white star.

For his action, Chief Conway was later honored for his refusal to lower the national colors. Conversely, two months later, Commodore Armstrong was court-martialed for surrendering the Navy Yard. He was convicted of neglect of duty, disobedience of orders, and conduct unbecoming an officer. He was suspended from duty for five years with loss of pay for half of that period.

The next day, the Marines and sailors were permitted to leave on the U.S.S Supply which had been transferring supplies from the Yard to Fort Pickens before the takeover.

Captain Watson and his wife departed for Mobile to take the land route to Washington DC, while his men went aboard the 9

USS Supply bound for Washington. Lt. Slemmer’s family was permitted to gather their belongings and board the ship also.

That same day, a deputation requested Lt. Slemmer to surrender Fort Pickens, which he adamantly refused to do.

With the USS Wyandotte, the USS Brooklyn, and the USS Macedonian standing by, there was enough force to prevent an armed attempt to take the fort.

President Buchanan and Florida Senator Stephen Mallory reached an agreement on January 21, 1861, to prevent bloodshed.

As long as the Federal government did not land troops on Santa Rosa Island to reinforce Fort Pickens, no attempt would be made by the militia to take the fort by force. The situation

Marines, Sailors, and artillerists reinforce Fort Pickens, April 12,1861.

NA Photograph 127-N526608

stayed amiable enough for the occupants of the fort to get supplies from the naval yard stores, and even go into town for supplies, mail and to use the telegraph. The same agreement covered the re-supply of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

As this period of non-aggression lasted, more troops arrived in the Pensacola area, eventually bringing the troop strength up to 6,000-8,000 men. These units had such colorful names as, the Eufaula Rifles, Eufaula Pioneers, Perote Guards, the Alabama Rifles, the Guards of the Sunny South, the Tallapoosa Rifles, the Red Eagles, and the Rough and Ready Pioneers. Braxton Bragg arrived on the scene to take over command from Chase who went on to command Florida troops elsewhere. During this time the Confederates fortified the shore from the Navy Yard to Fort McRee, a distance of four miles. They mounted several heavy guns along the fortifications, all bearing on Fort Pickens.

When Lincoln took office in March, he authorized reinforcements to go to Fort Pickens; however they ended up staying on board ship due to the truce. Finally, on April 12th, after a flurry of contradictory orders, the Marines of the USS Brooklyn, USS Sabine, USS Wyandotte, and the USS St. Louis, numbering about one hundred-twenty were ordered to go ashore to bolster the defenders of the fort. Along with them were the seventy-five men of Battery “A”, 1st U.S. Artillery along with their guns and horses. In his exuberance to be the first ashore, Marine drummer George Gardner stepped overboard when he thought they were in shallow water. Surprised to be in over his head, he held his drum tight, used it as a float and as he kicked his way to shore.

On April 17th, The USS Powhatten along with the transport ship the Atlantic, arrived on the scene. Colonel Harvey Brown and approximately one thousand men were ferried ashore. The Marines were sent back to their ships until April 23rd, when Brown, after seeing movements of a number of rebel ships, hastily called for the Marines, believing that there was an imminent attack on his position in the offing. The Marines stayed 10

for a month helping to improve the defenses of the garrison.

Until May 27th, they pitched in, each man having to fill and place forty sandbags a day.

A reporter from the New York Times present for the early days there reported on the Marines: “The Marine Guard of the Wyandotte gunboat has been sent ashore on Rosas Island to do picket guard for the t i re d - o u t g a r r i s o n there. Let me here name one bright spot in the Navy. It is the Marine Corps. Extra loyalty in trying times seems to be a characteristic—I had nearly said peculiarity—of

Marines everywhere….America should call them ‘National’ because when every other branch of the country’s service has black spots in it, the Marines loom out in moral grandeur-true, unreproachable and brave. I am delighted to see the papers, and to learn from private letters that the corps at home is just as its representatives are here.

Oh, that we had ten thousand Marines!”

Throughout the months of the standoff, Colonel Brown called the Marines ashore to bolster his troops. Brown grew nervous with every unusual movement of Confederate troops ashore, and every rumor that reached him about an enemy attempt to land on the island.

The next several months dragged on with dysentery setting in on the fort’s inhabitants. A lack of rain prevented the refreshing of the water in the cisterns which caused the outbreak. Scurvy from the lack of fresh vegetables also ravaged the troops. The first excitement came on August 3rd when five boats of Marines and sailors rowed out from the USS Colorado and USS Niagara to attempt to burn the Judah, a schooner that was being fitted out at the Navy Yard. The guard was alert and gave the alarm when the boats were spotted. Several rockets and an illumination balloon were sent aloft illuminating the area. The boat crews pulled off, and returned to the ships without casualties.

On September 2nd the rebels tried to move a floating dry dock which became grounded in the bay between the Navy Yard and

Attacker’s view of Fort Pickens Courtesy of D. Ekardt

Fort Pickens. A night time raiding party rowed out to the dry dock and set it ablaze as they were afraid that the Confederates would arm it and turn it into a floating artillery battery.

The officers of the fleet decided to make another attempt at attacking the rebels. They tried to convince Colonel Brown to join in a night time attack on Fort McRee. Brown was constantly in fear of an attack on his fort, and would not allow his troops to join in the attack. The Naval officers then decided to make another attempt at destroying the Judah and the largest gun the Confederates had at the Navy Yard, a 10-inch Columbiad. Four boat loads of Marines and sailors under the command of Lt. John Russell USN, and 1st Lt. Edward Reynolds USM set off on the night of September 13th. Silently they rowed past the encampment of Braxton Bragg’s 6,000 man army.

The force split up with two boat loads going towards the Judah, while the other two made for the big gun. The boats approaching the Judah were just yards from the ship when the alarm was raised. Men on board the ship and shore sprang to life, as the first shot was fired from the six-pounder in the lead boat. The attackers threw flaming tar balls onto the deck of the ship and fought their way on board. In the ensuing close combat, they drove off the defenders. Under heavy fire from the wharf, the raiders spread turpentine-soaked wood shavings around the ship and set it ablaze.

Meanwhile the other two boat crews found their objective virtually unguarded. One defender was killed as they landed.

The attackers spiked the Columbiad, removed its tompion and shoved off into the night. As they withdrew under heavy fire from the Navy Yard, they kept up a spirited return fire from the boat guns, cutting into the defenders with grape shot. Two sailors died and a total of twenty sailors and Marines were wounded. An undetermined amount of Confederates were killed and wounded.

The raid was a success, and the Judah was totally destroyed.

Braxton Bragg would not let this go unanswered. During the night of October 8th, approximately 1200 Confederate troops landed on Santa Rosa Island, about four miles from the fort. They advanced in three columns up the narrow island and surprised the encampment of the 6th New York Zouave troops. The rebels drove the New Yorkers back towards the fort, but lost the impetus of their surprise as they slowed down to loot the tents and supplies of the Yankees. The alarm was raised in the fort, and troops came pouring out to join in the melee. The New Yorkers rallied and together they pushed the attackers back. By daylight the battle was over with the Confederates pulling away from the island.

Marines from the ships off shore had been landed to augment the defenders however they arrived too late to join the fight.

The last real engagement between combatants occurred on November 22 and 23 as Colonel Brown ordered his guns to

open fire on a ship entering the Navy Yard. The shore line lit up with cannon fire as the Confederate guns returned fire on Fort Pickens. For the rest of the day, and into the night and most of the next day, the guns of Fort Pickens, and the Union gunboats unleashed a heavy fire onto the Confederate forts, Navy Yard and gun emplacements. The Union guns fired over five-thousand rounds while the Confederates fired over one thousand rounds.

The conflagration was heard up to one hundred and twenty miles away, while the concussions over the bay waters killed thousands of fish that washed ashore. Several of the buildings in the Naval Yard were set ablaze by the cannon fire. General Dick Anderson, Braxton Bragg’s second-in-command was in charge when the firing started, and ordered his guns to respond. Bragg removed him from command when he returned for the waste of shot and powder. Fort McRee was reduced to rubble by the guns of the USS Niagara and the USS Richmond. The ships were able to fire upon a side of McRee that had not been reinforced or armed.

Things quieted down with the smaller Union force afloat and entrenched on Santa Rosa Island keeping the larger force of Confederates tied up and out of the fight towards the west.

Finally, the government in Richmond decided to move Bragg’s troops west where they could be put to better use. On May 9th, 1862 in the dead of night the remaining troops that had not been siphoned off from the defense of the Navy Yard, set fire to what was left of the buildings and supplies before marching out of town.

The next morning, Marine Lt. Mclane Tilton and eighteen Marines were sent ashore to reconnoiter the situation. They found the Navy Yard and gun emplacements abandoned and burning.

Other sailors and Marines were sent ashore along with some of the troops from the island to try to extinguish the flames.

The long contest had ended, and the Navy had regained its crucial facilities, and restored their honor. The southern forces were never able to make full use of the Navy Yard facilities.

The long standoff by a small number of Northern forces had kept a much larger force of badly needed troops tied up for over a year. The Yard was rebuilt and served the ships of the Gulf Blockading Squadrons for the rest of the war. •

Author Dave Ekardt (left) portrays a U.S. Marine at reeactments. He offers lectures on the Navy and Marine involvement in the Civil War. He may be contacted at Ekardt1@cs.com.

Courtesy of D. Ekardt

Chemical Warfare

Most people do not associate chemical warfare with the Civil War, however it almost became part of the contest at Pensacola. A Confederate soldier, Isham Walker of the 9th Regiment of Mississippi Volunteers developed a plan to use chemical warfare to kill all the troops in Fort Pickens and the men of the fleet. He wrote to the War Department detailing his plan. He suggested using two manned balloons tethered by two miles of copper wire to be carried aloft over the fort out of range of the guns. From a safe height, they would drop poisonous bombs into the fort and onto the ships of the fleet. He and friend Sam Benton of Tennessee, a ‘practical balloonist’, would be able to accomplish this at a mere cost of twelve hundred dollars for the balloons, copper wire and chemicals. The bombs would have black powder and a ‘subtile’ poison that was ‘innocent’ until ignited, poisoning the atmosphere for several rods in every direction. Although this plan was never put into action over Fort Pickens, there are accounts of the Confederates dropping bombs of various types over Union troop during the Siege of Richmond.

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FEATURE

by Lew Zerfus, Clearwater

Rails through the Palmettos Railroads were still in their infancy when plans were made to join the Atlantic port of Fernandina to Cedar Keys port on the Gulf of Mexico by rail.

Early railroads used wood rails to support wagons pulled by horses. Iron replaced the wood rails by 1776, but it was not until the turn of the century when the first steam train ran. By September of 1825 the first scheduled steam powered train, Stockton & Darlington Railroad Company, carried both goods and passengers ran in England The first successful railroad in the United States carried goods from Quincy to Boston, Massachusetts in 1827. Soon after, other railroad companies sprung up, including the famous Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1830.

Florida’s First Railroads

The first railroad to appear in Florida ran from Tallahassee to Port Leon, near the Gulf of Mexico. Construction began in 1834 and when completed, mules pulled cartloads of cotton from Tallahassee to the ocean-going ships at Port Leon.

Oxen delivering cotton to the railroad.

The Lake Wimico and St. Joseph Canal and Railroad was Florida’s first steam powered railroad train and began operations serving Port St. Joe in 1836. The “Tallahassee Rail Road” began operations the next year connecting Tallahassee to the Gulf at St. Marks. The Pensacola and Georgia Railroad, chartered on January 8, 1852 to built east from Pensacola, but started at Tallahassee. In 1855 the Pensacola and Georgia bought the Tallahassee Rail Road.

CROSSING THE STATE Florida gained statehood in 1845. David Yulee (see sidebar), an influential politician who had served on the Florida Constitutional Convention spearheading the drive for statehood, had a dream of uniting Florida’s two seas, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, by rail. His intent was to allow shipping to bypass the 12

hazardous Florida Straits (the “keys”), an area where ship sinking annual loses reached millions of dollars. Freight would be transferred from ships to rail cars at either port, one on the Gulf and the other on the Atlantic. Safe delivery, as well as eliminating about three days of travel was to the advantage of the merchants.

This idea was similar to a cross-state canal proposed in the 1820’s.

David Yulee, photo right, chose the deep-water port of Fernandina on Amelia Island as his Atlantic terminus and main office. For the Gulf of Mexico port, he chose Cedar Key over Tampa because it had the deeper harbor and was closer to Fernandina by rail and New Orleans by sea.

David Levy Yulee Financing was a constant problem for Yulee, borrowing money to make payments, he had to mortgage his slaves and property to secure loans. Yulee assisted in the passage of a federal land-grant bill, which provided the Florida Railroad with about 500,000 acres of land.

CONSTRUCTING THE NEW RAILROAD Actual construction of the new cross-state railroad began in September, 1855. The construction crews were made up mostly of slaves and a small number of white laborers. They cleared the dense forest and filled swamps placing the rails through a mostly uninhabited land, fighting insects and wild animals. It took almost a year to construct the first 10 miles.

The first section from Fernandina to Lofton was completed

on August 1, 1856, and Gainesville by February 1, 1859. When finished, it ran through 155.5 miles of wilderness, creeks, rivers, and marsh lands of Florida using only one locomotive to transport equipment and slave labor to lay the track.

When the Florida Railroad was completed in 1860, it was considered to have the best equipment in the state. It had two sixty-person passenger cars of the latest design, two baggage cars, fourteen boxcars and twenty-one flatcars.

On March 1, 1861, the first train arrived in Cedar Key The completion of the railroad was also a major cause of celebration for the entire state of Florida. Trade between ports like New Orleans and those to the northeast no longer had to be routed around the Florida Keys.

The railroad also offered Florida residents the opportunity to see parts of their state that they had never been able to explore before, linking many communities with a common connection through a rural state.

Unfortunately, with Florida’s entry into the Confederate States of America and the outbreak of the Civil War, all prospects of establishing the state as a hub for international commerce ended.

Section of a railroad and military map of 1842.

POST WAR DEVELOPMENT After the Civil War, construction resumed on the railroads and they became an alternative to travel by ships. Henry Plant and Henry Flagler are names that are often associated with railroad construction in Florida. They were key to the future growth of the state as their railroads opened new frontiers to Tampa on the west coast and St. Augustine, Palm Beach, Miami, and eventually Key west along the Atlantic coast.

Cedar Key grew after the war ended, and the town became a major ship building, timber and fishing center. In 1896 a hurricane that struck in 1896 destroyed most of the town. Today the railroad is gone and a smaller Cedar Key serves as a resort and fishing town.

Early photo of the track leading to Cedar Key.

About the author:

Enter the Civil War On April 12, the Civil War began with the bombardment of Ft. Sumter. The railroads in the Confederate States were vital and became a critical transportation system for the south.

But in Florida, with the exception of 4 miles of track built from Tallahassee west to just short of Quincy, in 1863, new construction of Florida railroads took a hiatus with the onset of the war.

On March 3, 1862, Yulee and his family were the last to leave Amelia Island. The USS Ottawa shelled the retreating train as it passed over the bridge to the mainland. Witnesses said that the Yulees waved their handkerchiefs at the pursuing Union forces Early in the war, Cedar Key was a major shipping port and in the hands of the Confederates. In 1862, the Union forces captured the port. Numerous Federal expeditions used the railroad bed be to send forces inland.

Service on the cross state railroad was interrupted and the line was damaged heavily during the Civil War, but it was repaired by Federal troops shortly after the War’s end.

This is Lew Zerfas’ third contribution to the Gazette. He is a reenactor with the U.S.S. Fort Henry, and enjoys reading and writing about the Civil War, focusing on the role of the U.S. Navy both at sea and as infantry expeditionary forces in Florida. He can be reached at gunboat@ussforthenry.com

July is FLORIDA STATE PARKS Month Visit the Cedar Key Museum State Park, located off State Road 24 on Museum Drive in Cedar Key

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David Levy Yulee Perhaps no one had more of an impact on the early development of Florida’s railroads than David Levy Yulee. He was born on June 12, 1810, in St. Thomas, West Indies. David’s father, Moses Elias Levy, was a wealthy merchant. David’s parents divorced when he was quite young, and he spent his early years with his mother, Hannah, in St. Thomas.

Drawn to Florida, Moses Levy purchased about 100,000 acres of land in the present day Alachua County. David eventually joined his older brother Elias in Florida and worked at his father’s Plantation. David experienced Florida and he became an avid hunter and fisherman. He continued his self education and eventually moved to Newnansville, the county seat of Alachua County, and served as Deputy Clerk.

David was drawn to the legal profession and moved to St. Augustine to study law and at the age of 22, David was admitted to the Florida Bar. He served in the territorial militia, and in 1834 he attended a conference of the great Seminole chiefs, including Osceola. His reputation brought him into the Florida Legislative Council in 1836, where he won a seat in the territorial senate.

David became a champion of U.S. statehood for Florida, and despite heavy opposition, Florida became a state in 1845. David was elected and became the first Jewish United States Senator. He married Nannie C. Wickliffe on April 7, 1846. Shortly before his marriage, David Levy added his grandfather’s name to his own and became David Levy Yulee. About this time he bought land near the mouth of the Homosassa River as the site for his home and established a sugar plantation nearby.

David Yulee, was narrowly defeated in his bid for a second term in the Senate in 1850 and then set out to fulfill his life long dream of a cross-Florida railroad.

In 1837, his plan called for a state-owned railroad, but by 1851 he decided to build it himself with land grants and money raised by the sale of stock.

Shortly after the end of the Civil War, David Yulee was taken into custody and charged with treason. He served 10 months in prison at Ft. Pulaski, Georgia.

Through the intervention of General Ulysses S. Grant, he was released in May 1866.

Only two months after the completion of their mansion on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, DC., Yulee’s wife died suddenly on March 16, 1885. His motivation was gone he later contracted a severe cold while visiting his grandchildren in Maine. On his return trip to Washington, he succumbed to pneumonia in New York, on October 10, 1886.

14

FEATURE S

ome of the most eloquent speeches made during the Second Seminole War are recorded by Captain John T. Sprague in 1841 in his book The Origin, Progress and Conclusion of the Florida War. Coacoochee, also known as Wildcat, was a Miccosukee war leader and one of the fiercest fighters during the 2nd Seminole War. (Often referred to as Seminole, but he is claimed by the Miccosukee Tribe as one of their own.) He had made a daring escape from Fort Marion in St. Augustine, which was the old Spanish fortress, in November 1837 and continued the fight to resist removal and remain in Florida.

In 1841 Coacoochee was finally captured and put in chains.

He was forced to send a message to his people to come in and surrender, or he would be hanged. During this series of “peace talks,” are recorded some of the most emotional speeches that we have of this war. The speech starts after Colonel William J. Worth had finished speaking to a Seminole / Miccosukee delegation. This speech is found on pages 288-292 of Sprague’s book, as well as in, Coacoochee, Made of the Sands of Florida,

by Arthur E. Francke, Jr. This talk took place, ironically, on July 4th, 1841, and means the end of independence for these brave warriors. Grammar and punctuation are the same as in the original book, published in 1848.

“Colonel William J. Worth finished speaking. Silence pervaded the company as the speaker closed. The harsh grating of the handcuffs broke the spell, as each warrior raised his hand to wipe away the tear which never before stole down his rugged cheek. Coacoochee rose, evidently struggling to suppress a feeling which made his manly form quiver with excitement: “ “I was once a boy, “ said he, in a subdued tone, “then I saw the White man afar off. I hunted in these woods, first with a bow and arrow; then with a rifle. I saw the white man, and was told he was my enemy. I could not shoot him as I would a wolf or a bear; yet like these he came upon me; horses, cattle, and fields, he took from me. He said he was my friend; he abused our women and children, and told us to go from the land. Still he gave me his hand in friendship; we took it; whilst taking it, he had a snake in the other; his tongue was forked; he lied, and stung us. I asked but for a small piece of these lands, enough to plant and to live upon, far south, a spot where I could place the ashes of my kindred, as spot only sufficient upon which I could lay my wife and child. This was not granted me. I was put in prison; I escaped. I have been again taken; you have brought me back; I am here; I feel the irons in my heart. I have listened to your talk; you and your officers have taken us by the hand in friendship. I thank you for bringing me back; I can now see my warriors, my women and children; the Great Spirit thanks you; the heart of the poor Indian thanks you. We know but little; we have no books which tell all things; but we have the Great Spirit, moon, and stars; these told me, last night, you would be our friend. I gave you my word; it is the word of a warrior, a chief, a brave, it is the word of Coacoochee. It is true I have fought like a man, so have my warriors; but the whites are too strong for us. I wish now to have my band around me

and go to Arkansas. You say I must end the war! Look at these irons! Can I go to my warriors? Coacoochee chained! No; do not ask me to see them. I never wish to tread upon my land unless I am free. If I can go to them unchained, they will follow me in; but I fear they will not obey me when I talk to them in irons. They will say my heart is weak, I am afraid. Could I go free, they will surrender and emigrate.”

The commander, [Col. Worth] in reply, told him, with firmness and without disguise, that he could not go, nor would his irons be taken off until his entire band had surrendered; but that he might select three or five of the prisoners, who should be liberated, and permitted to carry his talk; they should be granted thirty, forty, or fifty days, if necessary.

Worth said, “I say to you again, and for the last time, that unless the band acquiesce promptly with your wishes, to your last wish, the sun, as it goes down on the last day appointed for their appearance, will shine upon the bodies of each of you hanging in the wind.”

Wildcat

(Coacoochee) Talks on the 4th of July

by Chris Kimball, Naples “This injunction was given in such a manner as to impress the prisoners with the firm belief that it would be literally fulfilled. It was manifest in the convulsive expression of their stern and rugged faces. To escape, was beyond all hope. The vessel lay moored in deep water, two miles from shore. Firmly ironed, and surrounded night and day be sentinels, their fate was inevitable; and as the reality rose upon them they were sad and depressed. Here was a chief, a man whose only offense was defending his home, his fireside, the graves of kindred, stipulating, on the Fourth of July, for his freedom and his life.”

An incident occurred, when Coacoochee was most excited, which carried forcibly to the minds of all present the import of the day, and impressed in a manner not to be forgotten, the scene in which all were participating. A government schooner lay moored in the immediate neighborhood; at 12 Noon., as is customary, she opened [fired] her batteries. Coacoochee, hearing the repeated discharge, and seeing the interest manifested, ceased speaking, and asked, “What is that for?” Again he inquired, but

silence was the only response. The Indian instinctively seemed to think it the jubilee of freedom. Well might the white man deny the natal day of his country. That flag, waving from the masthead of Coacoochee’s prison-ship, symbolical of freedom, was saluted by the roar of artillery, announcing to the world the liberty of twenty millions of people, free, independent, intelligent, and happy.

Coacoochee then consulted with his warriors who were chosen to talk with his people: “Has not Coacooche,” he said, “sat with you by the councilfire at midnight, when the wolf and white man were around us?

Have I not led the war dance, and sung the song of the Seminole?

Did not the spirits of our mothers, our wives, and our children stand around us? Has not my scalping-knife been red with blood, and the scalps of our enemy been drying in our camps? Have I not made the warpath red with blood, and has not the Seminole always found a home in my camp? Then, will the warriors of Coacooche desert him? No! If your hearts are bad, let me see them now; take them in your hands, and let me know they are dark with bad blood; but do not, like a dog, bite me, so soon as you turn your backs. If Coacoochee is to die, he can die like a man.

It is not my heart that shakes; no, it never trembles; but I feel for those now in the woods, pursued night and day by the soldiers; for those who fought with us, until we were weak. The sun shines bright to day, the day is clear; so let your hearts be: the Great Spirit will guide you. At night, when you camp, take these pipes and tobacco, build a fire when the moon is up and bright, dance around it, then let the fire go out, and just before the break of day, when the deer sleeps, and the moon whispers to the dead, you will hear the voices of those who have gone to the Great Spirit; they will give you strong hearts and head to carry the talk of Coacoochee. Say to my band that my feet are chained. I cannot walk, yet I send them my word as true from the heart, as if I as on the warpath or in the deer-hunt. I am not a boy; Coacoochee can die, not with a shivering hand, but as when grasping the rifle with my warriors around me.”

“My feet are chained, but the head and heart of Coacoochee reaches you. The great white chief (Po-car-ger) will be kind to us. He Says, when my band comes in I shall again walk my land free, with my band around me. He has given you forty days to do this business in; if you want more, say so; I will ask for more; if not, be true to the time. Take these sticks; here are thirty-nine, one for each day; this, much larger than the rest, with blood upon it, is the fortieth. When the others are thrown away, and this only remains, say to my people, that with the setting sun Coacoochee hangs like a dog, with none but the See Wildcat page 22.

15

CENTERFOLD ...Boone continued from page 19. only made herself comfortable clothes, she had made a costume for her scooter as well, turning it into a pony!

Hilary and Richard are polio survivors. Hilary lives in England and Richard in Florida. They met on the World Wide Web in 1997. Hilary explained their first virtual encounter this way.

“The president of the Finnish Polio Association had created an enormous out-cry when he announced on the Polio List that Santa had built a town just six miles up the road from where he lived. He said that anyone who wanted to write a letter to Santa could email it to him and he would deliver it. Well the Alaskans protested that he didn’t live in Finland and the Canadians said he didn’t live in Finland either. I said, ‘Well I’m going to write him a letter.” I wrote “Dear Santa, I want a man who is six feet tall ... that sort of thing. The Polio List goes world-wide and when Richard saw my letter to Santa he thought it was funny, and he replied!”

Richard and Hilary fast became friends, instant messaging each other everyday — he at 5:00 p.m., she at 10 p.m. Finally Richard invited her to fly to Florida so they could travel to a Polio conference together. Hilary’s daughter told her “Go for it!”

In May 2000, Richard met Hilary at the Tampa airport where they saw each other for the first time. When they stopped at the toll booth to pay, “The woman said, “You look like a lovely couple.

Been together long?”

We told her, “Twenty minutes!”

The Boone’s have a way of laughing at their disabilities that nurtured their Pistol and lock made by Richard relationship. Richard Boone. introduced Hilary to reenacting at a Florida Frontiersmen shoot. Richard was a silversmith and as well as blacksmithing. He made his own flintlock rifles and did some restoration work. Now he works on mostly pistols.

Richard took Hilary to the Alafia River Rendezvous. She looked around and said, “I could do this.” Surprised, Richard replied, “You could?”

Every year you can see Hilary and Richard scooting around the Alafia River Rendezvous, Hilary on her “horse” and Richard in his wheelchair “chuck-wagon.” Richard explains, “We need help to load the car, to unload, to put up tent.. and reverse. Its tough managing getting up from camp beds, etc., but the enjoyment and the memories far outweigh the problems. Oh and it takes ten days to get ready for ten days away and ten days to recover.

Without the help that we receive we could not do this.

The Florida Frontiersmen are wonderful.

Story by Elizabeth Neily.

Photos on these pages courtesy of the Boones.

Hilary was pleasantly surprised at how accepted they were. Many asked to take photo of her on her horse decorated scooter to show relatives with a scooter what they might too do, to join in parades, etc. But for the first time since Post Polio Syndrome and disability had entered my life, no-one asked what was wrong with me. Someone did ask, “What make is it?” and I said, “Apalucia.” No, “ they said, “the scooter, you nut!”

Richard participates in Second Seminole War reeactments around the state as a Seminole warrior.

As for reenacting, Hilary says, “ I think the most important issue is that folks who become less able, really want to take part in life but are worried about how they are seen.. how difficult it is to ask for help. The one thing I would love to see is more folks with their wheels decorated. I don’t think just being on the wheels is good enough.. I think they should minimally be covered with an appropriate blanket or a hide.”

Richard gets a shave from a friend at Fort Foster.

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Richard Boone is limited only by the amount of exertion he can expend each day. If he saves enough of his “energy tokens.” he can participatein the black powder shoots at Florida Frontiersmen events. Courtesy of Hilary Boone.

What is PPS? Back in the UK, Hilary founded the Lincolnshire PostPolio Network. It is run by volunteers with no government funding. Find out more about Post-Polio Syndrome at www. lincolnshirepostpolio.org.uk The mere mention of “polio” struck terror into the hearts and minds of Americans during the first half of the 20th century. Polio lurked everywhere: families stayed at home; swimming pools were closed; public events were canceled.

A disease caused by three viruses , polio enters the mouth, grows in the intestines and passes along the nerves into the brain and then the spinal cord. The polio viruses entered nerves in the brain and spinal cord and took over their ‘metabolic factory’, causing the nerves to stop working normally just to produce poliovirus. During this invasion, the infected nerves could not function and muscles in the arms, legs, chest, diaphragm and throat became weak or were paralyzed. If someone had muscle weakness or paralysis, 90% of their motor nerves were affected by the polio virus and at least 50% were killed. The remaining nerves, although damaged, were able to work again and sent out sprouts (like extra telephone lines) to turn on the muscles that were orphaned when their nerves died. There are 1.63 million polio survivors in American alone, not to mention the millions of others in Europe and around the world.

With the introduction of the Salk inactivated polio vaccine in 1954 and the Sabin oral polio vaccine in 1961, the number of paralytic cases decreased to a handful per year. Polio Wildcat continued page 16...

white men to hear his last words. Come then; come by the stars, as I have led you to battle! Come, for the voice of Coacoochee speaks to you!”

“Say this to my wife and child—“ Here the chieftain, who had struggled during these remarks with feelings almost over-powering, paused, and turned away his head, to hide the tears flowing profusely down his melancholy, but youthful and manly countenance.

Deep Silence pervaded the entire company. The experienced soldier, to whom carnage had been familiar, the hardy sailor, acquainted with privation and danger, the savage, whose stoical heart is seldom warmed by felling, now stood around, giving evidence of their sympathy in these last injunctions of a captive, by a participation in the gloom and silence, which none was so bold as to break.

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had vanished and no longer was on the consciousness of Americans. The elimination of polio was a tremendous achievement for science and American medicine.

However, in the late 1970s, survivors of paralytic polio began to notice new health problems that included fatigue, pain, and new weakness, thought not to be “real” by the medical establishment. The term “post-polio syndrome” (PPS) was coined by these patients to emphasize their new health problems.

The nerves, damaged by polio, that were overworked for years can no longer take the strain. So too, overworked muscles ache and joints hurt after decades of doing too much work with too little muscle support. The body is growing really tired of doing too much work.

Polio Survivors basically need to conserve energy to stop blowing their bodies ‘fuses’. Polio survivors must walk less, use needed assistive devices (a brace, crutches, a scooter), and pace and rest in their daily activities, stopping before pain and fatigue set in and then resting to allow their muscles to recover so that they can do the action again. Those who stop the “overuse abuse” find that the fatigue, weakness and pain subsides.

“People with PPS call this energy conservation, ‘Going Green,’” Hillary explains. “We have ten energy tokens a day, seventy a week and we have to plan how to spend them. It’s all about pacing ourselves... taking it easy... and knowing when to stop.”

Without confusion, and without the utterance of a word, the irons were taken off the five messengers, when preparations were made for them to proceed to the shore.

Coacoochee shook each by the hand as the passed over the side of the vessel. To the last he gave a silk handkerchief and a breast-pin; “Give these,” said he, “to my wife and child.”

Quoted from John T. Sprague, published in 1848, The Origin, Progress and Conclusion of the Florida War Coacoochee and his band were taken into exile to the western Indian Territory. Had he remained in Florida, he would have been hereditary chief after Micanopy. After many hardships, Coacoochee led his people to freedom in Mexico in 1850, where he received an appointment as a Colonel in the Mexican Army. He died in 1857 of small pox; free but still exiled from Florida. •

TALES

by Charles Bears Road Dunning, St. Petersburg

Being Born

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BEING BORN two lessons from VOICE OF STONES

V

oice of Stones drifted. He looked for the light. He found the place where the water became translucent. He waited there, and his heart beat with the rhythm of the song he was learning.

He drifted beneath the white-crested waves. Voice of Stones saw water people swimming toward him. They were the See Tah. One was as bright as silver, and she reflected the sun beneath the waves. The second swimmer was as dark as the sea, and he was filled with the power of the sea. The man‚s shadow drifted, and then Voice of Stones looked out from four See Tah eyes.

The See Tah did swim in the light. One was the light of the sun, and the second swimmer was the sea’s strength, and the man’s shadow saw from both their eyes. He lived in both the swimmers.

Silver Swimmer and her mate, the Swimmer as Dark as the Sea, were part of a family with more like themselves.

Some See Tah were black. Some were streaked with brown, while others were dappled with white spots. But they all swam together, and the man‚s shadow swam with them.

Silver Swimmer led the See Tah family. She danced in the wave troughs and wallowed in the sun. The man’s shadow saw through her eyes, and life was good. The Ocean Sea’s translucence filled his thoughts, and his memory bathed in the light. The family played in the waves. The younger See Tah turned cartwheels in the waves, and Voice of Stones remembered other children in another place turning cart wheels in meadows above the river. The man’s memory smiled with the cartwheels.

The night brought the stars and the Swimmer as Dark as the Sea patrolled the See Tah family while they slept. The great bull checked one of his children and then the next. He kept them from drifting away on the Ocean Sea. The Swimmer as Dark as the Sea took the See Tah as close to the beach as he could at night. He watched them sleep in the shallows.

The great bull See Tah nuzzled Silver Swimmer, and they watched the stars together. The man’s shadow saw the stars with the See Tah’s eyes. The stars and the night were the other side of sunlight. He listened to the See Tah breathing, and his memory heard the Ocean Sea whispering as it broke on the sleeping See Tah’s backs.

The stars’ light reflected from the Ocean Sea. Morning and the breaking sun filled his shadow heart, as he understood light with the See Tah’s eyes. Morning called the family to herd mullet into the shallows, and the See Tah drove the fish up onto the beach. They ate and filled themselves on the mullet they caught. Their stomachs were filled and the See Tah were children of the sunlight who swam in the translucent sea.

The man’s shadow loved the See Tah’s life, and he patrolled the beaches along the eastern shores of the island that was shaped like a snapping turtle’s back.

In the summer when the sun grew strong, Silver Swimmer swam north to a long, deep bay that was surrounded on both sides with inlets and the mouths of rivers. The See Tah family followed the fish in their migration paths. There was always 24

food, and Silver Swimmer’s family was never hungry.

Voice of Stones learned many new songs from the See Tah. He learned the song of the mullet migration paths, and the song of being filled with mullet. He learned to sing the song of the light, and the song of the stars, and the song of cartwheeling in the shallows.

The Silver Swimmer taught the man’s memory the song of leading, and the Swimmer as Dark as the Sea taught him the song of the night patrol and keeping danger out on the ocean sea.

On the western edge of the bay where the See Tah family spent the summer, there were villages where fisher people lived. They built houses from poles bound with cedar roots and covered with elm bark. The See Tah watched them from the shallows. The people wore blue tattoos on their bodies in the summer. The men took canoes out into the bay and threw nets out for the oysters who built beds in the shallows.

The tattooed fishermen fished for mullet in the deeper water.

Sometimes, for fun, the Silver Swimmer led her children up to the canoes. Her children turned cartwheels and splashed the fishermen with their flukes. Sometimes, because he knew the mullets’ secret places, the Swimmer as Dark as the Sea would lead the tattooed men in their canoes to the fish.

The fishermen brought their children out to the See Tah family. They lifted them over the gunwales of the dugout boats and gently placed the children into the Ocean Sea. The See Tah taught the tanned children to swim. Some of the children were brave enough to hold onto the dorsal fin of the Swimmer as Dark as the Sea. The bull See Tah towed the fisher children through the waves on his back. The Ocean Sea was full of laughter.

Voice of Stones learned the song of laughing children and the song of the open boats.

Voice of Stones lived a long life with the See Tah. They knew many songs, and he wanted to learn to sing every one of them. In the winter the mullet migrated south. The Silver Swimmer led her family far south with the mullet and then west until she found a gulf of green water. A bay ran inland from the gulf, and the See Tah wintered there.

The bay was shallow. There were mounds of seashells lining the periphery of the bay. Houses built from the bound leaves of palm trees sat on the mounds. Trading people lived here. They paddled huge canoes out into the bay and across the gulf. Some of the younger See Tah swam with the big boats.

They streaked beneath them, and the trader people followed the See Tah across the gulf and back again.

Life was good. The See Tah songs lulled the man’s memory into a place where summer became winter, and the sea-paths led north and then south. Time was an illusion.

A day came when after a long night of stars and guarding their children, the Swimmer as Dark as the Sea was tired. He didn’t chase the mullet that morning, and the man’s shadow slept in the shallows with the old bull See Tah. He was weary, more tired than he had ever been.

Voice of Stones‚ eyes closed as the dark swimmer’s eyes closed. The old bull stopped breathing, and his eyes stayed closed. The man’s shadow could no longer see from the old bull’s eyes.

When the family came back from chasing the mullet in the shallows and turning cartwheels beneath the fishermen’s

dugouts; they found the old bull’s body sleeping in the shallows.

The Silver Swimmer nuzzled her mate. He did not wake to her voice. She pushed him with her fins, but he did not move. She listened for his breath, but the Swimmer as Dark as the Sea was not breathing.

She wept.

The See Tah family pulled the old bull’s body out into the gulf. The Swimmer as Dark as the Sea sank into deep water. The man’s memory watched the old bull’s body spiral to the ocean floor. He watched it with the Silver Swimmer’s eyes.

He wept with her tears. She had loved the old bull. They had played together in the shallows. They had shared their family for many years, and she was alone.

The Silver Swimmer taught one last song to the man’s memory. She taught him the song of love. She taught him love for the morning chase, love for the stars, and love for the breath of another in the night. The Silver Swimmer taught Voice of Stones a song of holding another and nuzzling him beneath his beak. The Silver Swimmer taught the man’s memory that love lives when tired flesh spirals into the sea’s lost depths. She taught his memory to hold and to let go.

Voice of Stones wept the Silver Swimmer’s tears. They turned together and led the See Tah children into the bay where the trader people lived on mounds of seashells.

Voice of Stones drank the See Tah’s song and rehearsed it beneath the stars.

In the morning the Silver Swimmer spoke to the shadow of Voice of Stones, “I have no more music to teach you. You have learned all our songs. You have been close to our hearts, and your voice remembers.

“You have sung with my children, and you sang with the Swimmer as Dark as the Sea. We sang the circle of seasons, and we have followed the fish in their migration.

“You have learned to sing of love. Now it is time for me to take you to see Scalloped Fin. She is the wisest See Tah. She will give you birth.”

He heard, “Time is an illusion. The Spirit is not in the flesh.

The Spirit lives in the wind.”

The Silver Swimmer swam out into the gulf where the deep water began. Voice of Stones’ shadow rode the swimmer’s heart until they came to the dark water where Scalloped Fin, the wisest See Tah, swam with her sisters. The great See Tah were giants compared to the Silver Swimmer. Their long fins were cut in scallops along their leading edges, and their dorsal fins were short and humped.

Then the Silver Swimmer, who had taught the man’s shadow how to sing songs for every season and the song of love that lived in her own heart, freed him. The Silver Swimmer turned a cartwheel in the white-flecked current. She swam east back to her children waiting in the bay.

His shadow flew above the morning air for a heartbeat, and then another heartbeat passed. He looked into the eyes of the great hump-backed See Tah, and Voice of Stones found his way into the greatest See Tah’s heart. He watched the Silver Swimmer as she swam away from them. His eyes belonged to Scalloped Fin. Her humped back towered above the gulf’s salt water. Her long fin was scalloped and showed the knuckles of her carpal bones buried beneath her streaked skin. He had learned the song of love that the Silver Swimmer taught him, so the man’s shadow found his way into the great mother’s giant heart.

The man’s shadow had learned all the songs he had been given. Now it was time for him to range the ocean sea with Scalloped Fin. She would teach him the song of the round world, and the song of coming home.

In summer the hump backed See Tah lived in the deep green waters of the gulf. When summer turned to fall, the great sisters turned south and swam along the currents of the deep sea. They followed old paths that had been set beneath the waves before the hematite, and serpentine, and granite settled into the mountains’ veins.

The sisters traveled on a great migration path with their children. The humped-back bulls swam along their margins to guard them. They swam across the curve of the world.

Scalloped Fin led them. She knew the deep paths. She knew where the shrimp and the krill lived in banks great enough to feed her family. She swam south, and the man’s shadow heard the song of the great deeps singing in her ears. He saw where the water turned black.

The mother See Tah spiraled into the deep sea to show the man’s shadow where the water ran so deep that the fish who lived there carried their own lights to see with. It was so deep that the fire glowed on the seabed. Scalloped Fin and the man’s shadow followed rivers of boiling water to the surface where it heated the sea air and turned itself into banks of sea fog.

The humprd-back See Tah swam in a great swath along the southern islands and along the bays where rivers poured from the rainy green forests into the ocean sea. The great steamy rivers pushed fresh water out into the salt sea. The hump backed See Tah drank the fresh water. They swam up into the rivers’ mouths.

Voice of Stones saw other See Tah who swam in the fresh water. The strange See Tah had pink skins and poor eyes, but they spoke the same language. They knew the same songs the Silver Swimmer had taught him.

The humpd-back people stayed with their river cousins for a while.

How long?

I don‚t know.

Voice of Stones had ceased thinking about time a long time ago. Their stay was not measured in time. The See Tah’s stay was measured in songs. A morning came when the humpedback See Tah began to swim south again. They swam into the cold water where ice grew from the land.

Scalloped Fin let the man’s memory listen to glaciers giving birth to ice calves. She showed him the huge squid with tentacles longer than she was herself. She told Voice of Stones that her cousins ate the squid for dessert. She preferred krill.

The southern seas were stiff with cold, but, in season, they were filled with clouds of krill, and shrimp, and plankton. Since this was what the humped-back giants ate, then, they followed the sea. So, Scalloped Fin and her sisters followed the sea currents south in the winter. They returned north when winter followed them to the southern seas.

The humped-backs swam across the world to the northern ice fields. The See Tah watched the great white bears swimming in the sea, hunting the spotted seals. Voice of Stones had never seen bears like these.

Men in skin boats followed the bears and the seals out to sea. Their boats had skin sails. The men hunted the seals with

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spears. The spears carried polished points made of See Tah bone. The hunters had pale skin, except where the northern sun had burned it brown. Their hair hung straight and black.

At times the men acted so arrogantly that they approached the See Tah in their skin boats. They threatened the humped-backs with their spears. Scalloped Fin couldn’t understand how the men could act so foolishly.

She laughed, and her sisters laughed with her. They turned their flukes and dove beneath the ice. They left the men in their skin boats behind them.

In late summer Scalloped Fin had led her sisters back to the great gulf where Voice of Stones had met them. A night came when Voice of Stones was shocked out of deep dreams filled with songs. The man’s shadow felt crushed by a horrible pressure that crushed his chest and pushed him and pulled him at the same time.

He thought he was being torn apart.

The man’s shadow gulped for air. He couldn’t breathe. All Voice of Stones could see was a red light. The light was so dark it was black. The crushing pressure pulled him through a dark place, and he couldn’t move, and he couldn’t escape. His shadow lungs burned inside him.

He was pushed down a narrow funnel, and when he believed he was seeing his own death, Voice of Stones was pushed out into the gulf‚s warm, dark water. He had been born. This was the song of being born.

He sang the song of his own birth. His spirit had flown on the air. His memory had drifted in the ocean sea. Now he was born.

He swam in the warm green water of the gulf. He was flesh. He was a humped-back See Tah. His mother carried him to the surface of the ocean sea. Voice of Stones gasped. He breathed. His lungs filled with oxygen, and his heart pushed it to the tips of his flukes and his scalloped flippers.

He saw the night with his own eyes. This was not an illusion.

His mother, Scalloped Fin, hovered over him. She pulled him to her with her knobby fin. She fed him milk warm from her body.

He was born. He sang the song of being born and being fed with his mother’s warm milk.

Scalloped Fin taught him to swim. He was clumsy at first. But soon, Voice of Stones leaned to swim in the slipstream created by Scalloped Fin’s swimming. He learned to use his long fins to turn and then to turn cart wheels. He blew steam from his breathing holes when he breached.

When Voice of Stones swam beneath the ocean sea, he opened his eyes and swam in the translucent light.

The little See Tah fed on scalloped Fin’s milk. He grew every day. He learned to sing the See Tah songs he had heard as he circled the ocean sea.

Season followed season and the little See Tah continued to grow. He swam south to follow the warm currents where the clouds of krill, and shrimp, and plankton kept them alive.

Life was good. He was alive. He was not a shadow or a memory. He was a growing humped-back See Tah. He swam in his mother’s wake. He felt protected when he swam in her shadow. He felt free when he left her side, but he always looked back to see that Scalloped Fin was there. She was always there.

They swam south, and then the humped-back See Tah swam to the far north. Voice of Stones swam with the spotted seals. He 26

dove under the hunters‚ skin boat. The boat almost turned over when he breached. When the boat settled the men with the black, straight hair shook their spears at Voice of Stones. He was beyond their range. Scalloped Fin hid him beneath her shadow, and they swam away from the shouting men and the skin boat.

This was not a dream. Voice of Stones sang the song of the ice and the song of the bone tipped spear. He sang of lights hanging in the northern skies. The white bears reminded him of his friend, He Dreams While it Snows. He remembered the taste of wild strawberries, and he laughed.

At the end of the first year, Voice of Stones had become a large yearling calf. When they returned to the gulf where he had been born, the young See Tah noticed his long right flipper. A dark brown stain showed on the flipper’s leading edge. It hadn’t been there before. The stain was shaped like a star.

The sun crossed the sky and the clouds of krill, and shrimp, and plankton followed the warm currents south. The humped- back See Tah followed the krill, and the shrimp, and the plankton.

The journey was always a circle and always the same. There was ice and boiling water, steam, and growling glaciers, and white bears. Life was a humped-back song, and Voice of Stones sang it.

Every summer the See Tah filled the gulf with their songs, and every summer another star appeared on the leading edge of the growing calf’s right long flipper. There were two stars, three, and then four, five, and six.

The seventh season came. Scalloped Fin led her sisters along the warm ocean currents. The humped-back See Tah were at home in the gulf. He was a bull See Tah now. His voice was deep, and his song carried from one end of the gulf all the way north along the island that looked like a snapping turtle’s shell.

A seventh star appeared on the young bull’s right flipper.

In the morning Scalloped Fin held her child with her great left fin. His mother whispered to the growing bull, “My child, I have no more music to teach you. You have learned all life’s songs. You have been close to life’s heart, and your voice will remember the songs you have heard.

“You have learned the power of green leaves, and your teacher taught you the magic of water and ice. You have learned to use stones for healing, but now, my heart, you have learned the part of the song you weren’t taught. You have learned the song of your own birth. You learned to sing life’s song with us in the warm ocean currents.

“My child, you have heard the songs of all of our lives. You will practice those songs, and you will change them and add more of your own. You were born to sing.”

He heard his mother croon,

“Time is an illusion.

The Spirit is born in the flesh.

The Spirit lives in the song.”

These are two lessons from a series of stories called Voice of Stones. These stories are traditional lessons that teach human children to become attuned to lessons in stones, tides, stars, and all the children of this Circle of things.

Florida Indians

Like ourselves, American Indians had many differing viewpoints. It would be absolutely safe to say that every Indian had their very own perspective. As a culture though, they shared viewpoints. In North America alone, there were about 500 nations when Columbus arrived in 1492. That was one of the largest cultural and social experiments in our planets history. Each nation was experimenting with political, economic, cultural concepts. Of course they would never have looked at it that way. They were adapting to their environment and its resources and the cultural pressures of their neighbors. Fully modern, they shared our intelligence and some of our hierarchy of needs.* Their historic involvement with the land had built up lessons over thousands of years.

by Hermann Trappman, Gulfport to the Big Bend area on Florida’s west coast. From north of Crystal River to almost Charlotte Harbor in the south, stretched the Tocobaga confederation. From Charlotte Harbor southward, was the realm of the Calusa. On the east coast, from the Keys to the area of modern Miami, was the land of the Tequesta.

Traveling northward along the east coast, were two smaller nations, the Jeaga and the Ais. Oddly, the Mayaimi people lived around the shores of Lake Okachobee.

This is only a partial list at best taken from a European description at the time of contact. How these people were arranged and how they saw their territories and affiliations is a bit more difficult to ascertain. Herein lies the problem— sometime between 1500 and 1528, plague raged across Florida.

Looking For the Original People

Why so many nations?

The answer is largely one of transportation. Because the people of North America didn’t have an animal like the horse, they were limited to the distances in which their feet could carry them.

Ancestral Europeans gained the use of the horse from the steppes of Central Asia. The steppes are a vast ocean of sameness in which resources are spread out across the landscape. Without help, the distances between resources would be beyond human ability to achieve.

The American Indian was not totally restricted in traveling long distances.

Where water connected environmental systems, boats (dugout canoes) helped long distance commerce develop. But for the most part, American Tocobaga Farmers © 2006 by Hermann Trappman. Courtesy of the artist.

Indians’ local resources were vital and defining. So with the natural limitations The plagues which descended on North America were made of the North American landscape and the absence of up of a number of pathogens from Europe. Those living in horse-like transportation, the people living here couldn’t crowded cities would have been the most vulnerable. Many, afford that kind of attitude that pits man against nature. many thousands died. Imagine something equal to a nuclear The “man against nature” perspective destroyed the holocaust. Therefore the native people of Florida, described by landscape and moved on. So, although American Indian those early conquistadors, were recovering from the devastation cultures differed from each other, the common thread of disease. These nations, their enemies, and allies probably of “man within nature” rans through the various nations reflect a dynamic time of political uncertainty and restructuring. of North America.

The Apalachee were part of a Mississippian Let’s look at who the Florida Indians were. Starting in mound building culture. The Timucuan confederation the northwest panhandle, there Pensacola, the Chatot, and the was not. Archaeology can help us visualize a thread Apalachee nations. The Timucuans were a confederation of of material culture, but it cannot hope to illuminate states that extended from southeast Georgia all the way across the fabric of culture and society. When fragile cultural 27

information disappears, we are left with only a fragments of what a society may have been like. Like worn and very tattered clothing, it is difficult to ascertain the shape or the true color of the original garment. We are left guessing at the possibilities.

Is there another way to attempt an impression of Florida’s original people? Although our lives are brief affairs, the landscape retains a memory.

When we enjoy banquets of shellfish and discard their remains on the landscape, calcium carbonate enters the soil and influences the kind of plant communities which can utilize it. Our homes and the living spaces around them changes the environment. When we plant lawns, put in watering systems, and build roads, we are leaving a somewhat lasting impression. Everything we do changes the world around us. People have always influenced their environment, just like every other living thing.

When we look at Florida’s native plants, we are also seeing the relationship between the ancient people and their landscape.

Like us, they too influenced their environment. The coastal people harvested huge quantities of fish during the winter mullet and mackerel runs. The waste from all that fish returned to the environment in two ways; as human waste and the inedible discards. From New England comes the story of Squanto, who told the Pilgrims that fish were placed in the same hole with corn seeds as fertilizer.

To toss waste from fish into the marine environment would cause a great deal of pollution with associated pests and pest related illness. It’s easy to imagine clouds of flys at the height of fishing season. Allowing that the coastal people around Florida had human intelligence, they would have made it to their benefit to enrich the poor local soil with this natural fertilizer. It would have increased agricultural bounty while eliminating the problem of waste products. That brings us to the next possibility for viewing the ancient Florindians.

Contact period descriptions and recent studies of American natives can offer some illumination. First we must recognize the cultural bias of those Europeans at contact and the probability that an encyclopedia of information vanished when those early plagues wiped tribal elders. Florida Indians were described as tall, well-proportioned, robust, and healthy. This physical description is at absolute odds with the Spaniard’s cultural description of lazy, violent, backward, and savage. How can a people be so physically fit and culturally unfit at the same time?

The diversity of Florida’s natural communities speaks volumes about our original people. The richness of Florida’s estuaries describes the Florida Indians relationship with the world around them. In a short period of two hundred years, within our stewardship, those same estuaries and environments are in an absolute state of collapse. The fabulous food resources that we inherited are fast vanishing.

I believe that most American Indians practiced “milpa” agriculture, which is based on mimicking plants in their natural settings. They planted in environmentally sound clumps using a variety of plants in the same cluster. The plants are placed to enhance each other’s potential.

Another environmentally sound practice was fire ecology.

Fire returns a certain percentage of plant material back to the soil as fertilizer. The other side of fire ecology is that it kills

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some of the insects that eat human crops; it reduces the fuel load of a forest so that the fires intensity is reduced and much less harmful; and it increases quality habitat for deer, turkey, quail, and fox squirrels. Fire ecology also reduces the chance of wildfires burning a community whose homes are built with thatched roofs.

For the Native Americans who once inhabited this land, the thing which lent itself toward health and quality of life, was “medicine.” For American Indians, there are many kinds of medicine and medicine is found in many things. For instance you are “medicine” to the folks you love and care for. It was natural for the plains people to refer to the horse as a “medicine dog.” The bow, which sends its arrow straight and true, has good medicine. The plants and creatures we eat offer us their medicine. Medicine is also the healing arts.

Why, you may wonder, did so many Indians die from European introduced diseases, if they were so good at healing?

Before contact the native people, limited by transportation and a population spread out across a large landscapes, diseases were denied the required vectors along easily traveled paths. American Indians looked at the livestock around them very differently than Europeans. By maintaining a healthy environment, they ensured an abundance of deer and other wildlife to harvest. There was no need to keep animals in pens. Because American Indians didn’t develop animal husbandry in close proximity to human populations, there were no vectors for bacteria and viruses to breed and spread.

Their medical practice could therefore focus on the treatment of parasites and the environment. Medicine men and women studied treatments for worms and other internal parasites, for physical and emotional illnesses. Because their view of medicine was holistic, their treatments were holistic.

They viewed people as many parts come together. The Calusa put it this way: They believed that people have three spirits—the spirit within the eye, the spirit of the shadow, and the spirit of one’s reflection in the water. Our cultural prejudice has tossed that Calusa belief into the bin labeled nonsense. I would like to offer this interpretation.

There is something about the eye, an inner light, if you have ever watched something or someone die, you can’t help but notice that inner life vanish. There is definitely something to the spirit of life within the eye.

The spirit of the shadow may be more difficult to understand. Everything that rises up above the surface of the earth cast a shadow. But our shadows can have an intent as well. When we point, when walk, mow the lawn, our shadow is acting accordingly. Shadows are imbued with our intent, but they usually go unnoticed. When we are in love, in hate, or focused on a goal, we can forget your shadow. It rolls or bumps over things we don’t even notice. Our overtures of love to one person can leave another standing in the sidelines. Hatred leaves collateral damage. In other words our shadows effect the world around us with out our knowing it. Our shadow is in all the things we touch without realizing it. But, whether we know it or not, our spirit is in our shadow.

The idea of a spirit in our reflection is more straight forward.

It is the spirit of how others perceive us. Medicine people See Looking on Page 34

Johnny’s Corner

by John Shaffer, Havana

So, there I was….making the rounds as usual, feeding the menagerie. It was during the night-feeding on the coldest day of the winter. That seems to be when most of the baby goats arrive. There on the ground was a steamy bundle of wet fur that was only minutes old. I watched with awe as I usually do, then I detected a new noise. The goats always make the usual noise, but this noise was much higher pitched. When I found the source of the noise, I found another baby. Mom had twins! Jackie & I watched with interest over the next couple of days to see what would happen.

On the third day, Jackie announced that one of the babies was looking real weak and that she had observed the mother walking away when ever the baby tried to suckle. She suggested that we take the baby and bottle feed it before it died.

Something must be wrong with the baby for the mother to reject it. It would surely die if we didn’t take action.

Well, that’s how the story begins. We named her Darlin and Jackie became her “mom.”

At night to keep her calm while we slept, Jackie kept a hand on her in her box. She even took her to work and kept her in a box under her desk during the day (A goat? How absurd is that?).

We found a small dog harness that fit and made a leash to lead her when needed. Hourly visits to the front yard kept the accidents to a minimum in the house. Darlin figured out what to do as soon as she hit the yard.

It was quite a sight to see how trained she was becoming.

One morning, when Jackie’s son was on his way to work, he heard a lady complaining on a radio talk-show about a silly neighbor who had a goat in their bac yard in Jacksonville. The conversation was one of awe and disbelief. Jackie’s son then called the radio station and declared, “I don’t know what the big deal is. My mother has a goat living in her house!”

As Darlin got bigger over time, her activities in the house became a little harder to stifle. She was a San Clemente goat and they are very athletic. Jumping was her favorite game— next to stealing paper, that is.

Why she could steal a piece of paper from the middle of a pile like a magician would jerk a table cloth from a set table.

Sometimes we got the paper back and sometimes not.

Just after last Thanksgiving when my mother passed away, I was visiting with my brother and sister at a restaurant. We were talking about Mom’s old RV and I mentioned that I couldn’t find the title for it and it had a corner chewed off by the goat.

My niece laughed and said, “Uncle Johnny! You made that up. That can’t be true. You’re just telling a lie”. My brother and sister looked at me and laughed.

I declared it to be the real truth and explained about raising several motherless kids that would otherwise have died. The title went missing a corner after she had snuck into

Boy, is that an Ugly Dog!

Our living history activities often took us off somewhere for the weekend, so she went along. Her place was at Jackie’s feet while in the car. At rest stops or gas stations, her leash would go on and she would be allowed to walk around and leave little jewels like any other pet. She often drew attention from other travelers, especially the children. One day, three children wondered over while Jackie and Darlin were exploring the grass in front of a gas station. A boy among two girls exclaimed, “Boy, is that an ugly dog!” An older sister said, “That’s not a dog, stupid. That’s a goat”! He blinked in surprise and said, “Oh! That’s a cute goat.”

Darlin wasn’t always welcomed wherever we went. When we visited Jackie’s family in Georgia one weekend, her Aunt was not happy with a goat in her house, even if it was a baby.

Mom’s room and stole the document from a pile that Mom was sorting. If I ever find that title, I’ll have to mail it to my sister to validate the story.

Darlin was the first of at least four kids to be saved from a young death. We only kept her in the house through the worst of the winter. Jackie made her a little sweater to wear outside in cold weather. although she had out grown the house, she still traveled with us on weekends. That space at Jackie’s feet got smaller and smaller as Darlin got bibber and bigger. After a time we had to move her to the floor behind Jackie. Darlin didn’t like the move at all.

A good friend and mentor, Mariah, had told us about raising young kids. When they are shunned by their moms, it usually means that there isn’t enough milk or the kid is not healthy.

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Mamma’s Kitchen

For as long as there has been man, and for as long as man has been eating, there have been myths, taboos and spiritual beliefs about food. There are hundreds of fascinating beliefs and superstitions; in fact a Google search on the phrase “sinfully delicious” will yield 303,000 references, Dangerously Delicious will yield 449,000 references. From the dawn of time some foods have been considered lucky, others were to be avoided; while some were highly prized and sought after, they were politically or theologically forbidden. One such belief is that raw hen eggs tossed into the lap of a woman who desires pregnancy, will, in some mystical way ward off infertility. This practice was “forbidden by the church” as evil superstition . I hope to address a few of the more common beliefs that were popular during the 15th through 18th centuries.

Mandrake, an herb used in the 16th through 18th centuries as an anesthetic during operations, was widely used for other medicinal purposes. It was believed to be alive, and that the root, which took the form of a man, was dangerous to even dig up.

It was said that the root, when dug, screamed and moaned and that anyone who heard it would surly die just from hearing it.

The mandrake, known as “Satin’s apple”, had a lush yellow fruit with a strong apple smell. The plant was said to be useful in warding off demons and

by JACKIE SHAFFER, Havana as a beautiful ornamental plant, but was very slow to be accepted into the kitchen. It was its perceived aphrodisiac qualities that finally contributed to its popularity. The belief that the tomato was poisonous was reinforced by the fact that, when eaten by the wealthy, they often became sick. The poor man, on the other hand did not seem to have this problem. This is easy to understand when you study the eating habits during the 15th and early 16 the centuries. The less fortunate ate from wooden plates with wooden spoons. The more prosperous could afford pewter. The high acid content of the tomato leeched the lead from the pewter causing lead sickness. Of course the tomato was blamed because other foods could be eaten from the plates without ill effects; therefore logically it had to be the tomato. By the mid 18th

Sinfully & Dangerously Delicious!

for the removal of demons from the sick. The fruit was sometimes called a “love apple”, and caused the eater to loose their inhibitions; however, too much fruit could drive one to insanity or madness from its strong narcotic properties. It was used widely in southern Europe and less so in the northern countries. Possession of the root was one of the crimes, supposedly, that contributed to Joan of Arch’s fate. It was claimed that mandrakes grow beneath the gallows trees where murders were hanged.

The Tomato’s fruit, though red, was very similar to the mandrake fruit, thus it was also called the “love apple”.

The tomato plant itself resembled the deadly nightshade.

Though the tomato’s history dates back to about 700 A.D. it was not introduced to Europe until the 16th century. In Spain and the southern European countries the tomato was more quickly accepted as an edible plant. The fruits resemblance to the mandrake helped, I’m sure. In the northern European countries, where the mandrake was shunned as poisonous and the effects of deadly nightshade were well known, the tomato was revered 30

century these beliefs were dispelled and the tomato had won it place in the hearts of people the world over, of course by then glass and china plates had become more affordable and more popular.

No food says “I love you” more than chocolate, and so it has ever been. Native to South America, the Aztecs used it for money—the price of one egg was three beans. It too was considered

an aphrodisiac. The cocoa leaf is the raw ingredient for cocaine; its leaves have been chewed for thousands of years to provide energy and relief for certain ailments. The name Cocoa literally means “food of the Gods.” Because of its high value peasants were not allowed to eat it, or more appropriately drink it, since chocolate was first served as a drink, mixed with water and pepper. It was introduced to Europe in the 15th century, and gained popularity very quickly. It was its aphrodisiac properties that was almost its undoing, banned by the church, by several kings and even a Queen or two forbade its use.

Garlic was shunned by some as a “stinking rose” that caused bad breath and flatulence. There was a period of time when flatulence and halitosis was somewhat acceptable among the more “common folk”, but “polite company”, meaning the more prosperous, looked down upon this as an ailment of the “commoners.” Probably because, while the herbs were readily available to most, the more elite could afford more costly herbs and spices to flavor their dishes and thus garlic, onions and leeks were not used as prominently in the kitchens of the more well to do. Then, on the other hand, some believed Garlic purified the blood, and made one healthy and strong. A tea brewed from garlic, barley, and sour wine was served to Roman legionnaires daily and was attributed to their health and thus their success in battle.

Garlic, leeks and onions have been used for generations as a purgative. A pot full of these herbs boiled, drained, and placed on the chest of an ailing victim was a sure fire cure for pneumonia and as a preventative of asthma attacks.

The use of Garlic dates back some 4,000 years or more, and has been mainly associated with good luck. There were many beliefs

and superstitions surrounding Garlic and its supernatural and healing properties. The infamous necklace of garlic used to ward off werewolves, vampires and other evil spirits is well known throughout history. In the middle ages it was believed that garlic could prevent the plague. Garlic was the main ingredient in an ointment used in the treatment of gangrene and other flesh wounds during the 18th and 19th centuries. It was and is believed to contribute to a strong and healthy heart.

Even today many people eat a daily helping of garlic to thin their blood and keep them healthy.

And finally, a look at America’s number one breakfast drink—coffee. Banned by the catholic priests because it caused over activity, it was presented to Pope Clement VIII in 1600 so he could proclaim it “officially banned” by the church. He decided to taste the drink and liked it so well that he “baptized” it and proclaimed it fit for consumption. The priests soon accepted it, learning that it would keep them awake for their evening prayers. One of the little known proclamations of the Boston tea party in 1773 was to make it “patriotic” to drink coffee instead of tea. And of course like most other popular foods of the 18th century, it too was associated with increased sexuality. It bears noting that the 18th century must have been the age of sexual enlightenment because almost every popular food you read about in that time period was considered an aphrodisiac. I guess that accounts for the frivolity at the English court at that time.

Of course this does not even begin to touch on the subject of food taboos, superstitions, and beliefs. The religious aspects alone have filled many hundreds of volumes. Herb lore and medicinal plant histories have been recorded since the 12th centuries and beyond. The study of forbidden food amazingly includes everything from ambrosia to zucchini.• Sinfully Delicious, Banned by the Church-Confections a.k.a. 17th century Rum Balls Mix 2 1/2 cups of crushed shortbread with half a measure (1 1/4 cup) of chopped nuts, 1 cup shaved cane sugar (powdered for the more modern cook), 1 1/2 tbsp. cocoa powder, a dash of salt, 1/2 cup of dark rum or brandy, and 2 1/2 Tbs of cane syrup (corn syrup can be substituted). Form into small balls chill and serve. Warning these are rather potent.

Dangerously Delicious Ale Soupe After sautéing finely grated or chopped carrots, leeks, celery, and mushrooms cook in the soupe made of a stock of reduced chicken fat ( chicken broth), for 5 minutes. Add anise, basil, salt, and pepper to taste. Add a flagon (about a quart) of ale and a pound of grated sharp cheese. Cook for about a quarter hour and serve over a crust of stale bread.

Note to historical cooks: Celery was used as a medicinal herb prior to 16th century, when it became popular throughout Europe, and in 17th century France, in soups and stews. Carrots were used as a treatment for everything from syphilis to dog bites until about the 15th century. Yellow (orange) carrots were cultivated in Holland in the 16th century. Reportedly their popularity spread throughout Europe during the 16th century as a flavoring for soups and stews by the “common people”. White, red, and black carrots were well known in Europe prior to the 16th century and were used mostly as medicinal herbs.

Ugly Dog continued from page 29

They can tell. Caring for them sometimes leads to expensive vet bills and the goat dies anyway. Darlin lasted a couple of years. I knew she wasn’t healthy because she coughed a lot.

We put her in with the heard. The heard didn’t accept her at first making it hard for her to get food. I came home from work one day and found her dead. It was no real surprise. Other young kids never made it passed a couple of days before passing. It jerks your heart out, but we know we tried our best.

A half-brother and sister were saved from different situations where one was shunned and the other lost her mother and twin sister when the mother dropped dead shortly after their births. I raised them at the San Luis Historic site where I worked at the time. Bottle fed animals often bond easily with visiting children and these two were no exception. They learned to play games with the children at summer camp that year. Bandit is still with us. His half-sister got pneumonia and died that winter. Bandit and a younger doe will move to San Luis to live in their introductory program of having animals of historic breeds. It has some chickens that every one loves. The two goats have already stolen

their hearts at a recent event held there.

Animals are so human-like,.. or is it that humans are so anima- like? Well, that’s another story!

A note about San Clemente Island Goats

San Clemente Island is located off the coast of southern California. It is owned by the U.S. government and used and managed by the U.S. Navy. Feral goats, probably of Spanish orgin, have inhabited the island for several centuries, possibly since the 1500’s. Later introductions may have come from the mainland Franciscan missions during the 1600-1700’s, while farmers were responsible for later introductions.

The U.S. Navy became responsible for the island in 1934. Hunting and trapping were allowed, but in 1972, when a survey concluded that there were 11,000 goats on the island, a systematic removal program was begun.

By 1980 an estimated 4,000 goats still remained on the island.

The Navy then proposed a shooting program to be conducted from helicopters, but was blocked in court by an animal welfare group, the Fund for Animals. This group used helicopters and nets to capture the goats, then took them off the island and found homes for htem across the country. Practically all the goats were removed from the island in this manner.

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July 1 Fernandina Beach 1st WEEKEND UNION GARRISON at Fort Clinch State Park. Living historians recreate life at Fort Clinch during the War Between the States. Activities may include black powder artillery demonstrations and marching drills, as well as soldiers and civilians taking up duty in the laundry, infirmary and kitchen Fees: Park entrance fee plus $2.00 per person Fort admission. Contact: 904-277-7274.

EVENTS & EXHIBITS PLEASE BE SURE TO CALL AHEAD FOR CHANGES IN EVENT SCHEDULES.

July is FLORIDA STATE PARKS MONTH June 24-December St. Petersburg Haunted History” exhibit will offer thought provoking 3-D images of ghosts, audiovisual special effects and folklore passed down within the Tampa Bay area for decades. The St. Petersburg Coliseum, Renaissance Vinoy Hotel, Ft. Desoto, Egmont Key and the Skyway Bridge are among the familiar landmarks being featured in this exhibit. Bring the entire family out for a day of mystic and intrigue. The “Haunted History” exhibit runs from.

For more information on the exhibit or daily hours please call 727-894-1052.

July 10-14 St.Petersburg Island Explorers summer camp at Weedon Island Preserve Cultural and History Center. 9am-4pm. Explores the interactions between humans and their environment through time in the coastal ecosystems of Pinellas County. Campers hike, wade and canoe through various coastal environments of Weedon Island Preserve. A trip to Shell Key Preserve to study a barrier island system is also part of this program. Participants play the roles of marine biologist, ecologist and archaeologist throughout this fun-filled week. Who should attend: Campers entering 6th through 8th grades in August 2006. Registration: limited to 20 campers. Camp fees are $125/week/camper. Registration is on a first-come basis. Before camp care, beginning at 7:30 a.m., is available for participants in several camps beginning at 9:00 a.m.

An additional fee of $35 will apply for this service. Contact: 727453-6500. Website: http://www.pinellascounty.org/Environment July-August Osprey 1/2 Price Day at Historic Spanish Point. To celebrate the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, Historic Spanish Point is offering 1/2 price admission for all visitors during the months of July, August and September.º Come visit and take an early morning or late afternoon stroll through the breezy, shaded grounds.º Remember, members always receive free admission. 337 North Tamiami Trail • Osprey, FL 34229 Contact: 941-966-5214 or diane@historicspanishpoint.org

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July 4 Miami O L D - FA S H I O N E D 4 T H O F J U LY P I C N I C a t T h e Barnacle Historic State Park 11 AM - 3:30 PM. What better way to spend the Fourth than at an old-fashioned picnic on the grounds of this historic, 19th century pioneer home site.

Hosted by The Barnacle Society, this event features lawn games, kite-making, knot-tying demonstrations, antique cars and more! The house and grounds will be decorated in traditional July 4th bunting, as it was when Commodore Munroe’s family lived here. The public is invited to join the staff and volunteers by wearing a period costume or ‘Roaring 20s’ bathing suit. Bring a blanket and a picnic lunch and enjoy the day’s celebration. Fees: $5.00 - 12 years and older; $2.00 - ages 6-12; under 6 – free. Contact: 305-442-6866.

July 16-18 Miccosukee/Miami ANNUAL EVERGLADES MUSIC & CRAFTS FEST. This festival not only focuses on the many facets of Native American Heritage, but comes complete with an international array of arts & crafts, music and food celebrating the many ethnic cultures of Greater Miami and the beaches. Experience alligator wrestling, airboat ride and more, all in the unique setting of the Miccosukee Indian Village, 30 miles west of Miami on S.W. 8th Street. Contact: 305-223-8380.

July 17 - 22 Homosassa Springs WILDLIFE WEEK IN THE PARK SUMMER CAMP PROGRAM at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park The Friends offer a two week-long summer camp program for children. Each morning Monday through Friday features a different program focusing on the different wildlife that resides in the park. A graduation ceremony is held on Saturday morning. Fees: $35.00 per child. Contact: 352-628-5343.

July 19 Newberry DOCENT PROGRAM at Dudley Farm Historic State Park 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Dudley Buildings and their stories. Fees: If you join the group as a volunteer, there is no park fee to attend. Contact: 352-472-1142.

July 19-23 Orlando PANAMA CANAL SOCIETY ANNUAL REUNION at the Caribe Royal All-Suites Resort and Convention Center at 8101 World Center Drive. Visit the Panama Canal Museum exhibit on the Military in the Canal Zone from WWII through 1999. Also visit the Museum Gift Shop in the vendor room. For more info about the Panama Canal Museum call 394-9338 or visit website at www.pancanalmuseum.org

August 5 Bushnell WWII Commemorative Day at Dade Battlefield State Historic Park . About 100 re-enactors and members of the Military Vehicle Preservation Association will portray the nations and military branches involved in the global conflict, marking the 61st anniversary of the war’s end. Programs include uniform and weapons demonstrations throughout the day. Re-enactors will also compete in a “most authentic GI and soldier contest.” Food and drinks available. Admission $3 per vehicle. Contact: (352) 793-4781.

August 5 Deland A D AY I N F L O R I D A H I S TO RY O F D E L E O N SPRINGS at De Leon Springs State Park, 9:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m. Highlighting this exciting day is a reenactment of a skirmish between soldiers’ and settlers of the early 1800’s and Seminole Indians, complete with actual weapons of the period. Also, explore an authentic Indian village and soldier’s encampment, examine Indian artifacts, old rifles and weapons, artisans, and join in the performance of Indian dances. Fees: Admission

by Donations. Contact: donna.collins@dep.state.fl.us August 5 – 6 Fernandina Beach FIRST WEEKEND UNION GARRISON at Fort Clinch State Park. Saturday, 9 – 5, Sunday 9-Noon. Living historians recreate life at Fort Clinch during the War Between the States.

Activities may include black powder artillery demonstrations and marching drills, as well as soldiers and civilians taking up duty in the laundry, infirmary and kitchen.

Park entrance fee plus $2.00 per person Fort admission.

Contact: 904-277-7274.

August 5 St Petersburg 3rd ANNUAL INDIAN STUFF FLUTE EXTRAVAGANZA. 11 am. For the third year in a row Gulf Coast Florida’s finest flute makers & flute players will be at Native Earth Cultural Center at Indian Stuff for a day of good flute playing. Featuring Joseph Z, Benjamin Dehart, Charlie Cox, Dock Silverhawk, Lydia Swystun, Richard Schrei, Leather Betty Denehy, Phil Penne and Abasi Ote. So, c’mon down.

Bring your flutes, your drums, your ears, your hearts & your spirits. Flute playing (& flute listening) doesn’t get any better than this. Located at 1064 Fourth Street North. Contact: º727-821-8186 or Email: indianstuff1064@yahoo.com August 6 CrossCreek MKR BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION at Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park 2:30 p.m. until 4:00 p.m.

Description: Each year ’s event is somewhat different.

Usually held on the weekend day close to Rawlings August 9th birthday, combining music, cake and ice cream, and a speaker or program to highlight Rawlings’ work.

Free with park admission. Contact: 352-466-3672.

August 16 Newberry DOCENT PROGRAM at Dudley Farm H i s t o r i c S t a t e P a r k 1 0 a m t o 11 : 0 0 a m

F i e l d Tr i p . F e e s : I f y o u j o i n t h e g r o u p a s a v o l u n t e e r, t h e r e i s n o p a r k f e e t o a t t e n d .

Contact: For more information, call 352-472-1142.

Directions: Dudley Farm Historic State Park is located 4 miles east of Newberry on SR 26.

August 31 Ocala SILVER SPRINGS AND THE FLORIDA AQUIFER Silver River State Park 5 pm - 8 pm. Silver River Museum & Environmental Education Center present Tom Greenalgh and Harley Means of the Florida Geological Survey. They will present a discussion about the Floridian Aquifer, Silver Springs, water quality and impacts to this system from development and pollution. Museum Open House from 5 - 7 pm, lecture begins at 7 pm. Admission is free but seating is limited. Admission is free; .

Reservations are required. Please call 352-236-5401.

Contact: deborah.wilson@dep.state.fl.us September 2-3 Fernandina Beach FIRST WEEKEND UNION GARRISON at Fort Clinch State Park Saturday 9 am– 5pm & Sunday 9 am-Noon . Living historians recreate life at Fort Clinch during the War Between the States. Activities may include black powder artillery demonstrations and marching drills, as well as soldiers and civilians taking up duty in the laundry, infirmary and kitchen. Park entrance fee plus $2.00 per person Fort admission. Contact: 904-277-7274.

September 2-4 Dade City 32ND ANNUAL PIONEER DAYS FESTIVAL AT PIONEER FLORIDA MUSEUM & VILLAGE, CIVIL WAR BATTLE Please do not arrive before 4 pm on Friday. No battle on Saturday. Reeactors may relax and prepare all day Saturday for the battles on Sunday (the 4th) and Monday (the 5th). Battles will be at 3pm on Sunday and at 2:30pm on Monday. There will be no ball. There is limited authentic and modern camping.

Artillery Registration, contact Scott (Bob) Anderson at suttler7@knology.net Contact: Pioneer Florida Museum and Village at curator@pioneerfloridamuseum.org September 16 Ocala MARION COUNTY SPRINGS FESTIVAL at Silver River State Park. 9am – 4 pm The 5th Annual Marion County Springs Festival promises to be a memorable event! Educational displays, lectures and vendors focus on preserving and protecting Marion County’s many springs. This year the legislative/media day will be held at Silver Springs Attraction (by invitation only) on Sept 15th. The main public event will be held at Silver River State Park on Sept 16th. Coupons will be given out so that you may visit a spring of your choice on Sunday, Sept 17th at reduced or no cost. This is a ‘rolling’ event held at a different Marion County Spring each year.

Silver River and Friends of Silver River are pleased to be hosting this year. For more details please visit the website at www.springsfest.org. Park entry fee for this event is $1.00 per person. Contact: deborah.wilson@ dep.state.fl.us 33

September 16 Crystal River SUNDAY IN THE PARK at Crystal River Preserve State Park. 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. A leisurely stroll will guide visitors around the ADA accessible 1/3 of a mile boardwalk at the park’s Churchhouse Hammock Trail.

The walk will include some historical components as well as information about the habitat and any wildlife viewed. This area of the park is some of the last remaining natural areas found on Kings Bay. Please note - the river cannot be viewed from this trail.

Free. Contact: 352-563-0450 2nd Wednesday of Every Month

Bradenton HISTORY DETECTIVES hosted by Reflections of Manatee.

The group searches out unknown facts and returns the following month with their findings. Bring a bag lunch,drinks and desert is provided. The group meets every second Wednesday at Indian Springs Park/Playground at 11:30 am. 1312 2nd Ave. E. Bradenton, Fl. From I75 take exit 220West, (SR64),proceed to 14th St. E. and turn right. Go two blocks, park is on the left at 2nd Ave. Children welcome. Contact: Jeff & Trudy Williams: 941-746-2035 or Email: reflectionsofmanatee@msn.com

Let’s Dance the Night Away!

September 30 Pinellas Park BLUE AND GREY COTILLION. 8pm to 11pm. Pinellas Park Civic Auditorium. All Civil War reenactors both Federal and Confederate are welcome. Period correct dress requested but not required. Sponsored by the 97th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Company A. Beginning at 8:00 PM until 11:00pm at the Pinellas Park Civic Auditorium, 7690 59th Street. The 97th Pennsylvania String Band to provide music. Admission $10.00 per person or $18.00 per couple at the door. No advance ticket sales. For information, check the website at www.angelfire.com/ pa5/97pavolinf/2005cotillion.html or coa_97thpa@hotmail.com

     Looking continued from page 28

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Since the time that Abraham Maslov developed his hierarchy of needs in 1942, our ability to test large numbers of people and to process the raw material has increased dramatically. Our understanding of genetic information is constantly expanding. The debate over nature verses nurture has allowed us to explore human behavior from a wider perspective.

It is important to reevaluate Maslov’s hierarchy of needs, not as right versus wrong, but as a process of growth in understanding humankind. Steven Reiss, Ph.D. has started that process in his book “Who Am I?” The bottom of Maslov’s needs pyramid grounds us in our relationship with the planet and its resources. Fundamentally, we are biological creatures responding to our environment with cultural perspectives built upon the land in which we live.

I like Maslow’s environmental foundation and Riess’ focus on individual personality and choice. But a comparison between the two is one of apples and oranges. I don’t think that Dr. Riess would have gotten the same results had he run his tests in Russia, China, or Uganda.

MASLOV’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS Maslov explained motivation in a different manner, emphasizing not that we are driven primarily to achieve equilibrium, but that we are motivated by growth through the satisfaction of our needs. Once one level of needs is satisfied we move to “higher” levels.

Physiological needs: for food, sex, rest, physical comfort Safety needs: for freedom from physical harm Social needs: for affection, companionship, inclusion Ego needs: for respect and social status Self-actualization needs: for opportunities to develop one’s talents and potential.

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fully understood the power of metaphor. For the Calusa, any one of these spirits could get sick.

Humans have always appreciated the differences between the sexes. The idea that they donn’t know how reproduction works is modern nonsense. When we look at the world around us, we bombarded by reproduction. Flowers shout the story.

Pines and oaks fill the air with their pollen in the spring.

Animals are obsessed by it. It’s how life renews itself and adapts to change.

Native American medicine acknowledges that their is a split along male and female lines. Because European civilization was oriented toward male dominance, we tended to look at male medical practices within a culture. American Indians not only recognized that medicine is divided along male and female lines, they saw that medicine itself has a tendency to be male or female. Certain plants are male and certain plants are female. Some plants change in their preference during their yearly cycle. Medicine men did not need to understand the female side of medicine. Native people believed that “feminine medicine” could sap the medicine of a medicine man. There are even tribes in South America today, who would consider you crazy if you asked a medicine man about “female medicine.”

Our male-oriented society simply lost the feminine side of North American medicine by always talking to medicine men. After all, what could women have to say? On top of that, most of our of our native people were matrilineal. Oops. In most of the contact Florida’s nations, men and women shared equal status. From the Timucua there is evidence that women became great chiefs. The women’s economic contribution of gathering in a rich estuarine environment helped cement equality between the sexes.

Why should all this matter? Why should we find interest in a people who vanished hundreds of years ago? Because their lessons are our lessons. What we don’t learn will be to our detriment as citizens of this Florida landscape in the future.•

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Plus special thanks to our FRIENDS: Dawn Fisher, Gulfport Jim Brennan, St. Petersburg

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Community Spirit Partners CENTRAL GULF COAST ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY P.O. Box 9507, Treasure Island, FL 33740 www.fasweb.org/chapters/warmmineralsprings.htm

NATIVE EARTH CULTURAL CENTER AT INDIAN STUFF 1064 4th Street N, St. Petersburg, FL 33701 727-821-8186 www.orgsites.com/fl/ourstory

COLLIER COUNTY MUSEUM 3301 Tamiami Trail East, Naples, FL 34112 941-774-8476 www.colliermuseum.org

ORANGE COUNTY REGIONAL HISTORY CENTER 65 East Central Boulevard, Orlando, Florida 32801 407-836-8500 www.thehistorycenter.org

DUNEDIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY & MUSEUM 349 Main Street, Dunedin, FL 34697 727-736-1176 www.ci.dunedin.fl.us/dunedin/historical-society

PANAMA CANAL MUSEUM 7985 113th Street, Suite 100,Seminole, FL 33772 727-394-9338 www.panamacanalmuseum.org

FLORIDA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY SW 34th St. & Hull Rd. Gainesville FL 32611 352-846-2000 www.flmnh.ufl.edu

PAST TYMES (Living History Educators) 745 N.E. 117 St., Biscayne Park, FL 33161 305-895-7317 www.pasttymeproductions.com

FORT CHRISTMAS 1300 Fort Christmas Road, Christmas, FL 32709 407-568-4149 www.nbbd.com/godo/FortChristmas

PENSACOLA HISTORICAL SOCIETY 117 E. Government Street, Pensacola, FL 32502 850-434-5455 www.pensacolahistory.org

GAMBLE PLANTATION PRESERVATION ALLIANCE 3708 Patten Avenue, Ellenton, Florida 34222 www.floridastateparks.org/gambleplantation

THE PIER AQUARIUM 800 2nd Avenue NE, St. Petersburg, FL 33701 727-895-7437 www.pieraquarium.org

GULF BEACH HISTORICAL MUSEUM 115 10th Avenue, St. Pete Beach, FL 33706 727-552-1610

RANDELL RESEARCH CENTER PO Box 608, Pineland, FL 33945 239-283-2062 www.flmnh.ufl.edu/sflarch/pineland.htm

HERITAGE OF THE ANCIENT ONES 4335 290th Terrace, Branford. FL 32008 386-935-6573 www.ancientnative.org

SACRED LANDS PRESERVATION & EDUCATION 1620 Park Street N., St. Petersburg, FL 33710 727-347-0354 www.sacredlandspreservationandeducation.org

THE HERITAGE MUSEUM 115 Westview Ave., Valparaiso, FL 32580 850-678-2615 www.heritage-museum.org

SAFETY HARBOR MUSEUM OF REGIONAL HISTORY 329 Bayshore Blvd. S., Safety Harbor, FL 34695 727-726.-668 www.safety-harbor-museum.org

HERITAGE VILLAGE AT PINEWOOD CULTURAL PARK 11909 125th Street N., Largo, FL 33774 727-582-2123 www.pinellascounty.org/heritage/default.htm

ST. PETERSBURG MUSEUM OF HISTORY 335 Second Avenue NE, St. Peterburg, FL 33707 727-894-1052 www.stpetemuseumofhistory.org

INDIAN ROCKS BEACH HISTORICAL SOCIETY P.O. Box 63, Indian Rocks Beach, FL 33785 727-593-3861 www.indian-rocks-beach.com/historical_ society.html/

TAMPA BAY HISTORY CENTER 225 S. Franklin Street, Tampa, FL 33602 813-228-0097 www.tampabayhistorycenter.org

MATHESON MUSEUM 513 E. University Avenue, Gainesville, FL 32601 352-378-2280 www.mathesonmuseum.org MUSEUM OF FLORIDA ART & CULTURE at SFCC 600 West College Drive, Avon Park, FL 33825-9356 863-784-7240 www.mofac.org

THE TRAIL OF THE LOST TRIBES Toll Free - 877-621-6805 www.trailofthelosttribes.org WARM MINERAL SPRINGS/ LITTLE SALT SPRING ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY P.O. Box 7797, North Port, FL 34287 www.fasweb.org/chapters/warmmineralsprings.htm

Join the team for only $50.00 a year.

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