Land of Giants Part 4 Of Strawberries, Bread Pudding and Sopchoppy

In the afternoon of June 1967 our family arrived at new home on West Noble Avenue in Williston, Florida. We had returned from my father serving as the Alumni Director of Asbury College, Wilmore, Kentucky. Returning to the United Methodist Florida Conference, the parsonage was an older but comfortable wood house next to the church as was our house in Sopchoppy. The Pastor Parrish Committee headed by Mrs Emma Rutland and Joyce Bullock arrived to welcome us to our new home.
The next morning I saw these two grown men bringing watermelons and leaving them on the back porch. I told mamma and she went to the door. It was Bill and Jack Whitehurst and I learned they were my age.  Fear arose in me. If all the boys were as large in this strange town, I was in deep trouble.
The Williston Church is a beautifully crafted structure of historical value, similar to the workmanship that went into the Monticello Methodist Church. With the semi-circle congregation and the upper balcony and the beautiful stained-glass windows, it was and continues as a pleasing testimony of giving God the finest.
With each passing Sunday through the summer, I learned that not all the boys were giants and Orville Wheeler, a coach of the Williston JV basketball team from West Virginia, who attended our church, said he looked forward to this Kentucky boy trying out for the basketball team.
My father set about creating his workshop from the storage room at the end of the educational wing to the rear of the church and planting a small garden between the church and parsonage. I am sure he got permission from Mrs Rutland. There was a basketball court with four goals across the street from our house complete with lights so I spent the first summer shooting into the evening.
My father immediately went about making acquaintances with the members of the church, visiting their homes which was a strong point of his ministry. He became close friends with the Whitehurst families, the sons of Pappy, the elder Whitehurst, Bill, Elliot and Dan. It was Pappy and my father, along with Elliot who were the closest. My father spent many days at the cattle roundups on their vast farm plus fishing on the lakes on their property between Gainesville and Williston. One of the most looked forward to events in Williston was a Whitehurst Bar-b-que  at their lodge with the unique sauce Pappy concocted, along with the tender meat of the beef , elk and buffalo  they served. Gracious people, though well off, none exuded wealth or paraded their status. They were of a genuine, humble stock which endeared them to many of lesser means.
To make my summer days go faster, my father secured me a job at $1 an hour working for Mr Mixon in his hay fields. I recall the first day Mr Mixon put me on one of the tractors to teach me how to drive it. I let out the clutch too soon, nearly running him over. I am sure if I wasn't the Preachers son, he would have fired me on the spot. He persisted with me and I progressed to the point he would take me to a field out from Montbrook and leave me the entire day to bale, turn or cut hay, then pick me up in the afternoon.
No phones or communication, one day I broke down and just sat all day under a tree waiting for him to return.
The square hay bales now stacked and in the barn, my summer job came to an end. It was time to make that walk up the hill from the house and enter the 7th grade at Williston High. We all met in the auditorium and without any announcement for quiet, behind me, you could hear the rows going silent as Coach Sammy Smith entered and made his way to the front. Coach Smith commanded fear and respect just by his intense look, more than any coach I have ever known. Principal Powell came to the podium and made his welcomes and the new year had begun. The bell rang and we rushed to our home rooms.
My mother again found a job teaching a combination of the 5th and 6th grades in nearby Bronson.
Her mother came from Bluefield, West Virginia to live with us and keep my younger brother Lewis who was only four at the time we arrived.
Williston like many small North Central Florida towns was a farming community, primarily peanuts and watermelons and other seasonal crops. The Fugates had large peanut farms with processing plants and were a large part of the local economy. Many people commuted to nearby Gainesville for jobs at the University or many businesses. A spur railroad line from Archer to Romeo and Dunnellon ran through Williston at the time and would make a stop at the station on Noble and Main Streets.
The fall of sixty-seven, I made the junior varsity football team as a wide receiver. While the Whitehurst three horsemen of Bill, Jack and Monty all started on the line, I rarely played, but the coach knew I was fast.
My chance came one evening at an away game in Trenton. It was fortunate that my father was in attendance, as his busy schedule kept him from most of my games. The coach called for a fly route, which meant I was to go deep. I lined out wide to the left and ran as fast as my legs could carry. Carey Chandler let loose a high spiral which came my way into the zone, of which I dropped. I ran back to the bench dejected.
The next series of plays, we again found ourselves at midfield. The coach called for Stokes. He was giving me another chance. This time as I made the end zone, the ball landed and I clutched it tight for my first touchdown. A large roar went from our bench and from the stands, my fathers voice I heard above all," Way to go John!" All the way to the locker room that night, the Whitehurst boys could be heard yelling out my name! It was quite a night.
The varsity boys were not faring as well that year, but were holding back for what was to be one of the most memorable years in Williston Red Devil football history.
Under the intimidating and in your face coaching style of Coach Sammy Smith, in the fall of 1968, Williston made it as far as the  Class B State Final game against the Delray Beach Carver Eagles, an all black school. The game was played at the old downtown Williston City Stadium and not a seat was to be found. As the Carver men came onto the field, a hush descended with their size and numbers and they waved their arms bird-like slowly up and down as they paraded confidently around the entire field. With many of our players sick with the flu that evening, including our star half back Jackie Standridge, the dirty dozen boys lost a heart breaking game 39 to 9. Devils go for broke tonight went the headline. Varsity seniors whose names would live immorial in Williston Lore:  Hugo Legler,Flanker  Lee Chandler,End Mike Micheletti,tackle Jackie Standridge,halfback,Ralph Smith,flanker,Roy Stephens,quarterback,Emmitt Whitehurst,center,Buddy Gilley,Guard, Mike Smith,end,Danny Munden,tackle,Mark Smith,halfback and David Pitts,guard.
While the varisty boys were compiling their 11-1-1 season, in my second year of JV football, I was now the starting half back, emulating the great Jackie Standridge with long break away end around runs, led by the blocking of the Whitehurst boys and fullback Johnny Henry. The Yearbook annual staff caught me in full stride, captioning it "John makes a long haul".
While in the 7th and 8th grades I ran the 100 and 220 dashes since I was one of the fastest white boys. That soon came to an end as for the first time, Williston integrated with the East Williston Black school and I became after that an 180 low hurdler and middle distance runner in the 440 and mile relay.
But life for me was not all sports and as a true Stokes, my eyes soon turned to the girls of Williston.
The first girl I recall having a formal date with was Ann Brooks. It was a date to the United Methodist Church banquet. It was a double date of sorts as Eddie Inman, my first best friend in Williston along with his father driving us, took us there, then directly home. It was an on again and off again relationship as my ID bracelet got passed between her and Anita Micheletti. Then there was Pam Smith, daughter of Wesley and Annetta Smith. A time or two I went to her house and sat on her living room couch quietly, in fear of her father, several years before his conversion and forming the Wesley Smith Family Gospel singing group.
It was tough being a 7th grader and too old for this forth grader! I came to my senses for a time and Pam Standridge, a majorette my own age was my next girlfriend. Stranger still, my future wife, while I was an eigth grade vice president was in kindergarten with my brother, Melanie Eatman.
It was in a typing class that another girl caught my attention, the daughter of a teacher Jimmy Shelton, Melissa. Again, as the extremely shy person, our relationship never grew much beyond the typing class. Attempts were made to meet along with roads of Blue Grotto Springs near her home, but either I was too timid to come down from the trees or her mother called for her and she ran home.
And so, with the girls being a difficult proposition, my thoughts mainly dwelt upon sports.
It was the rebellious sixties and I was not immune to the rantings of the hippies and the teachings of Jerry Rubin, Abby Hoffman and Malcome X. My rebellion manifested in many ways, one being my hair, of which I tried to grow as long as possible. My dad would always prevail though and off to city barbers I would go. One particularly painful day, when Mr Griffis was occupied, I let his father cut my hair. Between his coughing fits and the clippers jerking erratically, I came out butchered and in tears.
The other form of rebellion was directed toward Coach Miller and his authoritarian rule over the school. I determined I would not play varsity football, which Coach Miller really wanted me to. Instead, to the realization of my mistake since, I decided to forgo football and concentrate on basketball. Problem was, with integration, I was the only white boy on the team, which meant I never got the ball to shoot after working as point guard to get it up court for my so called team mates. While they accepted me into their ranks, on the court, it was a quest of seeing who could compile the largest stats, and that did not include the white boy. As a consequence, we never won many games. The only real joy I had in basketball, my first love from Kentucky and under Coach Wheeler in JV, was from DeMolay. Demolay was the youth branch of the Masonic Lodge and under the leadership of Jay Burke,Mr Aderholt and later Joe Crane, we were able to compete in sports without the dominating black boys.
Our team consisting of Steve Moree, John Bolton, David Hassell, Eddie Inman and myself made it all the way to the state final two years, losing due to most of us catching food poisoning down in Hollywood. I also went to the state finals in track winning every event I entered including the 100, 220, 440 and 880. The other DeMolay boys did not appreciate us since we were not interested in the ritual aspects, only the sports. They really fumed I suppose when I won the title of Mr DeMolay and got to kiss the order of Eastern Star sweetheart from Ocala.
 On April 19th of 1969 while my mother was at the A&P, managed by Lewis Inman and Johnny Tyner, my grandmother Orander came from taking her bath and asked me for a drink of water. I said, "Oh Grandma!" and went into the kitchen to get it. When I came into the bedroom, she was laying on the bed and her false teeth fell out as she relaxed in death. She was trying to take her Nitro pill. I called out to her but she had a massive heart attack. I ran to the A&P and said to mamma," Something is bad wrong with grandmother, come!" I always felt guilty that the last words she heard on earth were my, "Oh grandmother!" The rebellion haunts.
We had a memorial service in the church then made the long drive to her home in Bluefield, West Virginia to be buried next to her husband Richard Orander who died in March of 1961.
In 1971 after taking the drivers education class with Mr Johns, I received my drivers license. My sister already had a car, a blue Volkswagen fastback which we now shared. It opened possibilities beyond my three speed Schwinn bicycle which could carry me only so far from town. We were now able to drive into Gainesville to the Mall, then out on 13th street with Sears on one end, down an escalator and through the stores to Maas Brothers on the other end. A mall was a new concept to us and nearly everyone in Williston could be seen at one time or another there. We were able to drive down to Dunnellon to the pristine Rainbow River and the KP swimming hole. Out to Devils Den and the large sink hole opening we dared jump down into, climbing back up the rope ladder. Out into the sand hills to visit the hippies. Over to Motion Sink to our cabin in the woods Eddie and I spent time thinking ourselves Thoreau's. To Ocala and the DeMolay sweetheart's home Eddie was dating, then onto the Silver River or Juniper Run.
Then off to Ft Walton Beach to visit our friend Michael "Wolfie" Parrish and search for vacationing Mississippi girls along the beaches of Destin. Gas was only 1.25 a gallon and there was always a gas war going on in Perry or other towns along the way.
While on the exterior I spent much time living down my image as a Preacher's son, the effects of my fathers Baptist style of evangelistic preaching was wearing upon my soul. Having been confronted a few years back in Wilmore by a persistent Seminary student about my spiritual state of life, I knew my soul was one in jeopardy.
But the peer pressure over rode and  I continued to sit in the back row rooms of the church and try not to listen to the sermons.
My senior year in 1973 arrived and I only participated in baseball and basketball. I gave up track my senior year, again out of rebellion due to Coach Tom Honea moving to East Carolina University and the cancelling of the 180 low hurdle race. As the movie said, "I could have been a contender"  if not for the rebellion.
A year earlier, in physics class under Emil Santiestiban, I purchased his Yashica P 35mm manual camera with a screw mount 135mm lens and a Sekonic light meter for $25.I was able to develop the black and white film in the school's darkroom. It was the beginning of a serious interest in photography. With the graduation money I received, I went to Harmon's in Gainesville and bought a Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic with a 50mm lens, lamenting not having enough for a Nikon.
It had the built in match needle light meter and I thought this a marvel, not to have and carry the Sekonic meter.
Graduation was at the football stadium by the Peanut sheller with my mom able to sit out on the field with the collected dignitaries. The hair was now long and styled, quite funny looking by today's bald standard.

A photo of my dad with his dour,sour look and my mom, with equally large hair and me, posing seriously, is a picture telling a thousand words.

With my sister already at Santa Fe Community College which then was located in downtown Gainesville across from where Alachua General Hospital was, I enrolled for the summer. We were still in the latter stages of the hippy era and the smell of pot was always in the air, the professors spacey and the students free spirits. I wanted to start out in biology and some medical field like respiratory therapy from working at the Williston Memorial Hospital in maintenance under Warner Morgan, but found the classes beyond my ability. I then switched to Art where my interest and ability resided. For two years I made A's in every class, quite a contrast to my C average high school career.

By 1973 the ten acres my father and mother had purchased in Wakulla from Mrs Towles in 1963 was taking shape. My father and I had made many trips over to Crawfordville to clear the land, plant fruit trees and plants, including blueberries and muscadine grapes. The old house with the cracker style four rooms and dog trot, built by the freed slave Mr Gavin, was furnished and habitable. We built a tool shed and my father again had a spacious place for his tools and a large garden. We loved going as a family and staying at the old tin roof house, with the long front porch under the large oaks. We could go over to Wakulla Springs again as we did as children living in Sopchoppy, hear again the old black men on the jungle boat calling for Henry the fish to jump the pole. We could go over to Mashes Sands out from Panacea and swim in the Gulf amid the many horse shoe crabs.  The Oak's Restaurant which we ate at on Sunday's years earlier was still open. And we could re-connect with our Sopchoppy friends as well, though I seldom saw them despite being near.

It was here we began the syrup making tradition, my father acquiring a 60 gallon kettle and Golden #2 syrup mill. He had Mr Snyder a local brickmason lay the bricks and chimney. We hooked up the Gravely tractor with the cart to the pole and locked the tractor into a turn. The tractor would go under its own power like a mule and we could feed the mill with the stalks we grew.

We called the syrup Old Homewood after my dad's birth town in Mississippi. We called the place at Crawfordville Pilgrim's Rest. It was my hopes to someday return to Crawfordville myself and live, but those hopes were dashed several years later.