A Yellowjacket lit beside me
Upon the blue enamel reminding
I too was once one
And I do not know if he came
to bid me home
You know
That sting of death thing
Ole Sopchoppy
The waters dark
Home of Murray and Walt
A good place to return
Before the pain of the sting
Sets in
John Clare Stokes
If it was left to me
When the blind man
Came to me
And with my first touch
He saw men
As trees walking
I'd have said
That's good enough
Go and create
With this vision that
Can see
Men as trees
And not as they are
Actually.
John Clare Stokes
Over the years I have occasionally visited the place of one of my most memorable races. Last year this time on our way back from Mississippi we detoured off I-10 monotony to the wonderfully landscaped West Washington US90 to Monticello and then down Waters Street between the Methodist Church my father pastored and the Jefferson County Elementary where I was a new third grader from Sopchoppy. We turned off Waters to the no trespassing road behind what was once the PE building. I went back to the day the coach announced today we are going to determine the fastest third grader. We all knew it was going to be Jimmy Haines, the champion from first and second grade.
We all lined up along the P.E.building and the instructions were to the guardrail, touch it and back up the hill. At the blast of the whistle, we all, boys and girls, set out in a tangle downhill. As expected, Jimmy reached the turn around first, but not far behind, the new boy from Sopchoppy.
About half way up the hill, the new kid surged ahead and handily won the honor of fastest runner in third grade. It was a door opener for the shy boy as now he was suddenly wanted on the team, in the group, at the lunchroom table.
The boy from Sopchoppy won few races over his running career, but he was certainly stoked to have won this one.
When we lived in Sopchoppy in the 50’s and 60’s, Laurice and Floride Roberts Standard Oil Station on the outskirts of town on HWY 319, was one of two places to get gas or have your vehicle or tractor worked on by Johnny B, the black mechanic. The snapshot inserted is of my father, Luther Ray, who passed away in 2011, and Laurice with his dog. Laurice died in 1997 and Floride in 2008.
Someone commented today on Old Florida, that the people of Sopchoppy were unfriendly. If so, it’s only because all the people I knew as a boy are buried out in West Florida Cemetery, and all the unfriendly have moved in from Tallahassee.
I think there were few towns like Sopchoppy in the 50’s and 60’s that epitomized Mayberry more.
Home of Florida Morrison Roberts, Sopchoppy, Florida. 1883-1976.
When we lived in Sopchoppy in the late fifties
Early sixties
Mrs Florida was the matron of town
A stalwart in the Methodist Church my father
pastored.
We spent many Sunday afternoons after church
eating dinner with Mrs Florida, her daughter Inez and her son Bonny Kaslo “BK”, then one of the Florida Supreme Court justices.
When my father would be out of town on a revival, we would stay with Mrs Florida. She would let me play shoe salesman with her button up shoes, trying them on her. Her down feather mattress guest bed was a dream to sleep in.
When Hurricane Dora came through, we stayed at Mrs Roberts, even though our concrete block parsonage was stronger than her wood and tin home.
Mrs Florida corresponded with us in letter up until her death in October of 1976. My father returned to conduct her funeral.
I now have Mrs Florida’s sweet letters and will always, next to Mrs Mary Roberts, who kept me, hold a place in my heart forever.
There are places given for those seeking
the never ending streams flowing from dreams
places to return time and again drifting
into the mists that are such a welcome gift.
John Clare Stokes
There are days
You could go either way
Days you wouldn’t mind
The current swift
Days you’d welcome a
Slow drift
Anything would do
The waters would determine
The journey
Not the destination
August was the time to begin putting in the miles for the October Gainesville Cycling Clubs century ride. It wasn't a leisurely ride and if you did not maintain at least a 16mph pace, you would finish long after everyone else. I do not think I shall have the time to devote to the miles necessary, as I did when my late friend Roger Sessler and I would ride at least thirty miles daily and seventy or more on Saturday's.
Kerr Breeze
It comes to you
Seems a refreshing
But hidden within
The twisting
The tearing
Beware the Kerr breeze
That gentle wind
Beckons you set sail
Oh how refreshing
But then the gale.
The crinoline lilies grow such tall stalks they cannot bear their cluster and soon fall before they have finished blooming. I try and stake them back up.
This one I hooked to the split rail.
There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
Facilitate beauty.
Prop up the weak
Etc
John Clare Stokes
When an old love dies
we don’t send flowers
we don’t attend visitation
we mourn in silence
among the hidden letters
after the grass has grown
the marble marker placed
we visit the lover
glance about lest some say
why lingered he there today?
