Journey with John Stokes

Friday, November 21, 2025

Basketball John

The Promise Land is West of Vicco

john clare

The boy next door continually kicked the football in the air. Over and above the privacy fence into the Florida blue sky. I do not think he possessed Tebow's spirit, for with every errant kick, expletive's went up with it, veiled in order to keep granny from chiding. Cursing in encryption.

I was once this boy. In the summer of the sixties, my three teen-age uncles from Homewood, Mississippi would board the Trailway's at Stokes Grocery to arrive at the Gulf Station in Sopchoppy. They would spend the summer with us.

It was my Uncle William Clark who took a special interest in me. Since he was a child, he too had caught the ball spirit and he was doing all he knew to pass it along to me. Never mind that I knew nothing of this gospel steeped in Miss State Bulldog theology. He was on the recruiting trail as this Uncle Rico-like fanatic would tell me over and over, go long! Go long! And the ball would soar over the mountains into Mr Laird's yard. He would come out scolding in his stern German accent, threatening to burn the ball. A regular Furher!

Coming from Vicco, Kentucky where I was taken home soon after being born in my mothers home of Bluefield, West Virginia, while I hadn't a clue, I lived close enough to the Mecca, Lexington and Adolph Rupp's Wildcats to have Caewood Ledford's smooth voice convert me.

The spirit of the round ball surfaced soon after we moved from Sopchoppy to Monticello. I had never made a hoop that I know of, but I had my father build me a basket and goal. And so the shooting began. Like myriads of boys in the homeland around Vicco, I too spent all my time around the dirt court. Though I loved football winning second place in the Punt, Pass and Kick, my first basketball game one night during half time of a Monticello Tiger basketball game. The third grade boys were split in two teams with the A competing with the B. My friend Marc Bishop and I were on the B team, competing against the talented Plaines brothers, Butch and Bobby. I made my first basket and first free throw finishing with a team high of three points. Even though we lost 6 to 5, basketball became my passion. We only stayed two years in Monticello and it was with joy we moved to Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, only a few miles from Memorial Gym on the Kentucky campus. Soon after my Uncle William arrived to live out back with Brother Billy. They were now in college and they took me to my only Kentucky basketball game against the Bulldogs. Sadly to me my hero's lost and I was not consoled, even with William taking me afterwards to the State locker to meet one of his friends, Chuck Wade, who helped defeat Pat and Louie!

But I was hooked. Not a Bulldog as William hoped, but a Wildcat.

After two short years we returned to Florida. In Williston I again spent all my time on the court by the house. I played on the JV and high school teams but never really excelled, though being blessed with the spirit, not the flesh. White man syndrome. Too stiff, too short, too white.. No jumping ability. But it did not quench the inner boy who always remained. Out on the court alone, his team in his head, Caywood in his head announcing, the crowd in his head cheering. And he Louie would dribble up the asphalt court. And he Louie would pass to Riley. And he Rily would work it in to Thad. Thad would toss it back to Louie at the top of the key who would swish it. String music Caywood would announce. The crowd went wild. Chuck Wade and State never beat UK again, in my mind.

Photo with my goal from Monticello.

Reprise

When Beach Bums...and Nikons...grandpaws and grandsons....converge...gulls laugh...waves clap...beyond all words...now the waves recede...the tides cry...gulls lull...and the waves pray....a loss for words....we hold the shells to ear...in hope to hear but one word....

The long curve

since it has been going on two Novembers

his shadow remembers and lingers

in the long Still Road S curve

just down from where we slowed

to recall Judy and her crooked tree

lingering we knew

awaiting our journey by

lately it seems more are the shadows

awaiting our passing

patient along the still roads

stepping out beside the

long Taylor way to wave

as mirages upon the hot

asphalt

over the Interstate hill

beckoning us to please wait

under the lone persimmon

letting them catch up

only to spin beyond our sight

determined to make Moniac

for some invisible reward

of being the first to greet

us as the shadows gather in

front of the single store on

the way to nowhere

and prepare

for the tracing of the route

back to the long Still Road

S curve

to greet Judy and gather

the shadow waiting

patiently...

Kerr syrup

Kerr Syrup

Opened today the

last five jars of the

Old blend

From the long ago

Cooking

Mostly dregs

Daddy said

Still good

Stirred in the

Ham

Biscuit and eggs

And so they stayed

In the shed

Until today

Poured anew in

The long neck

Bottle

To sit again

Simply kept

For the sweet

Taste of

Remembering.

Wild wind gone

With wind gone

Johnclarestokes

Calm gentle

Relentless wind

Weathering fading smoothing

The long leaf heart pine

We patch

We paint

We mend

But still blows the

Calm gentle

Relentless wind

The second

The minute

The year

The wind cares not

For the time

Rise to face it

Make a stand for

Eighty and nine until

The nuptial knotted threshold

Wears thin to lie at last

In piles of tinder

And it comes

Calm gentle

Relentless wind

To ignite and scatter

The august memory.

In search of

The canoeist

The Canoeist

After John Cheever’s short story, The Swimmer

By john stokes

Like revelations that come to sages on exiled islands, it dawned upon him what he must do. He would canoe across the county. That cold November morning that had killed his beloved glories, he pulled the Old Town from the racks. The royalex no longer made, it fell with a rocking to the dirt. It was the sixteen foot Chipewan model,originally bright yellow, now a dull green from multiple spray painted coatings, with a mostly yellow bottom showing through the scrape marks. He had secured the canoe from an abandoned garage, rescuing it from a long forgotten dry docking, giving it new seats and yoke. Heaving it overhead, with the Bending Branches bent wooden paddle lashed to the thwart, purchased by him from funds his few loyal employees raised for him on his sudden Friday April firing, ending nineteen years denying the Golden Rule,he portaged over to Paul's pool, leaf free unlike his, chlorine mists stinging his vision. Like many of his neighbors, he only knew him by first name. He knew he drank beer and talked loudly on his cell phone was about the extent of his knowledge. And he wasn't home. He was glad to exit this unimaginative rectangular pond and portaged his route downhill to Lenvil Dicks pond which spilled over into the Price Creek. He thought of the times he and his estranged son,now in Japan, fished along the banks, and he hurried to exit this area of the stabbing shallows to the cool creek. Once in the shade of this twisted way, he got as far as old Country Club road before having to hurry across, dodging the rapid moving, like a possum on the highway.With thanks given to Buck Hill for digging his series of dikes in the sixties, he at last made his way into the big lake called Alligator, named for the old Seminole chief who once made his home where now the upper crust dwelt along the high side roam.

He paddled with his favorite j-stroke in long pull and twist the wrist turns, able to keep to the left gunnel, tracking a straight line. At the end of Alligator by the Tiger stadium, a creek trickled out which eventually formed Clay Hole Creek, some water yet remaining from the summer falls which flooded some residents,blaming the County. They said in the ancient of days this was once a continual river all the way down to the Itchetucknee. No longer. Forgoing the blame, it was a continual disembark and pull affair. This was one reason he preferred the canoe over the kayak. The getting in and out. With a long series of repeats, he entered Rose Creek, which he transversed west, taking the right fork at 133 to the headwaters. He was near High Falls, though he never found a fall, surmising there was once a fall long ago or perhaps it was a hippy hangout. His longest portage faced him as he crossed hayfield and bogs below Lulu to Olustee Creek, which designated the lower border of his county. A deeper tannic color, his only obstacles were the many fallen trees replete with hornet nests and banana spiders. It was an arduous paddle, which tested his resolve, but he was too far southward to turn back. And if to add insult to his misery, when he finally made it to O'Leno Park, the stream abruptly went underground in a whirlpool. Another long portage through swamps of moccasin and ticks loomed. When the river appeared again at River Rise, he was now on the clear Santa Fe, a wide, navigable dream of a river. It made the long series of hardships worth the journey. From then on, it was a joy to float along, tracing the southernmost contours and bends, padding past July Spring, Hollingsworth bluff, Wilson Springs and finally to the point where the Itchetucknee's clear water met the Santa Fe tea. Though nearing sixty, a washed up shell of his former vigor, he knew his journey across county was complete. But even in his weakened, near delirious state, he was loathe to call it quits. He was tired of calling it quit, of having others call it quit for him on Friday's! No, this day he would call the quits, he would find a worth far beyond the arbitrary worthlessness placed upon him.

So on that cold and uneventful Friday in November, with the memory of his wilted morning glories still stinging, the Canoeist continued on for the Suwannee. He would make the Gulf eventually, his once Popeye like left forearm turning the J-stroke into the current.

Mrs Florida

My earliest and richest memories to this day reside in Sopchoppy, my first eight years in Florida. We spent many Sundays at Mrs Florida Morrison Roberts(1883-1976) home with her son Bonny Kaslo”BK”, (1907-1999)Florida Supreme Court Justice and his sister Inez Yent(1902-1993)wife of Florida Attorney General. I was most fortunate to have many matronly mothers in my early life. Mrs Florida’s , husband,Thomas(1877-1949) was the railroad clerk and merchant. They married in 1899. I would get out her button up shoes and try them on her, pretending I was a salesman. She had a feather down mattress on which I slept. Mamma and Paula and I would go to her house and stay during hurricanes, though her wooden cracker house was less sturdy than our concrete block house. She kept up writing to us up until her death.