Author: reweidman50

Fort Jefferson

reweidman50 Florida Attractions, Florida Forts, Florida History, Florida Keys, Florida Wildlife, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , ,

drytortugas

The largest all-masonry fort in the United States, Fort Jefferson (named after Thomas Jefferson) was constructed with more than 16 million bricks between 1846 and 1875 on Garden Key, which lies approximately 70 miles West of Key West. A federal outpost during the Civil War, Fort Jefferson held more than 500 prisoners by 1865 and in July of that year added Dr. Samuel Mudd, Edmund Spangler, Samuel Arnold and Michael O’Laughlen – all of whom had been convicted in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Mudd was eventually pardoned by President Andrew Johnson after treating the victims of a yellow fever epidemic at Fort Jefferson in 1867. The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), which starred Warner Baxter and Gloria Stuart, was loosely based on the life of Mudd. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated the area as Fort Jefferson National Monument and the fort was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. Fort Jefferson lies within the 64,701-acre Dry Tortugas National Park, which is accessible only by boat or seaplane.

Stop-Time

reweidman50 Florida Literature, Uncategorized ,

stoptime

“My faith in the firmness of time slips away gradually.  I begin to believe that chronological time is an illusion and that some other principle organizes existence.  My memories flash like clips of film from unrelated movies.  I wonder, suddenly, if I am alive.  I know I’m not dead, but am I alive?  I look into the memories for reassurance, searching for signs of life.” – Frank Conroy, Stop-Time (1967)

O. Brisky Books

reweidman50 Florida Bookstores, Florida Literature, Florida Towns, Harry Crews, Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

obriskybooks

Whenever I used to pass through the charming town of Micanopy just South of Gainesville, I used to stop by one of my favorite used bookstores, O. Brisky Books, which had a great selection of Florida-related literature, among many other topics. In fact, just about my entire Harry Crews literary collection was obtained there. Since the bookstore didn’t accept credit cards, one time I had to run over to the ATM at Pearl Country Store to get enough cash to buy a rare edition of Crews’ third novel, This Thing Don’t Lead to Heaven (1970). I can assure you it was well worth the hassle! The owner, O.J. Brisky, would always engage me in a conversation about Crews (1935-2012) that would go something along the lines of this brief exchange:

Brisky: “Have you heard anything about how Harry’s doing?”
Me: “I heard through the grapevine that he’s not doing too well healthwise.”
Brisky: “Yeah, that’s what I’ve been hearing too. It’s too bad. Hope he’s feeling better soon.”
Me: “Yeah, me too.”

Ideally located at 112 N.E. Cholokka Boulevard in downtown Micanopy, O. Brisky Books had no air conditioning and the door was always propped open. There was a bench outside where Brisky himself often could be found greeting customers and reading one of the books from his diverse inventory. The adventurous browser at O. Brisky Books would often walk away with a handful of books totally unrelated to anything he or she began their search for!

Born in Hungary, Brisky grew up in Louisiana and attended LSU, where he majored in American Literature. Brisky, who served as a reporter and editor before opening his first used bookstore in Tarpon Springs, later helped start the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of his inventory of more than 50,000 books, a sizable selection of which I’m sure he read over the years. Sadly, Brisky passed away in January 2014 at the age of 71 and the bookstore closed down for good shortly thereafter. I haven’t been back to Micanopy since.

Coral Castle

reweidman50 Florida Attractions, Uncategorized , , , ,

coralcastle

Known as “America’s Stonehenge,” Coral Castle serves as the bizarre masterpiece of diminutive Latvian immigrant Ed Leedskalnin (1887-1951), who somehow managed to procure and sculpt more than 1,100 tons of coral rock over a 28-year period into a “fantasy world carved out of stone” using only homemade tools. Originally dubbed “Rock Gate Park,” Coral Castle was reportedly built by Leedskalnin, who stood just 5 feet tall and weighed 100 pounds, as a monument to lost love (he was jilted by his fiancée in Latvia before heading to the United States). Billed as “A Sculpture Garden and Tribute to Los Love,” Coral Castle is located at 28655 South Dixie Highway in Homestead. By the way, Coral Castle was featured in an episode of In Search Of … (Season 5, Episode 16) titled “The Castle of Secrets” that first aired on January 24, 1981.

Ocala Caverns

reweidman50 Florida Attractions, Florida History, Forgotten Florida, Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

By Rich Weidman

Also once known as “Uranium Valley and Caves,” the Ocala Caverns were located on U.S. routes 301, 27 and 441, approximately eight miles South of Ocala. According to legend, the caverns were used as a hiding place by runaway slaves during the Civil War. The Ocala Caverns were open to the public as an attraction in the 1950s and 1960s, and at one time owned by a pro wrestler known as “Man Mountain Dean Jr.” and “Mighty Jumbo” (real name: Samuel Hesser), who weighed in at nearly 650 lbs., and Violet Ray, “Women’s Lightweight Wrestling Champion.” Attractions included two caves (one dry, one wet), an underground boat ride (basically Hesser kicked the rowboat out so tourists could get a glimpse of the cave and then he pulled it back with a rope), Callaway’s Rock Display, Inca Indian Museum, Wrestling Hall of Fame and Santa Claus Land (Hesser even made the December 1966 cover of the Ocala-Marion County Visitors Guide to the Kingdom of the Sun dressed as Santa Claus). The attraction closed in the late 1960s or early 1970s, and Hesser reportedly passed away from a brain tumor at the age of 51 in Iowa in 1974. In recent years, the Florida Speleological Society has made efforts to clean up the Ocala Caverns site.

Shady Oak Restaurant & Tavern

reweidman50 Florida Bars, Florida Restaurants, Uncategorized , , ,

As a student at Stetson University during the mid-1980s, I would often join a ritual mass exodus off campus each Friday afternoon after classes to a somewhat rundown but lively fish camp overlooking the St. John’s River just off State Road 44 that we called Otis’s and the locals referred to as Sloan’s (both names derived from then-owner Otis Sloan). There we would spend hours hanging out on the dock drinking cheap beer and watching the boats slowly drift by – great memories! According to a September 2, 1998, Orlando Sentinel article, Sloan and his wife Myrtle opened the Shady Oak Fish Camp in 1957. I passed through DeLand in 2015 and took the above photos of Otis’s and it looked pretty much the same as I had remembered it. The Shady Oak Restaurant, which is located at 2984 West New York Avenue just west of downtown DeLand, reportedly suffered a fire in 2017 but has fortunately reopened.