Skip to content

Posts tagged Florida

Christmas time in Florida

Christmas time in Florida published on No Comments on Christmas time in Florida

The song “Christmas in Florida,” written by John A. McGee and performed by Hack Swain with vocals by Lon Saxon and the Sun Maids can be found hidden on the internet if you know all the names and faces to search. The song was included on Florida Calling, an album release by the 1950s Sunshine Records label from Sarasota.

Most of the songs on the album were copyright registered by song writer John McGee in 1952 and 1953.

  • Florida Calling. Vocals – Jackie Van, The Sandpipers
  • Christmas In Florida. Vocals – Lon Saxon, The Sun Maids
  • Havin’ Fun In Sarasota. Vocals – Billy Leach, Shirley Scott
  • Summer Days. Vocals – Shirley Scott, The Sandpipers
  • Magic Of Miami. Vocals – Lon Saxon, The Sun Maids
  • Orange Blossom Honey. Vocals – Kyle Kimbrough
  • Miami Beach. Vocals – Gloria Hart
  • Find Your Place In The Sun. Vocals – Shirley Scott, The Sandpipers
Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Sun, Nov 15, 1953 ·Page 62

While I was digging around in the copyright registration catalogs I saw that John McGee also wrote Summer in Florida, Kingdom of the Sun, These Sands of Sarasota in 1952, and probably many many more in other years. After all, The Ledger reported he had written thousands of songs by 1960 and was producing shows for over 30 years (“Centennial Group Votes Musical Pageant Funds, 1960).

Of course it still feels strange to me that someone so prolific, also known for writing credits on Caldonia (1945), should be lost to the internet. Yet, I know it is just the way of the digital world to look only forward. John A. McGee was a graduate of Grinnell College, the same college as Gary Cooper, and served as a professor of dramatics at Purdue University (“John A. McGee Speaks Today to Ivy League,” 1962) for a time before moving to the Sarasota area and undertaking a number of different creative endeavors. He and Hack Swain ran a production company in Sarasota around the same time they were recording (running?) the Sunshine Records label.

Someone somewhere might have sheet music that he composed. For now, there are a few songs saved by the Internet Archive, and, as above, on YouTube if you know how to search for it.

References

  • “John A. McGee.” (1984). The Naples Daily News. May 16, 1984. p. 26.
  • “Centennial Group Votes Musical Pageant Funds.” (1960). The Ledger. Nov 10, 1960. p. 20.
  • “John A. McGee Speaks Today to Ivy League.” (1962). Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Apr 3, 1962. p22
  • Robertson, Nick. (1961). “How about McGee’s Song.” Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Oct 13, 1961. p. 13
  • Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Sun, Nov 15, 1953 ·Page 62

Giggles at work

Giggles at work published on No Comments on Giggles at work
A tandem at the Ostrich Farm, Jacksonville, Fla” (1909). Hampton Dunn Collection of Florida Postcards. USF Libraries.
“Wish you were here in Saint Petersburg Florida with us having a fine time” (1930). Hampton Dunn Collection of Florida Postcards. USF Libraries.
“Loading oranges” (2021). Hampton Dunn Collection of Florida Postcards. USF Libraries.

Florida nostalgia: Mermaids of Weeki Wachee

Florida nostalgia: Mermaids of Weeki Wachee published on No Comments on Florida nostalgia: Mermaids of Weeki Wachee

The training/maintenance regimen of these women athletes was and is astounding! And, this video is when the ‘mermaids’ wore masks most of the time and didn’t wear binding mermaid tails.

Recipes for the Florida gardener

Recipes for the Florida gardener published on No Comments on Recipes for the Florida gardener

I’ve become a little more regionally inclined in my recent vintage recipe book purchases and I was extremely happy to find that some of these books included recipes for materials that usually have to be grown or obtained directly from someone who grows them.

cover of Louise's Florida Cook Book
cover of The Gasparilla Cookbook
cover of Florida's Favorite Foods
cover of American Indian Cooking & Herb Lore

Each of the books above yielded at least one recipe that I consider more for the gardener trying to figure out what to do with their new harvest than for a cook who normally gets materials from the store.

  • Papaya Butter from Florida’s Favorite Foods by the Florida Department of Agriculture
  • Calamondin Conserve from The Gasparilla Cookbook by the Junior League of Tampa
  • Yaupon Tea from American Indian Cooking & Herb Lore by J. Ed. Sharpe and Thomas B. Underwood
  • Monstera Deliciosa from Louise’s Florida Cook Book by Louise Lamme
  • Surinam Cherry Jelly from Florida’s Favorite Foods by the Florida Department of Agriculture

While my calamondin tree bit the dust (I suspect greening) and my papaya is far from producing fruit, I do have a handful of established surinam cherry bushes. I am super familiar with the monstera deliciosa as a garden plant but I do not have one of those either, and I would love a yaupon holly.

However, I do have a sea grape, that I understand produces human edible fruits, and a volunteer loquat tree. I have also been following Eat the Weeds and Other Things Too, trying to figure out an offensive against some of my most pernicious garden adversaries. I will have to experiment some and see how these things can be worked into daily food.

Permanently Halloween

Permanently Halloween published on No Comments on Permanently Halloween
John Margolies Dragon and pumpkin, Magic Carpet Golf, Key West, Florida Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/mrg.03060

I was inspired by images from road-side America, and went digging through more photo collections to find more magic in Florida. I really hope that this mini-golf course still exists, though I imagine it’d be awfully faded by now.

Pascua Florida Day

Pascua Florida Day published on No Comments on Pascua Florida Day


I am a little calendar obsessed. And I live in Florida. Yet, I had never heard of Pascua Florida Day before this year. A spring time holiday, Pascua Florida means, roughly, feast of the flowers. It is a State of Florida celebration by statute, and as a state day it ” commemorates the sighting of Florida by Spanish explorer Ponce de León (LINK).”

Even so, it doesn’t seem like we do much with the day, which I think is a shame. I’m a little late in brainstorming this year. Thinking cap is on for 2020. What do you think would be the best way to celebrate Pascua Florida?

Happy Christmas from Florida

Happy Christmas from Florida published on No Comments on Happy Christmas from Florida

Bathing scene, St. Cloud, Fla. Xmas, 1912, Digital Collections, Tampa Library, University of South Florida. http://digital.lib.usf.edu/SFS0010636/00001

Florida Christmas cheer. 1925. Color postcard. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. Accessed 21 Nov. 2018.<https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/157561>.

Christmas greetings from Florida. between 1907 and 1919. Color postcard. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. Accessed 21 Nov. 2018.<https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/157557>.

Florida love

Florida love published on No Comments on Florida love

tampacoverWhen we first bought our house, I started studying the building methods of the period it was built, tracking the previous owners through publicly available city and county records, and learning about the history of the area we were planning on living in for a while to come.

I found brochures and magazines, knowfloridacoverinformation dedicated to the Florida tourist or investor.  A wealth of time specific salesmanship!  And, I started collecting.  I buy in little bits at a time, looking for pamphlets and brochures from the time period when my house was built, or with information on population and industry.

Two recent acquisitions of mine have a couple of choice passages that I felt compelled to share with you.  The first:  “Tampa Hillsborough County Florida”  alternately “Florida’s Newly Discovered Vacationland” on one side and “Florida’s Industrial and Commercial Center” on the other, was published jointly by the Board of Representatives, City of Tampa Board of Commissioners, and Hillsborough County Chamber of Commerce in the 1940s (pictured top left) includes a rather foreboding message to visitors:     “…please advise anyone seeking employment not to come to Tampa.”

tampaexcerpt

The second:  “Know Florida” a 1939 facts booklet issued by the Florida State Department of Agriculture through The Tribune Press in Tallahassee is an understandably dry, but well written fact booklet with loads of information on industry and agriculture throughout all of Florida, except two paragraphs where the author takes a trip into the most florid poetics I’ve ever seen aimed at my home state:knowfloridaexcerpt

The shocking change in tone from the paragraphs around it is quite jarring. I suspect that someone else slipped those paragraphs in there. Maybe the brochure was laying out just a little short, or the editor looked over it and thought it was a bit dry, so she pulled out her bong and basked in the Florida love for a while. At least two paragraphs worth.

For the love of Florida

For the love of Florida published on 1 Comment on For the love of Florida

I saw on the DVR that the next recorded episode of Stephen Fry in America was going to include Florida and I thought, ‘heh, I wonder what awfulness he’s going to find there.’  Not long ago I was actively looking for opportunities outside of Florida, and I have never been a fan of the traditional Florida fare of sunshine, beaches, mice, and water sports (citrus, I like).  Maybe because I have since settled down in my birth state, or maybe because it is my birth state, I was a little disgruntled when Mr. Fry’s primary visit was Miami, and his primary reaction was understandably scathing.  How, you might ask, can I be disgruntled when I understand his reaction?  Well, he visited Miami.  Except for The Golden Girls, there is and has never been anything tied to Miami that could entice me to visit there.  It’s like having someone come visit your house and they only see the inside of your garage, dented, stained holiday decoration boxes and all.

–by the by, I am in entertainment consumer love with Stephen Fry; as in, I love to consume and am terribly entertained by all his writing, speaking and acting.

Image (15)
me at Cypress Gardens

So, partially as an exercise in state love, which I am still new to, I started wracking my brains for the bits of Florida that I’d rather have been seen by Stephen Fry.  What I realized, is that the bits of Florida that I think make it great are withering away.  Fewer and fewer of the quaint and wholesome tourist attractions of a hopeful postwar (WWII) U.S. can still be found in our tropical peninsula.  They are slowly making room for the attractions of today’s tourist.

Case in point:  Cypress Gardens.  I remember Cypress Gardens as a bright, hot, floral and fragrant fairy land of leisurely enjoyment.  As a typical American little girl, I was in awe of the pretty ladies who twirled their gigantic ball gowns into perfect circles of fabric as they perched on the green green lawns of the gardens.  At the time of my visit, Cypress Gardens was still doing well, but was most definitely the day trip that grandparents took their grandchildren on.  It was of their generation.   And, while they tried to pass it on to a new generation, most grandchildren, me included, didn’t spare it a second thought until it was too late.  Now that I’ve come around to my grandmother’s way of thinking, Cypress gardens has been swallowed up by LegoLand.Continue reading For the love of Florida

Primary Sidebar