McLaughlin
Alright, today is Wednesday, the 24th of October, 2012. It is 3:05 PM. I am with Dr. Storm [Leslie] Richards at his home in Geneva, Florida, and we’re going to discuss his experiences as related to historic preservation in Sanford, specifically concerning the Sanford Student Museum [and Center for the Social Studies].
Richards
We moved to Sanford in 1953. My dad was in, uh, the Navy at the time, and, um, we came here, uh, when Sanford was a very small community. It was very agriculturally-oriented. Um, there were many, many schools in Sanford. Uh, I went to, uh, about four of them, uh, from about elementary school through high school—all in Sanford, and then I went to Seminole Community College,[1] which was what it was called at the time in the 1970s, uh, and got my Associate of Arts degree, and went on to the University of Florida and finished my Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctorate at, uh, the University of Florida in Gainesville. Um, did some graduate work at Tulane University, but, uh, for the most part, I was always at the University of Florida, and I had a very strong interest in historic preservation and archaeology and, uh, urban—urban development, and I think, uh, first time that I really became—became directly, um, associated with the school [inaudible] was I was asked to help write a grant. Um, he grant was originally through the Division of Historical Resources, which is part of Florida Department of State for doing architectural reconstruction and rehabilitation. Um, one of the things that came to me from the very, very beginning was that the school—the [Sanford] Grammar School was such a tremendous resource in terms of historically where[?] Sanford had been. It was constructed in 1907, I think—’02-’07, and, um, it had always been a real focal point for—for education for—for young kids, and I think, uh—I didn’t go to school there and—and I always remember the school having, uh, teeter-totters and having, um, jungle gyms and the having the maypole, uh, swing that the kids would swing around and stuff like that. It’s—it’s the kind of thing where you still remember the kids yelling and screaming, and just, uh, it was a very fun place. Um, academically, I can’t really speak for it, but, uh, I can remember that—that there was always a lot of activity there, and the school, uh, that I identified with the grant that I worked on was a very important hub for Sanford and for Seminole County to—to look at something historic and say that so many people had gone there and so many people’s lives had been involved. I just thought it was a wonderful focal point, um, to try to keep, and, uh, at that time, they were really the first time that they were getting into the notion of it being an historic properties, and being important for a museum, and—and I was just really, uh, excited about that for the kids to be able to go back and look at things the way they were a hundred years ago.
McLaughlin
All right. Um, in what capacity were you involved, specifically with the grant-writing process?
Richards
Um, because I was—I am a certified archaeologist, and I have a really strong background in historic preservation with the University of Florida and the Urban Re-Use and Planning Department, I was asked to—to come in and take a critical look at if the site was really historic. Now, it had already been designated on the [U.S.] National Register of Historic Places, which one would assume would make it very important, uh, but because it’s part of a district, um, that’s not necessarily the case, and you really want a building like that to stand on its own, be—because the importance not of just the neighborhood, but the importance of it being, uh, the structure that was there, uh, and so I put together, uh, all of the documentation on, uh, why it was historically important, and what it meant to the community, and why the state should look at it as being not just some local landmark, but as something that was important to the county and the State of Florida.
So I wrote that up, and what really ended up happening was that the state looked at that and felt that there was enough merit there that it was designated on a, uh, state list of very important, uh, uh, schools for the State of Florida and it was designated as such with that important notice. I think that the other thing that I did was, uh, I contacted a number of commissioners and a number of people that had on a say on, uh—on how money was being spent, whether it was the school board of, uh, Seminole County, because it was certainly a focus of not just the City of Sanford, but the county also, uh, and told them the importance of preserving that, because at a certain point, older buildings have a way of just deteriorating to the point that they can no longer be used, and it takes an investment, and sometimes, that investment can actually cost more than—than new construction, you know? Rehabilitation’s a very expensive proposition, but what it does for a community, in terms of identifying the importance of a city, and importance of schools, and importance of looking at the people who got an education there and what they went on to do, and is—and it is far more important than any single dollar value.
McLaughlin
Right, I see. About how long did that process take from start to finish? From the beginning to the end[?]? [laughs].
Richards
It took probably—the grants program probably took six months.
McLaughlin
Hm.
Richards
I think though the writing that I did, because I had a familiarity with it, was probably in days.
McLaughlin
[laughs].
Richards
I’m very quick at what I do, and so I think I wrote the, uh, four- or five-page report of why it was important in—in a day or two days.
McLaughlin
Excellent, and what year was this again?
Richards
You know, I think it was probably about, uh, 10 or 15 years ago. I mean, it was probably in the [19]90s—[inaudible] or something like that.
McLaughlin
So like 90s?
Richards
Yeah.
McLaughlin
Right, and who all—do you remember which people from the museum you worked with?
Richards
Se—Serena [Rankin Parks] Fisher…
McLaughlin
Serena Fisher.
Richards
Uh, she was, you know—and I’ve known her for years and years before that, because she’s a geographer and an educator, and—and I’m a geographer also, and so I knew her from the Florida Alliance, um, which was a group of educators who try to—to convey the importance of educating children, and she was working the museum, and, uh, it was the kind of thing that I felt real honored to help her with, because of the possibility of helping people, and, uh, when you drive by the school even today, which I did,
McLaughlin
[laughs].
Richards
Um, it’s one of those things that you can go look at and be proud that it’s still there, because it could be somebody’s patio brick, you know?
McLaughlin
Yeah.
Richards
And—and so it’s a real good place for kids to go and look at the way that things used to be.
McLaughlin
Excellent, and were there any other instances in Sanford, in which you helped with local preservation efforts?
Richards
Um, yes. Uh, the Hopper Academy, which was the African-American school, h, over near the stadium. Uh, I put together the environmental assessment and some of the feasibility studies for—for looking at the rehabbing of that and making that, uh, another focal point, and because it was a wooden building and it had a lot of decay, it was really difficult, and the neighborhood, uh, didn’t lend itself to, you know—there were a lot of transients in the area, and people were sleeping near—in the school, and people were doing a lot of things that were just destructive. I’m not sure that worked out as well as I would have liked, but it was a real, eh, effort for someone to go over there and say, “We’d like to see, you know this—this kept for the community,” and so I worked on that, and, um, also, when I was the senior planner with Seminole County and worked, um, on comprehensive planning, I—I worked very hard to try to get a conservation element that reflected the importance of archaeological and historic sites, um, in—in Central Florida and Seminole County.
In—in the profession that I have now, we do an awful lot of work in Seminole County. Uh, we worked for the airport in Seminole—the Orlando-Sanford [International] Airport. We’ve identified historic sites and identified preservation, uh, concepts for them. [inaudible]. We’ve worked for the Division of Historic Resources on the railroad sites[?] that existed here that came from the 1900s, when they were shipping an awful lot of, uh, produce out throughout—throughout the state and throughout different parts of the country, and so I’ve, you know, worked a lot on different aspects on Seminole County on—on cultural[?] resource assessments and evaluations, uh, both historic and archaeological resources for the county, and provided information for the of State of Florida.
McLaughlin
Excellent, and here’s a little bit of a different question. In your experience working in Seminole County and living here and growing up, how has it changed environmentally? You—what do you think are probably the biggest ways that it’s changed?
Richards
You know, I think—the—the interesting part of that story—and it just hits me immediately—is how recently—this year, someone burnt down the big.[2] They got inside the tree and they lit it on fire, and you have a tree that is older than the for—the 1400s. Before [Christopher] Columbus and…
McLaughlin
Wow.
Richards
This country.
McLaughlin
[laughs].
Richards
And the tree was there, and they burnt it up and destroyed it, and it was considered an “accident,” and it was considered of no great significance, and I can remember riding my bike out to the tree when I was a child from Sanford. It’s—it’s probably halfway between Sanford and Longwood on [U.S. Route] 17-92. Uh, I can remember there was a wonderful book written by [Elvira] Gardner, it was called Ezekiel’s Travels.
McLaughlin
Mmhmm.
Richards
And—and Ezekiel, a little black boy, rode his bicycle out to the big tree and they documented that in the 1930s.
McLaughlin
Wow.
Richards
You know, and—and—and they burnt this tree up and it was considered just kind of a…
McLaughlin
An accident.
Richards
An accident. So, uh—and I think that—it really has an impact, you know?
McLaughlin
Yeah.
Richards
The—the other thing that I can remember that’s changed so much is, when I was, uh, very young, I used to ride my bike down to the—the band shell, and to the, uh—to Lake Monroe, and used to fish there, and there used to be just the band shell, and just the sea wall, and in the last 25 years, you know, they’ve built, uh—they built hotels there, and, uh, they built, uh, mixed used development there. They have had varying degrees of non-success.
McLaughlin
[laughs].
Richards
Uh, but it’s taken away much of the character, you know? I can remember when the zoo was in Downtown Sanford, and, you know, it was a very small zoo. Sorta not like the really nice complex that they have now, but—but Sanford was [inaudible], you know—libraries were there, and it was a place that—that kids went, and young people went, and it was just very different. The [Sanford] Civic Center was a big, big deal, and they had dances every week, and it was just, you know—it was just a place that people went all the time, and, uh, I don’t see that in Sanford anymore. I don’t see that.
McLaughlin
You think some of the character is gone?
Richards
I think—I think the character—and I think that, you know, its—its, um—its environment, and its, um—the neighborhood, and it’s, um—it’s just the changes that have taken place, you know? I can remember the parades in Downtown Park Avenue, and just, um, very large parades that everybody in the community got involved in, and we have something like that now, but [inaudible]—it’s just a, uh—an agglomeration of people with big bands, and—and crazy things happen from early afternoon to way late
McLaughlin
[laughs].
Richards
[inaudible], and it’s just not something that I’m interested in participating in, you know? Probably there are a lot of people that do, but it’s—it’s just very different from when I was raised in Sanford.
McLaughlin
Yeah. As far as developmentally, what effect do you think that the arrival of like Disney Corporation[3] and things like that had on the change, if any?
Richards
Yeah, eh, Disney is a very large beast.
McLaughlin
[laughs].
Richards
And it has a lot of beasts that, uh, have attracted to it—whether it’s the whale beast or the, you know, uh, any number of other international destinations that I think that it’s affected probably not just all of Florida, but the Southeast. It’s the number one tourist destination, you know, in the world, u, and I think it makes Interstate [Highway] 4, which used to be a wonderful opportunity to go to Orlando and you just got on the interstate and ten minutes later, you were in Orlando, and today, it’s, um—it’s questionable if it even functions at all.
McLaughlin
[laughs].
Richards
You know, we have a—we have a toll road system, in which, uh, I was assigned to that. I was Deputy Director of the toll way [inaudible] before they actually started developing it, and it was supposed to relieve the traffic and make traffic a lot different in Central Florida, but Central Florida is so densely populated that it was probably nothing can significantly change that. You know, whether it’s a rail system that they won’t put in, it will cost billions of dollars, whether it’s increasing lanes on I-4, or whether the [Central Florida] GreeneWay builds out. It’s—it’s not going to make the quality of life significantly different, in my opinion, you know, but that’s just part of the price you pay.
McLaughlin
Yeah. Just out of curiosity, how many lanes did I-4 use to be? [laughs].
Richards
You know, I think it was always six—divided six.
McLaughlin
Divided six?
Richards
Yeah, um, eh, it—it had fewer ramps.
McLaughlin
Mmhmm.
Richards
And so they put in more ramps and more access, and it’s—it’s—the speed is much quicker today than it’s ever been. Uh, the Fairbanks [Avenue] curb is a problem that people have been having for years, and everybody’s looking at the engineering and saying, “It’s got to be engineering.” They say, “It’s got to be, you know, your problems,” you know? People are traveling between their ears if they don’t pay attention to traffic, and that’s why we gotta have people at such a quick pace today, you know? It used to be if you made it to work at 8- 8:30, you know, or if you, you know, were just there. Now, everybody fills the building up at 10-to-8, and, you know, so consequently, everybody gets on the interstate and it’s as fast as they can go, and it reminds me a little bit of Atlanta[, Georgia].
McLaughlin
Yeah.
Richards
You know, if you’re not doing 80 [miles per hour], you’re not getting there.
McLaughlin
[laughs].
Richards
I think that the—I think that I-4 is quickly approaching that. If you’re not doing 70, you’re probably not going to make it.
McLaughlin
Yeah.
Richards
You know, that’s just part of reality, part of the [inaudible], and the—the—it’s the quickness of what happens today. It wasn’t like that in the, you know, 1960s.
McLaughlin
Okay, before we go, if you could—would you like to share the story about your father
Richards
Uh…
McLaughlin
And what he did at the Navy base?
Richards
We moved to Sanford in—in ’53. My dad was stationed in Jacksonville, um, before that in the, um—in the Navy, and—and when we moved here, my dad was a navigator bombardier and a mechanic, and when the first jets, which were the [Douglas] A-3D[ Skywarrior]s came from California, my dad was part of the crew that flew the jets from California to Florida. That was before the [North American A-5] Vigilantes, before the larger aircraft. These were, you know twin-engine jets, but their total design and their total purpose was, uh, to launch a, uh, nuclear strike, and—and art of what Sanford, you know—Orlando-Sanford Airport today has the bunkers that they kept the nuclear weapons in, and they were going to load onboard the A-3Ds and—and go to Cuba, and my dad was the slim pickins’ of the aircraft, because it was his job to arm the nuclear weapons—To go back in the bomb bays and arm the nuclear weapons with, uh, I guess a detonation device that you screwed in the—in the nose of the bomb, and that was his job. It—and it was very, very stressful, and you know, at the time, I can just barely remember—I guess I was probably about seven—six or seven years old that all these young kids from the Navy would come over to the house, and they would have parties and stuff, and—and what they were doing was, h, the vanguard of changing the world, if—if they had to, and they all agreed to that—that that’s what they were going to do, and my dad was a really big part of that, and I guess there’s—there’s some pride in that, but there’s also some looking back and saying, “Is this really where we were?”
You know, and [inaudible], and I know today—you know, 2012—we’re still talking about the Cuban Missile Crisis and trying to figure out what really happened, and when you think about the people that were going to do whatever they were told to do, you know, there’s a lot of frighteningness[sic] there, and there is a lot of, Have we gone that far? Or, Are we still in the same place? I kinda think about that occasionally.
McLaughlin
Do you have any other thoughts about Sanford or Seminole County or the Student Museum that you would like to share with us before we…
Richards
I think that the Student Museum is, you know—it—it—it—it’s probably a lot bigger than most people really think. It’s—it’s not a matter of postcards and maps and little things that you can touch or handle, but it’s the notion of where we come from and where we’re going, and will people identify those things in 10 years, in 20 years, in 30 years, and say that, uh—that there was something that was very valuable here? It was something that was very important to a lot of people, and I hope we can still see that, and I hope that that’s, uh, a multicultural thing that—that, uh, everybody can look at and say, “This is—this is where we were, and this is where we are, and lot of good things have taken place.”
McLaughlin
Excellent, and once again, my name is Ian McLaughlin, and I’m interviewing Dr. Storm Richards at his home in Geneva, Florida. Today is Wednesday, the 24th of October, 2012.
Barnes
Today is Tuesday, May 6th, 2014. I'm interviewing Jeff[rey Edward] Clark, who served in the United States Navy. My name is Mark Barnes, and with me working the camera is Kendra Hazen. We're interviewing Mr. Clark as part of the UCF [University of Central Florida] Community Veterans History Project, and as research for the creation of the educational wall for the Lone Sailor Memorial [Project]. We are conducting this interview in Maitland, Florida.
Mr. Clark, will you please just begin by telling us your name, where you were born—where and when you were born?
Clark
Sure. my name is Jeffrey Clark, and I am originally from East Hartford, Connecticut. I was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on January 31st, 1968. And in 1983, my family moved to Florida—to Flagler County in Palm Coast, where I attended Flagler Palm Coast High School.
And then I did drop out of high school at the age of 17, and joined the Navy shortly after my 17th birthday, where I went through the Orlando Naval Training Center here.[1] Upon completion of my active duty, I returned to—I did obtain my GED (General Educational Development) while I was in the Navy. And then upon completion of my active duty, I did graduate from DBCC—Daytona Beach Community College—and then transferred and graduated at UCF. Major in economics and a minor in political science.
Barnes
Do you have any brother or sisters or parents you want to tell us about?
Clark
Sure. I have two sisters and both of them still reside here in Flagler County in Florida. And then my parents are still alive and live in Flagler County as well. My father—I come from a military family. sort of on the—Forrest Gump movie, I believe, where Lieutenant Dan has an ancestor that had fought in every major American war back to the colonial period. And I have that same line or lineage as well. Goes back to the Mayflower on my father's side.
My father served in the Navy and went through Bainbridge, Maryland, for his boot camp, and then was aboard an aircraft carrier—the USS Chiwawa CV40. And my grandfather—his father—served in World War II. Uh, he was in the Army and was stationed in the Philippines.
And then on my mother's side—my mother is also from—both my father and my mother are from Connecticut, as well. And my mother's side of the family—they were Italian immigrants. my grandfather immigrated in the 19—well, both my grandparents immigrated from Italy to the U.S. in the 1920s. And then when they were younger, obviously—and my mother was born in 1945 and my father was born in 1939.
Barnes
And did you join the Navy for any particular reason?
Clark
Actually, that was a bit of an interesting story. Now, one time, when I was around eight or nine years old, I filled out this application to inquire about the Navy out of a magazine or something like that. And, obviously, you could tell that a child wrote it. Well my father took it as a joke and mailed it in, and I always wanted to join the Navy for—I don't know, because I enjoyed history and my father was in the Navy. So my father mailed this application form in to send information about joining the Navy, and I received this letter from a captain in the Navy that said, you know, “Sorry,” you know, “but you're too young.” And he gave me a couple posters and some other items to say, “Here's some stuff to help you keep thinking Navy, and when you're old enough,” you know, “please come back." Well, pretty much came back at the minimum age possible, and I always wanted to join the Navy when I was a child. I think it was that TV commercial—“It's not just a job. it's an adventure.”
Barnes
So was the Navy a must for you?
Clark
Pretty much. yeah. [air conditioning unit comes on]
Barnes
So you said you attended boot camp in Orlando?
Clark
In Orlando, at the Naval Training Center.
Barnes
And was that by choice, or did they just tell you where to go?
Clark
Um, I would like to think it was by choice, because when I joined in this February—and having lived in Florida and being accustomed to the warm weather—I told the recruiter that I would go into the Navy now, if I could go to Orlando or San Diego, and not Great Lakes. Because there were three facilities for boot camp in the Navy—Great Lakes, San Diego, and Orlando, at that time. And I remember my father was very anxious. He said, “Well, you're going to go in now,” you know, “take him.” But somehow—luck, I would presume—I went through Orlando.
Barnes
We'll come back to this, but what were you trained to do for the Navy? What was your job? Or your jobs?
Clark
Initially, when I went in, I was a basic seaman recruit to do basic shipboard tasks, such as, you know, chipping paint and painting. and in the boats and bay field, sort of basic deck board duties. However, during the course of the time, I did become a signalman, which was communications and navigation, primarily with Morse code, with flashing lights—semaphore, as well.
Barnes
Semaphore?
Clark
In the flags. And that “A” school by the way. If I had entered the Navy as a signalman instead of a basic seaman recruit, the training for the Signalman School was here in Orlando, as well, at the Naval Training Center.
Barnes
We're going to circle back through your life as a recruit, and then we'll circle back through your life as a sailor. So when you first got to—your first day off the bus, so to speak, you know, what were some of the biggest adjustments you had to make going through?
Clark
Alright. I'm going to take a step back from the bus over to the Orlando Naval Training Center, since we're in the state of Florida. I'll keep us in the state of Florida. So, when you enter the military, you go to your recruiting office and you complete all that, and they, I presume, do the background checks—similar—probably similar to any new employment process, if you're hiring somebody.
So one of the key things after you go through that, you have to go through what they call the “MEPs center”—Military Entrance Processing facility—and that was in Jacksonville. And up there you get an initial physical, and they determine if you're—kind of the final step—if you're worthy enough to go on active duty. So I went through that in Jacksonville, and I remember going through there and, for some reason, I had thought that I was not going to enter the Navy until the summertime. And this one naval chief overheard me say that, and he said, “What did you say?” And I said, “I’m not going on active duty until the summer.” I say, “I get to go home, you know, after I go through the MEPS process today.” and he said, “Oh, no you’re not. You’re going in tomorrow morning, and I’m going to personally see to it.” I guess I was talking out of line.
So anyways[sic], we rode a bus from Jacksonville—and I remember I had to call my parents and say, “I’m not coming home.” [laughs] It was kind of sudden and quick. So we rode a bus from Jacksonville. and of course, we didn’t even take [Interstate] 95 and [Interstate] 4. It was like going on a Greyhound. I think it took about five hours to get there, because, you know, we went down, you know, [U.S. Route] 17, and then through Palatka, and all the back roads through there to get to Orlando. So we made it there, and they drop us off at the bus—at the bus area.
And then you kind of get indoctrinated where you come in and you start to, initially—so the initial shock was like, “Wow. this is for real.” But you still had your civilian clothes and you still had your hair. And so—and then that way you—you got your assignment, you know, where your—what your company you're going to be, what building at the Orlando Naval Training Center would be your home for the course of boot camp. And then the next day was kind of, you know—the first couple days were kind of intrigue, you know—kind of getting indoctrinated. And you go through a health screen, you go through and get your hair cut, and your clothes and all that assigned, then you begin your boot camp.
Barnes
Do you have anything that stands out from your time?
Clark
Oh yes. Yeah. definitely. So, for example—and at this time I obviously had more hair than I do now—but I was very proud of my hair. You know, “pretty boys,” as they would say in the Navy. and when I got my head shaved, I didn't look at myself in a mirror for about five or six weeks. I remember I would feel it and be like, Oh. And luckily they didn't have mirrors or anything in the boot camp berthing area—you know, the living area. So I made a purpose not to look at myself. That was the biggest, biggest shock.
The other shock that I had was I was going to have to learn how to fold clothes, because—kind of like out of a movie, where, you know, my mommy is able to wash, fold, and put my clothes away for me. But that changed, and I had to learn how to fold clothes.
But I was a baseball player in high school and very physically active, so the physical nature of boot camp that everybody thinks about—the physical activity was really not an issue for me. I was already in pretty good shape from playing baseball and other physical activities.
Clark
Do you have any memories from when you graduated? Did your folks come down?
Barnes
Yes. As part of the process, there was a graduation ceremony. And, like, my family, including my father's parents—my grandparents—came down and they went to the graduation ceremony, and they were able to get a tour of the facility. And it’s like a parade ground, and they set up these bench area bleachers. and the families were able to watch us do our Pass and Review and hear the speeches from the—from Captain Nice, who was the Recruit Training Center commanding officer and NCS (National Call to Service) conductor of ceremony. Then afterwards, everybody went home.
But, you know, we were able to meet up and, you know, it was good for my family to be there to see that. And that was, you know, an equivalent of like a high school graduation. I would say very similar, but you know dressed in military and military ceremony.
Barnes
When you graduated from boot camp, what was your next assignment?
Clark
Sure. upon graduating boot camp—boot camp lasted about eight and a half weeks. I actually entered active duty on February 26th, 1985, and then boot camp officially started March 1st. And, as I mentioned, those first couple of days were, you know, getting your hair cut, and getting your clothes, and getting indoctrinated.
And then when I graduated, I started—I continued at the Orlando Naval Training Center. They did have additional training schools there. The one I went to is—when I entered the Navy, I entered the Apprenticeship Training Program. and that was open to individuals who wanted to focus on more of a general—kind of like a liberal arts, if you want to call it that—to compare it to college. So there was a Seaman Apprenticeship, a Firemen Apprenticeship, and an Air Apprenticeship.
And then once you completed that training, then you would get assigned to a permanent duty station. So seamen went in to, you know—were eligible and did a cross-range of duties, such as, in the boatmen mate field, which is the deck duty. And then airmen, you know, went and supported, you know, aircraft either on carriers or as part of a detachment. And firemen kind of could go on ships, because they were the ones who worked down in what we called “the pit”—the boiler room and the engine rooms where the boiler technician rates and the machinist mates ran that. So I went through the Seaman Apprenticeship Training program.
Barnes
Were there certain classes you had to take, or do you know about the classes from the various—from the three places you just—the three schools you just described?
Clark
Yes. So basically how the Orlando Naval Training Center was set up is you kind of had—there were—if I remember—I think there were 10 buildings—10 or 12 buildings. And it was set up very, you know, military-style. On one end, you had sort of—and they were called—I forget what they were called. But there's like Building One, Building Two, etc. So on each end was kind of like the administrative offices, and then in between and in sequential order on each side, I think there was[sic] 12. There was[sic] 2 on the end, and five this way and five that way. And then on one side—and, in the middle, there was a divider, like a road that went through the middle. And on one side was strictly where boot camp was conducted. and on the other side is where the schools were conducted. They were the living quarters basically, or “berthing areas,” as they’re called in the Navy.
And so I went through the Seaman Apprenticeship Training. It was a series of classroom training and on-the-job training. They did the USS Blue Jacket, which was there—which was a training, you know—simulation of a ship and so we would go perform for seamen apprenticeship training. You know, how to tie knots, how to tie up the ship, how to raise flags, and other things associated with the Seamen Apprenticeship. And then the fireman did similar things, where, you know, they went in and simulated what jobs they would do once they went to the fleet. And that apprenticeship training was approximately four weeks for that.
Barnes
How would you describe the relationship between your instructors on that side versus your instructors on...
Clark
Sure.
Barnes
The recruit side?
Clark
On the recruit side, the boot camp, you know, was very strict. Very boot camp. very structured. You know, very military. You know, “controlling” is—I guess, would be a way to describe it. You know, your day was fully planned. You, you know—we woke up at four A.M. We went, you know—we did some initial drills and then we have our set breakfast time. You know, Company 101’s breakfast was from say 5:00 to 5:30.
You came back, you washed up, you know, brushed your teeth—whatever. Then you had set criteria of everyday what you would do. And most of it was practicing marching for your graduation ceremony, as well as other, you know, stuff that was boot camp related. You know, physical activity, swimming, firefighting drills that everybody needs to know for the military, and other basic stuff.
Now this was a little bit more specialized, and it was, like I said, classroom and on-the-job training. I would say that there was a bit more freedom. It was like a 9-to-5 job. You know, you woke up, you started class at eight o'clock, you had lunch from 12 to 1, and you were free to go do what you want.
In addition, I guess the big thing was—you were free on the weekends to go do whatever you wanted. Whereas in boot camp, you know, you were in boot camp and you were not allowed to leave. The only time that we left boot camp was after six weeks, we were granted what they called a “restricted liberty,” where it was kind of like an elementary school field trip. You know, like SeaWorld or [Walt] Disney [World], or somewhere like that. And it was very restricted. And, you know, it was covered.
And then you had an unrestricted liberty, like the week before you graduated, and that’s where you could stay within the city of Orlando, and kind of go anywhere you want and you had to be back at a certain time. And I guess a story for this would be—everybody—all the instructors and the officers—would say South OBT [Orange Blossom Trail] is off limits, because it’s kind of a dodgy area. But of course, where does everybody go? South OBT.[2] So that’s pretty much where unrestricted liberty went.
And then, like I said, during the apprenticeship training you were free to do[sic] on the weekend. and then I used to go home, you know. My mother would come pick me up or my father would come pick me up, and I’d visit my friends on the weekend, and then I had to be back Monday morning by eight o’clock to go to class. So it didn’t really matter, but I’d usually come back Sunday night, because we were still living in our living quarters. I guess the way I’d compare, you know, is boot camp was kind of like, you know, elementary school and high school. Very structured, very strict, limited. And apprenticeship training was more like college, where, “Hey, this is what you got to do,” you know, “Here's your times. the rest of that’s up to you.”
Barnes
Now you had—when you said you were living there, did you guys have apartments almost when you were an apprentice?
Clark
No. It was very—it was the same as what we had in boot camp. You know, the same structure. So basically it was an open area, like a barracks, and it was for enlisted. Now, officers tended to have the equivalent of more like the hotel or a small apartment, and they would usually share that with one other officer, depending on their rank. But general enlisted—and this even continued into the Navy with various living quarters on ships—whether you were enlisted or if you were chief, which was a senior enlisted person—kind of like middle management. Where if you were an officer, different living quarters. So it was an open area, and it had bunk beds and lockers for you to store your stuff. It was the same as in boot camp.
Barnes
Now, outside of the schools—the training schools—the command schools that you went to—do you have any recollection of the other schools that maybe were offered at the base?
Clark
Um, yes. from what I recall, because, as I went—during my time in the Navy, I went on, and—they call it “striking out”—I don't know why they call it that, because it’s actually a win ,you know—but basically, you get to move on from sort of a general, seaman apprenticeship-type role to a more specialized one. And I became a signalman, which was the shipboard flags communications and navigation, as well as communications with flashing lights via Morse code and semaphore. And the Signalman School was here in Orlando.
And also—and then—so basically the school structure was as follows. You had the generalists, the Apprenticeship Training Program that I talked about that I went through. Then you had “A” schools, which was[sic] schools that were for a specific job in the Navy, whether you were a storekeeper, a signalman, or, you know, something like that. Then there were also “C” schools, and “C” schools were for very specialized skills which normally required and extended enlistment period, such as six years active duty.
And so, during that time, people were kind of classified based on what their enlistment was that they signed up for. There were the 3-by-6s, which meant you were three years active and then six years of inactive reserves. Or IRR, right—“Inactive Readiness Reserves” I believe is the military term. There were 4-by-4s—and I was a 4-by-4—which meant four years active, four years inactive. And then there were the 6-by-2s, which were the specialty folks who went to extended training. They were six years active and then two years inactive reserves. Unless, of course, if they re-enlisted on active duty, then they would continue.
And the key thing about “C” school was that, once you completed about a two-year classroom/on-the-job training program, you automatically became an E[nlisted Rank] 4—a petty officer third-class. We used to call those people “boot camp thirds.” Because, like, as you go through, you know, you'll be an E-1, E-2, E-3, and then E-4. whereas these guys automatically got credits, basically like college, you know—you got some free credits. So there were some “C” schools here, including the Nuclear Program was here, and the Signalman School was here, and I think—no. The Storekeeper School was in Mississippi. that wasn’t here. But from what I remember, Apprenticeship Training, Signalman, and there was, like, Fire Control Technicians, Radar Schools.
Barnes
Any other—anything else you think about—life off of base, special to base?
Clark
I guess just kind of life on the base. There was Navy Exchange, so if you were a retired naval person—and Florida accumulated a lot of, you know, a lot of retirees and a lot of military retirees, because of the history with Sanford and Orlando—so the Navy Exchange store was there. So if you were active duty or if you were retired military, you could do your shopping. In certain cases, get things a lot cheaper than out in the regular market.
Other than that, it was pretty much, from what I remember, just a training facility. I remember there was a high school on—right on the outside of the base. Seemed like—sometimes we would joke like we were kind of in prison, you know, and you could see the freedom on the other side. I remember, you know, like we would be marching on the grinder and doing all these drills, and you'd look over and see these high school kids running track and field, or, you know, something like that at the high school, and you're thinking we're in prison, but…
Barnes
When you left Orlando, you boarded a ship?
Clark
Yes. Upon completion of my apprenticeship training course—a little bit more of the story here is I had a chief petty officer. I forget his name, but you received your orders where you went to go, and I was always kind of joking around a little bit with the chief. And sure enough, where I get stationed, but the same ship he had come from to the Orlando Naval Training Center. so I remember he told me it was going to be tough, and that he was gonna—he arranged to have me go to the USS Richard E. Bird TDG-23—guided missile destroyer—ported out of Norfolk, Virginia. And that's where I went. And, interesting enough, this chief I then met years later when I was attending UCF and I was working at NationsBank—now Bank of America. He was a customer in there, and I remember him when he came in. we chatted and caught up, and he was living out by UCF at the time, and he was a customer at the bank.
But I caught my ship and I remember it was in the middle of deployment, towards the tail end of the North Atlantic—NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] cruise. And I remember I had received my orders and I had to go there, and I had all my airplane tickets. They arranged and all that. And I looked on there and I'm like, Where is this place called Ponta Delgada? And there was no Internet in 1985, so I had to go look in the encyclopedia, and it was in the Azores Islands—Portuguese islands in the Atlantic Ocean. I remember I flew from Orlando to New York, and then caught airport to Lisbon[, Portugal], and had a couple night’s stay in Lisbon overnight, and then caught the flight to Ponta Delgada, where I caught my ship. And I still remember the first people I met, who I'm still in contact with today, on board my ship. Gary Hayne[sp], Kurt Kiesden[sp], and Alan Welch[sp] in particular, because I was assigned to deck division, and I was assigned to them.[3] And then from there, you know, I was assigned to the ship and that became my permanent duty station that I stayed at for the remainder of my term—three years and eight months.
Barnes
So you left the Navy when?
Clark
In February ’89. Four years active duty, and then served in the inactive reserves, which just meant if there's a call up, then you were subject.
Barnes
What did you end up doing when you left the Navy?
Clark
Okay. When I left the Navy, I started attended Daytona Beach Community College, which I think is now Daytona State College or something. and so I stayed in Flagler County and just did kind of odd jobs. I worked in a warehouse, primarily while I went to DBCC. And then I started working in the bank as a bank teller and then a sales and service rep[resentative].
And that actually worked out well, because, at the time, with the state, you could complete your first two years at a community college, then automatically transfer into any of the Florida state university system campuses. So I transferred to Orlando, because I worked at the bank it was quite an easy transfer to move over. So I started UCF in the Fall of ’93, after graduating from DBCC in the Spring of ’93. And then I graduated in Spring of ‘95 from UCF.
And also, I guess, during the—some other good things—when I became a basic seaman apprenticeship and I was assigned to the deck division on board, besides just chipping paint and doing all the deck stuff, the favorite thing—and I still remember it today, and it was one of my favorite things—you know, I barely had my driver's license—but at age 17, I qualified as a helmsman, and I drove the ship. I was at the wheel, and I qualified to run the ship's engines—the lee helm. and I used to stay on lookout watch. So here I was at 17 years old—and I actually saw a video on YouTube, like a Navy video, and it shows, like, the 22-year-old guy says, “Yeah. this is my job.” He says the same thing.
And I still remember to this day how to take the helm. You would go up—if you were to take the helm—let’s just say you’re at the wheel now—now I would walk up to the—well, I would first come to you and say, “Hey, what’s[sic] the coordinates? Where do you steer and where do you check in?”And that’s sort of the numbers from the compass of where—what direction you were going. I’d collect that, I’d go check what the speed was in knots, and then I would go up to the Officers’ Deck and salute, and he would say, “Officer of the deck, request permission to take the helm, steering course 225, checking 222 starboard unit, starboard cable, all engines ahead standard, 17 knot.” And the officer on deck would reply back and say, “Relieve the helm.” Then he would go over and then I would—I would take over. Yeah. it’s cool.
Barnes
Well I was getting ready to ask you, what were some of your favorite memories of the...
Clark
Oh, okay. alright. That’s a great one.
Barnes
Do you have another one there that...
Clark
Oh. Yeah. There’s[sic] plenty of them—and then really anything you tend to do, you know, in your life, it’s really about the people. And, you know, made some great friends. Still in contact with a lot them today. And lessons learned, you know, as a young kid—17 to 21, while I was in the Navy. And there’s a lot of memories, you know, of growing up doing stuff.
And I guess another thing is—I was always kind of a prankster a little bit, and I used to come home on leave for spring break, so I could be with all my friends. And we'd go to Daytona [Beach] and all that. One time I went off-base and I got—the senior chief, Senior Chief Moses, who was in charge of deck division, who I worked for—his plan was, you know, you had to look like a sailor. He was very strict with inspections. Well, one time I was trying to sneak and I went off-base and I got what he would call a “pretty-boy haircut.” So I came back and sure enough someone told on me and he personally walked me down to the ship’s barber and butchered me or whatever.
And so, as a retaliatory, I decided next day, I’m going to go put some red mousse in my hair and go stand inspection in front of him. Big mistake [laughs]. I remember he walked up to me, put his face in my face, and he goes, “Take your hat off, punk.” And he was this Texas—Texan guy. Big Texan guy. I took it off and I was smiling, and I wasn’t smiling much after that. He told me I had exactly two seconds to wash that “expletive” out of my hair or he was going to personally shave my head. [laughs] Let’s just say I jumped down the forward hatch and had the stuff out pretty quickly. [laughs]
Barnes
This kind of ties into this whole project that we’re doing and you mentioned it, but you made a lot of personal friends. You’re still in contact with them?
Clark
Yep. Yeah. Out on Facebook. They're all in on Facebook. We have our ships—we have a page of our ships, and so a lot of us connected through there, but even before that there was like a newsletter and some reunions that go. Because I was on an older ship that was commissioned in the early 60s and then decommissioned shortly after I left in 1990. So, you know, there’s[sic] 30 years of history pretty much with my ship that I was on. So the reunions—you have 30 years of people who served on board. So it’s quite large and extensive.
And then I always try to make the effort to visit some of the folks. I travel extensively for my current job, and if I go to a city where one of those guys are, you know, we always try to meet up. And a lot of them are kind of joking when, you know, I first got connected with them, say on Facebook, and they say, “I can’t believe you’re this corporate guy in a suit. You’re the last guy we would have thought as a corporate guy in a suit.”
Barnes
Is this your first trip—you've been back to Orlando since?
Clark
Oh, yeah. And actually, I guess after I finished the Navy, I graduated from UCF, and then worked locally in Altamonte [Springs] at the Kirchman Corporation, which was a banking software company. And then I worked for Pro Systems in Maitland. and then I went to—on an assignment to Luxemburg in Europe. I was there for a couple years. and then I came back and I was on a project in San Francisco[, California]. And then—then this was 2001.
So basically the time scale goes from exited active duty in ‘89, college until ‘95, Kirchman Corporation and Pro ‘96-‘97, Luxemburg from ‘98 to 2001, and then San Francisco for about a half a year. And then I came back to Maitland, and was working in Maitland and lived in Apopka from 2001 ‘till 2005, when I moved to Atlanta[, Georgia], and I've been in Atlanta since 2005.
Barnes
What do you think about all of the changes of the area that used to be the base?
Clark
You know, it’s kind of somewhat sad. There’s really nothing left there. Karla Novak was a personal friend of mine from when—from UCF days—gave me a tour around the Lone Sailor Foundation and the plans for that. And she showed me where the statue is going to be, you know, we’re kind of—both her and I went through there. So we were thinking this is—and she says, “Well, this is the old grinder.” and she was saying, “Remember we’d go over here and have to do these drills?”
Well, now it’s this open grass area. or over there is the housing where our berthing area—but now Baldwin Park is there. So it’s somewhat sad to think that—and I'm kind of one that—I like to preserve history. I wouldn’t want to say you have to preserve the base as-is, but you know, I think how important and how many lives, you know, were shaped, such as mine, going through boot camp. You know, going from being a kid to being an adult basically. you know, that there’s really not much left there.
Barnes
Well, what do you think the legacy of the base is?
Clark
I would say the legacy of the base is going to be, you know, the individual experiences of the people that really went through there. I mean, there’s not much left to see of, you know—what was left there, what was done. It was, you know, a training facility, classroom, and on-the-job training basically. You know, so there’s not much left as far as what you think of the Navy. You know, ships or aircraft or weapons or anything like that. I really think it’s about personal experience. And everybody had a different experience. You know, what they went through there.
Barnes
As a returning sailor, what would want to see if you returned back to the area to see the memorial? I mean, what would resonate with you?
Clark
I think some pictures, you know, of the facility itself, you know. Kind of like, if you went into a museum, you like to see this was Orlando Naval Training Center was here from 1968 ‘till 1992, or something like that. Here’s the pictures and, you know, kind of what, you know—like for my boot camp book—went there, you know. There’s[sic] pictures in there that show the activities and kind of what went on there, and everything’s changed from, you know—boot camp is probably similar, but there’s a lot of changes, you know.
And I think preserving the history and at least showing that, while we can—would be, you know, a good thing. You know, to show there with the Lone Sailor—the Lone Sailor is a great thing to—to reflect their—well, I think any memorabilia or, you know, pictures that show at one point in time this is what was here and quantify it. You know, x-number of people went through during this time who were the commanding officers, you know, kind of like any similar memorials or stuff like that.
Barnes
That’s about all I have. Is there anything that we missed that you’d like to add or a story you'd like to share?
Clark
I think I pretty much covered everything. You know, that was my time here in Orlando at the Naval Training Center for boot camp and then kind of post activities. So I think we've pretty much covered the full spectrum of your questions there, so.
Barnes
Okay. Well, thank you very much.
Clark
Thank you. I'm glad to help.
Creative Sanford, Inc. is a non-profit organization created to manage Celery Soup community theater productions. The original idea for the Celery Soup project came from Jeanine Taylor, the owner of a folk-art gallery on First Street in Sanford, Florida. Their first production was Touch and Go, which took several years of planning. The play focused on how the people of Sanford overcame obstacles throughout their history. Some of these stories include the fall of Sanford's celery industry, the Freeze of 1894-1895, and the closing of Naval Air Station (NAS) Sanford in the 1960s. Richard Geer and Jules Corriere, partners from Community Performance International, were in charge of assessing oral histories, converting them into scenes for the play, and writing original songs. Director Geer also used an all-volunteer cast from the local community, many of which were not experienced actors.
During the process of producing the show, Creative Sanford decided to rehabilitate an historic building, the Princess Theater, which was located on 115 West First Street and owned by Stephen Tibstra. The Creative Sanford offices are housed in the Historic Sanford Welcome Center, located at 203 East First Street. As of December 2013, the Executive Board for Creative Sanford included President Brian Casey, Vice President Trish Thompson, Treasurer Linda Hollerbach, Secretary Dr. Annye Refoe, and Founder Jeanine Taylor. The Board of Directors consisted of Cheryl Deming, Juanita Roland, Wendy Wheaton, and Dr. Connie Lester, a professor of history at the University of Central Florida. Honorary Board Members included: Glenda Hood, former Florida Secretary of State and Mayor of Orlando; Valada Flewellyn, a local poet, author, and historian; and Jackie Jones, a local entertainer and arts advocate.
]]>Creative Sanford, Inc. is a non-profit organization created to manage Celery Soup community theater productions. The original idea for the Celery Soup project came from Jeanine Taylor, the owner of a folk-art gallery on First Street in Sanford, Florida. Their first production was Touch and Go, which took several years of planning. The play focused on how the people of Sanford overcame obstacles throughout their history. Some of these stories include the fall of Sanford's celery industry, the Freeze of 1894-1895, and the closing of Naval Air Station (NAS) Sanford in the 1960s. Richard Geer and Jules Corriere, partners from Community Performance International, were in charge of assessing oral histories, converting them into scenes for the play, and writing original songs. Director Geer also used an all-volunteer cast from the local community, many of which were not experienced actors.
During the process of producing the show, Creative Sanford decided to rehabilitate an historic building, the Princess Theater, which was located on 115 West First Street and owned by Stephen Tibstra. The Creative Sanford offices are housed in the Historic Sanford Welcome Center, located at 203 East First Street. As of December 2013, the Executive Board for Creative Sanford included President Brian Casey, Vice President Trish Thompson, Treasurer Linda Hollerbach, Secretary Dr. Annye Refoe, and Founder Jeanine Taylor. The Board of Directors consisted of Cheryl Deming, Juanita Roland, Wendy Wheaton, and Dr. Connie Lester, a professor of history at the University of Central Florida. Honorary Board Members included: Glenda Hood, former Florida Secretary of State and Mayor of Orlando; Valada Flewellyn, a local poet, author, and historian; and Jackie Jones, a local entertainer and arts advocate.
Reisz
My name is Autumn Reisz, and I’m here with Mark Miller, and we are asking the wonderful Trish [Thompson] a few questions today about Celery Soup and Creative Sanford[, Inc]. Um, if you just want to take a second and introduce yourself and we’ll get started on the questions.
Thompson
Okay. I’m Trish Thompson and I am, um, former president of Creative Sanford for four years now, and vice president, and theater manager. Um, when we do our interviews we tell where we are and what the atmosphere is. So I’ll say we’re in my office and, um, the atmosphere is quiet and we only have an air-conditioner going that could possibly interrupt.
Miller
Okay.
Thompson
So I’m ready when you are.
Miller
Alright.
Thompson
Start asking!
Miller
Well, thanks. Okay, um, what is Celery Soup?
Thompson
Okay. Celery Soup is Florida’s Folk Life Play. It’s a story that is comprised—a play, excuse me—that is comprised of story gathering which we have done, which is a lost art, and we, uh, get them from the citizens of Seminole County[, Florida] and hire a playwright. They put the stories together and that becomes Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play and we’ve done three performances, um, with the first one being Touch and Go, the second one being Made - Not Bought, and the third one being Remade - Not Bought. And, um, there—it went over so well, we’re—we’re just—we’re real happy with it and we’re already in—working with the playwright to get another one on the road for next year. So, uh, Creative Sanford is the umbrella organization. We are the producers of Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play.
Miller
Oh, very nice. Um, uh, what is the mission of Celery Soup?
Thompson
Uh, the mission of Creative Sanford—now you’ve got to know that we are the 501(c)(3) —Creative Sanford is. The, uh, actual production is Celery Soup—that’s the branding—is Celery Soup. It’s always Celery Soup. Every year the name of the play will change, but when they say, “What’s happening with Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play?” You know, then you tell ‘em whatever the new thing is that’s happening. Um, I’d have to read you our mission.
Miller
Oh, alright. That’s fine. No, that was excellent.
Thompson
Yeah.
Miller
Yeah. So, um, how did the idea for Celery Soup develop?
Thompson
Okay, the idea for, um, Celery Soup was, through our, um, person—the—the people that we knew in Colquitt, Georgia. And so Jeanine Taylor, our founder, went up there, met the people, saw the show and, um, and decided to bring it to Sanford when she moved her, uh, business here. And it was to help the economy and, uh, that was the first thought was that, you know, it was going to be an economic driver, bring people to Sanford, and of course help her business and other businesses in town. And she got the mayor and other people interested and they went up, saw the show, said, “Yes. This would be great for Sanford,” and that’s how it came to be in Sanford.
Then we spent three hard years with interviewing people and getting the community to understand what we do. We hired, uh, uh, Celery Soup—I mean, excuse me, Swamp Gravy—to come to Sanford and teach us how to do the interviews. Uh, they gave us the booklet that we use and, uh—just on a side note—uh, Freddie [Roman-Toro] who is—was our intern this spring, he rewrote it and updated it and got it where, um, it would fit in more with the RICHES [Regional Initiative for Collecting the History, Experiences, and Stories of Central Florida] Mosaic Interface that we’re gonna be using with UCF [University of Central Florida]. [phone rings]
Miller
Alright. How did you change the Swamp Gravy model to fit the needs of Sanford?
Thompson
You know, that’s really interesting, because they’re—was that your question?
Miller
No. That’s not.
Thompson
Alright.[laughs]
Reisz
But Mark [Miller] really liked it.
Thompson
Yes. Okay. Now when you’re interviewing, you know, you might not want the subject to know that you [laughs]—so you’re gonna learn along with me, um, the um—we been—what was the question again? I’m sorry.
Reisz
Um, how did you change the Swamp Gravy model…
Thompson
Oh, okay.
Reisz
To fit Sanford’s needs?
Thompson
Swamp Gravy’s model—2,000 people—very small town, very isolated—and they had to draw from churches and, uh, they went way outside the area to bring people in and they had to bus them in to, uh, to come to the play. And everyone in the community was involved in it, because, you know, 2,000 people and you’re puttin’ on a production with a hundred people, you know, that’s—that’s almost everybody in the town, at one point or another, has been in the play.
So for us, we’re in Central Florida. we compete with [Walt] Disney [World], the I[nterstate-4 corridor. um, we wanted to reach out to The Villages. that’s very difficult to reach out to The Villages, because they already have so much, um, entertainment and what have you that it’s right there at their fingertips. And they don’t come to Orlando very much. We found that out through the United Arts [of Central Florida], uh, president at that time, Margot Knight, that it was very tough to get The Villages, and so we’ve made so inroads into that and we do have one person who brings people in from there, but it’s, you know—that is, —that is harder.
For us, we’re more sophisticated. Um, the area there was—you could do just about anything for, you know, nothing, because there were no regulations and no, you know—the city didn’t make ‘em do this and that. So when we started, we had a lot of legal and financial, um, and city rules and regulations that we had to comply with. And I would suggest to anybody who is gonna to do something like this: do not cut corners on your legal and your—those kind of responsibilities in— in getting your, um, work-up with your city, so that your—you know, you’re not gonna get, quote, “a free ride,” but, you know, you’ll have a good working relationship with the city, if you comply with what they want done. So…
Reisz
Um, how has how has Creative Sanford and Celery Soup—how has it evolved from when you first started the program?
Thompson
Oh my goodness. It has really evolved. When we first started we wanted to put on a show, Okay? One production a year and we were gonna—oh, someone was gonna give us a building. We’ve gotten a whole big song and dance of, you know, where you were gonna put it on. Well, we couldn’t find any place that would allow us to put it on. And the one theater that was in town, it was: number one, 500 seats 450 to 500 seats. And it had the fourth wall, which of course we didn’t know anything about, but it—the fourth wall was an invisible wall between the audience and the cast. and so, um, the community theater, one of the things that they require is that it is community involved and, you know, so it’s, um—it’s theater in the three-quarter is what we have. We don’t—we ended up renting a space.
So number one, we have rent now and it’s not a free space. And so when we rented it, we had to sign a lease. And when we signed a lease, that changed—I mean, it was like the before and the after. The before lease and after lease. [laughs] Because then we became a theater, and the theater has to support itself. So you can’t have one play in the fall and the spring maybe—two plays—and maintain a theater. You know you got your rental. You got all your utilities you’ve got to pay. So we had to have other shows.
So we first started with a group that wanted to have a home and they were called “The Princess Players.” And so they put on five performances during the year and, you know, we produced them. And so we did make money through that and were able to pay the rent, but so now after three years, since 2010, we made another big leap in that we realize that the theater was as important as Celery Soup. If we don’t have the theater, we’re in the same boat as everybody else, with searchin’ for a place to put your thing on and it’s gonna cost you a tremendous amount of money to be that little person who’s begging for a place to have a show. And after being in the theater, we didn’t want to go back to being in a gymnasium or someplace like that.
So we co-op the theater and we have three organizations that co-op with us and they own the theater for those periods of time. So that helps pay the rent. Phew, there’s something here. So that pays, you know—that gets our rent paid.
So then as time goes on, in the next year or two, we will be able to do some of the other things in our mission that we are not able to do now and, uh, the—the quantity that we would like to do and that helps other organizations that don’t have money that give them a place to showcase their art. Um, we’ve done art openings. We’ve done, uh, concerts. we’ve done, uh, with the Humanities Council—with the Dreamers and Schemers and they’ve asked us to come back in 2014 and do it again—standing room only—uh, we do The Holocaust with the Holocaust and Interfaith Council. So we’re making all these organizations that are becoming partners with us—that they’re doin’ it this year, that maybe next year, you know. and we’ll find places for ‘em to rent the theater to them for a minimal amount of money—cover the expenses—and they’re able to put something on and we’re able to provide the community with different kind[sic] of art— all different types of art.
So we’re doin’ Celery Soup now. They’ll be doin’, uh, Sleeping Beauty and Grease, and the co-op people are doin’ these things. One of them is a school, so they do things through the summer. and then in August, I believe it is, we’re goin’ to do Spam-A-Lot. So it will be our first time to do, um—produce a Broadway show. And it’s a Tony Award-winning and that’s what we want to do. So we’d like to do Spam-A-Lot one year and whatever the next one, as soon as the rights open up. We want to do the most recent, like I believe next year Wicked, off-Broadway—you know, from Broadway—will be open.
So this is a goal that we want to bring quality entertainment that people can afford to go to Wash—New York [City, New York] or Washington[, D.C.] or wherever. They can see really quality work, right here in Seminole County. They don’t have to go to Orlando. They don’t have to go to the arena, you know, and all that kinda thing.
Miller
Excellent. Um, so how do you collect the stories for the plays?
Thompson
Okay. Uh, we advertised. We had the Swamp Gravy Institute come down and we had a whole group of people come in and learn how to do the interviews. and then they’d ask their friends, “Can I interview you?” So it started out friends of the people who are to interview and moved out from there. We went, um, Serenity Towers, which at that time was called Bram Towers, and we did practice interviews with the older ladies and gentlemen and—and, uh, the—it was kind of a learning experience for everyone. And then we also, um, then put ads in the paper.
And when we first got started we did a thing called, uh, Talks from the Stalks, is what we called it—like a stalk of celery. And, uh, the newspaper[1] was nice enough that we would put in little excerpts from interviews that we’d done. And so they’d do a little blurb—we’d hopefully have a picture of the person that spoke—and then a little piece out of their story. And then it would be the quote advertisement call to tell your story. So that’s how— that’s how we got started, with just grass-roots, asking your friends, and moving out into the community.
And the most difficult part was being accepted by the black community, because there was a lot of, um, [sighs] negativity in both directions, in that, um, the black community was told that we were exploiting them by some people, who, for some reason didn’t understand what we were doin’. There’s a fly in here. Um, and then there was some on the other side that didn’t know how to relate to the black community. So it was a give-and-take and over the last six years.
This year we were invited to Hopper Academy. Um, this was the first year we had been so lucky to have two reunions” The Hopper [Academy] and then the Crooms Academy [of Information Technology] we’re going to do in December. So that’s the, that’s a real plus for us to be able to have made the inroads into the black community—that they trust us.
And, uh, if you know anything about Sanford, we’ve just gone through an awful trial[2] that brought up a lot of really bad memories from a lot of people—black and white. And, uh, it’s just, uh— it’s just a miracle that we’re such a good community that we overcame the outside pressures and didn’t succumb to anything that they wanted to [laughs]—they wanted us to have a riot or something. I don’t know what the media wanted, but, uh, they didn’t get it, because we’re not that kind of a town. We’re a good town. We’re—we’re working together.
And I think we have helped over the last six years to help the community realize that, you know, all that outside stuff that made ‘em appreciate that we really are a closely knit community, much closer than was realized and yet there’s still a lot of—a lot of energy and a lot of negativity that—that is like post-traumatic stress disorder. You know, it’s—you think of the worst thing that ever happened you think—you in your life. It flashes [snaps] to you immediately. You know exactly was the worst thing in your mind that ever happened to you. And that may be, this—this—this trial just triggered. That throwback to that worst feeling of inadequacy and—and negativity that they ever had. So, you know, we—we have to appreciate that and realize it.
And I’ve talked to people who have said, “Oh, why don’t they just get over it?” And I say, “What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you?” “Oh, that I lost my child,” or, you know—I mean that’s horrific. And I say, “Well, get over it.” Whoa, did they get mad at me? But, I say, you know, you’ve got to understand—and it was somebody that wanted to interview, but they didn’t have the empathy or the sympathy or the—the feelings that were needed to be an interviewer in this organization. So, when you’re doin’ this, I’d say to anybody: be sure that the people who are interviewers have an open mind and/or can keep their feelings under—you know, under the radar—under the cover.
Miller
Well, that brings up a question of when you’re asking the stories, what sort of themes—you ask for themes? Or how do you go about…
Thompson
Well, we’re…
Miller
Pitching the story.
Thompson
We started with a theme that was, uh, perseverance. And this was in 2010, and so our first story was about, uh, how Sanford and the community had overcome all sorts of natural, um, disasters. We had floods, and we had, uh, fires, and we had—the weather froze—and, I mean, uh, the weather was very cold and the fruit and vegetables and the trees froze. You know, so it changed the whole economy of things. The, uh, Navy left Sanford. Big, big, big, big problem. and Sanford’s overcome and actually gotten better from all the different changes that have happened. So that was what—it was perseverance, and we used as a sub thing, openin’ a can of worms [laughs]. So we—we just—“So what is,” you know, “What were you mad about? What did you not like? What did—what did ya get over on somebody?” You know, we had all kinds of questions that we tried to pull out of people that were deeper than just—“Who are you? Where did— where did you go to school and what do you do? “
Miller
Well, you did something like, uh, what you’re, um, talking about, perseverance and…
Thompson
Mmhmm.
Miller
You know, can of worms. How do you integrate that into the play?
Thompson
Well, that is what you have your playwright for. Now we’re, uh, setting up now and working with UCF with this, um—we have, um—May, um—what do ya call ‘em? With, uh, the keyword—keywords. So it might be perseverance. It might be love. It might be hate. it might be alligators or animals, or, you know—so, you’ll have keywords and the, um—um, the—the writers can key in that word, and then up comes the transcription from the play of that—of that—that might fit that story—may might fit that thing.
So, uh, next year’s going to be a comedy. and so we’re, you know—we’re gonna have a theme that’s going to be outta—we don’t know yet—outta, uh—that hadn’t been decided. Uh, that’s how you do it is you decide on your theme and you go to your playwright and say, “I want you to write about this theme and here are your keywords and you can go to all these different” —so maybe when we do an interview—the interview usually lasts an hour and a half, um—in that hour and a half, you might get 10 good stories or 10 stories, you know. It depends on how fast they talk or, you know, what—what you could pull out of ‘em. Some of ‘em in an hour you won’t get one that’s worth anything. But, uh, it might be able to use in backgrounds somewhere. And some of ‘em you could use every single story in, you know—that they tell. They’re all just—oh my gosh. This is great.
And we have several of those families that have done that and one is Uncle Dieter and one is Mr. [Elmer] Baggs. Both of them have just fabulous stories that they tell and we’ve used them in all of our productions. We’ve used stories from them and we go back, like you said—we go back to them to, you know, harvest more stories from them and ask different questions and—you know. Some of ‘em are just so funny. You know, that you, you forget that you’ve to get in to some of these power depth things too.
Reisz
Have you encountered any challenges working with a playwright that may or may not be from the Sanford area? is there any challenge to that?
Thompson
We—yes. We have had that challenge. Um, the one that the professional group that we used, they came and taught us a lot, and they were not from our area. So they had to do a lot of historical research at the libraries and, um, the historic society, so they got a lot of input there. Though it was very good for them, but also they would say things that we would say, uh, “Stop. We can’t use that. We—this—it’s not correct.” It’s, you know—or it’s too—it’s still too politically, um, explosive. That—that we don’t want to bring that to our town at this point. Later we’ll—we’ll delve into that, but right now we can’t do that.
And, uh, and one of ‘em is about—and it—it—it’s about, uh, ah, the [Mayfair] Country Club. And the—the playwright wanted to put that in there and I said, “We cannot put this in there. They are going to court. This is a lawsuit. It has not been [laughs]—you know, we can’t put something that’s an ongoing thing that maybe somebody would be a juror on that trial that saw our view of this. No, no, no, no, no. we can’t do that.” So it’s a perfect—it’s a perfect example of— of havin’ to help, you know, keep things in the right frame that we want to.
Reisz
Have you, um, always used, uh, a playwright to produce your plays and a professional director and have you guys done any of that on your own?
Thompson
We’re in the process now of doing that and we hired—we’ve hired, um, people who have professional—have had professional experience, but are for—we only use the professionals the first time, ‘cause that was like $125,000 and so we had to raise money for a long time to—to get that together. And that was the year that we signed the contract with the theater. So, you know, all of this and financial part of it all mixes together.
And you realize, once you start this, you are a theater. You know, you’re not just—unless you’re going to keep it on a low key, not very large, but if you want to go big, you’re going to have to be a theater. And we want to go big. We’ve—want to go to the [John F.] Kennedy Center [for Performing Arts] in—in, Washington. We’re already set to be at the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center. We’re working with Central Florida, uh, uh, Community Arts and they’re gonna do a Christmas that’s gonna be the same show, or similar to the same show, that they put on at Christmas at Disney. So it’s the candlelight, uh, service that you pay 80-90 dollars for and you’ll pay 10-20-15, you know, for this show here. Because we want community to be able to see what we’re doing. And, and, uh, that is—that’s part of our mission, to bring the community together.
Reisz
Um, so the professional—that’s the direction that you guys are going to go in going forward is using, uh, not necessarily, um, director per se, but definitely a professional playwright and things like that? you going to keep that?
Thompson
Well, no. we’ve brought the community on the playwright too. As a matter of fact, um, even I helped write [laughs] a little bit of the play that we’re doing right now. So I can’t call myself—I call myself an editor, not a playwright.
Miller
Well, that was one of the questions, that, um, regarding—do you have any employees?
Thompson
No. we’re—not yet.
Miller
You were talking about having some professionals...
Thompson
Uh uh.
Miller
So, um, you hire people as you need them? Or…
Thompson
The way they—yes. and the way that works, um, is that they would get a stipend. Um, you would be for, um, a director, you might pay 750-1000 dollars, something like that. It’s not big money. And they have to work for six or eight weeks before the show to get it ready. I mean, that’s a lot of work for, you know, that kind of money.
Uh, but a lot of community theater only pays the music director. Everybody else is volunteer. And we have thousands and thousands hours of volunteer hours, because we have no paid staff. We do have some[sic] paid artist, but not any paid staff. And nobody and—none of the actors are paid.
Miller
So you draw your expertise from the community also?
Thompson
Right. and that is a lucky thing that we have. That we have so much theater and, um, entertainment in Central Florida, and people who want to do theater. And they’re tied into day to day jobs that, um, you know, stifle their creative—and, and they do it for free. They do it for the love of theater.
Which I didn’t understand. I’m a businessperson. I came out of, you know, owning my own business for many, many years and my husbands a, uh, CPA [Certified Public Account] and ran an insurance company. And, oh my gosh. You know, everything is the bottom line kiddo [laughs]. So that’s kinda where I fit in. And t’s a little difficult for me to learn and having to learn. And most of the other people on the [Executive] Board are businesspeople. And they—it’s—it’s—it’s somethin’ to learn how to do this.
Miller
Well, what—you brought up the board. What role does that—the board play?
Thompson
Uh, the board makes the decisions on where the money goes, and—and where the fundraisers and, um—we do all the—all the grunt work that has to be done. We do the marketing. We do the, uh, advertising. We do the, uh, um—um, the Celery Ball, which is our main fundraiser.
We reach out to all community to—to get the word out and speak to groups and make connections wherever we can with the politicians, in, uh, um—you know, just have to reach out to every single facet. And it’s—it’s—it’s a miracle. It’s wonderful. It is wonderful. And I love working this class that’s a very diverse class, with older, younger, men, women. It’s great. You know, I going to learn so much from you all [nods].
Reisz
How, um, how is—how is Creative Sanford and Celery Soup, how have—how have you been successful in achieving your goals?
Thompson
Well, we’ve put on three shows. Yes. We’ve brought in community who have done playwright—playwriting—who have done music, who have done directing, that are from the community, that were paid a small stip—small stipend. And, um, you know, this is—this is the goal. is to bring the community together. We’ve brought people together who would have never have met.
Um, one lady who’s a very prominent, uh, poet, and she was in our show and she helped write a little bit of it. And, um, she was afraid of one the—of one of the people in the show. It was a young black guy and she was an older black lady, but she wasn’t raised in any of the—so she had a whole generational plus economic—there wasn’t a reason to be afraid of this young person. But she was—she was fearful. And so she really learned. And the—and the young person learned too. How to be more respectful and so that’s—that’s a goal is—you know, I think people call it bullying and all of that, but it’s really—it’s learning how to love each other and work with each other, and um, and blend into to, uh, international, you know, family.
Reisz
You mentioned earlier that there was a couple of things that, um, you hadn’t achieved. You know, you want to do more outreach with other community groups and things like that?
Thompson
Right.
Reisz
Is there anything else you—that Creative Sanford would like to do, but you haven’t been able to do yet?
Thompson
Oh, yes. We’d like to, um—we’d like to have a performing arts center. and we have talked to, uh, Congressman [John L.] Mica about that. um, preliminary, stages, of maybe having an arts council—not an arts council. We have the Seminole Cultural Arts Council, but um, to work with them with Creative Sanford to have our theater in a building, to have uh, um, uh, galleries in the theater, and have gift shops, and have, uh, study areas, and training areas, and studios. I mean, we’ve got a big group of ideas and that would—that would involve all the arts. And that’s one of the things that, um, is real—real difficult to get off the ground on no money. So that’s where you’re going to look for federal grants and that’s where you need your politicians to help you. And Seminole Cultural Arts Council and ourselves are working together to, uh, work with Congressman Mica and—and see if we can get one in Seminole County. You know, there’s a lot people, there’s a lot of money in Seminole County. It’s all going south. So we want to bring some of it back to Seminole County and let them realize that, not only are we a bedroom place, but also a great place to—to just enjoy life and make your whole—whole area more livable.
Reisz
Um, why is it important—in particular in Sanford, of course—but why is it important that these plays are produced by the community for the community?
Thompson
Well, that goes right back to, um, people learning each other, meeting each other, uh, getting together, and becoming friends and, um, meshing as a team. And they go out when—when we have done this, um, the group says, “Hey, I know a place that we need to go.” So emails go back and then we just get together, we go out, maybe put on a performance or—not a whole show—but do vignettes, maybe do a little bit of Uncle Dieter maybe do a little bit of, um, Elmer Bags. Just, you know, somethin’ funny or, er, poignant, or somethin’ like that.
We’ve done one called Generations,where the woman tells the story of how her family came from Africa and, you know, where they landed, and you know, how her history came about, and now she’s the last one in her line. And she says—at the end, she says, “Who will remember me? Will you?” And it just—oh, it just gives me cold chills right now. It’s just—it just tells people—opens their eyes and minds and hearts to, you know, what’s going on in the rest of world and how other people are feeling and, um, we always want to do more of that.
Reisz
Uh, you had mentioned earlier that—that the—that Creative Sanford and Celery Soup in particular had been really well received by the community?
Thompson
Yes.
Reisz
Um, how have you integrated community feedback into your projects and the things that you’re doing, besides just the interviews?
Thompson
Well, that is—that is one of the big things that we do. When we have the play and getting it ready, okay? We have a day, that we have—invite all the community to come to the theater and we do a run through of the play. And if they have feedback, “Oh that—that story wasn’t there. That story is over on Eleventh Street.” “Oh, this is wrong,” or “I don’t like this,” or, oh—they don’t laugh or, you know, they think something’s offensive. And we take that all into consideration. We’re very much attuned to what—it’s like what we tell the playwrights, sometimes we say, “Hey. Something we already know politically you can’t do that. They’re already in a—they’re already in a lawsuit.” But it is the same thing with other peoples’ feelings. And, um, we had one lady who got up and said she loved this part and the other lady got up and said that, “This isn’t the way it was where I was.” And it was complete opposite, so it was like, “Okay. Well, we’ll tell this story here and let’s interview you and get your story for the next time.”
So it’s—you know, we’re going to tell our stories as much as we can, but we want to—we want to be fair to everybody, but that is what we do. That’s part of the community—that we learned from the professionals. It’s that you have—when you start your cast, you—you have a day that you talk about, um, being compassionate and—and working with your other cast members and all of that sort of thing. And, um, that kind the way it starts and then, you know, we get this real tight group going and people know you now.
For me, see, I am known as the “ticket lady,” because I was always down there working the tickets and, you know, all this. They didn’t know I was president. they didn’t care who I was. I was the ticket lady. That’s the one they saw every night. But now they’re seeing me in a completely different role, because I’m in the play. And I have just a small—I have three small parts, but, you know, one of ‘em is absolutely just as silly as all get out and so they’re seeing, “Oh, the ticket lady does something besides” [laughs], you know, “sell the tickets. She might have some other good things that she can do.” So they’re seeing me in a different light and I think we see everybody in a different light. That—that whatever they perceive themselves to be, we’re seeing them in a different, more human light.
Miller
Well you’ve been with the project from the beginning, um…
Thompson
Just about.
Miller
Well, what—what are your biggest surprises about this?
Thompson
Oh, all of it. All of it. I had no idea how much work it was gonna be, how much fun it was gonna be, how enlightening it was gonna be. It’s just been—it’s just—it’s been like [sighs] renewed youth of somethin’. You know, you’ve thought, Oh, well, my identity is a restaurant owner. This—I’m the Rib Ranch, you know. Well then you retire and I got all involved in this and—and, uh, now I feel like, “Well, hey. This, this is rejuvenated me.” and, you know, put your brain in gear again and you have all these new goals, because I’d already completed all my goals. I was the best restaurant that sold barbeque in Seminole County and, you know, where do you go from there? So this was a new goal and set new things. So age never matters. Grandma Moses became famous in her 80s, so maybe I’ll become famous in my 70s [laughs].
Miller
Ah, what are some of the challenges in creating and maintaining a project like Celery Soup?
Thompso
Financial. There you go. That’s the bottom line. That’s the big problem, is getting’ the money. Yup.
Miller
Well, um, you mentioned fundraisers.
Thompson
Mmhmm.
Miller
And you have a Celery Ball.
Thompson
Right.
Miller
Do you want to describe that a little bit and some of the other fundraisers?
Thompson
Okay. What we’ve done—and, of course, this has evolved too. When we first started we had the Celery Ball, we had a king and queen. And the king and queen raised money—the king and queen candidates raised money—and, um, the first year we raised over $30,000. The second year about $30,000. The third year about $25,000. And the fourth year $10,000. Okay. economy. There you go. The economy’s going down, people didn’t have money to do all this, so that next year it was—we had a lot of silent auctions. We did not have, and we’re not having this year, a king and queen.
So we feel like—okay. We’ve kind of burned that out. it’s got a life of about four years and then you’ve got to go to something else. So we’ve moved the play—we’ve moved it to a different location. It’s gonna be a The Great Gatsby themed, so it’s gonna to be ‘20s-‘30s. Gonna be a lotta fun and, uh, um—and we have silent auction and trips and things like that, that we’re gonna be putting out to—to raise money instead of having—it was real easy when you had kings and queens and they’re all out having fundraisers and, you know, they’re doing all the work and you’re raking in the money. But it doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work that way for the whole thing.
Miller
Alright, um…
Reisz
[inaudible]
Miller
Yeah, uh, what are, um, some of your production costs? And in that the price of your tickets and stuff?
Thompson
Mmhmm. okay. We price our tickets at $15—well 20 and 18 at first—and then we moved it down to 15 and 12. And, ah—again, it’s to meet the mission of bringing things and the quality—best quality we can—to the community. And these are bad times. I don’t know how you guys are seeing it, but, you know, everybody is working one or two, you know—working extra jobs. Still not, you know, cuttin’ it with the way things are going with businesses, where they’re cutting people’s hours back. “Oh, we’re only going to give you 26 and we’re never gonna give you more than 32, so you can’t be a full-time employee, so we won’t have to pay you benefits.” Da, da, da, da, da.
So we look at all of that and, uh, we decided on our price, and because we’re not usin’ the professionals. We’re back—we give just the small stipend—we do a production, is about 10,000, mkay? Is what it costs us to put on a production. and a lot of it is borrowing from different places in the community. Oh, and now that we’re a co-op we can say, “Oh, do you have some lights we can borrow?” Whereas we may have had to spend 10,000 on lights the first year, which we did. We had to rent ‘em. That, you know, now we can get lights and—as a matter of fact, we just had two people who gave us lights just in the last week. So, you know, we’re getting the lights—we don’t still have as much lighting as we need, and that’s one of the things that we’ll get a grant to help us get lighting and sound equipment and, you know, these kinds of things that we need. But, um, yeah. that’s it. Financial.
Reisz
Um, much of what Celery Soup has been doing is preserving the history of and the stories of Sanford.
Thompson
Right.
Reisz
How are you preserving the legacy of Celery Soup and Creative Sanford itself?
Thompson
Well, we have two ways. Uh, Alicia [Clarke] at the, um, Sanford Museum has asked us for copies of everything. So they’re going to archive the beginnings and all of our—as time goes by, they’ll do it. And so I’m keeping double records of, you know, two pieces of paper and so we’ll keep one and give one to her. And of course, we’re expecting that a lot of our archiving is going to go up on RICHES, so we’ll have that as part of our archival process.
And we, um—you have to have a disaster program, you know, and so we have disaster programs and we have things backed up with—on the flash drives—or we have them backed up on secondary computers. We have, um, fireproof safes that we keep things in. and we keep things off, um—out of the office. I don’t—I can’t think of what the word is. but somewhere else that, um, we keep things—the financial things and the historic things—um, backed up. So that’s how we have to do it. And—and the things like this, I’m really happy that if anything happened to this little dress, um—this was the dress that was worn by the little two and a half year old little girl, who was in our very first production—Kalayla. and, um, so definitely want pictures of that. And that’s—that’s an archival thing. If this rotted, we wouldn’t have it. So…
Miller
Okay. um, how do you keep the community engaged in Celery Soup, uh, especially long-term?
Thompson
That’s a problem. You have to keep moving and especially when we have to look two ways: the economy and wearing yourself out, you know, with asking people over and over again for help. And, uh— so the engagement—we just try to broaden and not to go back to the same wells every time. That if there’s 54,000 people in this town, and if 2,000 people are helping us, we need to get to the next 2,000 and the next 2,000, and the next 2,000. And we’ve reached, um,—as a matter of fact, just last week we were given a check for $250 from an organization that had never helped us before. So here we are. We’re getting into that outer ring and so we’ll just, slowly but surely, we’re just gonna reach out all through the whole area and get some of these people.
Mercedes[-Benz] helped us and then they kind of backed—backed away with what they were doing and so we’re going to different places to make this thing work. And we’re on David Maus’ [Toyota’s] jumbo-tron out there, which we’ve never been on there before and so, you know, that’s a first for us. So we just keep moving ou.t and we’ve never had any kind of TV advertising or never had any TV that supported us, and so this year, uh—this 2014, we’re really gonna put a push on getting sponsors of, um, in kind or whatever we can get from the, uh, major stations. We’ve had radio. We’ve had, um, um, public and NCR[3] and public broadcasting, but we want to get more into the mainstream too.
Reisz
Um, I know that we are getting tight on time, so we have one last question that we’d like to ask you, before we release you.
Thompson
Okay. Mkay.
Reisz
Uh, but what advice would you give another community thinking about beginning a similar project?
Thompson
The advice that I would give them is to contact everybody that has ever done one that you can find and ask them the questions that you’re asking. How do you do it? How much did it cost? We had a group that came in and asked us those questions and we answered them and, uh, and it was very interesting. We had—they came down and visited us and it was a very interesting time.
But, um, whatever the people tell you it’s going to cost, figure it’s going to cost at least 50 percent or a third to 50 percent more, okay? It’s much more expensive than you think it’s gonna be. Uh, some people think, “Oh, well everything be given to us.” and that’s what we were told” Oh, people would just reach out to you and they’re gonna give you this and they’re gonna give—let me tell ya. in a big market like this, they don’t do that. Maybe in very small towns, yes. You can get that kind of immediate help, but in a big, big area like we’re in it’s not the same process. And that’s where we differ with Swamp Gravy too, in that, you know, we have a very different financial field back and forth there.
So, yeah. It’s, um— it is—it’s mainly financial, legal. Be sure if you write contracts, if you go with professionals that, you know, you get a good tight that you’re protected and safe. And we went to an entertainment attorney and had her look over the contract and make changes and things to protect us a little bit better. So those are the things that you’ve got to have.
Reisz
Well thank you very, very much. We greatly appreciate it. Um, we really appreciate it. And then we’ll probably come up with some other questions. If you think we missed anything, let us know. We’d be happy to ask about it.
Thompson
[laughs] Okay.
Miller
And we…
Lester
I’m Dr. Connie [L.] Lester, the Director of the RICHES program, and you are listening to the RICHES documentary podcast.
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Lester
Welcome to the RICHES documentary podcast. RICHES—the Regional Initiative for Collecting the Histories, Experiences, and Stories of Central Florida—is an umbrella program housing interdisciplinary public history projects that bring together different departments at the University of Central Florida with profit and nonprofit sectors of the community in order to promote the collection and preservation of the region’s history. By facilitating research that records and presents the stories of communities, businesses, and institutions in Central Florida, RICHES seeks to provide the region with a deeper sense of its heritage. This series feature a podcast every two weeks, in the middle and at the end of each month that will explore various aspects of Central Florida history.
In today’s episode, “Gentrification and Urban Renewal: Revitalizing Central Florida’s African-American Communities,” Geoffrey Cravero examines some of the reasons that these once flourishing neighborhoods began to decline, and what city leaders are doing to save these communities.
Cravero
Hi. I’m Geoffrey Cravero, and in today’s episode, “Gentrification and Urban Renewal: Revitalizing Central Florida’s African-American Communities,” we’re gonna be speaking with Representative Geraldine [F.] Thompson and Dr. Benjamin [D.] Brotemarkle about the Parramore district of Downtown Orlando, and Dr. Julian C. Chambliss and Fairolyn Livingston about Hannibal Square, the African-American side of Winter Park, Florida. Central Florida’s African-American community was once relatively prosperous, consisting of a thriving business district, populated by a mix of professionals and working-class families, and in many ways, quite self-sufficient.
This podcast will examine some of the factors that led to the ultimate decline of these regions, the efforts that have gone into restoring them, and the overall effectiveness of those campaigns. Geraldine Thompson has been a representative in the Florida State Legislature since 2006. A former educator and administrator at Valencia Community College, she is also a founder of the Wells’ Built Museum of African American History and Culture.
The Executive Director of the Florida Historical Society, Dr. Brotemarkle has written several books on Florida history and culture, including Crossing Division Street: An Oral History of the African American Community in Orlando and Beyond the Theme Parks: Exploring Central Florida. You might also recognize him as the producer and host of Florida Frontiers, the weekly radio magazine of the Florida Historical Society.
Dr. Julian Chambliss is an associate professor of history at Rollins College, specializing in 19th and 20th century urban America, African-American history in Florida, race and ethnicity, American planning history, as well, as other topics related to the urban experience.
Born in Hannibal Square, Fairolyn Livingston has spent most of her life in the community, and is now Manager of the Hannibal Square Heritage Center.
I’d like to thank each of our guests for taking the time to speak with us. I asked Representative Thompson and Dr. Brotemarkle to tell us about the rise and fall of Orlando’s Parramore community.
Thompson
Parramore was founded in the 1800s, uh, when the city was just, uh, beginning to form, and it was the location where many African Americans lived initially. The city was separated, as was the case throughout the South, generally by the railroad tracks. You had the, uh, white community on one side and the African-American community on the other side. So, uh, Parramore is just west of the railroad tracks in Downtown Orlando, and the pioneers in the African-American community who made significant contributions to the City [of Orlando] and to Central Florida lived in Parramore.
When the community went through integration at the end of, uh, “legally sanctioned apartheid” —is what I call it—uh, the idea was that, in order to get true integration, you had to close some of the major institutions in Parramore. So you saw the schools, uh, close. Many of the churches also moved out. Uh, the Parramore area had become saturated, and people needed other places to live, and so, uh, places like Washington Shores, the Richmond Heights area, uh, Carver Shores, were established and many people moved to those areas which were, at that time, considered the suburbs, and many of the professionals who lived in Parramore also moved, and so you left behind, uh, people who were, for the most part, renters, who did not own the properties where they lived. Uh, there was very little that was owner-occupied in Parramore—a lot of absentee landlords.
So when you lost the major institutions like your schools, your churches, the professional individuals who had made it the economic and the social hub for African Americans in Central Florida, then an element, uh, of crime began to—to build, and, uh, there were a lot of problems, and quite frankly, a lot of the decision-makers, who were deciding what was going to happen and how Central Florida, uh, would grow, did not really consider Parramore worthy of much of an investment, and so that’s what led to a blighted area for a very long time.
There have been a lot of very effective efforts to bring business back into the community. Uh, there is one charter school now in the community—the Nap Ford [Community] School. Other than Nap Ford, however, there are still no schools in Parramore. The students are bussed out to nine different, uh—different schools in—in the area. Uh, the businesses that have come into the area include, uh, the Bank of America. You now have the Federal Courthouse that is also built in the Parramore area, as well, as the Florida A[gricultural] & M[echnical] University College of Law. Uh, the Wells’ Built Museum, which is in the former Wells’ Built Hotel, um, is celebrating now 10 years—our 10th anniversary, and so we have been able to document, and to preserve, and to share a lot of the history of Parramore, which makes people much more aware that it is a significant co—uh, community, and as we revitalize and as we grow, it’s something worth saving.
We are in the process of, uh, restoring the residence of the person who built the Wells’ Built. His name was William Monroe Wells, one of the early African-American physicians here. He came here in 1917, and in addition to a thriving medical practice, he had a social club, which was called the South Street Casino, and he brought, uh, big bands, [Edward] “Duke” [Kennedy] Ellington, [William] “Count” [James] Basie, Ella [Jane] Fitzgerald, to perform at the South Street Casino, which he owned, and after the entertainers, uh, finished performances, they didn’t have a place to stay. So that was his motivation for building a hotel, and, uh, so in addition to refurbishing the Wells’ Built and operating it as a museum of African-American history, we’re now in the process of refurbishing his home, which was located where the new Amway Center, uh, is, And that’s another business that has come into Parramore, which is Downtown Orlando, and so the home was moved rather than, uh, to have it demolished, and we will make it part of the museum complex, and we’ll operate a museum store in Dr. Wells’ residence. So his legacy is alive and well, on South Street.
Brotemarkle
Well, there are many factors that—that led to the demise of the hotel and casino. Uh, first of all, eh, as—as great and wonderful and necessary as the civil rights laws of the 1960s were, once African Americans could move anywhere they wanted to, uh—and this is not unique to the Parramore neighborhood. This happened to communities throughout the South, in particular, uh, but many of the community leaders—that[sic] helped keep the infrastructure of the community together—moved out of the neighborhood. So consequently, in many cases, uh, all that were—were left were the people who couldn’t afford to move anywhere else, and actually, in the case of the Parramore neighborhood, this had actually started a little bit before that in the 1950s. People had started migrating over to the Washington Shores neighborhood in Orlando, but the—the—the civil rights laws definitely contributed to the continued exodus, uh, from the Parramore neighborhood of many of the people, uh—the community leaders. Uh, also, the building of I[nterstate Highway]-4, uh, right through—right by the—the Parramore neighborhood kind of—into that neighborhood, uh, helped to break that up a little bit, as well. Uh, that was, uh, another factor.
Uh, so as these—as the community leaders moved out of the neighborhood, the Parramore neighborhood itself entered, uh, a state of social and economic decline, and, uh, I—I think it is starting to, uh, pull out of it a little bit, and that was really part of the purpose of the Wells’ Built Museum of African American History and Culture—was to be an economic engine for the neighborhood, and hopefully, tap into this cultural and heritage tourism and bring people into the neighborhood for that reason. It is a fascinating era because, uh, again, between—with—with Division Street as the dividing line the—the Parramore neighborhood was really a thriving, self-sustained community, uh, parallel to the—to the white community in Orlando. Uh, here were institutions, Jones High School, uh, many of the churches, uh, that really created a strong fabric. Uh, uh, there was a, uh, uh, African-American chamber of commerce there in the Parramore neighborhood. There were black theatres. There were everything that the community needed right there. Uh, tailors, and—and businesses of all types were right there, and—and of course, the Wells’ Built Hotel and South Street Casino right in the middle of all this—this—this thriving African-American community.
So it’s really an interesting, uh, look at history, and—and also, the unintended negative impact of those civil rights laws in the 1960s, again, as—as wonderful and as necessary as they were, they really did have this—this unintended negative impact when, uh, some of the community leaders moved out, and, again, the building of I-4, kinda right through the heart of the community, and, uh, the East-West Expressway too, meeting right there, uh, caused further problems, uh, but I—I think that the community is—is pulling out of that era of social and economic decline that it suffered in the late 20th century, and hopefully the Wells’ Built Museum of African American History and Culture is contributing to that.
Cravero
Dr. Chambliss and Mrs. Livingston describe some of the factors that enabled Hannibal Square and Winter Park to grow into thriving communities, and how this prosperity has affected the development and gentrification of the region.
Chambliss
Well, in that early period, um, Hannibal Square, was, I think, able to grow and be successful because, of the model of, uh, attracting residents, promoting, uh, Winter Park as a sort of like leisure, uh, vacation destination, uh, and this has really become at the core of the identity of Winter Park. If you think about Winter Park over time, it really was founded by [Loring] Chase and [Oliver E.] Chapman as a sort of destination location for people who wanted to sort of live a certain kind of sort of leisurely lifestyle. Well, into, uh, 20th century that—that has been maintained.
If you look at the growth of Winter Park, uh, which grew rapidly after, uh—in the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s, like, and the people of Winter Park recognize. It’s part of the reason that it grew is because, like, they really sort of like saw the place as a kind of residential haven, and the fact—by the time you get to the 1950s, um, the city is known as the “City of Homes.” Um, and part of this is because they have like a large number of wealthy residents. Again, those wealthy residents have servants, and some of those servants are working in—in—are black people, uh, working in these white homes and then going back across the railroad tracks to Hannibal Square. So like, they have this steady work from all these rich people and that really does affect Hannibal Square.
At the same time, there’s a number of architectural—James Gamble Rogers is a very well-known architect—really sort of crystallized the architectural identity of Winter Park, with a fresh revival—a Medi—a Mediterranean revival style. So when you look at the homes, there’s a lot of like talk about Winter Park and Park Avenue—really sort of like crystallizes that sort of European style, uh, café culture look, right? And that really starts in 1960, and they really sort of keep trying to promote that. The chamber of commerce does a great job of trying to promote that and maintains it really today. it’s one of the reasons that these places really talk about Winter Park. They tend to talk about it as a place where you just want to kind of like stroll, in sharp contrast to the rest of the sort of retail and vacation experience in the rest of Central Florida, and as a consequence, the growth of the east side of Winter Park has been phenomenal, and the value of land there has grown tremendously, and so much so that by the time you get to the late 1990s, uh, arguably, the east side of Winter Park is built out, alright? So you can’t cheaply acquire land on the east side of Winter Park. You can buy a lot and—and really, we’re talking—we’re talking about the high-end of the real estate bubble, and Winter Park was one of the places where values were extremely high, and so the east side, really, by—by every stretch of the imagination is really sort of built up in value, um, over the period of the town.
The west side, which was the black side—which was sort of like off limits because it was—because of segregation—had lagged behind. It started out with the development of the town, as I—as I said, a sort of economic area where African-American property owners, and—and business owners, and African-American businesses were flourishing in Hannibal Square, but very quickly, with the end of—of official Jim Crow segregation, um, you see middle-class people moving out, and the median income and the median age on the west side of Winter Park really starts to—the income starts to go down. The age starts to go up, and services for the west side don’t keep. in fact, [inaudible] great stories about the fact that the roads, on the west side of Winter Park, weren’t really sort of kept up at the same level as the roads on the east side of Winter Park, And other kinds of infrastructure issues like that, and as a consequence, the value of homes and property on the west side lagged behind that was on the east side of Winter Park. So value of black property lagged behind value of white property, which is common.
As a result of that, there’s a lot of push, um, to do something about the—the view—the view-scape and the housing stock on the west side, and if you go back and look at some of the language that people use in the city council meetings or in some of the things that people are saying when they—they’re pointing to houses that are boarded up, they’re talking about a spike in crime, and indeed, there is a real concern that Hannibal Square, which by this time, is no longer home of like businesses more like light retail and bars and things like that—convenience stores—that are really the haven for—in the minds of white residents, at least—crime and violence. Indeed, there is[sic] the police reports show large number of drug arrests or suspicious crime in the west side in 1980s and early 1990s, and it really sort of spurs on dialogue about what needs to be done to improve the housing stock to clean up Hannibal Square and basically correct this problem, and there are a variety of reasons for this. I mean, some of it was the crime, but also, if you look at the way that the town is laid out, if you’re coming in through[?] the main drag, coming in—off of, like, Orlando Avenue, one of the main sort of like entry points into the city of Winter Park is through, um, Morris [Avenue], and you basically go through the heart of the black community to do that, and if you go back to the 1990s, that looked radically different than it does now.
If you look at it now it looks actually quite nice, ‘cause it’s been rezoned and it—there’s new buildings, uh—office buildings, mix-use stuff—but back then, it—there were homes there, and some of them were boarded up, and the City had routinely had issues or had programs in place where they were trying to address this question, of, like, the quality of housing stock on the west side. They had some housing rehabilitation programs that they created in the 1970s. They supported, of course, you know, the creation of the Winter Park Community Center in Hannibal Square, but really, you know, the economy changed, as I said, and the median age started to creep up.
So you get a large number of elderly people who, eh, own property—been in their family for generations—but they couldn’t keep it up in a way that the City might want, and so—so this created an opportunity for developers to come into, um, the west side and champion sort of a new push to sort of rehabilitate the region, and this made sense from the City’s standpoint, because, like, depressed property is low—low tax property. so if you want to increase your tax base, you want to improve the—the value of the property there—but it also created, like, a high gentri—gentrifying push, because, remember, you can’t cheaply build anything on the east side of town. So for most developers, they’re really looking to do a big project. they kind of have to do it on the west side of town. They had to do it west of the railroad tracks.
So in the late 1990s and the ear—early 2000s, the City of Winter Park creates a Community Redevelopment Agency—the CRA—and the sort of focal point of the CRA is the sort of box that is bordered by Park Avenue on the east, Webster Avenue on the north, and, like, [U.S. Route] 17-92, and then Fairbanks [Avenue]. So it’s a huge block, and basically it’s Park Avenue and Downtown Winter Park, and the black side of town. So that’s a huge swath of land, and it—it’s prime real estate that could be developed, but is also, primarily, the heart of the black community, and almost immediately, large numbers of residents in the black community recognized that the City’s efforts to improve the area of the CRA was going to push out the black community. Now, from the City’s standpoint, the City’s always maintained that its goal was to maintain the character of the black community or the character of Hannibal Square, but if you’re going to allow traditional market forces to be your primary vehicle to achieve this, then gentrifying effects are almost unavoidable.
You can’t, as the city’s done—like the city’s done a, uh, sort of three-tier sort of approach. It’s provided loans for businesses to move into Hannibal Square. It totally redesigned, um, Shady Park, which is in the center of Hannibal Square, in response to some of the crime and complaints of some of the businesses that were being enticed into the—into the area, because of the CRA. So the old part was—had a lot of benches and—and shading covers, and—and older people would hang out there and talk, and the new park sort of took all that away, and is much more aesthetically pleasing, but is also a place where you can’t really linger, which made a lot of sense, in terms of trying to address some of these questions about crime and—and—and disruption associated with that area—um, but they also worked very diligently to eliminate some of the bars, some of the focal points of crime, and that was successful. They moved in new businesses so that Dexter’s on Winter Park, uh—Dexter’s a fairly well-known restaurant chain in the area—where it became like really an anchor and they created a parking lot for it, and then a number of other businesses—light retail, service-oriented, and restaurant businesses—moved in, and of course there was a train—a change in the infrastructure or the sort of decorative infrastructure of the street. So like you had the decorative brick put in, and, like, new lightening-like fixtures—so basically, extending the feel and look of Park Avenue, down New England [Avenue] into, uh, the heart of the community, which was Hannibal Square.
Of course, African Americans felt and, I think, some of them continue to feel that that process is deliberately pushing them out, and they have a point, because once all that—all that was in place, one of the things that started happening is that the—the tax assessment for the area started to change. People had previously—been sort of locked at a tax assessment of like, you know, a very low number. Everything gets reassessed when a large number of businesses start moving in. So these are older people. Remember, the demographics of the area are that the older people are staying and younger people are moving out. So the old people tend to be on fixed incomes, and pensions, living off their retirement savings. So a big hit, in terms of—“I used to pay $500 in taxes. Now, I’m paying a thousand.” It’s a huge deal, and because the property on the west side, as I said, had not kept up with property on the east side, there was a new assessment on all the value of the property. So people were being offered you know, two, three, four times what they bought the property for originally—and to move out—and some of them were, and this is one of the things that really sort of like characterized the region.
So, um, at the height of the real estate bubble, there was tremendous gentrifying pressure on Hannibal Square, and lots of developers were active in the area, and probably the most famous ones was Dan Bellows, who’s usually associated with the transformation of Hannibal Square. he has a number of big projects, and, you know, sort of mixed-use with retail on the bottom and residential on the top, and that really sort of, like, changed the nature of the community, and Bellows is often painted as a boogeyman, and there are a number of stories associated with him, but he’s sort of emblematic of a kind of push to create new construction in the area, in part because that’s the place where you can with relatively minimal investment do something big, and that has been the sort of overriding problem for the west side for many years.
There has been, for well over a decade—I mean, since the late 1990s, I think, there’s been a sort of push to—“There’s going to be the in here. I want to improve the west side. I want to bring more businesses here,” and as a result, uh, longtime residents have, um, sort of been displaced. There are new businesses there, but they don’t really cater to the residents, or nor do they really employ the residents, which is also really problematic. I mean, you don’t really see west side residents going to eat at Dexter’s. So from a sort of symbolic standpoint, African Americans feel that they’re being pushed down, and from an economic standpoint, there are push and pull factors that are hastening the exit of African Americans in the area.
Livingston
Leading up to, uh, the Civil Rights Movement and even probably as early as 19—late 1940s, after the, uh—World War II, the job market begin[sic] to change a bit. More opportunities will open up for, uh—for Afro-Americans. Many Afro –Americans, uh, went away—military, school, whatever the case may be—and didn’t come back, because they felt there was nothing here for them, outside of service to somebody else. They wanted to have real careers and—and—and do big things in the world, and as a result of that, the community began to age, if you will, and certainly after the Civil Rights Movement and—and moving forward, many more of our young people are moving away, because they feel that they don’t have access or they can’t make it in this area in—in—in Winter Park, you know?
It’s been a painful process for them. Generally, uh, when you’re talking gentrification, between the original people who were in a place, and the wealthier people who come into the place, there’s usually a group—a group in between, but for us, we went—we went—we went right from, um, families being displaced to a business area that really doesn’t have any services that local people find of service to themselves. So gentrification’s been a hurtful process, because when people come in to redevelop, they don’t come in to redevelop for the people who are there. They don’t get input from the people in the community, because that’s not what’s gonna drive the dollar, you know? Nobody’s gonna come in and put in affordable housing or affordable rental units outside of a group such as Habitat for Humanity, who’s doing a great job, and the Hannibal Square Community Land Trust. Uh, people felt that they were just pushed aside, and the most painful thing was the picture that was painted of the neighborhood. That’s what they did. They just [inaudible] and made it like a noose, and put it around the necks of the people in this neighborhood, and pulled the chair.
See, some people have been injured over and over and over again. They were injured during slavery. Then, after Reconstruction, they were injured again, and then, Jim Crow came along, and they were injured. So they’ve been injured over and over, and when you keep injuring people, and they[?] don’t get a chance to heal, it—it can really do something to—to them. You know, even though on the outside, they look cold, and they’re moving forward, and they’re doing things, there’s still a pain in their souls that is just almost undescribable[sic].
Cravero
I’d like to thank our guests, Representative Thompson, Dr. Brotemarkle, Dr. Chambliss, and Mrs. Livingston for joining our discussion. I’m Geoffrey Cravero. Thank you for listening.
Lester
Thank you for listening to the RICHES documentary podcast. Feel free to contact us with any questions or comments on the program that you just heard. Please join us for the next episode, “[Episode 5:] A History of Gay Days.”
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