As a kid, we spent a lot of the summers at a small cabin on the edge of the Ocala National Forest in Florida. There was another kid that would spend the summers there at a cabin near ours. One of the things I used to love to do there was when his Grandfather would take us deep into the woods of the Ocala National Forest in his jeep. I have no idea what his first name is. We always called him Mr. Handcock.
He would throw in a freshly picked watermelon and some drinks and off we would go. Before most trips, he usually had some rock candy to give us. I have no idea what that stuff really was. It looked like clear, rock crystals, and felt about the same. I think only kids can, or would want to, eat it. Like the name says, it is as hard as a rock and tastes sweet. You had to have very good, or replaceable, teeth to eat the stuff. As I recall, it was rather tough on the roof of your mouth too. But we loved the stuff and it was always a treat to get some prior to one of our excursions.
The excursions usually started out with Mr. Handcock driving slowly on the side of the main road. The jeep had a soft top over the front seat and kind of a mini pick up truck bed behind that. The three of us kids would stand in the back and scour the side of the road for returnable bottles that people threw out of their cars. Whenever we saw a bottle, we would tap on the roof and he would stop while one of us jumped out and picked up the bottle.
We would do this until he got to where he would pull off the main road and head back into the woods on sandy trails. The trails led back into the Ocala National Forest. I have no idea what part of the forest we where in but we would always see herds of deer. We would ride standing up, dodging overhanging limbs and moss, and keeping a keen eye in the woods for wild life. When we saw the deer, we would tap lightly on the roof of the jeep and Mr. Handcock would stop. We would watch them until they sauntered away. Sometimes we could get pretty close before they took off.
One time we came upon a closed gate and all three of us kids got out to open it so the jeep could pass through. What we didn’t notice was the big bee nest on the hinged side of the gate. We heard the creak of the gate and slight popping sound, followed by an increasingly louder, and angry sounding buzz. I was ready to high tail it to the next county when I heard Mr. Handcock say “Every body freeze, Nobody move”.
Against my better judgment, and fighting the urge to run until my little legs could carry me to the next county, or possible the next country, I stood shock still for what seemed like an eternity while angry bees filled the air. Somehow we managed to get out of there without a single sting. We decided to go down a different trail that day.
After we had been out searching for the wild life awhile we would always stop and take a little break. We would slice up the watermelon into big, equal slices. Then we would sit around munching the juicy fruit, taking in the warm air, enjoying the blue sky overhead, listening to the quiet of the forest, wiping our mouths on our sleeves and spitting seeds at each other.
During one of these breaks a large group of wild boar came out of the woods into the open field we were sitting in. There must have been about 20 or 30 of them. Now, I don’t know that much about boar, then or now, except they are very ugly and scary looking with those big tusks. They started moving towards us. Mr. Handcock saw we were getting a little nervous and said. “Don’t worry boys, they are as afraid of you as you are of them.”
I wasn’t so sure. They continued to get closer. I knew I was close enough already. I suddenly remembered a scene from a movie (Called “Daktari!”, I think. One of the few movies I had ever seen on the big screen at the time). In the movie a rhinoceros attacked a jeep and stuck his horn clean through the door and the leg of the driver. Ouch. To me those boars horns appeared to be getting bigger as they got closer.
I remembered Mr. Handcock had been right about the bees, but, hey, no point in pushing his knowledge much further. I climbed into the back of the jeep. Followed shortly thereafter by the other two boys. Most of the boar kept their distance, about thirty yards away or so. But a few really nosy ones surrounded the jeep and snorted around. We watched them for awhile, nervously in my case, and then Mr, Handcock started the jeep and slowly went on our way.
On the way back from these excursions, we would stop by the local general store. At that time, it consisted of a small, one room shack with a wooden floor, one chest type cooler, two shelves of junk food, some fishing and hunting stuff hanging on the walls, and two gas pumps outside. The driveway was soft white sand. It was heaven.
We would turn in the bottles we picked up and trade them for candy or pop, depending on how many bottles we found.
I would usually get a “Chocola”, a rather watery chocolate drink that I can’t stand today. I don’t even know if it is still being made. These days, I am more like; “Give me Pepsi or give me death!” Other favorites of the time were chocolate moon pies (no banana ones, please!), and those little wax bottles with some kind of drink in them.
If I remember right, if you had a lot of money, maybe ten or fifteen cents, you could buy a small carton of six wax bottles. The whole carton would fit in the palm of your hand and there was no way there was enough drink in those silly things to satisfy an ant. But I loved biting into the wax and having the fluid squirt down my throat. I would then chew the wax until it self destructed in my mouth and became nothing more than a thousand minute wax dust particles in my mouth. Mmmmm!
It’s amazing what kids will eat. Remember Fizzies, Pixie sticks, and Fireballs? Oh! And vanilla taffy! I loved that stuff. It’s a wonder I still have teeth!
Any way, in later years, that one room shack of a general store would grow to have four gas pumps, a wall of coolers, several pop machines, and yes, even rent videos. We used to call it Counts, after the guy that owned it, I guess.
