Two Old-Timers Swap Tales on Florida: What Was, Is, & May Be

Two Florida authors will sit down in rocking chairs at Bellamy Road in Melrose at 3:30 pm on Sunday, March 4 and swap tales, yarns, memories, and insights about the Florida they have known for the better part of the past century. The event is free and informal, after the manner of traditional gatherings around a cracker barrel in a crossroads general store. Audience participation will be invited.

Stetson Kennedy was born in Jacksonville in l9l6, and has lived most of his life in various parts of Florida. His first book Palmetto Country was a volume in the American Folkways series edited by Erskine Caldwell. While Kennedy was nominally Zora Neale Hurston’s boss on the Florida Writers Project, their recording teams sent thousands of Florida folksongs and tales to the Library of Congress. He is a founding member of the Florida Folklore Society and a member of the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. His other books include; Jim Crow Guide: The Way It Was, Southern Exposure, The Klan Unmasked and, After Appomattox. See www.stetsonkennedy.com

Al Burt, 86, was a Florida journalist for 45 years, the last 22 years writing a syndicated column, for The Miami Herald In addition to his long career as a journalist, Al Burt, who lives in Melrose, Florida, has authored several books that depict Florida’s Cracker culture- cowhunters, Conchs, alligator men, and Florida’s colorful past. These works include Becalmed in the Mullet Latitudes, Florida: A Place in the Sun, Al Burt¹s Florida: Snowbirds. Sand Castles and Self-Rising Crackers, and Tropic of Cracker.

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