The rainclouds came and went all day. By the time it cleared up, the lighting was pretty good.
The twilight on a variety of memorial stonework in front of the Jackson County Courthouse.
Main Street Marianna on the Lawton Chiles Trail.
It got rainy again near Sneads.
Almost canopied oak stretch of highway 90 near Oak Grove.Children's health dominated Chiles' agenda, especially in his second term as governor of Florida.
President Bush's veto of expanded funding of S-CHIP--State Children's Health Care Program--has governors like Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and Gov. Tim Kaine (D) in uproar.
A half a dozen states have even filed suit against the federal government to seek redress of this grievance.
Regardless of the political winds, the Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies continues vital research on infant mortality and prenatal/early childhood health care.
The Lawton Chiles Children and Family Health Care Center in Bradenton, Florida offers pediatric care to folks like 4-year-old Eva Vasquez. A recent Bradenton Herald article discusses how poor families can "fall through the cracks" when they're too well-off for Medicaid, but not wealthy enough to buy decent insurance. That's where S-CHIP comes in. But if there is no money for S-CHIP, there is often little recourse but staying at home and hoping to get better.
Marianna, just west of the Central-Eastern Time Zone divide on highway 90, probably stuck out for Chiles on his walk because of Chipola College. In his day, it was called Chipola Junior College, but now it offers full bachelor's degrees and it's got a new name. Apparently, the sports program isn't too shabby these days either. At about 6,000 residents, Marianna is also a bit bigger than the average courthouse town in the Panhandle. And it would have to be to support a community college.
And of course, Marianna doesn't want for Confederate lore. There is even a website and book devoted to the Battle of Marianna (1864), a small Union victory. Federal troops may have spared Tallahassee, but they laid waste to Marianna without much trouble.
Its proximity to Panama City Beach and the pleasant Chipola River running through it have gotten it a couple golf course communities--Florida State Golf Course and Indian Springs Golf Course. The location probably made for good digs in the old days since it's approximately equal distance from the two main towns of Old Florida--Pensacola and Tallahassee.
Marianna is the Jackson County seat, one of the oldest in Florida since originally there were only two regions in Florida--East and West--covering the length of the modern Panhandle and North Florida. In 1822, the Florida Territorial Legislative Council divided West Florida into Jackson and Escambia Counties.
Jackson County Courthouse, with easy access to I-10 and US 90.
One of the biggest county courthouses in the Panhandle I suspect. It was raining off and on all day and lighting was tough.
I visited the Marianna School for Boys in Marianna and I really enjoyed that visit. The last time that I went to a correctional school for boys was in Okeechobee a little over a year ago and that time I came away tremendously depressed. The boys all had very vacant looks, a complete lack of hope, a frustration on their faces and even the staff people did not seem to have any enthusiasm for the program.
But all that is changed, I think, in our whole system and I know it has in Marianna. Lennox Williams, who's the director of the school, is doing an excellent job as is Ollie Keller, the director of the Division of Youth Services.
They have put in group sessions. They have the boys in cottages and in those cottages they have several groups. The boys get together with anything that's bothering them or any problems that they're having between each other. It gives them an identity, it really gives them something that they can attach to and it makes them realize, I think, that someone does care. They get to caring about each other in that group and helping each other.
I talked to a number of the boys that had been to Marianna 2 or 3 times before this group program went in. All of them felt that they had a better chance of helping themselves and being able to get back into society than they'd ever had before. Now there is an air of hope about these boys. They're all enthused about the program. So I came away from there with a feeling that Florida is really on the track in this correctional institution for our boys.
Actually, Johnny Cash did write at least one song on Florida, "Orange Blossom Special," referring to the New York-Florida train of that name.
Chiles had a grand time in Live Oak, and got to rethinking about Vietnam on his journey:
I met a fine gentleman, Mr. O.T. Watley, in Live Oak. He was cutting the grass of a business establishment and when I shook hands with him, I noticed his hands were gnarled. He told me that he had been hit with 7,500 volts of electricity and that it had literally blown up his hands and feet. The doctor told him he would never be able to work again and that he was 100 percent disabled. Mr. Watley decided he didn't want to spend the rest of his life lying around feeling sorry for himself, and now he has a lawn care service. What a wonderful example this man is and what a contrast he is with the people who refuse to even try to get a job but rather want someone to hand it all to them on a platter.
Then I moved on to the Occidental plant nearby. It's a phosphate operation, and I talked with many of the workers. I had an opportunity for them to ask me questions and one fellow asked what I could suggest to help the small farmers today. He pointed out that the farmer is getting $1.10 to $1.20 a bushel for wheat, exactly the price he was getting 10 to 15 years ago, yet the price of bread has gone sky-high during that time. I certainly had to agree with him that farmers have really had to improve efficiency and work doubly hard to stay alive with the price levels staying the same. The markup has been with the broker, the stores and others in the chain from grower to consumer. This, of course, is why the farmer is gradually disappearing and this is a critical problem.
I told this worker about a bill we'd just passed which allows soybean producers to get together and work together to promote the use of soybeans and get better prices. To me this is a much better answer than government controls. I think the small farmer is an essential part of this country, and to save him we must give him help and encouragement in every way we can — AND freedom to do anything he can for himself.
Another question I've run into quite a bit lately is, "What are your views on Viet Nam?" Well, I point out that I had always considered myself a hawk before, but I have now reached the position that I believe we ought to pull out of Viet Nam as soon as possible. President Nixon has now said we are not seeking a military victory. If we are not going to seek to win, then I think we should get our troops out as soon as possible. The danger is that Viet Nam will drain us economically, is dividing the country and is costing the lives of our fine young men. We cannot afford any of this. The greatest strength we have is our economic strength, being able to prove we've got a better system than Russia or Communist China. We cannot continue to produce more and do more for people if we allow this war to drain us, and to push us into the trap that the Russians have set for us. I don't know how soon we can pull out. We must prepare the Vietnamese people; I hope that this is already well along. But we must be firmly committed to getting out, and I don't think we should get involved in any more land wars in Asia.
The remark I made about my undershorts the other day brought many reactions. Sen. Beaufort from Jacksonville and his daughter, Mike, took pity on me. They came to walk with me Saturday and they left me two pairs of silk shorts, one pair bright orange and one bright green. I want to thank them. I wore the green pair and they cured all my troubles.
I got in on the tail end of a meeting at Madison High School the other night. The men there were making plans for the integration that their schools have to go through in September. I thought it was interesting because these men had gotten together and decided that, since they were under court order and there was nothing they could do, they were going to see that merging the black and white schools went as peacefully and as orderly as it possibly could. They had arranged to have the athletes from both schools have spring training together and the black coach had come over as the assistant coach in the white high school. They had brought a number of parents and students in from both schools, and all of them were really proud that they had decided to see that this thing worked smoothly.
As I went through Live Oak, I had a tour of the Boys Ranch with Jim Strayer, his wife Betty and their 5 year old son. Betty (Skipper) Strayer was a classmate of mine at Lakeland High School, and their son is a real pistol. It was after dark, but I could see what outstanding facilities they have there. They have several thousand acres with 2 1/2 miles of frontage on the Suwannee River itself. They have beautiful, cottage-type red brick homes with a couple living in with the boys. There is a gymnasium and stables, and some volunteers had flown in to build a ham radio station. There are over 100 boys here. These are dependent boys, not boys in trouble. They are either from broken homes or families where something has happened to the parents. They can really grow up here as boys. They have dogs to play with, they have family life, and many of the boys have gone on to the service or college. The ranch has been operating now for over ten years. It is sponsored by the Sheriff's Association, and they've done an outstanding job here for the boys.
Know you're in the right place when you see one of these. Maybe it's just that I noticed it for the first time, but it looked like Live Oak had more of an industrial base than other towns along highway 90--until you go west to Marianna where I recalled an enormous warehouse.
The courthouse, compared to others on the Chiles Trail, was much more shaded and landscaped.
Suwannee County Courthouse.Country boy, redneck, cracker, yokel, bumpkin, hick, cowlick...the language and lore for rural dweller is endless. As far as books go, I still can't think of anything that makes me think of a Polk County boyhood more than Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer. I was listening to some Johnny Cash the other day and found some lyrics that made me think of a Chiles boyhood--except for the farming part. One of Cash's few sunny songs, "Country Boy," reminds me a lot of the careless good times he must have had swimming and fishing in Lake Morton and hunting in the woods down the street from his home in Lakeland.
I don't know that Cash penned any songs about Florida. I'm sure he could have done a job. One thing is for sure, the Sunshine State has plenty of prisons he could have played in.
See Johnnycash.com for more info on him.
