Johnny Bullard

A photo in last week’s edition of the “Suwannee Democrat” brought back a lot of happy memories. The photo was of the demolition of the old Suwannee Packing Company in Live Oak, Florida, and it rang a bell for me in more ways than one.

I remember, not just recall, but remember, specific instances, on many occasions, of going to Suwannee Packing Company with various family members and friends primarily to purchase their famous sausages. Many times, a holiday gift to a special friend or relative would include Suwannee Packing Company sausages, and, I couldn’t even begin to relate to you the number of special family meals that included meat purchased from there. The smiling faces of Mr. Croft, Mrs. Dubose, and so many others who were so much a part of that company for so many years.

The passing of the Suwannee Packing Company is the story of so much of rural America. Mine will be the last generation to remember when everything in this area was purchased at a business owned by people you knew. Folks with whom you went to church, school, and you knew the people. There’s still some of that, but not as much as there was at one time, and that’s the result of technology, business and larger chain stores selling everything to a community from soup to nuts at a price less than the owners of home-owned stores could purchase it; same with clothing stores, same with shoe stores, same with just about everything.

I can recall when Carver’s Grocery in White Springs would deliver grocery orders to those customers in town, and so did Mallory Tuten’s Grocery Store in Jasper, Mallory’s. After his maternal grandson and my lifetime friend, Kevin Morgan and I were in high school, Mr. Tuten was still delivering groceries and that was ummm well, over 40 years ago now. My word, did I want to take this trip?

The world of north central Florida during the 50’s, 60’s, and up till the early 80’s was largely agrarian with many folks making a living from the farms, and the primary cash crop was flue cured tobacco. Like Suwannee Packing Company’s demolition, that has changed. Where once you had scores of farmers growing tobacco, now you have a few, and they contract directly with the tobacco companies. No more government price supports. No more sing-song cadence of the tobacco auctioneer who, at the end would often say “Sold American, or Sold Reynolds.”

To hear the staccato of the tobacco auction, and to witness the energy and vitality of it was wonderful; truly a treasured memory. Silenced as the old tobacco warehouses which stand like a monument to an industry now gone, it is a part of what we were, and what we are today too.

In my hometown, some of the last vestiges of the individual communities closed a couple of years ago with the closing of the community schools. Economics and modern architecture, and streamlined education, and, too, safety for part of the school district’s facilities, trumped anything remotely related to community values, retention of allegiances to schools and on we go. It hasn’t just begun. It happened for rural communities in the 30s and 40s, when rural schools in communities were closed and consolidated. It happened in the 60’s when community high schools were closed, and consolidation occurred. It happened in a part of the state where once there were hundreds and even thousands of working farms and families in this part of the world that had to quit the farm to make a living and either moved away, or procured jobs “in town” or in another area. It was the way the country was moving and has moved.

I am not bemoaning progress, and I am not a dinosaur when it comes to change, not most of the time, but I sure am glad I came along in a time in this part of the world when “community” truly did mean something, the churches, the schools, the people, and a community identity.

Suwannee Packing Company, that photo, a good photo, not exceptional, but a good one, told a story of our area that was much larger and much greater than the final clearing up of Suwannee Packing Company. To me, it was like watching a movie where you are not ready to see the credits at the end of the movie, and part of you wishes you could go back and watch and live it again, but it’s gone, and what we are left with are memories and stories. In fact, the right collection of folks could easily write, “The Story of Suwannee Packing Company”: a personal history and recollections, “The Story of Kayo’s Pharmacy” in Jasper, Florida, “The Story of the Big Independent Tobacco Warehouse” in Live Oak, Florida, the story of: “A Land Remembered,” which is the title of a great book about Florida written by the late Patrick Smith. If you haven’t read it. I suggest you do. He could truly write. Some of us dabble. He was a marvelous writer.

To paraphrase the lyrics of a John Anderson, Country and Western hit, years ago…

“North Florida’s had a face lift,

I guess she’s looking better,

But I kind of like the old one,

I never will forget her.”

And on we go with the next generation who will have memories, and stories, but they will be their stories, not my stories, not yours. Not those of us who are approaching 60 from the shady side or older. Suwannee Packing Company and all that it implied was a part of “Our story.”

From the Eight Mile Still on the Woodpecker Route north of White Springs, wishing you a day filled with joy, peace, and, above all, lots of love and laughter.