A Slice of Old Florida

If you ever read The Yearling novel (required reading in many schools back in the day) you have heard of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.  It’s just a two hour drive from Fernandina to Cross Creek Florida, a fine journey for a day trip beyond our hustle and bustle and back into her Old Florida world.

The original 1930’s Rawlings homestead and surrounding farmyard has been preserved as a Florida State Historic Park, open every day of the week.  But if you want the real immersion experience, people dressed in period clothes will give you a tour on Thursday through Sunday, from now until July.

Bucko and I visited the Cross Creek area a few weeks ago, when the fruit was ripe on all of the many citrus trees in yards all around south Orange Lake and the nearby well-named town of Citra. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings house and yard was similarly full of citrus splendor. A bowl of beautiful fresh fruit was displayed on the table beside her typewriter on the screen porch where she typed out her famous manuscripts.  As a writer myself, I happily related to her view of the chickens scraping in the yard under the heavily laden citrus trees inspiration I’m sure for her local novels.  

At the behest of the tour guide, Bucko and I filled our pockets with different varieties of fresh tangerines and oranges plucked from Marjorie’s trees, at one point even using an old style long picking pole handy for the purpose.  At home I tasted this larder, and found a few very sweet varieties in and among the more sour options that would have made good key-lime-like pies. And all were free for the picking.  You can’t get much better than that!

From the homestead, Bucko and I traveled down the rural roads to the Antioch Cemetery about eight miles away where Marjorie is buried side by side with Norton Baskin, her second husband. Her gravestone is decorated with plastic deer statues which might look tacky elsewhere, but here fit into the general décor of the rest of the cemetery, full of kitschy totems left in memory of those departed.

 

We could have ended our trip then, with a late lunch at the Yearling Restaurant in Cross Creek, and driven back to Amelia Island, satisfied with a fine day trip.  But it was beginning to rain and we had the leisure schedule of the retired and decided to stay in the area overnight.

The Yearling Restaurant has a handful of furnished cabins on its property.  Except for modern microwave ovens and flat screen televisions, they are furnished with antiques and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings memorabilia.  There is no internet access there, and the cell phone signal was weak, but for us, that night, that was a plus.  

That evening we grabbed umbrellas and walked from our cabin over to the Yearling Restaurant for dinner. This place is pure Old Florida too, a run-down looking building with a screened-in porch with rocking chairs and a large old “Drink Coca-Cola” ice chest for décor.  Inside was more of the same, but better by far.  The three main rooms—two dining rooms and a bar—were covered with old photos and nature paintings and artifacts, and shelves of Old Florida and Rawlings memorabilia.  The main dining room’s walls of old books were even available for browsing while eating your meal, or for purchasing afterwards.

The food, alas, was not as good as it could be and a bit pricey besides, but it featured exotic items like frog legs, gator tail and quail that were evocative of wild foods that surely were on Marjorie’s menu too.  And, even better, since it was a Friday night, an old time bluegrass bang twanged out their rendition of songs that many of the other patrons knew by heart.

Back in our cabin, we listened to the pounding rain on the tin roof all night and at some point the power went off due to the storm but that just added to the atmosphere.  In the morning, we awoke to our own little bit of Old Florida.  We wandered around the grounds, admiring an old outhouse with its crescent moon cut out on the door beside a large and fading “Eat Florida Oranges” sign, some long abandoned chicken coops, a derelict fish-cleaning station and other yard artifacts that probably were there in Marjorie’s time. 

It is only about 100 miles from Cross Creek to Amelia Island but decades away in time. Next time you want a bit of nostalgia, head for Cross Creek and you won’t be sorry.