Polk’s “Uncommonly Musical” Sixties, Gram Parsons, and a Cosmic Collaboration to Save the Derry Down The sixties in Polk County, Florida, claimed a transcendental sum total of talent. Some kind of musical magic was in the water, or maybe the stars. It was the birthplace of the Father of Cosmic American Music, Gram Parsons, along with a broad list of other epochal musicians and entertainers who emerged from these sleepy southern towns. Garage band kids from Winter Haven, Auburndale, and Eloise would go on to become acclaimed songwriters, comedians, and performers. Something celestial must have laid at the junction of time and place – in this slice of Florida throughout the sixties – a place Bob Kealing called “uncommonly musical.” The effects of Elvis Presley and the Beatles can’t be discounted, said Kealing, the author of Calling Me Home: Gram Parsons and the Roots of Country Rock. They were ubiquitous on the radio, the paramount of celebrity, and spent significant time in the Sunshine State, Presley in 1956 and the Beatles in 1964. Elvis even performed a show at the Polk Theatre in Lakeland on August 6, 1956. “That was huge for people because it was the dawning of youth culture – it was the dawning of music that was made for teens,” Kealing said. “Rock and roll spoke to a lot of teen yearning and feelings of angst and anxiety.” Musician, comedy writer, and childhood friend to Gram Parsons, Jim Carlton suspects the showbiz spirit of Florida’s first theme park had something to do with it. Before moving from Chicago, Carlton’s parents took him to see a film shot at Cypress Gardens, Easy to Love (1953), starring Esther Williams and Van Johnson, to give their son a glimpse of his new home. “Cypress Gardens was this little hub of show business, a little oasis in the middle of Florida,” he said. The collaborative culture of band hopping, jam sessions, and playing gigs in youth centers across Central Florida certainly played a role. “My dad always said the best thing you can do is play music with other people,” Carlton said. And he was right. Local garage bands like the Legends, the Dynamics, and the Steppin’ Stones produced prolific musicians, like Jim Stafford, Jon Corneal, and Les Dudek. Lakeland-born, Auburndale-raised Bobby Braddock was a product of Polk County’s musical pinnacle. A pianist for the Dynamics, Braddock has had a series of No. 1 hit songs spanning five decades. He and Curly Putman co-wrote “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” recorded by Tammy Wynette, and George Jones’s chart-topping classic “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” Braddock paid homage to his hometown in his autobiography Down in Orburndale: A Songwriter’s Youth in Old Florida. The late Carl Chambers, who passed away in 2020, was another Auburndale musician and songwriter to make a hit, composing Alabama’s “Close Enough to Perfect.” Kent LaVoie, who performs as Lobo, grew up in Winter Haven. The singer-songwriter has had major chart success with songs like “Me and You and a Dog Named Boo” and “I’d Love You to Want Me.” And, of course, there’s Gram Parsons – a country rock cult figure and genre pioneer. He may not have cut his teeth on twang, but Gram certainly became a country music tastemaker and luminary. Parsons’s backstory is imbued with equal measure talent and tragedy. The winsome Winter Haven-born musician carried an earnestness in his voice that endears listeners almost fifty years after his death. Whether he’s bluesy belting “Cry One More Time for You” or giving a subtle Elvis lip snarl and afflicted gaze while singing “Hot Burrito #1,” those who discover Gram don’t soon forget him. Parsons’s renown is most often attributed to his later work with the International Submarine Band, the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram and the Fallen Angels, his solo work, and collaborations with Emmylou Harris. One jewel on the crown of his legacy was co-writing “Hickory Wind” with Bob Buchanan, released on the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo album in 1968. The first few guitar twangs of the song are a promise only Parsons can make good on, as he delivers the first line, “In South Carolina…” with his lofty southern sweetness. Two famous friends and collaborators cardinal to his career and personal life were Rolling Stones guitarist and frontman Keith Richards and a young Emmylou Harris, whom author Bob Kealing referred to as Parsons’s “vocal soul mate.” During Harris’s induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame decades after Parsons’s death, his enduring memory and mark are present. While introducing Emmylou, Country Music Hall of Fame CEO Kyle Young called Gram the one “who would help [Harris] understand the true power, poetry, purity, and perhaps the political righteousness of country music as the voice of, by, and for the people.” The enigmatic chemistry between Emmylou and Gram is the stuff of legend, living on in perpetuity. Swedish folk duo, First Aid Kit, called their songs “quite the musical revelation.” Inspired by Gram and Emmylou’s relationship and “the joy and magic of singing with someone you love,” the pair released the song “Emmylou” in 2012. Harris gently wiped tears from her cheek during the 2015 Polar Music Prize ceremony as the pair sang “Emmylou.” During the chorus, the sisters lilt: I’ll be your Emmylou and I’ll be your June If you’ll be my Gram and my Johnny too No, I’m not asking much of you Just sing little darling, sing with me In a 2010 Rolling Stone article listing Gram Parsons as #87 in the list of the “100 Greatest Artists” of all time, friend Keith Richards called Gram “everything you wanted in a singer and a songwriter,” and said, “we can’t know what his full impact could have been. If Buddy Holly hadn’t gotten on that plane, or Eddie Cochran hadn’t turned the wrong corner, think of what stuff we could have looked forward to, and be hearing now. It would be phenomenal.” Parsons’s former bandmate and “Spiders and Snakes” songwriter, Jim Stafford, shared the sentiment. “He was headed in the right direction if he had lived long enough. The sad part is none of us will ever get to know what he could have accomplished because he really was a gifted young man. He really was.” But, before he would carve out a cosmic career, cement his name in country rock history, and leave the world too soon, Gram Parsons was just another kid from Winter Haven, Florida who loved Elvis. THE GRAM SCHEME OF THINGS Gram Parsons was born Ingram Cecil Connor III in Winter Haven, Florida. The Conners moved to Waycross, Georgia where his father, Cecil “Coon Dog” Conner II, worked in a family box plant. In Waycross, Gram saw an up-and-coming Elvis Presley at the city auditorium in February 1956. Gram Parsons biographer Bob Kealing noted that the effect this had on Gram was “immediate and long-lasting.” The pursuit of music and celebrity would be a fixture in Parsons life from this moment forward. Gram’s maternal grandparents were the exceedingly wealthy Winter Haven citrus family, the Snivelys. Patriarch John Snively was a fertilizer salesman turned real estate investor and citrus millionaire. The Snively mansion can still be seen in LEGOLAND Florida Resort today as John was the one who’d sold the land on which Cypress Gardens was built. This charmed citrus-money lineage guaranteed Gram a rather healthy trust fund. That trust fund didn’t mean he would be spared tribulation though. Parsons lost his father to suicide on December 23, 1958, and his mother to alcoholism on the day of his high school graduation from the Bolles School. Gram’s own death at 26, in Joshua Tree, California, on September 19, 1973 and the circumstances that followed have unfortunately – at least partially – cast a shadow over his musical contributions. Kealing felt compelled to tell Gram’s story for this reason. “It really felt like Gram had an unfinished life,” he said. The overemphasis on the morbid circumstances surrounding Parsons’s death in the California desert inspired Kealing to write a book that forwent the macabre for what mattered. During a 2013 book signing at the Winter Haven Public Library, the author said, “I was looking for some sort of redemption in Gram Parsons’s story. Less about the hype and sensationalism, more about the rich fabric of the definative places that he called home. The people with whom he played and those who carry on his legacy. That’s why I wanted my book to be a song of the south — Gram’s story rooted in places like Winter Haven and Waycross — not LA, not Joshua Tree, California.” In the same spirit, this article will focus on stories from Parsons’s formative years and career – on his contemporaries and friends – those who shaped the music scene within and beyond the orange groves, pine scrub, and murky lakes of Polk County, Florida. Following the death of his father in 1958, Gram moved with his mother, “Big Avis” Connor and younger sister, “Little Avis” back to Winter Haven. It was here that Gram would step into the limelight, and never really leave. The first band Parsons played with was called the Pacers. In 1960, he sang to a crowd of some 50 kids at the Dundee train depot. Gram would eventually move on to start his own band called the Legends. There are several iterations of the band throughout the years seeing members come and go. The Legends started in 1961 with Gram playing guitar and piano, Jim Stafford from Eloise on lead guitar, Lamar Braxton on drums, and his friend Jim Carlton on upright bass. Jim Carlton met Gram Connor in 1959 when he transferred to St. Joseph Catholic School. “I am not Catholic, and neither was he, but my folks were told I’d get a better education there and I probably did. It was a heck of a lot more fun than public school,” Carlton said. Jim’s father, Chicago musician Ben Carlton, moved his family to Winter Haven in 1954 to work in-studio for the radio show Florida Calling. Contracted by the Florida Citrus Commission, the show was broadcast five days a week from the Florida Citrus Building. Within ten minutes of meeting, Jim and Gram became friends, united by a sharp sense of humor. Carlton described Gram as a bright kid, and said, “Even then he was very magnetic.” In a time where boys called one another by their last names, Carlton took notice that for the young Connor boy – everyone just called him Gram. At school, the nuns would task Gram with watching over younger classes if a teacher had to step out. He was known to tell stories to keep the children entertained. “He was confabulous,” Carlton laughed. “If you believed everything Gram ever said, you were a fool. He spread a lot of his own legend if you will. […] But he was so damn good at it.” In fact, Gram would go on to ‘spread his own legend’ while at Harvard. In a comical turn of events, he convinced the school paper that he and his college band, the Like, had signed with RCA Records, a falsehood picked up by The Boston Globe with even more fabulous claims tacked on – carried further down the line, the following week by The Tampa Tribune. Storytelling aside, there was a maturity about Gram, gilded with boyish charm. Carlton described Parsons as a nonjudgmental character who rejected the prejudices that were a hallmark of the 1960s deep south. Adults like Carlton’s father remarked on Gram’s intellect. A stylish dresser and ever ‘his own man’ as Carlton described him, Parsons made other boys envious when girls would ogle over him. “He would take that in stride,” his friend said. Gram had even been hit a few times by jealous boyfriends – but he could take a punch. Parsons’s good looks and style would be a point of recognition for the rest of his life. His rhinestone-studded Nudie suit embroidered with naked ladies, pot leaves, pills, and poppies with a bold red cross radiating rainbow rays on the back remains an epic piece music fashion history. During a talk at a Brunswick, Georgia library in 1992 journalist Stanley Booth, who traveled with the Rolling Stones and wrote the book The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones, described the first time he saw Gram entering a room with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. Booth, who also grew up in Waycross, Georgia, remembered Gram as “very handsome” and said he “looked like the sweetheart of the rodeo” with his long brown, frosted blond locks. “The Rolling Stones were famous – they were really famous. They were cool. […] And here’s this guy with them, who’s better looking, he’s got better clothes, he had better everything,” Booth said. While young Gram did impress parents and girls, the sharpdressed kid never shied away from a good time. He and pal Jim Carlton much preferred the company of the adults in their lives. “They had the booze, and they had the cigarettes, and they had the parties. It kind of eclipsed our high school friends,” Carlton said. The dynamic duo would put together routines to entertain during get-togethers. Gram would play the banjo or guitar, with Carlton noodling on bass or guitar. “We worked up a Smothers Brothers routine once,” Carlton said. “Gram would have made a tremendous comedy writer. He had a terrific sense of humor – very sarcastic.” Carlton would go on to have a noteworthy comedy career of his own. He kept in touch with Legends bandmate, funnyman, and guitar hero, Jim Stafford. Carlton has written with the likes of Stafford, the Smothers Brothers, Gallagher, and Joan Rivers. He traveled all around casino towns and LA as a writer, thanks to Jim Stafford who Carlton called a “tremendous influence” on his career. Gram’s quiet maturity didn’t get in the way of goofing around with his friends either. Like when the Legends would go out of town for a gig and stay at a hotel, they’d stack beer cans in a pyramid against the mirror. Carlton said, “There was an adolescent sense of fun with him around. He loved having people around, loved having pals come over. He’d always have somebody hanging out because I think there was a sadness, and a melancholy to him.” Stepfather Bob Parsons, whose last name Gram took after Parsons adopted him, was ceaselessly supportive of Gram’s musical aspirations. Bob bought Gram a Volkswagen bus with ‘The Legends’ inscribed along the side before he even had a license. Consequently, older bandmates like Jim Stafford would have to drive them to and from gigs. The Legends line-up would shift in 1962 when Gram recruited the Dynamics band members, two boys from Auburndale, Gerald “Jesse” Chambers and Jon Corneal. Gram was on keyboards, guitar, and vocals, with Jim Stafford on lead guitar, Chambers on bass and vocals, and Corneal on drums. Sam Killebrew, now a Florida Representative, was their band manager. He still has the business cards to prove it. Corneal appreciated Gram’s ability to land well-paying bookings, like a gig playing a horse show banquet in the ballroom of the Haven Hotel. The Legends played teen centers, holiday parties, hotel lounges, high school dances, and events at Nora Mayo Hall. “You have to have a place to be bad,” Carlton said. “Often the place to be bad is at teen centers and Holiday Inn lounges.” The Legends made several appearances on WFLA channel 8’s musical television show, Hi-Time, along with other Polk County bands like the Dynamics. “Close Enough to Perfect” songwriter, and cousin to Jesse Chambers, Carl Chambers took a reel-toreel recording of the Legends playing “Rip It Up” and the Everly Brothers’ “Let It Be Me” during an appearance on the show. The Legends were a hit and won Hi-Time’s Band of the Year. On the heels of his time leading the Legends, Gram entered his folk phase. Lakeland’s Dixieland district was a magnet for musically inclined and interested teens of the 1960s. The city even had its own happening coffeehouse called the Other Room, where folk artists performed. Casswin Music (where Gram got his first Fender Stratocaster guitar) was situated on the same stretch of Florida Avenue, along with Fat Jack’s Deli which opened in 1963. “We’d all go over there together and goof off,” said Legends drummer Jon Corneal. He remembered Jay Erwin, part-owner of Casswin Music. Erwin wrote and funded Gram’s single, “Big Country.” Beyond his music store, Erwin’s mark on Lakeland’s music history was indelible. The Casswin Music owner was instrumental in organizing the Lakeland Civic Symphony in 1965, now the Lakeland Symphony Orchestra, even acting as their first conductor. “He was a bee-bopper […], and he talked cool,” Corneal said of Erwin. “We’d go over there and get cool-talking lessons. It was ‘man this’ and ‘man that.’ He was the first person to ever call me ‘man.’ I was just a teenager – I liked being called ‘man.’” The boys would head over to Fat Jack’s Deli next door, where they’d go for a hot pastrami on rye, and Corneal would eat his weight in kosher pickles. The Other Room, a coffeehouse and folkie spot, started by Lakeland guitarist Rick Norcross, was a regular haunt and performance venue for Gram, and a central part of his folk identity of the mid-sixties. Jim Carlton still has the 45-rpm acetate thought to be Parsons’s earliest studio recording. Gram recorded two acoustic tunes in recording engineer Ernie Garrison’s Lakeland home: “Big Country” and “Racing Myself with the Wind.” “Those were his first efforts at songwriting,” noted Carlton. Well, that, and all his compositions to flatter the girl du jour, songs like “Pam” and “Joan,” which Jon Corneal had accompanied him to record in a modest studio inside Casswin Music. Like his buddy Gram, Carlton played the folk scene as he joked, through “the folk music scare of the late 60s.” He went on to play on the same circuit and become friends with prolific singersongwriter and “Florida Troubadour,” Gamble Rogers. He later joined a show trio called Solomon, Carlton and Jones which performed shows around Disney. The group was a regional darling with regular photos and write-ups in the newspaper. Gram joined his first professional band, a Greenville, South Carolina group called the Shilos, in 1963. Later the band would record “Big Country” together. In April of 1964, the Shilos made a trip to Chicago on the dime of Cypress Gardens owner Dick Pope, tasked to make promotional recordings for the park in preparation for a visit from King Hussein of Jordan. Author Bob Kealing spoke with Shilos’ banjo player, Paul Surratt, about the trip in his book: Surratt remembered the Shilos recording five or six songs in Chicago, including “Julie-Anne,” a New Christy Minstrels song Gram convinced his confederates he’d written. There was also a jaunty tune Gram actually did write as a kind of Cypress Gardens theme, “Surfinanny,” patterned closely after a song called “Raise a Ruckus Tonight.” It kills Surratt to this day that the other songs recorded were left at the studio and apparently lost to history. The Shilo’s returned to Winter Haven later that year for another special occasion – the opening of the Derry Down. Bob Parsons wanted to gift his stepson a space he and his buddies could play whenever he was in town. Gram’s very own club was hosted in a nondescript warehouse on Fifth Street in Winter Haven. “He and Avis encouraged Gram’s musical pursuits,” Kealing said. “It was far from perfect in their own home and in a sense, Gram was raising himself. But I don’t think there’s any doubt that they opened the Derry Down as a teen club to encourage Gram’s musical talent.” The club’s name and theme were Old English-inspired. The Derry Down menu included Derryburgers and Downdogs, prepared by Gram’s stepdad. “Bob Parsons was cheffing. He loved to do that more than just about anything,” Carlton said. The teen club served up nonalcoholic beverages befitting the Old English motif including a Wales Sunset, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Hotspur. In a Tampa Tribune article Gram commented, “We were really going to go old English, but the trouble is nobody here understands it. Even Hotspur is pretty far out for Winter Haven. All they want to know is what’s in it.” The article notes that kids would pay “a dollar a head to hear Gram Parsons and the Shilos, a merry band of teen-age folk singers with surprising talent.” Derry Down patrons had to show identification at the front door to prove they were under 21 to get in. The stage was set up along the right wall as guests walked in. There was a small kitchen for Bob Parsons to cook the burgers and hot dogs. In the ladies bathroom was a vanity table and chair for girls to powder their noses. Jim Carlton described the opening of the Derry Down, on December 20, 1964, as an affair attracting Winter Haven’s well-to-do socialites – the elbow rubbers and friends of Gram’s moneyed mother “Big Avis.” Carlton said, “Opening night was a soiree for the ‘e-lite and the po-lite’ as we’d call it in Winter Haven.” Both Carlton’s mother and Big Avis donned fur stoles for the event. Radio station WINT was on-site to simulcast the Shilos performance from the grand opening, and Carlton sat stageside with a reel-to-reel recorder for the concert. He still has the recordings. Jon Corneal remembers the espresso machine Gram brought into the Derry Down – an almost alien luxury in 1960s Winter Haven, rumored to be the first of its kind here. “I’d never heard of an espresso machine,” Corneal said. The Derry Down building on Fifth Street would later become the Pied Piper, and the Derry Down teen club moved to Cypress Gardens Boulevard. By the summer of 1965, Gram had graduated high school, his mother had died, and the Beatles wave had crashed into the United States, ebbing the folk era out to sea. Parsons had left the Shilos and found himself at a career crossroads. That summer, between his time in Greenwich Village and Harvard, a dejected Gram shared his frustrations with Jim Stafford at his Winter Haven home. “Everybody that I knew was trying to figure out where our place was in all of this,” remembered Stafford. “He was a little bummed out.” There, Stafford gave Gram the advice that would change his musical trajectory. “I said it without an ounce of thought,” Stafford said. He told Gram that with his long hair and good singing voice, “Well, you should be a country Beatle.” Modest about his role in Gram’s subsequent genre migration, Stafford laughed and said, “He probably thought that was stupid. […] At the moment, I don’t think that sounded so hot to him.” Gram must have mulled that over harder than Stafford realized at the time, because he would later tell Jim Carlton, that advice was a catalyst for his country rock career. “Gram wanted to be a celebrity, that was first and foremost,” Carlton said. After learning to play “Steel Guitar Rag,” a twangy tune by country western crooner Bob Wills, he played it for Gram at his house. Gram said, ‘Carlton, what are you doing?’ and sat down at the piano to play some Floyd Cramer country licks, poking fun at his pal. “So, he didn’t give a damn about country music then,” Carlton said. “But he was grooming himself to be a celebrity of some kind. […] Somebody had said that if he’d have grown up in Minnesota, he would have figured out a way to make polka music hip.” Where someone like Jim Stafford would spend hours a day mastering his guitar, Gram was more unabashedly interested in the star power of it all. Not to say the music wasn’t important to him, just if being a country Beatle was going to bring him fame and acclaim, a country Beatle he would be. “Gram, as I used to say, he’s about as countryfied as Gore Vidal,” Carlton said. “Nevertheless, he became a wonderful exponent of country music.” The day after Christmas, 1965, Gram Parsons picked up an acoustic guitar for an impromptu recording session at Jim Carlton’s house. The latter had received a Sony 500 reel-to-reel recorder from a Pan Am pilot friend who brought it over from Tokyo. “It was the best toy train set a musically inclined boy ever had,” he said. Gram wanted to share music he’d pick up from his time in Greenwich Village and a few songs he’d written. “He’d come home with these terrific songs by Fred Neil or [....] Bob Dylan,” Carlton said. “He had these terrific songs and wanted to share them with somebody who would appreciate it. They certainly weren’t going to make their way to Winter Haven.” These recordings would be some of the last vestiges of Gram Parsons’s folkie persona. In 2000, Carlton co-produced the album Gram Parsons: Another Side of This Life, with Bob Irwin on Sundazed Records. “What’s significant is that these were during his folk music era,” he said. These “lost recordings of Gram Parsons” as the album cover reads, include music from those 1965 recordings, along with some from the year following, including tracks “Another Side of This Life,” “Codine,” and “Brass Buttons.” The album has sold over 20,000 copies worldwide and continues to garner interest from “completionist” Gram fans and the music industry the world over. “It is beautiful,” said Parsons fan and founding father of the Derry Down Project, Gene Owen. “It’s a transitional Gram.” Gram could play a country tune like “Together Again” or “Love Hurts” and inspire goosebumps if not tears. Carlton said, “Give it to Gram and he brought something special to it that would touch people, and in a nutshell that was his magic. He was very soulful, and it was genuine.” Perhaps this is what Jim Lauderdale experienced the first time he heard Gram. Cosmically gifted in his own right, two-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Jim Lauderdale looks at Gram Parsons‘s like the sun. The soul and sincerity permeating Parsons’ catalog is nothing short of spiritual for the musician who has written for George Strait, Patty Loveless, George Jones, the Dixie Chicks, Gary Allen, and Elvis Costello. Of Parsons, Lauderdale said, “It was an important musical event when I first heard him – like hearing the Beatles for the first time or George Jones or Ralph Stanley – those musical moments where you remember exactly where you were and what you felt the first time you heard them.” The first album Lauderdale picked up with Gram’s soulful country sound was Grievous Angel. He said, “From the very first song, all through the album, I was transfixed.” Eager to get his hands on anything Parsons was involved with, Lauderdale sought out his other music from GP to Sweetheart of the Rodeo and The Gilded Palace of Sin. He read interviews with Gram and those associated with him, and biographies of the late musician – the first of which would go on to inspire the song, “King of Broken Hearts.” Lauderdale wrote “King of Broken Hearts” as a tribute to Gram Parsons and George Jones after reading Gram Parsons: A Musical Biography by Sid Griffin. Lauderdale said, “I read about a party that Gram was at. He was playing George Jones records, and he started crying, and he said, ‘That’s the king of broken hearts.’” He released the song, produced by Rodney Crowell and John Leventhal on his 1991 Planet of Love album. The following year, George Strait included it, as well as another of Lauderdale’s songs, “Where the Sidewalk Ends” on his record, Pure Country. Jim Lauderdale sings “King of Broken Hearts” at just about every show. “I think about Gram when I’m singing it.” Lauderdale would get the chance to sing that song and think about Gram in a place that has become sacred to his legacy and his hometown – Gram Parsons Derry Down. But first it would need to be resurrected. Gram Parsons remains a holy man for those who worship at the altar of good, honest music. But, he wasn’t the only one of his friends and contemporaries to make it out of Winter Haven, or to make music history, for that matter. “SPIDERS AND SNAKES” & JIM STAFFORD “If you don’t know it – practice, practice, practice. That’s what I did when I was a kid. All the other boys would be out practicing football, but I practiced the guitar, and I’m glad I did because it paid off… I can kick this guitar 60 yards,” Jim Stafford said to a roar of laughter from the audience during an appearance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. In another performance, jokes are peppered between flinger-blurring licks of “Malaguena” and “Flight of the Bumblebee” with giggles and applause in no short supply. A renaissance man, if ever there was one, Stafford is a maestro of hair-raising guitar picking and side-splitting comedy routines. A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, he plays fiddle, piano, banjo, organ, and harmonica. However, Stafford’s main instrument remains his trusty guitar. “I was really serious about the guitar,” Stafford said, “and I still am.” His musical career began at his home in Eloise. He can still remember his neighbor and friend Wayne Simmons getting a beautiful red guitar from his brother, who’d brought it back from Germany. The two would play together – Stafford on his dad’s guitar. Wayne Simmons would go on to write the song “Gibson Girl” on the Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed album, Sneakin’ Around. He may have joked around about practicing, but it was something he did religiously. Stafford kept a guitar on hand at Quality Cleaners, the family dry cleaning business, in Eloise, where he worked for his dad. He learned to read music from Jim Carlton’s father, Ben, at their family music store, Carlton Music Center. “I wanted to learn how to read music, and Ben Carlton was a studio musician, a quality musician who came to Florida with a band,” he said. Stafford’s intuition on the guitar and drive to practice earned the admiration of his peers. Even guitar teacher Ben Carlton was in awe of the young musician. Jim Carlton remembered that his dad didn’t particularly have the time or want to teach, but he made an exception for Stafford. “He saw that Jim Stafford was such a talented kid he couldn’t help himself,” Jim Carlton said. “In fact, he didn’t even charge money for the first several lessons.” Stafford was in a few garage bands with other young Polk County musicians of the ‘60s, including several iterations of the Legends. Kids like Gram Parsons and Jim Carlton looked up to Stafford. “He was our avuncular older brother,” said Carlton. In Calling Me Home author Bob Kealing refers to these Polk County musicians whom Gram “befriended and benefited from” as “a constellation of singers, songwriters, and entertainers on the rise.” The self-effacing Stafford was but one of the stars in that mellifluous constellation of charisma and knack. He reflected on his garage band days, “Sometimes we’d be playing with a couple of guys from Auburndale, a couple of guys from Winter Haven. There were some good people over there.” He tipped his hat to the talent of Bobby Braddock as well as Carl Chambers, calling his song “Close Enough to Perfect,” “one of the best country songs I’ve ever heard.” In high school, Stafford and his buddies would often rehearse in his living room, and on Friday and Saturday nights, they’d load into someone’s car or Gram’s VW bus to play a Central Florida teen center. Back then, Stafford said, “I could play guitar alright, and a couple of the guys in the band would sing. It wasn’t the kind of band that we got together often and worked up complex arrangements or any of that kind of stuff. […] It was almost like kids pretending to be a band.” Playing in bands was fun for Stafford, but he was more interested in being an entertainer than a rockstar. He often went to Christy’s Sundown Restaurant in Winter Haven to watch piano bar comics. “They’re fellas who sit at a piano, and they talk to the audience and sing songs and tell jokes,” he said. One of his favorites was Tampa-based comedian Pat Henry. A young Jim Stafford would pick up the piano comics’ souvenir albums and listen to them again and again. “I learned quite a bit about how to talk to an audience, how to tell a joke, how to play a song they might like, how to get them to sing along – all of the things I could possibly learn about being an entertaining guitar comic. I guess that might have been what I was,” he said. Stafford said he worked much harder afterward on becoming a single act. “I was always trying to write songs and jokes.” He thought if he could entertain, tell a few jokes, and play his guitar well, he might be able to make a living playing bars and restaurants and lounges. “That’s when I put my guitar in the back of my dad’s cleaning truck and drove out to the Dundee Holiday Inn and got a job playing with my guitar. I really never looked back after that,” he said. Time spent performing at bars and hotel lounges sharpened Stafford’s comedic and musical abilities. “The perfect thing for me was to find places where I could work just about every night of the week so I could try my material.” Stafford would record his performances and listen back to his delivery to make adjustments.“My guitar playing was pretty good, and I worked on funny songs because I wasn’t much of a singer, so I thought I’d just do these little talking songs.” In 1974, Stafford would release a song he wrote called “Swamp Witch” on his self-titled album, co-produced by another Winter Haven native, Kent ‘Lobo’ LaVoie. The single would spend one week on the U.S. top 40 charts, peaking at No. 39. Stafford followed this ‘moderate’ chart success with his version of David Bellamy’s, “Spiders and Snakes,” which he re-wrote in the bedroom of his childhood home in Inwood. The song was a hit. “That’s a simple song, but I worked on it for quite a while because I knew there was something catchy about it,” he said. That song, which he would perform in 1976 alongside Dolly Parton on her nationally syndicated television show, went on to chart at No. 3 and sell 2.5 million copies. Stafford credits “Spiders and Snakes” for launching him onto stages across Reno and Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, opening for musical icons from Bruce Springsteen and the Earl Scruggs Revue to Ike and Tina Turner. “Looking back on it, it was thrilling because I started off in these little lounges, trying to write songs and do funny things and play the guitar as good as I could,” he said. “I kept at it and kept at it and got good enough to attract the attention of record people. Next thing I know, I had some records that did very well and moved out to LA.” The “Spiders and Snakes” songsmith’s talents weren’t relegated to music and comedy. “Whenever there was some aspect of entertainment that I could get my hands on or figure out how to do myself, I would do it,” he said. Stafford had quite a few film roles over the years, including Any Which Way You Can (1980) starring Clint Eastwood (for which he wrote the song “Cow Patti’’), cult horror-comedy Blood Suckers from Outer Space (1984), Kid Colter (1984), Gordy (1994), and guest appearances in television series The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. Stafford made 26 appearances on The Tonight Show and hosted the ABC summer variety series The Jim Stafford Show as well as Those Amazing Animals with co-hosts Burgess Meredith and Priscilla Presley. In 1990 Stafford opened The Jim Stafford Theatre in Branson, Missouri, where he brought in other first-rate musical acts and serenaded, wise-cracked, and played some of his greatest hits like “My Girl Bill” and “Wildwood Weed” to crowds for decades. He continues to do live performances, shining on audiences across the Sunshine State. AN AUBURNDALE RAMBLIN’ MAN Born on the naval base at Quonset Point, Rhode Island, Les Dudek moved to Auburndale, Florida, the year he turned seven. For Dudek, the move was marked by Buddy Holly’s plane crash. “That’s all I heard on my little nine-volt transistor radio,” he said. Orange blossoms, pine trees, and guitar chords made up the ethos of Dudek’s upbringing in the south. He remembers trips to Carlton Music and getting out of school to smudge pot orange groves when temperatures threatened to drop. His sister was about four years older than Les. “She was always up on the latest and greatest” when it came to music, he said. He’d hear what she was listening to through their bedroom walls. As a result, Dudek was raised on a steady diet of Elvis Presley and the Beach Boys. As her musical tastes shifted towards the “Stupid Cupid” and “Lipstick on Your Collar” pop songstress Connie Francis, Dudek drifted to the guitar-heavy sounds of the Ventures and the unequaled songwriting and harmonies of the Everly Brothers and the Beatles. The British Invasion gifted Les with the Who, the Rolling Stones, and Cream. By then, music was heavy on his mind. “I was about ten years old when I got the guitar bug,” Dudek said. He still has his first twenty-dollar 1965 Silvertone 604 acoustic guitar hanging on his wall. Disaster struck when he attempted to tune it for the first time. “I was turning the keys too high until I popped the string, and I thought it was the end of the world.” It turned out to be an easy fix. Taylor’s Drug Store in Auburndale stocked Black Diamond guitar strings right behind the counter. His first electric guitar was a Silvertone 1446L hollow-body. It had black and white trim, reminiscent of the Gretsch Country Gentleman that Beatle George Harrison played. Dudek had spotted it in a Sears and Roebuck catalog and had to have it. It was a Christmas gift from his parents that year. “I have a picture of my mom and me on Christmas morning with that guitar – it’s a fond picture,” he said. The future guitar great eventually discovered Carlton Music Center, a music mecca of 1960s Polk County. “I can remember hanging out at Carlton Music Center, running into Gram Parsons and Jim Stafford, Jon Corneal. We were all kind of a product of music back in those days.” Later he’d go to other Florida music stores like Thoroughbred Music in Tampa and the Music Mart in Orlando, where he got a sunburst Mosrite Ventures electric guitar. He remembers showing it off to Carl Chambers. When Chambers leaned down to look at it, a Zippo lighter tumbled from his pocket. “It was like slow motion, how it drifted all the way down my guitar and put a big dent in it,” he said. Chambers felt terrible, but there was no harm done, Dudek was able to trade it out for a black one. Les would go on to do the same to Jim Carlton’s bass with his belt buckle. Jim still teases him about it. The first band Dudek played with was a group of other local boys. “I don’t even think we put a name on it. It was just a bunch of kids in the neighborhood,” he said. Ricky Erickson was on lead vocals with Butch Buchanan on lead guitar, Rick Burnett on drums, and Gerald Enfinger on bass. He referred to this group as the ‘Marjorie Avenue Bunch.’ Erickson’s mother was the manager for the Dale Drive-In, where the boys would rehearse in the concession stand. A man walked up to the boys at the drive-in one day and said, ‘Hey! How’d you guys like to make some money doing that?’ He owned a trailer sales business next to what was Club 92. “The guy wanted us to set up in front of his trailer sales so we would attract people coming and going by the freeway there,” Dudek said. “He paid us each five bucks – that was our first gig.” The young guitarist graduated to another band, the Steppin’ Stones, with David Shoemate on drums, Chuck Corneal (brother of drummer Jon Corneal and former mayor of Auburndale) on guitar, Butch Buchanan on lead guitar, and Dudek on bass. He hopped out of the Steppin’ Stones into United Sounds, a ‘mirror image band’ of another Auburndale garage band turned legends – Ron and the Starfires. Dudek’s first mentor was an original member of United Sounds, Mitchell Smith. He would go watch Smith play with the band at the Auburndale teen center. After the show, Smith would show him things on the guitar and eventually taught him how to play “Johnny B. Goode” on his 1964 white SG Custom. Carl Chambers was another local musician he looked up to. Dudek would skip school, pick up cheeseburgers from Taylor’s Drug Store, and show up at Chambers’ house. “I’d trade him burgers for some guitar licks,” he said. The Polk County music scene was like a game of musical chairs with young musicians changing bands, forming new ones, and joining established ones – and Les was no different. “We were kids forming bands and playing teen centers and frat houses,” he said. “It was better than doing anything else criminal.” However, they would occasionally steal colored flood lights from motels to illuminate their band. They had a makeshift light bar where they’d screw in their freshly lifted flood lights. After the Derry Down moved to Cypress Gardens Boulevard, the original building became the Pied Piper for a time. Les remembers playing the Pied Piper. The building had no air conditioning. “I remember it being a hot box,” he said. The last time he saw Gram Parsons was outside the Pied Piper. “I could tell from the way he was looking at the Derry Down he was kind of reminiscing what it was like when it was his place,” he said. Les, some six years Gram’s junior, struck up a conversation with the older musician. Dudek moved on from the United Sounds to Blue Truth, followed by the third or fourth iteration of the band Power, playing high school dances, frat houses, and the Florida teen center circuit that was white-hot with rising stars. Back in the day, Florida “was like the east coast version of California, but not quite as hip yet,” he said. Following Duane Allman’s death in a 1971 motorcycle crash, a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, Dickey Betts, called on Dudek to play with him. Eventually, Betts and Dudek linked back up with the Allman Brothers Band, and Les played guitar for their hit song, “Ramblin’ Man.” He co-wrote and played some acoustic guitar on the song “Jessica” for the same 1973 Allman Brothers Band album, Brothers and Sisters. The success of “Ramblin’ Man,” which ascended to No. 2 on the Billboard charts, ignited Dudek’s career. Dudek thinks back on that night in front of the Pied Piper occasionally. “I wonder if Gram got a chance to hear me play on “Ramblin’ Man” before he died.” The single was released in August 1973, and Gram died in September. In 1973, Dudek met Boz Scaggs and went on tour with him for about five years, later playing on his 1976 album, Silk Degrees. At the end of their The Joker tour, the Steve Miller Band tapped Dudek to work with them in Seattle. There, the band and Dudek cut songs that would end up on albums Fly Like an Eagle, Book of Dreams, and Living in the 20th Century. The Steve Miller Band even covered the song “Sacrifice,” which Dudek had co-written with guitarist James Curley Cooke. “Sacrifice” made it onto the Book of Dreams album and Dudek’s first solo self-titled album, produced by Boz Scaggs and released on Columbia Records in 1976. This wouldn’t be the last of his songwriting successes either. Dudek co-wrote “Sister Honey” with Stevie Nicks for her 1985 Rock a Little album. The two also co-wrote the song “Freestyle” together, which Dudek would go on to name his 2003 solo record with E Flat Productions. While living in California circa-early-70s, another offer would come Dudek’s way. Manager and musician Herbie Herbert approached the guitarist about a new band he was forming. Herbert told Dudek, ‘I want to get the two guitar heroes from the San Francisco Bay area to be in the same band.’ Dudek thanked him for the compliment and asked who the other guitar player was. It was none other than Neal Schon, guitarist, for Santana, along with bassist Ross Valory. Dudek was set to meet the other would-be members at a rehearsal hall called Studio Instrument Rental in San Francisco. He received a call from Columbia Records’ A&R department requesting a meeting at one of their studios which happened to be right across the street from the rehearsal hall. “I was going to be on that side of town anyway that day rehearsing with this new band called Journey,” he said. Two hours into the Journey jam sesh, Dudek stepped across the street to take the meeting with Columbia Records. He was offered a solo deal on the spot. Weighing his options, Dudek decided to go solo. He laughed, recounting the story, “It turns out I was one of the founding members of Journey for about two hours.” Following his debut album, Dudek worked on Say No More with audio engineer and record producer Bruce Botnick, famous for his work with the Doors, the Beach Boys, and Eddie Money. This era of Dudek’s career garnered him offers from various artists and bands, including the band Chicago after the 1978 death of member Terry Kath. The manager for Little Feat offered Dudek the job when Lowell George passed away in 1979. Around the same time, Bob Dylan and Eddie Money also sought out Dudek, but he was already immersed in his own projects. Dudek recorded five albums with Columbia – four solo and one with a band. In the late 70s, he linked up with Mike Finnigan and Jim Krueger. The two had been working with Dave Mason. Krueger wrote the song “We Just Disagree” for Mason. Their band would be called the Dudek, Finnigan, and Krueger Band (DFK). The promotion for this band was a bit ‘ass backward,’ as Dudek would say. Instead of cutting a record together and touring to promote it, the three were each promoting their solo albums. “It was really a confusing thing for the audience,” he said. DFK did go on tour with Kansas for about four months and worked with artists like Kenny Loggins and Dave Mason. “Then we got the bright idea – why don’t we do a DFK album,” Dudek said. The Dudek, Finnigan, and Krueger Band released their first and only self-titled album with Columbia Records in 1980. While on hiatus with DFK, after he’d cut his third record, Gypsy Ride, Dudek got a call to go to an audition for Cher. The Goddess of Pop was looking to start a rock band called Black Rose. DFK’s Mike Finnigan turned up at the auditions along with Steven Stills of supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young fame. “We turned it into a big jam session,” Dudek remembered. After the auditions, Cher invited them all for dinner at Nick’s Fishmarket in Beverly Hills. She asked Dudek if he was serious about helping her start a band. Sure, he told her. “I wasn’t doing anything else.” Les Dudek became the Black Rose band leader and recommended esteemed composer James Newton Howard, whom he had worked with on the DFK album, to produce the Black Rose record. In the interim, Cher and Les (or LD as she sometimes called him) began dating. “We had already been dating, and she said, ‘LD, why don’t you just move in?’” Dudek said. He lived with her for the better part of three years. Dudek named the founder and president of Casablanca Records Neil Bogart as the short-lived band’s biggest champion. Black Rose would release one self-titled album in 1980, appear on The Merv Griffin Show, and host The Midnight Special alongside the Rolling Stones and the Everly Brothers the same year. Cher also appeared on Tom Snyder’s Celebrity Spotlight to promote the record. Black Rose wilted following Bogart’s death and Dudek and Cher’s breakup in 1982. According to Dudek, he encouraged Cher to pursue acting post-Black Rose. A few years after parting company, she called him up and said, ‘Hey Les, I’m doing a new movie, and they’re looking for a guy that’s got long hair, sings, plays guitar, and rides a motorcycle. Do you know anybody like that?’ That’s how Les Dudek got his first film role as Bone in director Peter Bogdanovich’s 1985 movie, Mask. Dudek followed that up with a television movie, Streets of Justice, released the same year. The highly sought-after southern rock guitar god continued to tour around Europe and the United States in the 1990s. He released three albums through his own record label, E Flat Productions, including Deeper Shades of Blues in 2001, Freestyle in 2003, and Delta Breeze in 2013. He still tours around Florida, including appearances at Gram Parsons Derry Down. NUDIE SUITS IN NASHVILLE “All I wanted to do was play drums,” said The Legendary Jon Corneal, pioneer of country rock drumming. He started as a little boy from Auburndale who hated playing the baritone his parents rented him for ten dollars a year. When he was four, Corneal’s ‘momma’ took him to watch the Winter Haven High School Marching Band. He told her then that he wanted to play the ‘dwums.’ (This was before he’d taken three years of speech therapy.) “I ruined a lot of furniture with knives or forks beating on it,” he said. Corneal told his parents that if they’d permit him to play drums, they could save their ten dollars a year because he’d buy his own. The Corneals relented, perhaps more to save their furniture and silverware than the money. Jon’s father owned a lumberyard, and the family lived in a spacious brick Tudor-style home on Lake Juliana, built in 1925. “It’s as nice as any Snively house,” he said. Corneal had his own garage apartment when he was twelve. When the decision was made to drop his baritone and pick up drum sticks, Corneal had to return to the beginner band. His band director, Mr. Miller, would take Jon from Auburndale Junior High to Auburndale Primary School in his 1956 Chevrolet. He started all over with drums, but within a month or two, Corneal had caught up and returned to the intermediate band at the junior high. Though he learned how to read music, Corneal didn’t put too much stock in it. He mentioned a line by The Country Gentleman, Chet Atkins, who once said when asked if he read music, “I do, but not enough to hurt my playing.” Jon set up a drum kit to practice in his apartment above the garage of the Corneal home. When he wasn’t working for his father at the lumberyard, a young Jon Corneal played that drum kit with zeal, practicing until 10 pm on school nights, prompting his mother to beat on the garage ceiling with a shovel and yell, ‘You got school tomorrow, you need to quit!’ Later, when Corneal played with the Legends, they’d occasionally practice in that garage apartment. “We’d either rehearse at my place or in Gram’s room,” he said. Before joining the Legends with Gram and the gang, Corneal was in a band called the Dynamics alongside Carl and Gerald Chambers. The Dynamics, like most garage bands of the era, would add and change members, including Bobby Braddock, Aaron Hancock, Buddie Canova, Randy Green, and Billy Joe Chambers. The band would travel to play at different Central Florida teen centers. “My momma would let me borrow her Oldsmobile. […] You could put all the drums and all our gear in the Olds because they were big cars, so that was real handy.” Corneal remembered taking his mother’s Olds to a show in Kissimmee where each boy earned $10. “We were happy to get it, boy. We were making that money,” he chuckled. “Those were the days.” His days in the Dynamics were numbered when Gram Parsons scouted him at the Auburndale municipality building. “That’s where we were rehearsing that afternoon,” Corneal said. “He liked Gerald [“Jesse” Chambers] and my playing, and he needed to replace a bass player and a drummer, so he got our numbers.” Gram called up Chambers and Corneal, and they met up and “started running some tunes together.” In 1962, Chambers and Corneal officially became Legends with Jim Stafford on lead guitar and Gram Parsons on keyboards, guitar, and vocals. One appeal Gram had for Corneal was his ability to secure paid bookings for the band like that horse show banquet, where the Legends played in the ballroom of the Haven Hotel. That year between the banquet, Christmas parties, and New Year’s Eve gigs, the boys made more than a little scratch. “Growing up in Auburndale, the coaches hated musicians. If you were a musician, you were so less than – way, way down low on the totem,” he said. When they returned to school following the holidays, the coach started giving him grief. Corneal laughed as he told the story. “I said, ‘Hey coach! How much money did you make last week?’ He wouldn’t tell me. I said, ‘Well, if you didn’t make $300, I made more than you did.’ And he never called me a sissy again.” Corneal appeared on WFLA channel 8’s, Hi-Time with the Dynamics and later with the Legends, winning Hi-Time’s Band of the Year. In early July 1964, fresh out of high school, a 17-year-old Jon Corneal and Eloise guitarist Jim Stafford put Polk County in the rear view, pulling a 13-foot Scotty camper. A few days later, they pulled into an RV park, spot E15, Corneal still remembers, in Nashville, Tennessee. The two would eventually split company to pursue their individual entertainment aspirations. One of Corneal’s Nashville neighbors, bass player for Flatt and Scruggs and The Foggy Mountain Boys, Jake Tullock, lent him the money to join a musician’s union that August. Most of the country acts of the time didn’t care for Corneal’s brand of drumming. He referred to himself as a ‘fancy solo drummer’ in addition to the group work he played. “When I played with the Legends, I’d do a ten-minute drum solo, and they’d all leave the bandstand,” he said. The newly-graduated teenager was often surrounded by artists twice his age in the Music City. “They’d turn to me and say, ‘Keep it country boy, keep it country! Stick and a brush!’ You never told a rock and roll drummer not to play with two sticks,” he said. “I decided if that’s all I could do, I’d learn how to keep time that was better than a metronome. I learned where the pocket is, for sure.” In 1965, Corneal got the part of a drummer in the Nashville musical film, Music City U.S.A. (1966). According to Corneal, he got fellow Auburndale native and Dynamics bandmate Bobby Braddock a part playing piano for the movie. Corneal said, “He told the makeup lady to just do the back of his ears because they had him playing an upright piano, and he wasn’t facing the camera. I thought that was funny.” It was through Music City U.S.A. that Corneal met country music duo the Wilburn Brothers and legendary singer-songwriter and future Country Music Hall of Fame inductee Loretta Lynn, who were featured stars in the film. The former would go on to offer Corneal a job, and he spent the whole of 1966 as the drummer for the Wilburn Brothers. The band was in high demand, packing out the most prominent music halls, theaters, and auditoriums throughout Texas and the southeast. “Back then, they’d still turn 2,000 [people] away,” Corneal said. The Wilburn Brothers played with Loretta Lynn plenty around this time as she was signed with their agency, the Wil-Helm Agency. “Back then, she had her own band, so we backed her up on a lot of shows.” Describing her with a drawn-out emphasis as ‘cooooun-try,’ he added, “She was a darlin’ – she was the sweetest thing.” That year, Corneal played on Lynn’s Christmas album, Country Christmas. So, there he was, on the road playing with some of the best country musicians of the time. “But I was frustrated,” he said. “When I’d come home, I’d borrow a guitar and start writing songs, working on my singing more and more.” In 1966, Corneal saved up the $100 per week salary he was making with the Wilburn Brothers to book other musicians and record five of the songs he had written at Bradley’s Barn in Nashville. That was his seminal country rock session. His country rock roots and connection to former bandmate Gram Parsons would soon bring him to the glitz and grit of Los Angeles. Every so often, Corneal, a true-blue Florida boy, would head south to the Sunshine State to drive the old dirt roads. “I used to come home to smell the orange blossoms,” he said. During one 1967 trip home, Gram was also in town from California, where he’d been pursuing music post-Harvard. He asked Corneal to come over so he could play him some new music he’d discovered. On a Robert’s reel-to-reel recorder, Gram played Jon a compilation tape he’d made with the country croonings of Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, and Loretta Lynn. It was surprising to Jon that Gram had ‘discovered’ this sound. “I’d been playing it for a couple of years already and making records and playing on people’s recordings […] making a living playing music,” Corneal said. The spring prior, Corneal said Gram had given him a hard time about the country music he was playing. “He had this attitude about me playing country. People in rock and roll didn’t like country, thought it was less than.” Gram would reproachfully ask Corneal, ‘What are you doing playing that country?’ “That’s where the work was, and that’s why I took it,” Corneal confessed. “I went up there [to Nashville] hoping I could get with the Everly Brothers or Roy Orbison.” On the same trip home, Gram asked Jon to join the International Submarine Band in California with the agreement that Jon could sing and play some of his songs. “They flew me out first class, so I got steak and lobster and champagne twice – out of Tampa and out of New Orleans. I was feeling no pain when I got there,” Corneal said, smiling. Los Angeles would prove a big shock for this southern Bibleraised Boy Scout. One morning Gram invited Jon over to actor Peter Fonda’s house for a swim. Sure, he’d go, he said. “As it turned out, I was the only one that had a bathing suit. […] I’d never seen anything like it.” Asked if he’d slipped off his skivvies to join in on the skinning dipping, Jon said in his unhurried southern drawl, “No, ma’am, I didn’t take it off.” As it would turn out, Gram’s promise to give Corneal some time out front remained unfulfilled. A fight over this prompted Corneal to part ways with the International Submarine Band – that ship had sunk, and Corneal was stranded. LA proved a hard place to adapt for Corneal, who described the city as ‘a different world.’ “There was a few years of struggle there.” Corneal would go on to record percussion for the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo album, with his name listed alongside drummer Kevin Kelley in the album credits. Less than two years after playing with the International Submarine Band, Corneal would answer Gram’s call again, this time to play with his band following the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers. After arriving in California, Corneal would hop from Gram’s couch to ‘Burrito Manor.’ The first Flying Burrito Brothers album, The Gilded Palace of Sin, features Corneal’s percussion on five songs. He left the band shortly after recording the album and returned to Nashville. He still has the Nudie suit to show for his time with the Flying Burrito Brothers. “We went to Nudie’s and got measured. I told him I wanted a red suit with an Edwardian collar, with palm trees and all kinds of rhinestones, gold alligators, and on the back was a riverboat,” he said. These rodeo and rhinestone Nudie suits were designed by Nudie Cohn, founder of Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors in North Hollywood. Elvis, Gram, Dolly, Porter, Buck, Cher, Sly – Nudie suits have been the flashy regalia of country-western and pop culture royalty, then and since. Corneal must have felt like the picture of snaz, rhinestones reflecting in infinite directions. “That’s the magic of those things. When you walk out on stage wearing those things, you’re like more than human. There’s something extra going on there. It’s so showbiz-y, it ain’t even funny.” Earlier this year, in February, Corneal’s friend and Derry Down Project champion Gene Owen accompanied him to Nashville to deliver the garments to the Country Music Hall of Fame to be included in a future exhibit at the museum. The official loan document lists: “Nudie costume jacket with submarine imagery plus nudie jacket with riverboat imagery and accompanying pants worn by Jon Corneal.” The Nudie jacket with submarine imagery was Gram’s from the International Submarine Band, worn during a cameo in The Trip (1967) starring Peter Fonda. Gram gave it to Corneal in 1972 when the percussionist drove to LA to fill in during rehearsals for Gram’s band, the Fallen Angels. “We don’t often in our lives get treated special,” Corneal said of his time delivering his Nudie suit and sitting for an interview at the Country Music Hall of Fame. “But they treated us special.” In addition to the loan of garments, Corneal is contingent on making appearances at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Following his work with the Flying Burrito Brothers, Corneal played on Warren Zevon’s Wanted Dead or Alive album and then with ex-Byrd Gene Clark in the band Dillard & Clark on their second LP, Through the Morning, Through the Night. He went on to tour and record with the Glaser Brothers and eventually broke out on his own in 1973, releasing Jon Corneal & the Orange Blossom Special in 1974. He has performed around Florida in his group Limousine Cowboys and for some 30 years with his wife in their act, the Jon & Debbie Corneal Show. “I dreamed about being a star and having my own bus and playing all these places on my own instead of working behind the star,” Corneal said. “I’ve had all kinds of people standing in front of me, doing their thing, and I’m just back in the back playing the drums, wishing I could be upfront singing.” Now, every Friday at ‘high noon’ at Hillcrest Coffee in Lakeland, The Legendary Jon Corneal and His Compadres play a live two-hour set in which Jon sits front and center. They live stream with people tuning in from all over the world to see a world-class band, headed up by Corneal on drums and rhythm guitar, improvise a set of classics and original music. “I always tell people, his recordings, yeah, they’re pretty damn good, but you’ve got to come see him,” Gene Owen said. Jon’s Compadres are a floating cast with a nucleus of regular players. “We have patrons that have been faithfully contributing and supportive. It kind of amazes me,” Corneal said. He may have been a ‘road dog’ as a young man, but Corneal is glad to have a home base in Hillcrest Coffee. “Having a place to play once a week and not having to travel is pretty neat.” The country rock drummer recorded his most recent album, High Country, in 2019. The record is a mix of American classics and Corneal’s original music. The first song on that album, “Used To Do,” was a rendition of one of Corneal’s 1965 formative country rock recordings. On the album’s inside cover, Jon thanks many people, including pal Gene Owen, Compadre Buster Cousins, wife Debbie, “Brian Goding, and all my friends and family at Hillcrest Coffee,” and “my Lord and Savior who has given me the way.” In addition to his Friday concerts with the Compadres, Corneal hosts a weekly Bible study at the Lakeland coffee shop. A former Legend, now legendary, Jon Corneal continues to make music. At 75, his drumming is still meticulously in-time – ‘better than a metronome.’ When he catches a show at the Derry Down, he’ll graciously regale Gram fans with stories about the cosmic icon, also inviting them to see him play sometime. Between his appearances at the Derry Down, Hillcrest Coffee, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and the ubiquity of social media, the pioneer of country rock drumming said, “Finally, people are starting to figure out my contribution.” SAVING THE DERRY DOWN In 1964 Gram Parsons would open a teen club in a little building on Winter Haven’s Fifth Street. By 2012, the defunct Derry Down had become a warehouse lost to time. The relic of Polk County’s musical paramount was in disrepair and being used for storage. Not everyone had forgotten it, though. The convergence of an author, a persistent Gram fan, a nonprofit, a private developer, and the Winter Haven community would save this cultural landmark in the eleventh hour. Ten years ago, Bob Kealing released his book, Calling Me Home: Gram Parsons and the Roots of Country Rock. The author, an Edward R. Murrow and four-time Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist, is no stranger to writing about Florida figures and history – it’s kind of his thing. “My raison d’être is preDisney history. When I got here 30 years ago, I really started to bristle at this notion that Central Florida has no history or culture that predates Walt Disney,” he said. In the mid-nineties working as a freelance writer and reporter with the Orlando NBC television affiliate, Kealing began investigating novelist Jack Kerouac. He learned about a thendilapidated Orlando cottage Kerouac shared with his mother in 1957 and 1958. In 1997, Kealing penned a four-thousand-word article about the cottage for The Orlando Sentinel, sparking what would become the Kerouac Project. An all but forgotten abode twenty-something years ago, the Kerouac house is now a fully restored home on the National Register of Historic Places. An ongoing writers-in-residence program is hosted there. In 2004, Kealing published the book Kerouac in Florida: Where the Road Ends. Throughout the four-and-half-year process of researching and writing Calling Me Home, Kealing traveled from Waycross to Winter Haven, visiting sites relevant to Gram’s story. He interviewed Gram’s best friend, Jim Carlton, for an early background on the country rock pioneer. “I’ll never forget Jim standing in Gram’s old room and just going, ‘Oh my God, the memories are just coming flooding back,’” Kealing said. It was the first time in 40 years Carlton had been back there. Kealing had heard about this Derry Down place – Gram’s old teen club. Carlton offered to show him where it was, just a minute or so walk from his family store, now owned by his cousin Glen, Carlton Music Center. The author looked through a side window of the derelict Derry Down. The building was in shambles and filled with junk. Looking inside “triggered a lot of memories” for Gram’s childhood friend. Carlton still had the reel-to-reel recordings he’d taken when the Derry Down opened in 1964. He shared those with Kealing too. An entire chapter is dedicated to Gram’s senior year and the opening of the Derry Down in Kealing’s book. Only a few paragraphs into that chapter, he wrote: It’s surprising there isn’t already a more permanent memorial here. For fans of cultural tourism, the corridor between Winter Haven, Auburndale, and Lakeland would be an ideal place to create some sort of tribute to all the musicians who called this area home in the 1960s. Kealing included a photo of the former Derry Down. The shabby warehouse was in rough shape and demolition seemed inevitable. The universe must have read that passage loud and clear. Certainly, self-described mega-Gram fan and local music historian Gene Owen did. “I think Gene Owen was an important catalyst in bringing all of it together,” Kealing said. In August 1968, Owen bought the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo record. He put it on the turntable at his Lakeland home, and by the end of the fifth song, “You’re Still on My Mind,” Owen was a Parsons devotee. “It was like something from outer space to me,” Owen said – an apt description of Parsons’s Cosmic American Music. “I just got chills even thinking about that day.” He had no idea that Parsons grew up not 15 miles from there. Owen would also get a chance to look in the Derry Down by way of former Legends drummer, Jon Corneal. The two met in 1977 when Owen and a friend were driving along Highway 92 in Lakeland and spotted a sign promoting a show for Jon Corneal and the Limousine Cowboys. Owen had seen Corneal’s name in the credits for Sweetheart of the Rodeo and The Gilded Palace of Sin and had to stop to see him play. Jon and the band were outside taking a break when they pulled up. The two got to talking and have been friends ever since, sharing an interest in music and cars. After that celestial experience listening to Gram, Owen consumed as much media and music related to the musician as existed. “I had read all the Gram books probably twice by the time Bob’s book came out,” he said. One day, after reading Bob Kealing’s book, Owen picked up Jon Corneal to show him a 1970 Mercedes sedan. Corneal got in the car, and Owen told him about the book and the Derry Down. Corneal knew right where it was – he’d already been there fortysomething years earlier. When they rolled up to the Fifth Street warehouse, the Cosmic American Music gods smiled down on them. A Six/Ten employee happened to be at the building. He shuffled through his ring of keys and let Owen and Corneal have a look inside. “I had out-ofbody travel, I swear,” Owen said. Around the same time, Six/Ten President and Secretary Kerry Wilson was on a bus, reading the book. Wilson later relayed to Kealing that he saw the warehouse and thought, ‘Wait a minute, we own that building!’ When Main Street Winter Haven Director, now President and CEO, Anita Strang caught wind of the Derry Down site, she rushed to The Shop to get a copy of the book. Motivated by the historical significance and potential of the Derry Down, Gene Owen reached out to Kealing. He asked the author to do a book signing in Winter Haven. Owen told Kealing, “Listen, there’s some pent-up demand for Gram in Winter Haven. You’ve got to know this.” The Calling Me Home author agreed, and Owen coordinated a book signing to be held on February 16, 2013, at the Winter Haven Public Library. Owen was right about the ‘pent-up demand for Gram’ as some 200 people packed into the library to hear Kealing, Jon Corneal, and Jim Carlton speak. A community that knew Gram, or grew up on his music and mythos, hung on every word. Main Street Winter Haven Director Anita Strang was there too. “The fact that there were so many people at that book signing was an indication that everybody thought, ‘Hey, we’ve got something here,’” Kealing said. After the signing, about half the crowd walked from the library to the Derry Down. “I was a little taken by how many people had come to this,” Strang said. A man walked up and asked if the building had a plug because he had something to play – it was Gram’s friend, Jim Carlton. In the dilapidated Fifth Street warehouse – attendees listened to a reel-to-reel recording of the Shilos performing during the 1964 opening day of the Derry Down. “You could hear this super sweet southern voice talking and playing,” Strang remembered. Standing by the door as people made their way through the building two at a time, she heard folks sharing their memories – a first kiss here or a dance over there. “It was really apparent that whatever this was, meant so much to people here,” she said. “Time goes by, maybe about a month, and then the visits start from Gene Owen.” “I’m a relentless kind of a character,” Owen said. He’d stuck his neck out already by inviting Kealing to speak. Members of the Chamber of Commerce, commissioners, and city officials had attended the book signing. He remembered thinking, “If this doesn’t happen, I’m going to have to move.” Owen wanted Strang to do something to preserve the Derry Down within her capacity as Main Street Winter Haven director, but her hands were tied. The building was privately owned. She encouraged Bob Kealing, who was also advocating to save the Derry Down, to set up a meeting with Six/Ten. Over lunch, he laid out a case for the building’s historical value and convinced them not to demolish it. Inspired by the idea of the Derry Down as an avenue for cultural tourism, Strang began digging further into Gram Parsons’s life and his ties to Winter Haven. She sought the guidance of state and national coordinators for Main Street to determine if this project was even within her organization’s scope. “I wanted to make sure, from the Main Street perspective, that this could benefit downtown in multiple ways, more than just saving this building and having a place for [Gram’s] legacy,” Strang said. “Could this become something good for our downtown?” Emphatically, yes was the answer from Main Street. It was worth the time and energy to save, but the building had to be donated. After negotiations between Main Street Winter Haven and Six/Ten, the acquisition proceeded. The building would be donated but deed-restricted for the use of music and music education, along with the ability to rent it out to offset costs. “We knew the current board understood all of this,” Strang said. “We were looking to protect the building long-term, to make sure that 10 or 15 years from now, that board of directors knew they had to use this building for the right reasons.” Around the time of the building’s donation, Strang remembers meeting with Kealing, who accompanied her to his first project, the Jack Kerouac House. The trip was motivating for Strang. The revived cottage was emblematic of the transformation that was about to take place on Fifth Street – what a vision of that magnitude realized could look like. The Derry Down Project commenced on June 20, 2014. It would take two-and-a-half years to restore Gram Parsons’s teen club to its 1964 glory. With the building donated and everyone united for the cause, it was time to start fundraising. It needed a lot of work. “Three of the trusses had fallen, and it was taking on water – the building was coming apart,” Strang said. The first dollars raised for the restoration weren’t even within the city. A Parsons fan from Atlanta caught wind of the project online and set up a fundraising show with multiple concerts to save the Derry Down. Strang attended the event. People from around the world would send amounts large and small. Strang remembered receiving a $10 donation from Thailand – a testament to Gram’s cosmic reach and impact. Main Street hosted a series of open houses, promotional events, fundraisers, and workdays to restore the historic site. The first big event was held on December 20, 2014, exactly 50 years from when a young Gram Parsons took the stage with the Shilos and sang “Big Country” and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” on the Derry Down’s opening day. A stage was erected in the middle of Fifth Street where former Legends members Jon Corneal, Jim Carlton, and Jim Stafford performed as a group at the Derry Down for the first time ever. “King of Broken Hearts” singer-songwriter Jim Lauderdale headlined the event. In 1985, Lauderdale moved to Los Angeles on a sort of Parsons pilgrimage. “I wanted to play at some of the same places, be in the atmosphere that he had been in, walk the streets he had walked, drive the roads he’d driven, and try to soak up more about him,” he said. Already aware of the Derry Down through reading various Gram biographies, when Lauderdale learned it was being restored, he jumped at the chance to be involved – another stop on that pilgrimage. The building wasn’t ready for show occupancy on that day in 2014, but Lauderdale got to peek inside. “For me, who’s such a huge fan of Gram’s, that just was so important to me to get to be in that space where he had performed,” he said. While Parsons’s contributions to music with the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and as a solo artist are important, Lauderdale said, “It’s equally important to go back to the very early roots.” Winter Haven guitar genius Les Dudek also pitched in his musical talent, playing the Derry Down to raise money at various events. “When they got all excited about it, so did we. We were all, ‘Let’s save the Derry Down!’” he said. At the open houses and fundraisers, Strang dedicated a place for guests to write down their memories from the teen club. It was essential to the Main Street Winter Haven director to preserve the Derry Down – bones and soul – to collect these stories for posterity along with the building’s physical restoration. Strang has held onto these handwritten echoes from the sixties in a box for safe-keeping. Winter Haven photographer Mike Potthast produced a video featuring Bob Kealing, a musician who grew up with Gram, Jerry Mincey, and Anita Strang, summarizing the project for a Kickstarter campaign. The campaign, unfortunately, did not meet its goal, which meant the Derry Down Project received zero of the funds pledged. But, Main Street Winter Haven, Bob Kealing, Gene Owen, Six/Ten, and the community of Winter Haven pressed on. “When I say that building belongs to the community – it belongs to the community,” Strang said. She was stunned by the local business and individuals who offered up money, time, and resources. Gene Owen, a founding father of the Derry Down Project, said, “I’m heart warmed by the whole thing.” He couldn’t have predicted the community commitment to seeing the project come to fruition. While donations came in from around the world, the brunt of the time, love, and labor came from Gram’s hometown. Companies and organizations like New Electric, Whitehead Construction, Burns Flooring and Kitchen Design, SJMS Plumbing, Six/Ten, and the City of Winter Haven were wholly involved “head and heart” in the Derry Down Project. During the restoration, Strang pushed to preserve aspects of the original structure. Exterior lights were specially made to replicate the originals. The red interior paint color hadn’t been touched since the Derry Down opened. They were able to take a chip off the wall and color-match it. And Strang has that color on good authority – she talked to the man who painted it over a few beers, some weed, and gospel music with Parsons himself in 1964. The Derry Down was located next to the Gilmore Pontiac dealership in 1964. It had a life as a car shop after it was Gram’s teen club. According to the Main Street director, the central beam was used to hoist motors from cars, adding weight to the roof, which would need to be repaired, or, as was argued to Strang, replaced. “The wood roof – that is the character,” she said in opposition to replacing the original roof. The community stepped in yet again when Winter Haven company Mechanical Dynamics found a solution to save it. When all was said and done, over $160,000 was raised by the Main Street Winter Haven Board of Directors and the Derry Down Committee. In-kind labor and materials were estimated at $185,000. The Derry Down received a historical marker from the Florida Department of Historic Resources on November 5, 2015. Gram Parsons Derry Down opened with an official ribbon cutting on September 2, 2016. In 2017, Main Street Winter Haven was awarded the Outstanding Florida Main Street Rehabilitation Project from the Secretary of State for the Derry Down Project. Cherished Polk County musicians like Jim Stafford, Jim Carlton, Jon Corneal, Gerald “Jesse” Chambers, and Les Dudek have played at the Derry Down since its 2016 reopening, some multiple times. Other figures from Gram’s career have also made it a point to perform at the venue, like International Submarine Band bass player Ian Dunlop and Parsons’s songwriting partner in the Flying Burrito Brothers and Byrds bassist, Chris Hillman. Gene Owen described Hillman’s April 30, 2017, Derry Down appearance as a “tremendous, redemptive, rejoiceful day.” Multi-Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell has even taken the Derry Down stage. He worked closely with Emmylou Harris after Gram died. “Rodney being in the building was just ethereal,” Owen said. Kealing reflected, “These people – all out of Gram’s life and story – came there to play music. You had this wonderful feeling like a mission accomplished. We don’t get his musical legacy which had sort of been mired out in the desert.” Even Gram’s family has embraced this preservation of his Winter Haven legacy, including his sister. Daughter Polly Parsons and Gram’s granddaughter Harper “Lee” visited in March of this year. And that won’t be the end of Parsons VIPs who come to the Derry Down, vowed Owen. “Emmylou [Harris] and Keith [Richards] will walk through the door at the Derry Down one day. I’m telling you. We work really hard on things like that. We’ll have Emmylou in the next year for sure.” The Derry Down has become a regular haunt for Jim Lauderdale too. The “King of Broken Hearts” lyricist and 2014 fundraiser headliner has played Gram’s place quite a few times since it opened, a “highlight of my year and life” for the musician. “I get very emotional to be in that building, performing,” Lauderdale said. “I think people who are fans of Gram will share that feeling with me.” He even took the stage at a November 5, 2021, event celebrating Parsons’s 75th birthday, where he performed alongside the legendary Jon Corneal. “That was so touching to me to be on the stage with Jon. He just brought the house down,” Lauderdale said. Corneal was only going to play a song or two, but Lauderdale said, “I kept him up there because the crowd was going nuts. They loved him. For me and the fellas in the band – he’s a legend.” Lauderdale is thankful for this connection to Gram – a sentiment he said other artists who’ve played the historic venue share. “It sounds so great in there. It’s a very welcoming, warm, comfortable place to play and one of my favorite places to play – a place that I hope to keep going back to for the rest of my life, as long as they’ll have me.” The Derry Down has become a driver for cultural tourism in Winter Haven. Strang noted that an average of 40 percent of tickets are purchased outside the county. “It is that one thing that is really authentic to our downtown,” said the Main Street Winter Haven CEO, “It feels like a good anchor.” Those out-of-town concert-goers often shop, dine, and lodge in the city while they’re here. The building is proof that “History is alive, and it can be harnessed,” Kealing said, “and now the Derry Down is this key for economic redevelopment in the urban core of the city.” “It’s become a real hub. I think it’s been so important for Winter Haven,” Jim Carlton said. As for Kealing, whose reporting was inexpressibly pivotal in saving the Derry Down, he followed up his book on Parsons with Life of the Party: The Remarkable Story of How Brownie Wise Built, and Lost, a Tupperware Party Empire (2016) and Elvis Ignited: The Rise of an Icon in Florida (2017). His newest project, a book about the Beatles in 1964 Florida, is scheduled to release early next year. In addition to an abundance of transcripts, letters, and primary-source interviews, the book will delve into the band’s residency at the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach, where they performed to a live television audience of 70 million and wrote songs for their A Hard Day’s Night album. “I would argue it’s one of the top two or three Beatles landmarks in the United States,” said the author. The Deauville Hotel is slated for demolition, and in true Kealing fashion, he’s fighting to save it. Main Street Winter Haven has big plans for the Derry Down, including another Cosmic American Music Festival (or Cypress Exchange if Strang has her way). The latter name is in reference to Winter Haven’s downtown switchboard back in the day. The only hold on those plans is hotel capacity. A six-story, 108-room Staybridge Suites Hotel is currently under construction on Fifth Street and is expected to open in summer 2023. Around $33K is still owed for the renovation of the Derry Down, and Main Street Winter Haven welcomes donations. Commemorative engraved bricks are available for purchase. They pave the walkway to Gram’s Derry Down, bound in perpetuity to this piece of his legacy. As she looks toward the future, Strang said, “I want to brand and market [Winter Haven] in the future as a place for music. We’ve got so many stages.” From the Derry Down and Nora Mayo Hall to the Ritz Theatre, Jesse’s, Grove Roots Brewing, and the outdoor stage at Lake Silver, Strang envisions an event where attendees could go from venue to venue to enjoy live music. Ten years after Bob Kealing published his book, Gene Owen took a car ride with Jon Corneal, Kerry Wilson flipped the page to historic real estate, and Anita Strang overheard stories of dancing and first kisses – the Derry Down is alive again. The heart of this landmark Fifth Street listening room beats to the rhythm of Gram Parsons’s buddies and bandmates, to country stars who were and remain inspired by him, and up-and-coming musicians who just need a place to play, like Gram did. “Gram, like the greatest artists, writers, singers, put so much feeling into his music,” said Jim Lauderdale. “Consequently, I feel so much being in the Derry Down. […] It opens up my spirit.”

The Lady on the Wall has stood sentinel over Third Street for almost seven years, watching with piercing eyes and windswept locks of ivy hair; chic, silent, and compelling. She has born witness to a massive revitalization and an artistic revival in this southwest sector of Downtown Winter Haven, the likes of which are only just the beginning. She has watched as businesses like Grove Roots Brewing, The Bike Shop and N+1 Coffee, Barrel 239, Haven Coffee Roasters, and Lucille’s have opened their doors to the community. Maybe you’ve noticed her while driving through town? Or you’ve stopped to have your photo taken in front of her iconic image. Perhaps you’ve wondered about her origin. Why is she here? Where did she come from? Who does her hair? The truth is, The Lady on the Wall has quite the story to tell. Hers is a story of beauty, transformation, art, and collaboration, and it is finally ready to be told. It begins with the meeting of two artists: Kenneth Treister, an accomplished Master with a career that spans decades, and William Larence, a young man only beginning to make his way in the art world. Their fateful introduction and ongoing friendship would lead to the first “living mural” in Winter Haven and pave a path for the renaissance to come. TWO ARTISTS Kenneth Treister is well known in the art scene; a quick Google search of his name reveals a plethora of his works and achievements. On March 5, 1930, the artist was born in Flushing, Queens, and his parents moved to Miami Beach, Florida, shortly after his birth. While he is best known for the Holocaust Memorial he designed, sculpted, and constructed in Miami, his portfolio is vast and extensive. He is an architect, architectural historian, painter, sculptor, horticulturist, photographer, author, lecturer, and a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. This prolific artist spent most of his life in Coconut Grove and moved to Central Florida with his wife, Helyne, about twenty years ago, where he continues working at the age of 92. It was Helyne that introduced Treister and Larence by booking an appointment for the artist at Spectrum Studio, a salon owned and designed by Larence. It was an introduction that would eventually become a catalyst for Larence to comprehend his creative potential fully. William Larence was born on February 19, 1979, in Winter Haven, Florida. Due to his father’s military career, he spent his youth traveling the globe, living in Las Vegas, Shreveport, and Athens, Greece. Larence visited many historical sites and museums and credits his view of the Parthenon as a young child with igniting an artistic spark in his heart. “I’m completely convinced that these experiences in those formative years have most certainly played a major role in my artistic development and passions,” Larence said. This development and passion would continue throughout his life. Larence’s family returned to Central Florida during his junior year of high school. He graduated from Haines City High School in 1997 and moved to Winter Haven shortly after where he has lived for the past 24 years. He intended on enlisting in the military but ended up meeting someone in the cosmetology field and his life took a very different turn. “Hair was certainly not at all on my radar,” Larence continued, “but I was taken with the energy and artistry involved. A large part of the hair industry is definitely a visual art form based around geometry and angles and, of course, color theory.” Larence felt it was a great opportunity and decided to earn his cosmetology license. It was a decision that would quickly lead to owning Spectrum Studio and designing not one, but two locations for the salon. “When we settled on the [first] location in the arcade on Central across from the Ritz, I was in creative bliss,” said Larence. “The Waddell’s owned the building at the time and asked me to present my plans.” Once the plans were approved, Larence began working on his first large-scale redesign. “I was very into modern and contemporary design, so the direction was already predetermined and natural,” he explained. “In that time there was a blend of inspiration for me: certainly Gene Leedy’s work, and of course Frank Lloyd Wright, also Paul Rudolph, Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier.” There was an element of simplicity in his design with a concentration on contrast and details. It was minimalistic and modern and the first of its kind in the area. Larence exposed the original brick bones of the building, used metal and birch wood on the ceiling, smooth and rough-textured concrete throughout, and added pops of color along with his signature greenery arrangements. He created a space that would captivate everyone who entered, including the wife of a renowned artist. THE MEETING Larence first met Treister 17 years ago. “His beautiful wife, Helyne, started coming into the studio from a referral when we were on Central,” Larence said. “She raved about the design of the studio and insisted I meet Ken and booked him an appointment.” Larence was unfamiliar with Treister’s work but looked forward to meeting him as he knew he was an artist and architect. He felt an instant connection. “It wasn’t until after our first interaction and conversation and truly connecting with Ken that I really researched him and was amazed,” he said. From that point on, the two would discuss art every four to six weeks while Larence cut Treister’s hair. “I always had my sketchbook at my station waiting,” recalled Larence. “We would have great conversations about architecture and design, and Ken would always ask for a pencil and a piece of paper to sketch an idea or concept for me based on those conversations.” The two discussed Larence’s plans and ideas for Spectrum Studio’s growth and design moving forward. “He was a great inspiration that I cherished and felt I needed in that moment of my artistic development,” said Larence. NEW BEGINNINGS The studio would end up undergoing an expansion and three more remodels before eventually moving to its current location on Third Street; a move that would begin to infuse new life into what was, at the time, a somewhat desolate part of town. Larence had done all the remodels himself, learning and developing as he went. When the decision was made to relocate, Larence said, “It really fell into place with the new location,” and noted the building’s address is the same number as the month and day of his birth, 219. “The Ulches, who were already clients at the time, owned the building,” Larence said. “It had been used for storage but, most recently, a CrossFit gym, so it was pretty open and raw.” It would be his biggest project yet and, in his mind, made way for a greater opportunity. “I felt as Third Street was to become a very hip, energetic street off Central,” he continues. “I presented my plans to the Ulches and again, jumped into action.” The renovation took a solid year while Larence maintained his full-time schedule as a stylist, devoting his nights and weekends to the rebuild. The doors opened in December of 2015 to reveal a refined and polished version of Larence’s original vision. “My style and process has definitely evolved over time with my art,” he said, “but I have stayed true to my underlying philosophies with integrating simple materials composed in an organic flow approach, inspired by geometry and even numerology.” Ultimately, Larence created a beautiful salon that also has the feel of an art gallery, with many of Treister’s works on exhibit. “When we moved to Third, I knew that I wanted to display some of Ken’s paintings in the salon as they seem to mesh perfectly into my visions and designs, especially the largest piece, ‘Rainbow in the Clouds.’ It is made up of nineteen panels of color, showing a blend of the full spectrum. “He’s never displayed that anywhere else,” added Larence, “as if it was meant for the space. Full alignment.” In total, there are nine large, permanent pieces that are now one with the studio, as Treister has donated them to Spectrum for all who walk through to enjoy. THE LADY With everything well on its way inside the studio, Larence turned his attention outdoors. An exterior wall, hiding a unique courtyard space behind it and perfectly inset between Spectrum and the building next to it, called to him. “I envisioned it to be something very special but didn’t know exactly how it was going to go,” he said. Larence shared this with Treister during one of his visits, and right away, Treister had an idea. “A very unique concept that was created specifically for the salon and our downtown setting,” said Larence, “as Ken always said, ‘inspired by beauty and everything surrounding it.’” Treister brought in a drawing of a woman’s face with living ivy for hair, and Larence was taken with it, instantly knowing it was the right choice. “We planned a day and met at the site to lay it out,” said Larence. They used a graphing method to transfer the image onto the wall, and Larence painted as Treister oversaw the whole process. “I was very nervous that day,” Larence recalled, “rightfully so as a master was sitting at times, watching me paint.” Then, with Treister’s instruction, Larence planted two Creeping Fig plants on either side of the face. For three years, Larence hand-watered them every night. “No one really knew the magic that was to come,” explained Larence. “As the vines ascended, I sculpted.” Her tousled tendrils now reach the surrounding walls, creating a dynamic, ever-evolving living mural. Larence has nurtured and maintained her organic tresses from the beginning, trimming them every few months like Winter Haven’s own Edward Scissorhands. Since her creation, The Lady on the Wall has watched Third Street transform. What was once quiet and deserted has become energized and bustling. Businesses continue to spring up and thrive, new murals have appeared, and there is even a flourishing weekly farmers market. With all of this bringing more and more foot traffic, countless people have stopped to take photos with her and admire her beauty. Larence plans to attach a QR code to the mural that will link to his website, which he is developing with a local company, where people can share their photos, both recent and past. Larence said, “I have been deeply inspired and greatly humbled by witnessing the effect she’s had on our downtown community.” THE FUTURE Over the past year, Larence has undergone some significant life changes and been inspired to devote more of his time and energy to new artistic ventures. He is announcing a partnership with Spectrum Studio and the Ulches to bring exciting things and new retail. This will allow the artist more time to pursue his passion. Larence is currently working on a “magical,” one-of-a-kind project at Mountain Lake, and simultaneously designing an art installation that will act as a backdrop for Spirit and the Cosmic Heart’s performance at The Ritz Theatre this August. Larence is also planning his first solo exhibition, Project Kaleidoscope, to be held at Spectrum Studio in early 2023. An epic evening is promised. In addition, Larence is working with local companies to develop ideas for the community moving forward. Bud Strang, President of Six/Ten, said, “We’re big fans of The Lady on the Wall. We are in discussions at Six/Ten with Bill [Larence] about some additional art installations Downtown. We are big believers in public art and believe it’s an important component in any downtown development project.” Strang added, “We like what Bill’s doing.” The feeling is certainly mutual as Larence said of Six/Ten, “They are passionately committed to the awesome growth of Downtown and adding every detail to heighten the experience for everyone visiting to enjoy.” While it is still too soon to give any concrete details, there are undoubtedly some exciting projects on the way; synergy like this will continue to add allure and culture to our city. “I have learned a lot about synergy over the last several years from Ken,” Larence said. “It’s powerful.” Synergy is the concept of two or more forces working together so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects. “I have felt that on a deep level with The Lady on the Wall and my relationship with Ken,” said Larence, “and my mind has been very much expanded by this experience.” Through this experience and connection, Larence found the ability to fully spread his wings, and now, the sky is the limit. The Lady on the Wall will surely be watching for the beauty to come. 219 3rd St. SW, Winter Haven, FL 33880

In his 2000 memoir, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft,” Stephen King calls books a “uniquely portable magic.” It seems only fitting to purchase such ‘portable magic’ in a bookshop of the same vein – perhaps we’ll call it ‘uniquely mobile magic.’ Little Bus Books is a mobile bookshop offering new and used books for middle grades, young adults, and adults. The family-owned and operated shop aims to provide “curated book selections based on broadening cultural perspectives through customers’ existing interests.” Michael and Lynsey Pippen met in college at Louisiana Tech University. After college, the two married and settled in Ruston, Louisiana. Five years ago, Michael’s job brought them to Florida, where he is now Director of Business Development for a global irrigation manufacturer. Lynsey is a speech therapist and special educator. She earned her doctorate in special education and taught at the college level before moving to the Sunshine State. When the Pippens adopted their sons, Nolan, age 12, and Luke, 13, ten years ago, she took her speech therapy online, where she continued to teach until last January. Moving to Lakeland, the Pippens liked the electricity crackling within the local small business scene and had in mind to be further immersed in it. “We had this idea of how we wanted to be a part of the community but didn’t really have a good business to do it with,” Michael said. The Pippens have always loved going to bookstores, especially on vacation when they could spend hours perusing the shelves. Each year, the couple travels to a different state to celebrate their anniversary – a tradition they’ve dubbed “50 states in 50 years.” During a 2020 trip to Kansas, their mobile bookshop dream began to take shape. A bookstore seemed a communitycentered endeavor that could forge the connections they were looking to make. “On the way home and over the next six months, we would just write down ideas, but never thinking, ‘this year,’” Lynsey said. As fate (and a call to the farmers market) would have it, Little Bus Books would indeed start within a year. BROADENING CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES Little Bus Books debuted on May 1, 2021, at the Lakeland Downtown Farmers Curb Market. “We started with a tent and a table and some of our favorite books,” Lynsey said. Friends and family donated books and came to shop to support Little Bus Books. “We said, ‘It’ll be a success when the first stranger buys a book,’” said Lynsey, who remains friends with that ‘first stranger.’ The mobile bookshop didn’t go on wheels until last October. They began looking for the perfect ‘bus’ to house Little Bus Books last summer when they stumbled upon a 1953 VaKaShunette camper trailer. “We were glad we did tent to table so we could figure out what fit best in the market spot,” said Lynsey. Michael agreed that they now had proof of concept and described selling out of the bus as “almost like a light switch came on.” Lynsey credits Michael, who has his M.B.A., with helping to get Little Bus Books off the ground, or rather, on the road. “His knowledge was the reason we were able to set up the business so quickly,” she said. Inside, the vintage camper gives way to a cozy book nook with a selection of reads curated by Lynsey Pippen. Though they love books, the Pippens wouldn’t describe themselves as voracious readers. “I think that helped to build our brand,” Lynsey said. “Everyone assumes that every bookseller reads every book they have in their bookstore.” That’s a lot of pressure for a wouldbe reader to ask some all-knowing word-wizard for a book recommendation. Little Bus Books makes the experience less intimidating with its smaller, tightly-curated offerings. Lynsey notes Little Bus Books isn’t for the “avid reader who knows exactly what they want to read.” She said, “We like to think of ourselves as helping you find the book you didn’t know you needed.” “I don’t know how she does it,” Michael said in awe of his wife. “Lynsey has a great style and a great eye.” Though he knew her vision for the bus would be a hit – both the style and substance – he wondered how and where they would find the right books for their selection, thinking a vast knowledge of books and literature was a must. “I don’t think that’s the case anymore,” he said. Curation soon revealed itself to be another of Lynsey’s gifts. Michael described Lynsey as a creative who enjoys being around people. “We’re not artists by any stretch of the imagination, but she has a very good eye for it,” he said. “That’s translated to the books, one hundred percent. She knows what people like.” “One of the biggest challenges is determining our audience before we get to the market,” said Lynsey. By frequenting markets like the Lakeland Downtown Farmers Curb Market, Bandit Market, Winter Haven Farmers Market, and Buena Market, the Pippens are learning what their customers like to read. Lynsey notes that determining eye-catching covers and riveting reads suited to her local customer base is ‘a fun challenge.’ Vacation was the only time the pair could spend hours browsing bookshelves for the perfect read. Everyday life didn’t afford them that. “That’s how we developed the Little Bus on a smaller scale, being more intentional about what we put in the bus rather than just having lots of books for people to dig through,” Lynsey said. Little Bus Books was developed with farmers markets and community events in mind. The Pippens aim not to overwhelm their customers with a daunting selection of books but to curate some 40-60 books and help steer customers toward texts most suited to their reading tastes. And for those who do like to dig through books, Lynsey welcomes them to rifle through the Little Bus Books cabinets and crannies, where they house inventory. Upon first inspection of Little Bus Books, one will notice the variety – new and used, fiction and nonfiction, genre, author, origin, and publication date. “That’s an intentional piece of the business, too,” Michael said. “We want to have everybody represented there. […] We’re trying to broaden cultural perspectives.” Michael used a book on hiking as an example of how they may help someone select a title within their tastes but perhaps outside of what they’re used to reading. “What is like that, but maybe the characters are a little different, or the author has a little different background, so she writes with a different perspective?” That doesn’t mean they don’t have a few good lazy beach reads or cozy mysteries on hand – because sometimes you just need a little brain candy. “We put stuff in there that we really love,” Michael said. “I like a lot of memoirs from famous people. I find that super entertaining. […] I probably try to get Lynsey to put too many memoirs in,” he smiled at his wife. “People have a lot of choice fatigue, and they like being able to go in there and grab anything off the shelf, and you’ll like all of it,” said Michael. “People don’t come in there and buy certain authors or certain books. The experience is what they’re buying, and we hope that everything in there, we’ve vetted enough that it’s all good.” BOOK CRAWL Some of the community connections the Pippens have made are with other local booksellers. “We like that there are numerous booksellers [in the area],” said Lynsey. The Little Bus Book cofounder likened it to a choice of coffee shop or lunch spot – each bringing a different experience to the table. Little Bus Books linked up with fellow Lakeland booksellers a few months ago for the first of what looks to be an annual book crawl. The 2022 Lakeland Book Crawl was held during the week leading up to Independent Bookstore Day (always the last Saturday in April) and involved Little Bus Books, Pressed, Inklings, Bookends Used Books, Crash Bookshop, and Unbound Bookery. According to Michael and Lynsey, the book crawl was a success. “Every bookstore, all week long, had above average across the board – in terms of response, activity on social media, and people coming in buying books,” said Michael. “Everybody did a really nice job focusing on what they did differently.” For their part in the weeklong event, Little Bus Books partnered with PACE Center for Girls. The mobile book shop had its highest sales ever – half of which went to help with the PACE Center for Girls’ library this summer – a nod to their nonprofit efforts. A FAMILY AFFAIR Little Bus Books is a family operation, and every co-founding member has a title. Chief content officer Lynsey “serves as the head organizer and reading researcher.” President Michael is more of a “behind the scenes guy.” Son Luke serves as operations manager, helping out with heavy lifting, but says his main job with the book shop “is to make sure all employees are happy and fed!” Communications director Nolan is described as a “social butterfly” and says his job is to “make sure that our customers get the attention they deserve!” Both Luke and Nolan have special needs. “One thing we wanted this business to be from the very beginning is something they could be a part of,” said Michael. Being market merchants provides the boys with variety in their perspective roles. From interacting with customers to cashing out purchases, the Pippens feel learning these skills is important and can translate into other opportunities for the boys. “I think we’re finding that there are two sets of people learning here,” said Lynsey of her sons and society at large. She notes that tending to the Little Bus at markets has “helped [her sons] with real-world experience.” The boys are paid for their work and choose how to spend (or save) their money. Foodie Nolan loves to buy treats from the market food vendors. Luke recently saved up for a ‘space jacket’ from the Kennedy Space Center. Both Nolan and Luke have high-functioning autism and interact with and experience the world differently. The social environment at the market has been to their benefit, said their parents. Extrovert Nolan has been able to experience independence, like going to the food truck by himself. The more reserved of the two, Luke has started greeting people at the markets, whereas he wouldn’t talk to strangers before. “I also think having our boys out there is teaching our society around us as well,” said Lynsey. “Having the boys out there shows people that they are human too. Someone may say something ‘weird,’ or you may not understand exactly what they said because they have some speech difficulties, but guess what – they live in your world too, and they’re right here in your community and your farmers market. [...] I think it not only helps our boys, it not only brings together our family, […] but it’s also helping our community to see that we include everybody.” NO COVERS “We really wanted to be part of the community,” said Michael. “Being mobile helped us move in the community to different demographics.” Not only did Little Bus Books want to pop up in hip and happening downtown spots, but they also wanted to serve a different audience. So, they began setting up shop at nonprofits like Talbot House, Gospel Village, and the Mission of Winter Haven. “You couldn’t really do that and have a brick and mortar in my mind,” Michael said of their mobile concept. The future of Little Bus Books will focus on its nonprofit initiatives. “We found how to connect within the community that we would typically connect with because we like that. We like going to the markets. And we’ve met a lot of diverse people there. […] We’ve had to work harder to get outside of those circles a little bit with some of our nonprofit initiatives.” The Pippens felt the demand for their services was higher outside their circle and asked themselves how they could bring the two together. The bridge between these two sides of the community is through their nonprofit initiative, No Covers. The name is apt and intentional – a play on the idiom “Don’t judge a book by its cover” and on ‘no cover’ as in ‘free of charge.’ Little Bus Books has partnered with six area nonprofits, including VISTE, Talbot House, Mission of Winter Haven, Gospel Inc., PACE Center for Girls, and Trinity Apartments of Lakeland, to give away books and make connections with people. “We feel like there’s a larger demand there and probably a larger calling,” Michael said. The Pippens would love to see their No Covers initiative blossom into a full-time nonprofit organization supported by revenues from Little Bus Books’ for-profit market pop-ups. “That’s the highest goal we have. We’re not trying to push across some initiative. We’re not trying to make everybody read anything,” Michael said. “We are using the books as our platform to get to know people that otherwise we’d have no real interaction with [and] making that very intentional with the hopes that it connects the other part of the community we are already in.” Check out their website and social media pages to find out more about Little Bus Books, No Covers, or what market they’ll attend next. You’ll want to ‘book’ it over there to find your next favorite read! Little Bus Books littlebusbooks.com info@littlebusbooks.com FB @littlebusbooks IG @littlebusbooks

Whether underfoot as her mother played hymns and gospel piano, making a beeline towards the music anytime her rock-nroll father picked up a guitar, or sitting in on the bluegrass picking and singing of her grandad and his band of eight brothers – Van Plating has always been ‘home’ within a song. “My mom would say that I sang before I used coherent sentences,” Plating said. “It was just in my DNA, I think.” Plating has been touring on the heels of the release of her second solo album last fall. The Lakeland-based artist is already writing her third solo album, working toward completing three albums in three years. Radiant and effortless in a flowy white dress and black boots, Plating sat in her living room, overlooking her home studio as she discussed her roots, her favorite novelists, and her own storytelling. VAN’S MUSICAL DNA The indie-Americana solo artist has been a classically trained violinist and singer since childhood. Her instrumental repertoire now includes violin, viola, piano, keyboards, and electric guitar. In a 2021 interview during AmericanaFest in Nashville, Plating likened instruments to different colors on a song. Her favorite ‘color’ is her voice. “The voice is my obsession because that’s your vehicle for storytelling,” Plating said. Consumed with practicing, she focuses on technique and how her tone may emphasize the lyric. “If I let the vocal fall apart, I’m doing it on purpose. If I’m in falsetto, I’m doing it on purpose.” Storytelling is chief in Plating’s music. “My lyric writing is very inspired by contemporary American writers and novelists,” she noted. Plating ‘fills her well’ with writers like Wendell Berry, a Kentucky-based novelist, poet, conservationist, and farmer. “He has that very rooted-in-location and generational language to his work, but he’s also very profound,” she said of Berry. The works of Annie Dillard and Patti Smith also fill her bookshelves. “I’m re-reading [Smith’s] memoirs right now because I just love her. She’s gifted at taking what you would consider a mundane, everyday moment and making a book out of it.” Though Plating’s indie-Americana sound fits her like a good pair of jeans, her musical identity has been a journey. The path there wasn’t the same beeline she’d make for the sound of her dad’s guitar or her grandad’s bluegrass. At first, she hightailed away from that. “When I was younger, and I feel like a lot of us do this when you’re in your teens and twenties, you’re trying to do anything but what you grew up with. You want to get as far away from that as you can,” she said. “I wanted to run as far away as I could from bluegrass and folk music and anything my parents listened to.” She dug her heels into indie rock for a time, even playing bass for an emo band in the 90s and spending a few years of her twenties listening only to Scandinavian rock. It’s funny to think about now, she says. A relatable sentiment, Plating said her earlier music felt a bit like “forcing an identity.” That experimentation sticks with her. Plating’s current music forgoes rigidly following the traditional chord structure many Americana artists hold as gospel – not afraid to veer into a sound all hers. She’s made her way home. “That’s how I feel about Americana – I feel like I’ve come home. It makes sense for me to be here,” she said. “There’s so much beauty in taking a step back, examining your roots, and standing on that and pulling in other influences, but not trying to get rid of your DNA.” ON VULNERABILITY AND FINDING YOUR DANCE Her last record may be titled “The Way Down,” but it feels like an ascension. Plating’s vocals have an ethereal quality that makes her sound like a sort of Americana angel. Her second full solo album, “The Way Down,” was released last fall and co-produced with Bryan Elijah Smith, who played drums, electric guitar, bass and sang background vocals for the record. Plating wrote 50 songs that were paired down into a nine-track album. She and Smith recorded at his Shenandoah Valley studio over the course of a year. “He threw his heart into it,” Plating said of her co-producer, whom she called one of her dearest friends. “It’s an album about learning how to be okay with not being okay, learning how to find your dance while you’re in a low moment, learning to celebrate through hard times,” said Plating. Her favorite lyrics on “The Way Down” belong to the bridge in the song “Dirty Frame.” “It captures that arc of being a child and then being a mother, and there’s a vulnerability to that,” she said. A walk along the beach with her then 10-year-old daughter inspired the bridge. “She was just starting to explore those feelings […] of expectation, vulnerability, insecurity, ‘who am I?’ ‘what does it mean?’ And I was having a low day that day. She grabbed my hand while we were walking. We were having this moment of both not being okay but being together in it. That’s the whole feeling in that song.” I called my daughter She held my hand white like sugar On burning sand started singing through crooked teeth Found our fire On shaky knees “That’s my favorite lyric in the whole record because it means the most to me. You can’t grow up untouched by the world. You can’t grow up and avoid insecurity and hard things – you have to push into those things,” Plating said. “Me and my daughter, in that moment, that day, were pushing in together, both broken, both weak (her teeth aren’t as crooked as mine, but I thought it was a cool lyric), and just singing our song. I think that’s what my whole trajectory is about, just learning to sing your song because it’ll resonate if you’re being yourself. You don’t have to listen to only Norwegian metal.” JAMMING IN THE HOME STUDIO Plating now works out of her rose-red home studio, where she’s also begun producing for other artists. She recently wrapped up tracking on New York-based singer/songwriter liv.’s debut LP, which releases November 4, 2022, with singles preceding. The pair met through Plating’s “The Way Down” co-producer, Bryan Elijah Smith. Plating played at liv.’s outdoor COVID-safe musical festival in May of 2021. “I went up there and really hit it off with liv.,” she said. Although Plating’s home studio wasn’t entirely set up yet, she had liv. down from New York in January to collaborate. Plating laughed and said, “I had equipment showing up days before she got here. […] It was chaotic but so good.” Liv. traveled to Plating’s Lakeland studio twice, tracking sessions in January and May, with the producer even co-writing on the LP. “I love to co-write with people, so that was fulfilling and fun to be in it from when it was a skeleton, not even a full song. She comes in with lyrics and a melody, and then we create this whole architecture around it,” Plating said. Plating described it as different from anything on which you’ve yet heard her. Instead of starting “from the bottom up,” Plating said, “For her record, I wanted to try something different and start with her vocals. I would give her a little scratch guitar track, start with the vocal, and then base the whole interpretation of the song around her voice. What’s resulted is something very raw and organic. It’s not stripped-down at all, it’s fully produced, but it’s certainly a little edgier and a little less polished than things I’ve done before – very intentionally.” Lakeland’s Americana angel has been touring with stops around the south including the Gasparilla Music Festival, Gainesville, Nashville, and Austin. She’ll be playing at Seven C Music in St. Petersburg on June 8 – her last scheduled Florida performance until the fall, with dates to be announced. Toiling away on her third solo album, which will be entirely selfproduced, Plating hopes to have it tracked before AmericanaFest in September and release it next spring. “It’ll sound kind of live, a little grittier than what I’ve done before. It’ll be me, so it’ll be raw and colorful, and hopefully people will get it – we’ll see,” she said. Photograph by Amy Sexson Van Plating vanplating.com FB: Van Plating IG @vanplating Twitter @vanplating

At a downtown Auburndale thrift boutique, purchases benefit adoptable pups. It really is Goin’ to the Dogs! This charming thrift store on Auburndale’s Main Street sells donated items to benefit Crossed Paws Pet Rescue. The rescue, started by Stephanie Badillo, takes in homeless and abandoned dogs and finds them a forever home. Stephanie Badillo had been rescuing dogs at her home for ten years before starting Crossed Paws Pet Rescue in 2017. “My dogs aren’t dogs that come from people. Some do, but most of my dogs are from the ditches, the woods, some really late nights in some really scary places, and most of my dogs come in pregnant. I’ve had eleven litters at one time,” she said. When she rescues dogs, Badillo gets them veterinary care, has them microchipped, spayed or neutered, and has them treated for any injuries or illnesses. No matter how many thousands of dollars she spends rehabilitating an animal, the adoption fee is always $300. A PAW-SOME IDEA Dog lover and owner of Goin’ to the Dogs Thrift Shoppe, Mariann Motola, met Badillo about five years ago. “I started following another rescue in Bakersfield, California called Marley’s Mutts,” said Motola. Appreciative of their work from afar, she wanted to do the same good in her community, so she Googled ‘pet rescue Auburndale’ and Crossed Paws was the first result. “I liked what she was doing. She was the only rescue in this whole area. I got to know her, and one of the things that she constantly needed was funding,” said Motola. Funding was essential to cover vet bills and the expenses of running a kennel with 70 dogs. Motola suggested they open a thrift shop selling donated items to help meet that financial need. It just so happened that her husband had a space in downtown Auburndale that would make a great thrift store. Shortly after announcing the opening of Goin’ to the Dogs Thrift Shoppe on social media, supporters of Crossed Paws Pet Rescue showered them with enough donations to fill two storage units. According to Motola, “All the money that comes in goes directly to Crossed Paws Pet Rescue. [...] My ideal plan was to always pay the rent over at the kennel.” Since opening in August of 2019, they’ve been able to do that almost every month, with a surplus to cover utilities, food, and veterinary expenses some months as well. “Everything in the store has been donated,” said Motola. “I don’t purchase anything.” The Goin’ to the Dogs owner says her aim for the store is to be a thrift boutique for lightly used items from adult clothing, home décor, and jewelry to books, DVDs, CDs, and an entire back wall of dog products. She says the store’s demographic tends to be women aged 20-60 – all dog lovers, of course. The volunteer-run store is open Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 11 am to 4 pm. FINDING FUR-EVER HOMES “I just picked up a mother dog and four puppies dumped off 80 Foot Road,” shared Badillo. Unfortunately, tragic situations like this aren’t infrequent. “The laws have to change,” said the Crossed Paws Pet Rescue owner. “They need to require spay and neuter and require people to take control of their actions with their dogs.” Motola added, “And they all need to be microchipped. That way, we can locate the owner, and then if the dogs are dumped, they have to take responsibility for them.” Adopting a dog through Crossed Paws is a purposefully stringent process. “We have an adoption application that must be filled out, and we do not adopt until we know everything about those people,” said Motola. This includes finding out what kind of dog a person or family is looking for, verifying their address, and speaking to the landlord if they have one. “Some people get upset by this. Some people don’t want to adopt from us because of the process that we have, but it’s pretty strict,” said Badillo. Badillo wants to ensure that each of her dogs ends up with the right family, even going as far as Maine to get them there. She’s driven 90 dogs up north already, where she partners with another rescue. “I get them adopted first. Then I drive them to the other rescue, and the people that are adopting are there waiting for their pups,” she said. The rescue also attends community events like Bark in the Park in Winter Haven and Touch a Truck in Auburndale to drum up support for the cause and hopefully find homes for their dogs. “Auburndale Parks and Recreation are very good to us. They always include us in whatever they do over at the park,” said Motola. Crossed Paws recently held their own event in Auburndale, where they did 14 adoptions in one day. According to Badillo, the rescue plans to hold monthly adoption events at the K-Ville Community Center. Interested in adopting a fourlegged friend through Crossed Paws? Folks are asked to fill out an application online. Once an application has been accepted, “We do meet and greet by appointment,” said Motola. HOW TO HELP To support the dogs at Crossed Paws Pet Rescue, the community can make financial donations, donate cleaning supplies like garbage bags, paper towels, dog shampoo, and puppy pads, or shop at Goin’ to the Dogs Thrift Shoppe. “We’re always looking for new volunteers who want to come in and work the store,” said Motola. Good items to donate to the store include lightly used clothing and home décor in good condition (clean, no tears, no missing zippers or buttons). Anything they don’t plan to sell is donated to another thrift store or nonprofit. Motola looked around Goin’ to the Dogs Thrift Shoppe and said, “This is from all the people who support Crossed Paws. It’s just really cool.” Keep up with Goin’ to the Dogs on social media to learn about sales and new inventory. They often bring dogs to the store so guests can shop and get a little pooch smooch from a sweet pup like five-year-old wired-haired terrier, Loki, and 6 to 7-yearold longhair dachshund, Willie, who at the time of print, are available for adoption! Goin’ to the Dogs Thrift Shoppe 106B Main St, Auburndale FB @gointothedogsthriftshoppe (407) 414-5651 Crossed Paws Pet Rescue Crossedpawspetrescue.org FB @crossedpawspetrescue Photography by Amy Sexson

My family grew oranges in a grove next to a little wild lake in Polk County for four generations. The grove yielded its sweet crop and stood next to the lake for over 75 years. It was home to turkey, bobcat, hogs, and deer. It shielded the lake and kept it, at least in my young mind, a wild and sacred place, and those rows of green trees covered in golden globes witnessed many good memories and moments of solitude. It was a place I loved. In 1989, the grove was lost to a hard freeze, as were many others that winter. My uncle, generation number three, replanted the grove the following year. By a fortunate accident, blood oranges found their way into the rows of the grove. Through a nurseryman’s error, 10 blood orange trees were included with hundreds of Hamlins to be replanted. I was 5 when those trees were put in the ground. My memories of the grove began after time revealed the surprise, and the grove had become a mature stand of trees next to the little wild lake. Each year, I always made sure to flag a couple of the blood orange trees ensuring that they held tight to their golden treasure and didn’t end up in the harvest crew’s trailer. While they lasted, they were a sweet treat on days afield and while working in the grove. The elevation and the deep sandy soils told me that Tall Pines once grew next to the lake. Except for a small patch of long overgrown woods showing the groves ancestry, the grove is all I’ve known. As far back as I can remember groves surrounded my family’s grove and the lake. They seemed a vast, wild landscape in their rolling expanse over the sandhills. As wild as the groves seemed I could only imagine the native flat woods and scrub of the not-so-distant past. Many mornings found me among the tree rows stalking feral hogs and whispering to Osceola Turkeys. Many mornings found me on the little wild lake fishing for speckled perch or hunting ducks and alligator. Those mornings spent in pursuit of game are memories as sweet as the oranges that grew on the trees. One of my favorite memories includes bluebills, which every year would migrate from the far north and navigate to our lake next to the grove. Each year flocks of bluebills would announce their final approach as primary feathers sounded descent. Small jets landing and sounding very much like the large ones on final descent into Orlando! With regularity, I would find myself on one of these outings contemplating time and place, as a short walk through the grove would yield evidence that man had occupied this land for thousands of years prior. Arrowheads and pottery shards sent my mind wandering. How long ago was this projectile used in the same pursuits I was on? How tall were the pines that towered overhead? How loud were the bluebills landing on the lake back then? What was he hunting, and did he find the same satisfaction in this place that I did? I often thought while hunting, working, camping, and finding arrowheads, that one day I’d bring my yet-to-beconceived family here. We would sit and call at turkeys, listen to bluebills cruise through the skies, and treat ourselves with blood oranges as summer held onto fall. We would camp and fish and make memories. We would find arrowheads, and the concept of time and my relationship to this special place would transfer generations. It had been a couple of years since I walked the grove. I knelt to pick up a broken coral arrowhead, one like many I’d found before. I faced the lake and saw the raft of bluebills which had concluded their migration south, to this spot, for as far back as I could remember. This would be my last walk here. The last time I would hear the bluebills on the little wild lake, the last time I would pick up an arrowhead. The blood oranges have been gone for several years, as have most of the groves around here. They got hammered by a disease and gobbled up by development. All that remains is the small patch of woods and an empty field. My family hasn’t owned the grove for a few years (technically I was trespassing), but it would be my last time doing so. I returned to say goodbye. The lake was still beautiful and wild but not for long. A wall of gray, beige, and off-white boxes across the street foretold what was to come. “The last crop” would soon be planted. Rows of houses would soon line this field. The developer pulled up and asked why I was there. I talked with him. “Can’t stop progress” he mentioned. I feigned a smile. “We break ground in two weeks.” I wondered if anyone would wander and wonder about tall pines, ancient peoples, and sweet blood oranges while walking a cul-de-sac. When all that covers this land and surrounds this lake is humdrum rooftops, will anyone be inspired by this once sacred place? Anyways, I do miss those Blood Oranges.

Put on your finest Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops – Cabana Boy Ice Cream is open for business, baby! Well, they’ve actually been open for two months and have quickly become a sweet tooth fixture in Winter Haven. A bright spot of manicured landscaping, tiki décor, and Hawaiian music on Avenue G NW, Cabana Boy Ice Cream is the brain (freeze) child of self-described “ice cream addicts” Gina and Chuck Erickson. Chuck is in the business of skateboard manufacturing and started Sabotage Skate Shop in Winter Haven, and Gina is an accountant. They moved to Auburndale from California. The ice cream shop may have opened two months ago, but renovations on the building have been gradually ongoing for three years. “When we bought it, it was a disaster. It needed everything,” Chuck said. Gina agreed, “It needed so much love.” “Since 1974, from what we understand, it was the Banana Boat. There was a couple that owned it for years and years,” Chuck said. Eventually, the building would change hands before sitting vacant for some time. Looking online at local real estate, Chuck said, “We saw it pop up, and I thought, ‘Let’s go check it out. It looks interesting.’” So the couple came to the vacant spot and sat at an old fiberglass table to check the place out. “All of the sudden, this car pulls up, and this lady and two kids get out to get ice cream,” Chuck said. The Erickson’s relayed that the business was closed. Shortly after, another truck pulled up with a couple also looking for a cold treat. Chuck said, “This is interesting. Let’s make an offer on it just for fun.” The Erickson’s bought 2610 Avenue G NW ‘as is’ and started the three-year-long renovation project. Little by little, they worked to replace the septic, install new three-phase electricity, flooring, new walls, fix the air conditioning – the list goes on. The Erickson’s gave their future ice cream shop a total tiki makeover. “I think where it really started was this restaurant and bar called the Royal Hawaiian in Laguna Beach, California. I started going there as a little kid with my family. I actually proposed to [Gina] there,” Chuck said. “It’s like my favorite restaurant. It was super old-school, dirty nasty tiki, and the bar was super awesome and fun. It was just one of my favorite places, and I always loved the whole tiki scene and look.” For their ice cream shop, at which pineapple Dole whip would be a staple (now their most popular flavor), a Hawaiian backyard paradise in Winter Haven just made sense for the theme. “We want people to be able to escape here. Come get an ice cream and relax for ten minutes, not think about the rest of the world,” Chuck said. Cabana Boy Ice Cream currently offers 13 shaved ice flavors and 16 flavors of Yoder’s Southern Creamery ice cream. “We could come here and buy Hershey’s or some less quality brand and make more profit for sure, but we are ice-creamaholics, 100%. We’re buying what we love,” Chuck said. “There’s nothing that competes with Yoder’s, in our opinion. It’s our favorite – the chocolate peanut butter, the mudslide. It’s legit.” And Cabana Boy ice cream comes with a souvenir spoon that changes color when it gets cold – something to remember them by. “Gina runs the kitchen, and I’m just the idea guy,” Erickson said. Gina’s favorite aspect of the business is being creative. “I love cooking. I love the kitchen, making new stuff, trying new flavors,” she said. Cabana Boy’s social media is an ode to Gina’s colorful creations with treats like Orange Dole with Chamoy and Tajin topped off with an orange slice and colorful cocktail umbrella. One bite of that, and I bet you could almost hear the waves. The couple is working on adding classic and teriyaki burgers to the menu in the next few months. “We love that kind of food, and besides, it goes with the theme. We haven’t found anything like that around here,” Gina said of the teriyaki burger. Chuck enjoys meeting cool people and sharing stories with them. Especially since everyone’s happy. It’s hard not to smile after a bite of ice cream – all your worries melt away (pun intended). “You come here, and you eat ice cream. How could you not be happy? [...] For less than $5, you’re happy, and you escape reality for a minute.” Don’t forget to squeeze Cabana Boy’s tiki statue butt on the way out – it’s tradition. And maybe good luck? Cabana Boy Ice Cream 2610 Avenue G NW, Winter Haven (863) 268-6008 www.cabanaboyicecream.com FB: Cabana Boy Ice Cream IG @cabanaboyicecream Photography by Amy Sexson

It’s 8 am on a weekday morning, and a puppy in Lakeland is waiting patiently by the front door. He makes a few trips padding back and forth to the front window overlooking the driveway. Joyful barks and tail wags can only mean one thing – the Aussie Bus is here! The good boy can hardly contain his excitement for the day ahead – fetch, playing with his friends, and belly rubs from his favorite doggy daycare moms. What does your dog do while you’re at work all day? Owners of Aussie Mom Pet Sitting, Ashley and Nancy Lee, live in Bartow with their four dogs, three cats, and a tortoise. Ashley has degrees in graphic design and information technology and is currently pursuing a marketing and business degree. She began pet sitting while working full-time as a graphic designer and office manager for two aeronautics companies in Sarasota. “I’m a veterinary technician, but I prefer not to work in the clinic because usually, that deals with the sad parts,” Ashley said. In 2016, she moved back to Polk County to care for her grandmother, whose health was declining, and Nancy’s mother had been diagnosed with cancer. Both Ashley and Nancy were in jobs that didn’t afford them the time with family they needed. So Ashley started pet sitting. She could use her education to care for animals without the emotionally challenging moments of working in a veterinary clinic and have freedom of schedule. Nancy has ten years of certified dental technician experience and has also worked as a licensed cosmetologist. She wanted to be there for her mother’s chemotherapy treatments when she was diagnosed with cancer in 2016. “In the corporate world, your hours are set. And of course, I was a manager at the salon, so nobody could take my place,” Nancy said. She thought, “Let’s do this so we can both have opportunities to leave whenever we want and visit our family and be there for them.” She joined Ashley as a co-owner in Aussie Mom Pet Sitting. Though Nancy’s mom passed away in 2017, the career change allowed her to be there for her mom’s chemo each week. Nancy said that she has found her passion in pet care and, after having animals all her life, finds comfort in caring for them every day. Another reason the Lee’s started a pet sitting business? “I also don’t trust anyone to watch my pet,” Ashley said. “There’s a need for somebody to provide a home environment where when I’m gone, they can take my dog, and they can still feel like they’re at home.” DOGGY DAYCARE When Aussie Mom first started, they offered home visits and overnight services. Their clientele has grown so much in the last six years that they no longer offer home visits but have plenty of services to keep tails wagging. In that time, they’ve taken care of kangaroos, cats, lizards, chinchillas, and bearded dragons, though now they focus their services on dogs (and the occasional bird). The Aussie Mom owners pride themselves on providing a professional and personalized pet care experience in an in-home environment serving Lakeland and Winter Haven. Services include doggy daycare/ play dates, boarding, and even transportation for pets on their Aussie Bus. The latter service is a hit with pets and their humans alike. “As soon as [the dogs] see the leash, they know they’re going to Aussie Mom,” Nancy said. It eliminates the stress of adding another stop on the morning commute for clients. “I come between 7 am and 9 am,” said Nancy. “I pick them up, they come all day, and I drop them off between 4 pm and 6 pm. So, when you come back home from work, they’re tired.” Clients fill out a form allowing Nancy to enter their homes so when she drops them off, she can fill their water and make sure they potty one more time. The Aussie Moms often have clients send pictures of their tuckered-out dog passed out on the couch with a big ‘Thank you!’ For any potential overnight guests, they set up a meet and greet for an assessment of the dog and always have them come over for a play date before boarding to make sure they get along with other pups. Nancy said, “It all depends on the dynamic – what their temperament is and what behaviors they have.” The number of dogs they’ll accept for boarding depends on the circumstance. They take the health and temperament of each precious pup into account. According to Ashley, “We’ve had dogs with heart failure where they can’t be overstimulated. We have to check on them every two hours to make sure they’re still breathing. They could go at any moment. If we have our pups and that guest, we wouldn’t take anybody else.” If there isn’t a high-maintenance pet coming in, the Aussie Moms limit boarding to four to five dogs. The daycare has become the pet sitters’ most sought-after service. “It’s really good for people to take that effort and sign up for a day of daycare here and there for socialization,” said Ashley. The Bartow-based pet sitting company is currently fully booked for doggy daycare through the summer. The ‘Aussie’ in Aussie Mom Pet Sitting is an homage to two of their pets, Aussies Roxy and Hurley. Roxy is the Aussie Mom mascot and a house mom of sorts amongst the dogs. The mellow rescue doggie, adopted at just four and a half weeks old, is now 13. Known to involve all the dogs in playtime, Roxy is helpful with dogs of all ages and dispositions. According to Ashley, “She’s really good if we have senior pups that need to be socialized but not overwhelmed.” Roxy will even comfort anxious dogs by snuggling with them. PET CARE PROFESSIONALS Aussie Mom Pet Sitting is a licensed LLC, insured through Business Insurers of the Carolinas and Certified through NAPPS (National Association of Professional Pet Sitters). They also hold certifications in Fear Free and Pet Behavior/Psychology. “The industry as a whole saw that anxiety was becoming a bigger issue,” said Ashley. “We network with other companies in Lakeland and Winter Haven. We have meetings every couple of months. Everybody was saying we’ve got to figure something out.” Ashley said of their Fear Free Certification, “It’s a lot about reading the body language of the pets. With COVID, a lot of people were home 24/7, and now their dogs have increased anxiety [because people are leaving home more and the dogs aren’t used to their absence].” Nancy noted that this could lead to some dogs becoming destructive when left alone. Many of their clients have expressed that they haven’t been able to go out to dinner after the pandemic without their dog tearing up the house or becoming distressed when they go into the kennel. “That was part of the certification. It taught us how to read them and implement different ways to get them back into being a normal dog again,” Nancy said. “When we started the business, we found there was a need for professional pet care,” Ashley said. “A lot of people will use Rover or Wag! or family members or neighbors and they find out that they never came, or they came for five minutes and left and didn’t feed them, or they went all weekend and the person came one time.” The neighborhood kid may be cheaper, but there is peace of mind with hiring a professional (especially one who is NAPPS certified) to care for your pet. The Aussie Moms encourage pet parents to do their research before entrusting their dogs into someone’s care. They work with the pet industry software, Time To Pet which gives an extra bit of assurance to their clients through tools like clock-in and clock-out if they were to visit someone’s home, photos, GPS when walking a dog, and report cards noting if the pet ate, drank water, or used the bathroom. “That software is a lifesaver because we used to do everything by hand,” said Nancy. Ashley called pet sitting a 24/7, 365 job that is “different every day.” The pair hope to one day expand their labor of puppy love into a larger facility, perhaps a ‘barndominium’ property offering an in-home environment, and eventually grow their staff. THE AUSSIE MOM FAMILY For Ashley Lee, the best part of her job is seeing clients they’ve not seen for a while. “We’ll show up, and the dog just comes running to us like ‘Oh my God, where have you been?!’” she said. Though that is on occasion mixed with sad moments like when a senior dog they’ve grown to love passes away. She said, “We call them our ‘Aussie Mom Family’ because it’s like having a bunch of little nieces and nephews. We get attached, and it’s hard when they pass.” Nancy said, “It’s probably the most fulfilling job I’ve ever had. They’re therapy. When my mom passed away, this is what got me through it. [...] You can go to your 9-5 job every day, but the happiness you see and when the clients tell you how much they appreciate you because it’s like their child – to feel like you’re a part of their family as much as they’re a part of yours – it’s just so fulfilling.” Aussie Mom Pet Sitting aussiemompetsitting.com FB @AussieMomPetSittingLLC IG @aussiemompetsitting 863-701-3137 Photography by Amy Sexson

Since starting the Polk County Bully Project (PCBP), Co-directors Shannon Medina and Angie Lorio and their now 30 active volunteers have saved over 1,200 dogs. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit is a foster-based rescue organization dedicated to finding homes for the often misunderstood breed of pups that fall into the ‘Pit Bull’ category and reducing euthanasia rates in Polk County. Haven first interviewed the Polk County Bully Project in 2019 and wanted to catch up with the group to learn about their progress and find out how the community can help PCBP reach its goals. HAVEN: What is the mission of the PCBP? PCBP: We save those dogs most at risk at Animal Control which typically are the bully breeds that makeup 75% of the dogs in the shelter. Dogs labeled ‘pit bull’ are rescueonly and are not allowed to be adopted out at Polk County Animal Control. We pull those dogs also that are in need of medical treatment and/or hospice care or are heartworm positive. HAVEN: What is a bully breed, and why does your organization aim to help bully breeds specifically? PCBP: Bully breeds are a category of dog that have a blocky head. It is a category made up of about ten different breeds of dogs that include the American bulldog, Staffordshire terrier, and Pitbull, to name a few. HAVEN: Bully breeds have a bad reputation. What would you say to someone who thinks of them as dangerous or illtempered to change that perception? PCBP: I would equivocate that to any other prejudice. Any dog can be trained to be protective of their owners. This breed is extremely loyal and smart. They are factually the most abused breed than any other. They score 87% on the temperament test as being excellent, loving, and gentle family dogs. HAVEN: How do you go about accomplishing your goal to save dogs? PCBP: We fundraise to pay for vetting and housing and have the support of our community. We are currently working on a spay and neuter voucher program to assist those unable to alter their pets. HAVEN: What are the problems in the community or with irresponsible pet ownership that make what you do necessary? PCBP: • Spay/neuter affordability • Heartworm positive dogs • Backyard breeders • Dog dumping • Lost dogs with no chip, tag, or license • Tethering – especially without a cover • Insurance companies’ breed restrictions • Landlord breed restrictions HAVEN: When we last spoke, the PCBP had a goal of making Polk County NO KILL by 2025. Is that goal on track? How can the community help to make that happen? PCBP: We will never stop trying. Dogs must be spayed and neutered. Unlicensed breeding must be stopped. People breeding dogs in their backyards must be fined and held accountable. HAVEN: Another dream you mentioned when we last spoke was to one day have a facility of your own to expand what you were doing and be a resource and partner to other animal organizations. Has that dream been realized? PCBP: Since we last spoke, we did get a facility to hold up to 25 homeless dogs. However, we quickly outgrew that facility and are currently looking for a larger space. HAVEN: How can folks get involved with PCBP? Are there volunteer, sponsorship, adoption, education, or donation opportunities? What is your organization’s biggest need? PCBP: We absolutely love our volunteers, and we have a coordinator that takes care of processing applications, setting up introductions to our facility, and the scheduling of them. It’s always helpful to have people share our dogs and social media and talk about the work that we are doing as well. Of course, monetary donations are fundamental to keeping our project running. Probably the easiest and quickest way to reach us is by emailing us at polkcountybullyproject.gmail.com. HAVEN: Are there any PCBP rescue stories that stand out in your mind over the last few years? PCBP: Everyone seems to know Aspen’s story. He came into the rescue just over a year ago. He was confiscated by Polk County Animal Control from a home that had him tied in the backyard with his jaw bound closed and a nylon cord wrapped around his head. When we rescued him, he had open holes in his sinuses on his face and required reconstructive surgery to close them and to get his mouth to properly close. We have fundraised and performed eight reconstructive facial surgeries. He was just adopted two weeks ago. For more information on Polk County Bully Project, to follow rescue stories like that of Aspen, and support the cause, visit www.polkcountybullyproject.org, or follow them on Facebook and Instagram @polkcountybullyproject.

A love of cats (and plants), a trip to an Orlando cat café, and a passion for helping animals led Lakeland native Janette Nettler to her dream job – one she created for herself. Florida’s first cat adoption lounge and plant nursery, Botany Cats, opened earlier this year and has introduced 12 cats to their new pet parents. “There are so many cats out on the streets and in shelters. All the shelters are completely full, and I want to help as many as I can,” Nettler said. Janette Nettler has loved animals since childhood. She got her first cat at age four, followed by another several years later. As an adult, she got two Corgis and found that she adored dogs too. Now she has three cats at home, “Plus these guys, of course,” she said of her Botany Cats brood. Born in Lakeland, Nettler lived in North Carolina from age four to 14 before moving back to the Swan City. After another move, she’s been back in Lakeland for two years. “I keep coming back, and it gets better every time,” she said. “I consider Lakeland my home.” She went to college to study elementary education but gravitated toward veterinary medicine. Nettler changed career paths and became a veterinary technician for about five years. “I loved helping the animals,” she said. “I just wanted to do something a little more – to have something of my own and be able to plan my work schedule around my family.” Familiar with the cat café concept, Nettler had the fleeting thought that she, too, could create an atmosphere around cappuccinos and cats. “I thought the idea of a cat café was so unique. There are so many cats out there that need homes. The boutique experience of a cat café was so different from a shelter,” she said. She took a trip to an Orlando cat café in 2021. “It was so relaxing, and it was fun, and the cats didn’t seem stressed. […] I fell in love and decided to make it a reality for Lakeland, but a little different – I put my own spin on it.” BOTANY CATS HITS THE ROAD The original idea was to have a brick-and-mortar cat lounge. Finding space within budget proved difficult. Nettler didn’t have any experience working in coffee shops either, and Lakeland already has some great ones. Why not bring Botany Cats to them? Nettler rethought her business plan and decided to make it mobile. She first thought of renovating a school bus, but the concept soon evolved. “I thought, ‘I already have a truck. Why don’t I get something I can pull?’ I started looking at campers, and I found this one,” she said. Her cat adoption lounge and plant nursery took the form of a 2009 Dutchmen Freedom Spirit travel trailer. “The layout was pretty much what I wanted anyway. I didn’t have to do too much as far as renovations go,” said Nettler. “Everything started working out, and it was like, ‘Well, this is what it’s supposed to be then.’” She bought the trailer last November. “I took it camping to break it in before I did any renovations,” she said. The kitty camper took only a few months to renovate with minor cosmetic upgrades like removing the dinette and building a bench for more seating. Nettler dubbed the trailer Demeter. The Greek goddess of harvest and agriculture and a character in the Broadway musical “Cats,” Demeter was a fitting name to marry Nettler’s two concepts. Botany Cats’ first day open was February 9, with a grand opening on March 5 at The Green House Garden Store – a locally owned plant shop where Nettler sources her plants. Now Nettler brings Botany Cats to local establishments like Quinteassence Kava Bar – where we met with her – Hillcrest Coffee, the Polk Museum of Art, and the Lakeland Public Library. “I can bring the kitties to the people. They don’t have to come to me, which is great,” she said. Nettler says she plans to work with other Lakeland businesses, including Cob & Pen, Swan Brewing, and The Joinery. Those on the east side of Polk County won’t have to travel far for kitten cuddles either, as Nettler will occasionally be joining the Saturday lineup at the Winter Haven Farmers Market starting in May. She’s looking to partner with other businesses in Winter Haven, from the library to coffee shops and the brewery. “I’m very excited to get in touch with that community,” she said. SO WHAT’S A CAT LOUNGE ANYWAY? “A cat lounge is full of adoptable kitties,” Nettler said. “All of mine are rescues, so either I get them from the SPCA [or] a rescue out of Kissimmee called Liberation Cat House – they take in medical cases, and then when they’re healthy and ready to be adopted, they can send them to me.” Nettler also has pet owners reach out to her when they can no longer care for their cats. She takes them in, has them checked by a veterinarian, and gets them ready for adoption. All the cats up for adoption at Botany Cats have been fully vaccinated, microchipped, spayed/neutered, dewormed, given monthly flea prevention, and tested for common diseases such as feline leukemia, aids, rabies, distemper, etc., according to their website. Though the purring posse at Botany Cats are looking for furr-ever homes, adoption isn’t a requirement to play with cats and shop plants. “Whenever you see me around town, just come in and hang out with them for a little bit.” Typically, Nettler allows four people in the same party at a time to play with the cats. At larger events like farmers markets, it’s open for 15-minute walk-ins. During the week, when she’s at the museum or a coffee shop, she accepts reservations online – $7 for 30-minute appointments. Walk-ins are welcome, too, if available – $9 for 30 minutes. Nettler notes it’s always a good idea to make a reservation as it secures your spot and saves a bit of money (which you’re sure to need for all the cat toys and treats you’ll be buying your new fuzzy friend after you fall in love with an adoptable kitty). According to Botany Cats, “Cats have a huge impact on both your physical and mental health by lowering stress levels, heart rates, and boosting positivity. The adoption experience should be the same. Calmer humans + stress-free cats = forever homes found.” Those interested in adopting a cat can learn all about them, including their medical history, from the Botany Cats owner. “I spend more time with these kids than my cats at home, so I know their personalities and I’m very passionate about matching them with the perfect family, the perfect home,” she said. Since opening in February, Botany Cats has adopted out 12 cats! As for the ‘Botany’ part of the name, Nettler offers a selection of cat-friendly plants for sale. She’s working on expanding her offerings, even starting a greenhouse at home where she plans to grow catnip and cat grass. Alongside the cat-friendly greenery for sale, Botany Cats offers cat supplies, handmade scrunchies, headbands, and cat bandanas by local maker East of These. Two other local artists have work for purchase at Botany Cats – digital prints by Gently Mental and pet portraits by Gabriella Escalera of Gaby’s Art Gallery. Even the mural of Nettler’s cat, Bear, on the trailer’s façade, was painted by local artist Maegan Carroll. THE FUTURE SOUNDS PURR-FECT “For the future of Botany Cats, I’m definitely still looking at the brick-and-mortar side of it. In a couple of years, I’m hoping to have a larger space – a more permanent space – but also still have the trailer. [...] I still want to have [the trailer] to go to the farmers markets because they’re such a big hit, but have a larger space to take in more cats and rotate what cats I bring on the road. That might look like a partnership with a local bakery or a startup coffee shop or something. I’m open to partnerships,” said Nettler. What’s the most rewarding part about running Botany Cats? According to Nettler, “Definitely the adoptions. It warms my heart so much hearing the stories from the new owners after they take their babies home and how well it’s working at home. They’re not pressured to keep the cat if something were not to work out [...] they can always bring the cat back to me, and I’ll try to find a better fit. […] For the 12 adoptions I’ve had, it’s been nothing but happy stories, and I love it so much.” Follow Botany Cats on social media and their website to stay updated on where they’ll roll into next, for reservations for some much-needed cat therapy, and information about adoptions. Botany Cats botanycats.com FB @BotanyCatsLKLD IG @botany_cats Photography by Amy Sexson

Lakeland-based nonprofit SPCA Florida is abuzz with construction, renovations, and new programs to better care for the cats and dogs that come into their facility. According to SPCA Florida Executive Director Shelley Thayer, these improvements are made possible through community generosity and participation. SPCA Florida is a nonprofit organization founded in 1979. This no-kill shelter “exists to eliminate animal suffering and to engage the entire community in the welfare and well-being of animals. We accomplish this by advancing model programs to promote the adoption of healthy animals, prevent dog and cat overpopulation, provide veterinary medical services for animals in the community, and keep animals in homes through relinquishment intervention strategies,” according to their mission statement. Last year, SPCA Florida saved 4,282 lives and performed 4,523 spay/neuter surgeries. The nonprofit’s Annual Save Rate for dogs and cats combined has risen from 92% in 2019, 94% in 2020, to 96% in 2021. OH, SNAP! April 9, 2022, was the end of a chapter for SPCA Florida. It marked the 30th and final Walk for the Animals, a fundraising event that raised over $90,000 this year. Though this was the final Walk for the Animals, the organization isn’t closing the book, just flipping the page to new programs. Smokepoint Rock for Paws, another SPCA Florida fundraiser, is coming up this month on May 14. The event held at Nora Mayo Hall in Winter Haven will benefit one such new program, SPCA Florida’s Emergency Response Team, FL SARC. The event promises live music and a raffle with prizes from an electric guitar and amp package to a full-size complete drum kit and more. FL SARC (Florida State Animal Rescue Coalition) is a ten-year old nonprofit brought onboard by SPCA Florida last year. The only FEMA-approved nonprofit volunteer training organization in the United States, FL SARC’s mission is dedicated to disaster mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery for emergencies involving companion animals. “Last year, we deployed three teams to Louisiana to help the animals there. We’ve also transported animals for other organizations to get them out of harm’s way,” said Thayer. “The goal this year is to train another 450 people for boots on the ground training for these disasters,” said Thayer of their aim to train state volunteers along with 25 certified trainers in 2022. Another of the nonprofit’s current efforts is SNAP (Spay-Neuter Assistance Program), which has the goal of spaying and neutering 3,350 community and personally owned cats. “This effort will reduce our county’s euthanasia rate by reducing unwanted births,” according to SPCA Florida’s 2021 Annual Report. To meet this goal, SPCA Florida has a brand new surgery center under construction on the Adoption Center side of their complex. The project looks to be completed by mid-May. “When I first got here, all the animals from the Adoption Center would go through our hospital. It didn’t leave very much room for the public,” said executive director Shelley Thayer. For the last two years, SPCA Adoption Center veterinary staff have been working out of a borrowed trailer to spay and neuter, performing surgeries on around 5,000 animals in the tiny space. “Finally, we’re building our own surgery center in the adoption area so that we can do dental for the first time ever on all of our cats and dogs, and we can spay and neuter more animals than we’ve ever done before,” she said. “It frees up our trailer to help people with their personal pets to do free and low-cost spay and neuter.” Three donors have committed $500 each to wrap the trailer’s exterior with pictures of pets, similar to SPCA Florida’s transport vans. They need seven more donors. “We’re really excited about being able to do both. Being able to help the public more than we have in the past, which also helps Animal Control with not so many animals coming in, and then people maybe not having the funds to get their animals spayed or neutered – this will be a blessing to them.” Thayer praised SPCA Florida Adoption Center Veterinarian Dr. Robyn Barton, calling her a “godsend.” “She’s the best shelter vet I’ve ever met. We’re lucky to have her here in Polk County,” Thayer said. “She was determined to get them all done on this trailer, and she has.” Barton’s efforts will soon be rewarded with the addition of the spacious new surgery center, complete with a prep area, two surgery tables overlooking large windows, a washer and dryer, a dentistry area, a pharmacy, and more. With kitten and puppy season shortly upon them, SPCA Florida aims to mitigate unwanted litters by spaying and neutering as many animals as possible. “This opens a whole new world for our community,” Thayer said of the surgery center. “We’ll be able to save a couple more thousand cats and dogs a year because of it.” “This is all through the generosity of people. It’s all donations,” said the SPCA Florida executive director. “You can see from the trailer, to this, how excited everybody is to be able to work in this space and how much more we’ll be able to do.” Additionally, SPCA Florida became a training center for Lincoln Memorial University and Ross University students in their final year of veterinarian training. Thayer noted that the organization is also working with Hillsborough Community College for CVT (Certified Veterinary Technician) training, students who will also be able to assist in the new surgery center. A WALK IN THE DOG PARK Construction on the surgery center isn’t the only renovation set to take place (or already in motion) at the SPCA. Adjacent to the surgery center will be two new puppy pens and a “working cat” adoption pen. “Having a place for the puppies is important because when they’re little, their feet can’t touch the ground because they haven’t had all their vaccines. Having the puppy pens that we’re going to build out here will be great because they’ll be able to go outside and get fresh air and play,” said Thayer. The nonprofit is soon to replace its flooring with poured epoxy and move its laundry facilities to a separate building outside to reduce the risk of a dryer fire. It will be adding industrial washers and dryers for the first time. They recently refreshed their canine area with new grass and a widened walking trail. “We’ve been working with a group out of Tampa as their corporate project to help us clear our walking trail,” said Thayer. The trail is a loop through the woods (where it is considerably cooler), along which there are three pens to work on basic skills with adoptable pups. The same group helping to widen the trails, CAPTRUST, will be returning to help install benches around the area. “It’s projects like that – the community working together – that help make things nicer,” Thayer said. SPCA Florida’s most significant need is financial support for medical care. Aside from that, the executive director would love to have a garden club to take care of lawn maintenance and keep the facility looking nice. Those looking to help SPCA Florida in their mission to save animals can sign up for a Doggie Date which often results in adoptions through their interactions around town, or consider shopping for your own dog or cat at their store. Located at the front of the Adoption Center, the store offers various toys, leashes, collars, pet clothes, treats, and the like at discounted prices — purchases from the store benefit SPCA Florida. From those contributing to programs like SNAP and FL SARC, donating supplies and food and funds, to volunteers, Shelley Thayer says, “It’s everybody working together” that makes their mission possible. SPCA Florida 5850 Brannen Rd S, Lakeland (863) 646-7722 www.spcaflorida.org FB @SPCAFlorida IG @spca_florida Photography by Amy Sexson

“The Patron Saint of Justice,” a new mural by the internationally renowned Icelandic artist Lokey Prakkarastrik, featuring Polk County’s often controversial but never camera-shy Sheriff Grady Judd, has been approved to replace “The Calm.” The former mural depicting a group of people riding atop a whale has graced the west side of Heartland Church in downtown Winter Haven since 2015. “I must admit, at first, I was at a loss,” Prakkarastrik said. Eventually, the artist found her inspiration with the help of the social media platform TikTok. “I was aimlessly scrolling my life away on the TikToks… the addictive nature of this platform is maddening. However, I came across this video of the great Sheriff Grady telling people to chill out, drink 7ups, eat the Moonpies, and stop with the murdering. I said to myself, “Ég hef fundið það! This is it, my muse!” “For the most part, the people in this community are excited about this new piece,” said James De’Pokets, the millionaire investor who commissioned the mural. “The Patron Saint of Justice’’ will be the first of several art installations scheduled to hit the streets of Central Florida in 2022. These art pieces are all a part of his initiative to pay tribute to local heroes through the power of art, simply called Make America Grateful for Our Local Men and Women That Put Their Lives on the Line Every Day, Again. “It’s a working title,” says De’Pokets. “I think this is going to be a beautiful addition to the other murals and sculptures featured in downtown Winter Haven. I can think of no better way to honor a great man that has dedicated his life to shooting bad guys and shooting them a lot.” Local residents and business owners are divided on the execution of the project. Pat Hernandez, owner and sole proprietor of Smooth Operator Bikini Waxes, located directly across the street from the new mural, had this to say. “When a client comes in for one of my world-famous bikini waxes, they expect two things. Number one, the absolute smoothest bikini line money can buy, and two, a great view of downtown Winter Haven, unobstructed by this grotesque attempt of self-expression. It’s the last thing I want my clients to see. It’s hideous. And as a person who stares at butts all day, that’s saying something.” However, some people see this as a welcomed addition to the thriving artistic culture of downtown. People like Karen Conway, a self-described proud animal rights activist, said, “I am so happy to see that disgusting display of animal abuse taken down and replaced with something wholesome. Sheriff Grady Judd is a true American hero who inspires me to be a better person and makes my heart smile.” Although Sheriff Grady Judd could not be reached directly to comment on his new shrine, a representative from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office had this to say, “Everyone here at the Sheriff’s office is deeply moved by this arresting work of art. We all know how much Grady hates the spotlight. It’s about time our Sheriff gets a little recognition for all the good work he has done.” If you know a local hero and would like to nominate them to the Make America Grateful for Our Local Men and Women That Put Their Lives on the Line Every Day, Again Arts Initiative, email april_foolz@havenmagazines.com.