YOU’RE AN OLD-TIMER IN SEBRING
if you can remember when...
Every home in Sebring had a fence around it and another fence completely surrounded the town as a protection against wandering cows and hogs.
Many families had a pen of chickens in the back yard.
Winter visitors practiced saying “y’all,” trying to make it sound natural.
There were many backyard gardens with not only vegetables but also bushes of guavas and cassava.
There were very few dooryards that did not support a ponderosa lemon tree. One joker called them “Texas lemons.”
You could walk all the way around Lake Jackson on a white sand beach. There were no weeds in the lake and the water was so clear that you could see bottom at 12 to 15 feet.
All boats had inboard motors. Outboards were unknown until the 1920’s.
All tourists came by train and they were greeted at the station by a large segment of the town’s population.
All business houses closed on the afternoons when the baseball team played at home.
There was only one movie show a week - on Saturday night. The theatre could boast of only one projector so there was always a pause while the operator changed reels (one reel of comedy and the four reel “feature”). During these pauses a slide was flashed on the screen, “Just a moment please. The operator is having a fit.”
The police department consisted of one man and the only criminals were cows and hogs.
Dan Andrews was an artist on any musical instrument - piano, trumpet, banjo, etc. These and other talents and qualities made him an idol of all the ladies in town.
“Chufas” were nutty-tasting little underground tubers a little bigger than a pea, planted by farmers to fatten pigs but they found a ready market in replacing peanuts at ball games. They tasted good.
Those who were fortunate enough to have electric services, enjoyed them from 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.. At 10:45 the lights blinked and, if the party was not over, there was a mad rush for the kerosene lamps.
If you had a roast or pies to bake, you used the little portable sheet iron oven that could be put on the top of a two-burner oil stove.
The railroad station was at the end of North Commerce.
Traffic between Sebring and Wauchula was so heavy that when Smitty lost his rifle on a trip from Wauchula, he found it the next afternoon in the middle of the road where it had fallen off his car.
One of the Gearing boys (was it Herbert or Bill) had a lot on North Lakeview planted solidly in pineapples and on all four sides, signs, complete with scull and crossed bones, warned “These pineapples are poison.”
All the meat sold in Ben Pollard’s market was produced locally. When a beef was offered for sale to Ben, the hide, complete with the owner’s brand had to be checked by a designated county official. Swine carcasses were required to have the heads attached so that the official could check the owner’s identification marks in the ears.
Ice cream and cake “socials” were a popular method of raising money for church and civic projects. They were fun, too.
(This article is reprinted from Bulletin Number Nineteen.
Sebring Historical Society, July 1975. Pages 595-596.)