When I can’t talk my mother into the gig, I am sometimes called upon to chaperone my children’s field trips. Over the years, adventures have included Lowry Park Zoo, museums and Cracker Country.
For those outside the Sunshine State — and Godspeed, seriously — Cracker Country is a journey back to the late 1800s/early 1900s, where school groups learn about life in rural Florida, minus all the lynchings and racial slurs.
Walking through the general store, quaint schoolhouse and dignified homes in this old-fashioned village, I met charming volunteers who played different characters. These actors were ancient and weathered, with accents and clothes cracked with age; they didn’t have to convince me they were from 1898. I believed them.
When we stepped into the schoolhouse, I picked up a copy of the sample fourth-grade reader, circa 1902, and perused words like reticule, tallow and peruse. Fourth grade? I could almost hear the ghosts of crackers long gone, laughing at me between sips of moonshine.
For several hours, we toured the tiny community, tasting homemade butter and playing with toys that entertained children before electricity and PS3s came along.
It wasn’t all enlightenment and old-fashioned goodness. When you take kids from a Jewish day school circa 2010 to hang with a Cracker Country crew who fondly remember when they had to urinate outside, a non-violent clash of cultures is inevitable.
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2011.