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FL-1 February 15, 1939
J. B. and Birdie Lee Atkins (real names) Municipal Trailer Camp Tampa, Florida Lindsay M. Bryan, writer
unedited
"JAYDY" ABBIN
FLORIDA ADVENTURER
On the ragged fringe of the trailer camp an aged and battered flivver coughed and wheezed to a stop. It settled dejectedly in the sand, with flabby tires and drooping fenders. Attached to its rear was a small homemade house trailer, or more accurately, a rough tin ahanty on wheels.
Thedriver, an angular and weather-beaten man of perhaps 35, in faded blue overalls, got out of the car and peered hare and there under its bottom. Suddenly his long frame straightened up with alacrity. He shook a mop of sandy hair out of his eyes, threw back his head, and gave lusty vent to the peculiar, half-yodling "hoy-e-e-e-pee," yell of the Florida cowboy.
Then, gazing into far space, he sang off-key in a robust but adenoidal tenor:
"I'm a-goin down to Tampa town With money in muh britches, A pint o' likker on each hip Look out, you sons-o-witches!
"Fer I'm a wild-eyed fightin fool, an um gonna raise some h—1. I'm rootin, tootin, cuttin, shootin Cowboy from La Belle."
The lilting ditty was sung to a tune something like that of "Dixie."
Intrigued by the picture and sound effects, the questing writer sniffed a possible story and approached the scene. As he drew near a woman's voice from inside the trailer quavered in mild rebuke of the singer:
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"Jaydy, you hush up singin that nasty song. Fokes ull think we're Yankees."
Jaydy cut short his melody, and grinned amiably as he greeted the visitor.
"Well I declare!" the trailerite mused. "So you write stuff to print in books. Well, well! That seems like a curus kind-a trade to work at. I never thought uv a body follerin that fer a livin, I read a book wunst. Hit wuz about a man named Robinson Crusoe. That feller shore had his sef a time on that island." He laughed and went on:
"Well, I aint fitten to go in no book, but I wuz bawn an raised a Floridy Cracker. Mostly in the woods and swamps. But I ben up Nawth sense last June. Jist got back this fur, thank the good Lawd. I'm a-headin fer Lee County# My name! Hit's J. D. Abbin."
He was asked what the initials J. D. stood for, and replied firmly:
"That's my whole front name, jist J. D. But people calls me Jaydy fer short. I ast my maw one time when I wuz a kid if J. D. meant some other name. But she said no, she named me jist that, after he uncle, J. D. Stokes, an he never had no other name. A right many fellers in Floridy's named jist with letters thataway."
"What did you do up North?"
"Me an the ole woman went off up yonder to Dee-troit to git me a job in Ole Man Ford's factory, me bein a jack-leg mechanic fum workin round cars an sawmills. Well, I gotta job nuttin fer bout six months, but got laid off in Dee-cember. So I built us this little ole piece-a trailer, an we lit a shuck fer Floridy."
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The visitor suggested the trip north must have been a great experience for Jaydy, and asked him how he liked it. He drawled:
"We kinda liked some uv it. But if I'd a-staid up there I'd a-had to kill a whole passel o' niggers. Them Yankee niggers haint gotta bitta manners. Why, the black sons-o-buzzards ull set right down by a white man, in a street car er any place. I got arrested twice up there fer kickin the tar outa niggers."
Asked what he had worked at in Florida, Jaydy pondered, as he took a knife from his pocket, whetted the long blade on his shoe and began whittling a pine stick:
"Man, I reckon I've done near about everthing. Never wuz no hand fer settlin down fer long in one place. I spose that's why I always ben pore. But by gravy I've had a heap-o fun in my time, " he chuckled, his blue eyes twinkling reminiscently.
"Tell me about your life. I'll bet you've had a lot of adventures."
"Well," he cackled again, "if you aim to putt me in a book I better leave out a lotta things I done, er they'll chunk me in the jail house and thow the key away. But if you don't print my right name hit'll be all right."
"I wuz bawn in 1903 bout ten miles outa Dade City, but don't reckoleck much till I started to school in De Soter County. Off an on I had around three years schoolin.
"When I wuz jist a yearlin boy about 16 my famly moved fum De Soter County to Mannertee County. Up to then we'd ben raisin a few hawgs an cows an doin a little farmin an stillin in De Soter an Glades County, on shares, mostly.
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"In Mannertee County we herded cows a while, then went sharecroppin down on Sawgrass Slough, back Bradentown. Raisin tomaters an celery, mostly. But evertime we'd gitta crop good started, seemed like, they'd come a freeze, er drouth, er blight, er bugs, er sumpun, and kill out near about everthing we had.
"Parta our twenty acres wuz pee-yore muck, so deep an soft an dry you could stick a hoe hannel down in it clean up to the hoe. One fall hit caught a-fire when some cow men sot fire to the woods, an it tuck us two days an nights to outen it. We had to tote water in buckets fum the well, bout a quarter away.
"Hit burnt mighty nigh a acre, plum down to hard pan, on the twenty nex to ourn, where ole Jim Ralls wuz farmin. We holp him to outen his, an he holp us, but it tuck us an all our famlies to keep it fum spreadin any furder.
"Well, we couldn't hardly make our seed and fertilize a-farmin. So paw an ma sot us up a little still down in the big hammock an went to makin shine. We done right good at that, sellin to bootleggers in Bradentown an Tampa, but it tuck most all we made to pay off the prohibition agents fer lettin us run.
"After we'd ben there bout two years maw died with playgry Then paw, the ole billy-goat, went an married a neighbor gal ony 14 years
old—jist a little fryin-size biddy, 'thout no more sense an a pond gannet. An paw goin on 50 year old! He traded her daddy six hawgs an ten gallona shine fer the pesky brat. After they got married he brung her home to live with us in our ole shack.
"Me an Dory—that wuz my sister, a year youngern me an the ony other youngun left—we fussed a plenty at paw fer doin sich a fool thing, but he wouldn't pay us no mind.
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"One time I come home fum takin a loada shine to town, and when I got to the house I heerd a scufflin an a screechin inside. I run in, and there wuz that little huzzy a-beatin on Dory with a tomater staub—an Dory too skairt to fight back.
"I wuz so mad I jist turnt her over muh knee an spanked her beehind till she hollered like a stuck pig. Paw heerd er an come a-runnin in fum the stable. When he seen what I wuz doin he retch up on a shelf fer his pistol and tried to shoot me. But I'd dona shot up all his cattidges shootin at snakes, so he turnt to an started to gimme a pistol-whuppin.
"I fit him back a while, an I reckon I might coulda whupped him; but I jist hauled off an knocked him out with a jolt on the jaw. Then me and Dory gathered up our close an other plunder in a crocus sack, an we left home fer good.
"I shore hated to go off fum there, cause I wuz a-cotin a nice little gal named Birdie Lee Rodgers over acrost the slough. Her daddy had got religion at a Holy Roller meetin, and he said I wuz too no-count fer her. He'd done run me off his place with a shotgun, but me an her kep meetin in the woods right on till I left.
"Well, me an Dory walked all the way to Bradentown that night an staid with kin folks. I knowed a boat cap'm there that wuz runnin liquor in fum Cuby, an he gimme a job on his boat; mostly loadin an unloadin hams (sacks) uv liquor an a-stannin watch a-lookin out fer guvmint boats.
"We had ua a good fast gas cruiser, and we run ony at night, thout lights. But sometimes them coast guarders ud pick us up with their search lights, an then they'd wham away at us with their machine guns an little ole cannons. One night a thee-inch shell went smack thew our cabin, an
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