Forum : Vol. 14, No. 01 (Spring : 1991)
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University of South Florida Scholar Commons FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities Florida Humanities 4-1-1991 Forum : Vol. 14, No. 01 (Spring : 1991) Florida Humanities Council. Peter Matthiessen John Hope Franklin Gordon Patterson J. D. McClatchy See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/forum_magazine Recommended Citation Florida Humanities Council.; Matthiessen, Peter; Franklin, John Hope; Patterson, Gordon; McClatchy, J. D.; and Szuchman, Mark D., "Forum : Vol. 14, No. 01 (Spring : 1991)" (1991). FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities. 10. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/forum_magazine/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Florida Humanities at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Authors Florida Humanities Council., Peter Matthiessen, John Hope Franklin, Gordon Patterson, J. D. McClatchy, and Mark D. Szuchman This article is available at Scholar Commons: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/forum_magazine/10 THE MAGAZINE OF THE FLORIDA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES FEH Spring * 1991 RFORUM INSIDE * Peter Matthiessen on Killing Mister Watson Introduction by Carl Hiaasen * John Hope Franklin Traverses the Road to Race and History * Le Moyne’s Florida: Europe’s First Pictures from America * A Visit with Two Great Poets: Richard Wilbur and James Merrill _____________________________________ BOARD MEMBERS Carl Christian Andersen THE HUMANITIES Leesburg Marcia Beach Philosophy, ethics, religion, history, art criticism, Ft. Lauderdale Samuel P. Bell Ill literature, language, linguistics, folkilfe, Tallahassee archaeology, anthropology and jurisprudence. Cici Brown Ormond Beach They tell us about our lives, our cultures and our societies. Locke Burt They provide the traditions, interpretations and visions Ormond Beach Myra Janco Daniels which define our existence. Naples Francisco Jose de Varona Miami Carlos F. Diaz Defray Beach Nancyl. Ford Inside Highlights Tampa Tulle K. Fowler Jacksonville 1 Killing Mister Watson and other matters by Peter Matthiessen Marcia Frey The story of the wild west - Florida’s wild west - when it was a haven for outlaws Winter Park James L. Bacchus at the turn of the century. Introduction by Carl Hiaasen, author of Skin Tight. Orlando William T. Hall, Jr. 3 Traversing the Road to Race and History by John Hope Franklin Niceville Lois C. Harrison A noted teacher/scholar reveals among otherthings how the historian works and Lakeland how he contributes to the quality of life. Richard P. Janaro Miami 5 Le Moyne’s Florida by Gordon Patterson William R. Jones Tallahassee No European knew how the New World looked until Theodore De Bry published a Eugene Lyon book of etchings of the first professional artist to record his impressions of this new St. Augustine country. Patsy J. Palmer Tallahassee 7 A Visit With Two Great Poets by J. 0. McClatchy Charlotte M. Porter Lifelong friends Richard Wilbur and James Merrill share an instinctive elegance and Gainesville a cultivated, wiffy tone. Masters of the word from a young age, they show us W. Stanley Proctor Monticello ourselves in startling textures and tones. Annette Scherman 9 Grant Application Deadlines for 1991-92 Sarasota Mark D. Szuchman 21 A View from the Board by Mark 0. Szuchman Miami Frank E. Taylor Key West STAFF THE FLORIDA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES ANN HENDERSON Executive Director F * E * H FORUM Vol. XIV. No. 1 * Spring 1991 ANN BOOKS The magazine of THE FLORIDA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Associate Director For Administration 1718 East Seventh Avenue * Suite 301 * Tampa, Florida 33605 SUSAN LOCKWOOD 813 242-3473 Associate Director for Program JOAN BRAGGINTON Proprom Director The Florida Endowment for the Humanities, a non-profit organization-funded Endowment Humanities, the State of Florida, and RON COOPER by the National for the Resource center Director private contributions- supports public humanities activities in Florida. Views STEPHANIE COHEN expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the Florida Endowment Administrative Assistant for the Humanities. F.E.H Forum is distributed tree of charge to the friends of MYRA STONER the Florida Endowment for the Humanities and interested Floridians. If you wish Secretary to be added to the mailing list. please so request in writing. Editors Dorothy B. Maxwell George Schurr FRONT COVER Printing Charles Sherod "Ted" Smallwood stands in the door of the Chokoloskee post Fidelity Printing office. He eventually became the owner of most of the island of Chokoloskee. Author Peter Maffhiessen called Smallwood’s account of Ed Watson the "best" of ©1991 F.E.H the hard-to-come-by tales of that controversial Floridian. See StOPy’, Page 1 Front page photo courtesy ofthe Historical Museum of Southern Florida tivates you. That is a rare thing for a writer to pull off - hit you with the big punch at first. Then expect you to hang around and see what hap pened. He does it wonderfully. This is really a story of wild west, Florida. People don’t realize what Florida was ilke at The turn of the century. Florida was a haven for out laws. I write about outlaws all The time. Matthiessen made me feel guilty about The way I write, which is pretty much by the seat of my pants. Any writer will tell you that the mast numbing moment is to pick up a book That’s really, really good and start reading it. You have suicidal Thoughts, including The Thought that - and This occurred to me in a dark moment - compared to what Peter Matthiessen had done, I was doing pretty much The work of a fraud. It’s really a magical book. It will take you back to a place in time that is still happening today. We in Florida remain a magnet for people who are on the run from somewhere else. They are coming here either for the sunshine or to es cape from someThing. Many of Them have been elected to publlc office. Peter Matthiessen Ed Watson hadsimilar ambitions. That is no accident, His heritage and his on Killing Mister Watson* legacy live on. and other matters with an introduction by Carl Hiaasen Carl Hiaasen / Miami Herald Abstracted from comments presented January 14, 1991 at the Broward It occurs to me that Ishould, since County Library, Ft. Lauderdale, sponsored bythe Florida Center forthe Book and the I am not a Floridian, make some at Naples Literary Seminar, Inc., with FEH funding. tempt to establish my credentials for Last year I was asked by the Chicago Tribune to review Killing Mister Wat having wriffen a book which pretends son. It just knocked me out. to represent Florida. It tookme into places that I had been in my childhood. Rivers I had taken Once I wrote a book about a boat on orcanoed. Places I had been snook or tarpon fishing. He told me American Indian people. I spoke things I did not know about in the voices of those who lived there. about this book in New York City. I This book held me from the first page to the last. The interesting thing is that tried to reassure the mainly elderly the climax of The book happens in the first chapter. Itis the sorting out that cap- audience that I was not Indian nor New York: Random House, / 990. =4 Spring 1991 1 Killing Mr. Watson... continued from preceding page anything like that. At the end of the talk there was a short silence. Then a lady in the back row said, "I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Indian before. He’s really quite attractive." So. I’m not a Floridian. However, I’ve been hanging out and around Florida for over 50 years. My first memory of Florida was going up the Loxahatchee River, visit ing an old trapper up there when Iwas eight. I remember losing a big tarpon down in Government Cut when Iwas little, It broke my heart. The mate on The J.J. Whidden family at Henderson Creek prior to 1911. The pet deer the boat was clumsy with the gaff. He belonged to Graham Whidden. hadn’t had much experience with tarpon. He lost my fish. Iwas inconsol able for days. When I was about 17, my father, suspense story. I was much more in Icame down here to Florida in my my brother and Iwere starting up the terested in the psychological makeup twenties and thirties. I was a rabid west coast in his boat. As we went by of the people who killed Mr. Watson ornithologist. I just loved birds. I got the Ten Thousand Islands region my and their feelings as opposed to those into conservation writing. I did a lot of father told me about a big old white who felt that he should not have been writing for Audubon magazine. Isav house sitting in the mangroves. Noth killed. So I set the execution up as a agely attacked the Kissimmee River ing else around it. A big strong white kind of myth and then work back to it project. I wrote about Corkscrew house. at the end of the book. Swamp. I attacked the Jet Port. I did a That house was taken down after Here, from the author’s note to long piece for the Miami Herald Sun Hurricane Donna. The National Park the reader: dayMagazineon the Miccosukee Res Service said it had been so damaged The book is in no way "historical," ervation situation. that it was a menace. They just used since almost nothing here is history. the hurricane damage as an excuse. On the other hand, there is nothing That house was very, very strongly built.