Take a Walk!

     When you are in a new city, and you're a history buff, how do you get your history? At ground level, of course. Take a walking tour; learn history, meet new people, and get some exercise, all at the same time.

    Walking tours can be found in every city. How do you find one? Google it. Check to see if the city has a visitors bureau location or webpage. Discount sites like Groupon, Local Flavor, and Travelzoo also list tours. Tripadvisor is a great source, too. If you're staying in an Airbnb, you can find experiences listed. If you're staying in a hotel, ask the concierge or look for brochures in the lobby. Also check with local museums. The Tampa Bay History Center runs several walking tours, and we've done two so far.

    My wife and I love doing walking history tours and walking food tours in cities that we visit. On a walking tour, you're part of a small group of interested and interesting people, and you're guided by a person who is excited to share his or her town's history with you.  On a food tour, you have the added benefit of tasting some great food at several restaurant stops along the way. 

    Tours are usually 2-3 hours long, easy walking, with lots of steps. Sometimes your guide might be in costume or in character, like the great Freedom Trail tour we took in Boston, when we had "Prince Hall" leading the way. Sometimes you just get an interesting local character, like Larry from Holy City Tours in Charleston, who told us all about the "naughty women" of Charleston's history.

Larry, Charleston                                      Prince Hall, Boston

    Walking tours are the only way you can get a close-up look at architectural details and historical markers you would probably miss otherwise. These pictures are from our most recent walking tours in Tampa, a general history tour and a Black history tour.  They were both very fun and educational. Did you know, for example, that Tampa Florida was called the Harlem of the South because of the thriving Black business and arts community? Tampa was a major stop on the "chitlin' circuit", the network of theaters where Black performers played for enthusiastic Black audiences. Greats like Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, and numerous Jazz greats made regular trips through Tampa. On the general history tour, we learned that Tampa was a hotbed of organized crime activity. ( So much so that I think the Tampa Bay History Center should create a walking tour dedicated to organized crime.)

   We have done some great food tours on our travels, and I'm already looking at a few offerings for future tours. In Ybor City (old Tampa), we had the best Cuban sandwich ever and saw cigars being made by hand like they were made there over a hundred years ago. In Philadelphia, we sampled a great Philly cheese steak (from a mom and pop neighborhood place, not one of the tourist traps), and we found out what a tomato pie was (basically a cheese pizza, sorry Philadelphians).

    
    If you're not a foodie, or even if you're not a huge history buff, there is probably a walking tour in every city that will strike your fancy. There are ghost tours, murder tours, scandal tours, etc. Go ahead and check it out. I bet your own city has a tour or two, and you can learn some neat local history, and when you travel, look for tours in your destination city.  They're fun and educational, and they give you great ideas for places to explore and places to eat at on your own.

Pod People

 

    Are you a pod person?  Do you listen to podcasts? Do you have your own podcast?  It seems that every other person is a podcaster these days, and every celebrity, comedian, and author is a podcaster. I've been slow to embrace podcasts, but I have found a few that interest me. I listen when I'm reading my bike in the morning or walking or driving.  Here are a few recommendations.

    I really started listening to the podcasts of two of my favorite people.  Mike Rowe (Who doesn't love Mike Rowe?) started doing The Way I Heard It a couple of years ago.  His stories are a great entry into podcasts because they're short, interesting, and witty.  Some might even call them pithy.  They average about 10 minutes each, and the stories are very reminiscent of The Rest of the Story by legendary broadcaster Paul Harvey. (If you're 40 or under, you probably have to look him up.) Each story is an interesting and/or funny story about some famous person or event.  However, Rowe doesn't reveal the subject of the story until the end, and it's almost always a surprise, or a story you've never heard before.  He also published a collection of the stories in 2019. ( https://mikerowe.com/podcast/ )

    Mo Rocca has been all over our television sets for years now, first on The Daily Show, then as the host of several different series, and as regular correspondent on CBS Sunday Morning.  I have always loved his shows and interviews, and he has a real interest in history.  Many of his CBS Sunday Morning pieces are about U.S. Presidents, and I used several when teaching American history. His podcast grew out of his CBS Sunday Morning pieces. They are well-researched shows about famous people or things that have passed, and he thinks that they deserve some more attention. Each podcast is a pleasure to listen to. He also published a collection of his pieces in 2019. ( https://www.mobituaries.com/the-podcast/ )

       Both of these podcasts are great and easy-listening and cover a broad range of topics. However, it looks like one of the most popular genres of podcasts is true crime.  The podcast is an ideal medium in which to explore crimes in great detail and from several angles, sometimes seeking answers to puzzling questions, or sometimes just raising even more questions.

    This morning, I just finished episode 10 of 12 of In the Red Clay, set in and around Winder Georgia from the late 1960s to about 2000. It is the story of Billy Sunday Birt, perhaps the most dangerous man to ever live in Georgia. He was a bank robber, arsonist, and professional hitman who was responsible for at least 50 crimes, including dozens of murders.  He also was the founder of the "Dixie Mafia", an organization that controlled moonshining, drugs, and other criminal enterprises throughout the southeastern United States for decades. The creator and narrator of the podcast first heard about Birt when he went to Winder, Georgia to work as a member of the crew of an HBO series that was being filmed there at the time.  This is one of the most compelling stories that I've ever heard.  No writer in Hollywood or writer of fiction could possibly write a story that was more interesting. Birt was born poor. His father died when Birt was young, and Birt's mother and siblings lost the small family farm. He had a severe speech impediment which made it difficult for most people to understand him. He didn't have any education or prospects to speak of. Then, as an adult, he became the most "respected", mostly feared, and richest man in north Georgia. On one hand, he was known as a loving family man, who had soft spots in his heart for children and animals. On the other hand, he was a cold-blooded killer.  This is a great story, told so well, and told mostly by Birt's son Stony, who grew up absolutely idolizing his father. (https://westwoodonepodcasts.com/pods/in-the-red-clay/ ).

    Buried Truths is a podcast that grew out of a class at Emory University.  Hank Kilbanoff taught classes on unsolved crimes in Georgia. The class, which began in 2011, allows students to take an in-depth look at racially motivated murders that went unpunished in the Jim Crow South. It mixes journalism with history and African American studies, and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and Atlanta Magazine. The professor and his students investigate each case through records and interviews, and their findings are presented in the podcast.  The first season told the story of the murder of Isaiah Nixon, a black man murdered for voting in 1948 in Alston Georgia, a town about twenty miles from my hometown of Vidalia. These are compelling stories that deserve to be told. ( https://www.npr.org/podcasts/577471834/buried-truths )

    The Red Note is a podcast about the Mexican gangs that operate with impunity on the U.S. - Mexican border. In recent years, hundreds of women have disappeared and have been tortured and murdered and forced into sex slavery. This podcast, narrated by a Mexican investigative reporter who is now on the run because of threats against her life. It's a frightening story. ( https://westwoodonepodcasts.com/pods/the-red-note/ )

    

Cooking Your History

     My wife and I both love to cook (and eat), and we're often able to combine our passions for food and history. There are many ways to do this. You can seek out and sample various restaurants of various cultures. In many cities, there are annual cultural festivals, and food usually plays a big part of them.  Bookstores have aisles of cookbooks focusing on particular places and times.  And, like us, you may enjoy hands-on cooking classes.

    Try Googling cooking classes and see what turns up.  You may find local private chefs who come to your home and prepare a class/gathering for you and your friends, or you may find classes offered in stores.  In Atlanta, there are several Cooks Warehouse stores where we have attended several classes and demonstrations. In Tampa, our new metro home, there is a store called Rolling Pin Emporium.  Cooks Warehouse and Rolling Pin are higher end kitchen supply stores.  If you have ever thought about needing a particular kitchen gadget, or even if you've never thought about it, they probably sell it.  Besides selling kitchen gadgets and pots and pans, they have functioning kitchens to which they invite local and celebrity chefs to lead classes, usually after store hours.  If you pick a hands-on class, you and your classmates (usually a small number like 10-16) prepare a menu created by the chef, under the supervision of the chef and the store's volunteer kitchen aides. You learn cooking styles, tricks, and menus, and you get to eat a meal which you helped prepare at the end of the night. If you choose a demonstration class, you will probably see a local or national celebrity chef and the kitchen volunteers prepare a dinner menu, usually from their just-published cookbook.  Along the way, the chef tells stories and answers questions, and in the end, you have a delicious meal.

    In Atlanta, we took several classes including Cajun, Persian, and Indian menus, and we also took several classes with Chef Christy Seelye-King. ( https://askchefchristy.com/ ) Chef Christy is a culinary historian who has studied various cultures and periods. She then creates menus based on her research and then leads classes, usually in costume.  We did a Viking Mead Hall class with her, as well as classes on African and Irish cooking. We learned a lot, had great food, and had  a great time in each class.

    Stores like Cooks Warehouse and Rolling Pin also attract nationally know chefs and cookbook authors on book tours. They stop in and do demonstration classes.  We've met two of the most respected southern chefs around in demonstrations. We met Nathalie Dupree last fall at Cooks Warehouse and Virginia Willis last week at Rolling Pin. Both women were incredibly gracious, funny, and friendly taking time to tell great stories, talk to everyone and sign books and take pictures. To top it off, attendees got to et great meals that they prepared. How many people can see that they got to eat the cooking of tv food personalities they've watched for years?

    My wife and I are such foodies that we will also attend book talks by our favorites, even when they're not serving food. Whenever they have just-published cookbooks, chefs hit the book tour, just like other authors. At the Atlanta History Center, we attended talks by and met Sean Brock, another highly respected southern chef, and Carla Hall, Top Chef contestant, Chew co-host, Food Network personality, and southern chef (notice a theme?).  We got signed books, heard great stories, and got to meet them. (If you ever get the chance to meet Carla Hall, do it. She is incredibly sweet, funny, and personable, just like she appears on tv. 

    Book festivals usually have chefs appearing as well. At the Savannah Book Festival a couple of years ago, we met another Top Chef contestant Ed Lee, when he was talking about his excellent book, Buttermilk Graffiti.

    Get out there and eat your history! Search for opportunities in your area to explore, learn, and enjoy.

Cracker Country

     Do you know how the phrases Florida Cracker or Georgia Cracker came into being?  The phrases refer to early Georgia and Florida pioneers who started rounding up and herding the cattle that were descended from the first cattle brought to North America by the Spaniards in the 1500s and 1600s. Over time, some cattle escaped or were abandoned, and they bore many generations of feral cattle. When white settlers moved into Georgia and Florida, they re-domesticated the cattle. By the 1800s, these men were called cow hunters, because they had to venture into unsettled land to catch the cattle. They were also called Crackers because of the sound made by one of their most often used herding tools, the bullwhip.     

    Today, at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa, there is a great living history experience called Cracker Country.  ( http://www.crackercountry.org/ )  Cracker Country is a rural Florida living history museum, founded with the purpose of preserving Florida's rural heritage.  Its mission, first and foremost is education, so it is not open to public everyday. During the normal school year, it is open for school field trips and for homeschoolers, and it is open to the public for the duration of the Florida State Fair in February.  There are also a few weekend and evening programs that are open to the general public during the year.

        Like other historic villages, structures have been moved to Cracker Country from all over Florida, including a train depot, a school, a church, a couple of farm houses, and the childhood home of a former Florida governor. Docents and living history interpreters are on hand to tell the history of each structure and to answer questions. You can watch as interpreters work metal in the blacksmith shop, weave, make candles, make butter, wash laundry, or perform other activities of farm life in rural 1890s Florida.  

    Every day, more and more people move to Florida, many from urban areas in the North. Cracker Country is more necessary every day to ensure that this important part of Florida history is not forgotten.

    

Pioneer Florida Museum and Village

 

    I retired at the end of the 2019-2020 school year, after thirty years of teaching history, and we moved to Pasco County, Florida, just north of Tampa. Pasco County is in transition. The population is surging as northerners move south. I've heard it often said that 1,000 people move to Florida each day on average, and I am tempted to believe it. Parts of Pasco County are very suburban Tampa; New Tampa is a new term being used for the region.  A new community of 5,000 homes is currently being built a couple of miles from us. However, there are still lots of open spaces and cow pastures, for now. In fact, we have a cow pasture at our back door.

    In 1961, a forward thinking citizen of Pasco County donated 37 pieces of farm equipment to the Pasco County Fair Association. Eventually, the Pioneer Florida Museum Association built the Pioneer Florida Farm Museum and Village on 16 acres near Dade City, the county seat of Pasco County. In the organization's own words, its hope is that the farm "recalls the basic, simple values of our forebears, asserts the dignity of labor, and emphasizes the value of craftsmanship."  (Website:   https://www.pioneerfloridamuseum.org/ )

    Structures from all over central Florida have been brought to the farm and set up as a historic village. There are a school, a railroad depot and locomotive, a farm house, a general store, and various other farm structures for visitors to explore. And, if you're lucky, there are costumed interpreters to educate and answer questions. The farm also hosts numerous events during the year, including festivals, concerts, and events like cane grinding. (Yes, you can buy sugar cane syrup produced on site.) For researchers, there is also a History Center which houses a lot of county records and other documents from the late 1800s to about 1940.

        Overall, it's a great place to visit, whether, like me, your ancestors were farmers and sharecroppers in south Georgia, or know nothing about farm life. Check it out if you're ever in the area, or see if you can find a similar site near your home.

And We're Back! Have We Missed Anything?

 

Hi!

Remember us? 

The Histocrats. Four history lovers and friends who decided to create a social media platform from which to share our insatiable love of history.  

A few years ago we started blogging and posting on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We met lots of great people, did lots of fun things,  and soon had thousands of followers. We got much more attention than we ever expected.

And then….. Life happened.  A couple of us moved away, took jobs in other districts. Other things came up. Maybe there was a slight case of burnout.

Well, we’re back!!!  Or, at least I’m back. Kind of. As of June 1st, I became the first Histocrat to retire from teaching, and, in April, my wife and I moved from metro Atlanta to metro Tampa Florida.  Honestly, I do miss teaching in some ways, but I am thankful that I put in my 30+ years and was able to retire before the chaos of COVID totally disrupted education as we knew it.  My heart aches for the students and colleagues that I left behind, and I wish them all the best.

I am very fortunate in that I do not have to work, and I am fairly young. Of course, quarantining kept us at home for months, but we are now beginning to explore our new home, especially the beaches and historic sites. I plan to continue doing that and also to get involved as a volunteer with one or two local historic groups.

I’m also dabbling in some family genealogy and researching various topics of personal interest. Another of my goals is to revive Histocrats. I’ll continue sharing on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, maybe not as regularly, and I will hopefully write some blog. Honestly, I struggle with Twitter and Instagram a little.  I’m not as quick about tagging and hashtagging as some people, and I don’t spend much time on those platforms.  Right now, I’m thinking my focus will be on books, authors, museums, and historic sites, but who knows?  My goal is to use Histocrats to share my love of history. Many thanks and much love to Nina, Margaret, and Lisa, the Histocrats Emeritus, who were there as we built the Histocrats out of thin air and who are welcome to contribute in the future.  

And I hope that you continue the Histocrat journey with me.

Jeff Burns