1984

Family Reunion

Silver Glenn Today

In May the family rented cabins at Sliver Glen Springs and we had a surprise 50th birthday party for Aunt Sue.  All of Mom’s brothers and sisters were there, Sue and Jim, Dixie, Carol and Dick, Gary and Diane, and Cork and Connie, and then all their kids, my cousins.  It made for quite a crowd.  My cousin Vandy and her boyfriend Billy surprised everyone when they announced they were getting married, right then, at Silver Glen. Uncle Corky, who was a notary public, performed the wedding on the front porch of one of the cabins.    

Sliver Glen Springs is in the Ocala National Forrest and in ’84 was a private campground (it later was made part of the National Forest).  The spring is a first-magnitude spring, producing 65 million gallons a water a day.  It is a beautiful setting with its crystal blue water feeding a ¾ mile run connecting it to Lake George which is then connected to the St. John’s River and the Atlantic Ocean.   With this access, saltwater fish, particularly mullet, travel to the spring and can be found alongside of freshwater fish. One morning the men in the family got into a small boat, traveled down the run into Lake George where we put out a long gill net making a circle which we then slowly pulled close catching dozens of mullet.  It was legal to catch mullet with a gill net as they were saltwater fish, all the freshwater fish, brim, perch and a couple of small bass, had to be let go. That evening we had a fish fry as it was known in which the fish were rolled in cornmeal and deep fried in a large cast iron pot heated outside over a propane burner.   A fish fry would not be complete without corn bread, coleslaw, baked beans, corn on the cob, grits (both plain and cheese grits) and hushpuppies also deep fried in the same pot as the fish.  It was quite a feast.   

Me in hammock by boat at the Springs

The family had great fun swimming in the springs and riding in the boat.  In ’84 there was a concession stand with a boat dock right at the edge of the main spring.  Boats would come in from Lake George and tie up at the dock.  After it became a state park, boat were no longer allowed into the main spring area but have to stop several hundred yards downstream.  On some summer days you can now find several dozen boats anchored in the spring run.

Sand Boils

One of my brother David and my favorite things to do at Silver Glen was go to the “sand boils” which were up a short creek feeding into the main spring.  We take a short trail to the beginning of the sand boils where there are several small one or two foot wide springs filled with pure white sand that appeared to “boil” as the water comes up out of the spring.  After spending some time at the beginning of the boils we would walk downstream under the shaded canopy of tropical trees where there were sand boils spread out along the shallow creek every dozen or so feet.  It was great fun for us boys on the hot summer afternoon to walk down the white sand bottom creek, covered by the canopy of the forest, and step or sit in a sand boil.   

Now that it is a state park you can no longer swim in the sand boils as they are considered an environmentally sensitive area.  I can understand the reasoning, but children can no longer experience the fun and wonder my brother and I had as kids playing in the boils.

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In the summer Beth and Mark moved back to Olympia, Washington where Mark thought he could make more money diving for gooey ducks.  Mom wrote, “I sure hated to see them go, but I understood their problem.”

The Big Fish