• Little Miss Judy's Believe It or Not! - March 2018

    Little Miss Judy’s Believe It or Not!

    Who is this? This is my mother Jerry Lovett Helmey (1925-1957) She is sitting on the end of our dock, which is still located on Turner’s Creek. What can I say about this picture? I believe the metal tub was called a number three wash tub. Anyhow, this is what my father called it. I know as a child it was used for dock baths for me and to carry ice to the boats. Behind my mother pulled up on the bluff is a wooden row boat. This is where we would pull our small row boats, turn them over, paint them with red antifouling paint, and then put them back in the water. Now if the row boats were going to remain on the hill for any length of time... we then turned them back over and filled them with water. Why? The water would keep the boat’s boards from shrinking!
    “THEM CITY ALLIGATORS”





    Daddy was an explainer and storyteller of sorts. He could take just regular information, add a little spice to it and make it a real interesting story. This is one story that needs to be shared. My father and I traveled highway 17 South a lot. He loved visiting Florida so much that we were down there quite a bit. On our way we would stop at most of the roadside stands. In fact daddy knew a lot of the Indians that ran them. These roadsides shops had everything from porcelain figures to snacks. I especially loved the one that had live things for sale. It wasn’t unusual for these places to have turtles, snakes, topical birds, or even alligators out in plain view and in touching range. In fact according to my father a lot of their income depended on these wildlife sales.

    I found this picture on the web...it was labeled “All dressed up to meet you in Florida!” When I found this picture I thought, yep, that’s exactly what I was thinking as a child!
    I always wanted a pet alligator, but daddy never would let me have one. I think he knew that he would end up having to take care of it. According to my father alligator sales were good, because lot of tourists from up north were purchasing them as they made their way back home. Upon making it to northern lands they then became known as “CITY ALLIGATORS.” After hearing that statement my 6 year old mind when into double time. All I could vision was alligators dressed in suits and top hats dancing while holding on to their canes. When Daddy started talking again it brought me back to the real world.




    My father then told me something that really sparked my interest. Occasionally when up north alligator owners got tired of their pets they quite often just flushed them down the toilet. Then my father said, “Now you must understand, that didn’t kill the alligators it just released them into the underground sewers.” According to my father the alligators did just as well living in that environment. For some reason our conversation got sidetracked to another subject and he basically left this idea in my head.

    As we all know there aren’t any alligators being sold on highway 17 south any longer. In fact as you go south there aren’t many roadside shops that sell such wild and interesting things as they did back in the old days. However, to this day I still think about those “CITY ALLIGATORS.”


    Thanks for reading! Captain Judy