“Sometimes I look around and feel like I am living in 1592, that, this is what it must have been like. I’m not here in the now, I am there, in the then.
St. Augustine Florida
Summer 2011
Historic St. Augustine, the oldest city in the US, founded in the late 1500s, three hundred years before we ever even became a country. Therefore making St. Augustine a Spanish City longer than it has been an American City.
A little history lesson, Columbus did not discover America. Native American’s discovered a lost Columbus, or at best he rediscovered America, in fact he never stepped foot in continental North America. He was the first to tell everyone about his destination and not keep it a secret, like the Vikings, the Chinese, the Polynesians, the Irish, and the rest of the world who stumbled onto this land and left it as it was. By telling every one of his adventures to the far East (not the West remember he did not know where he was) he opened the New Land for trade with the Old World.
Ponce de Leon spotted the coast of Florida in 1513 whereupon he named it La Flordia (land of flowers), this was a hundred years before the English settled in Jamestown VA. Not to be outdone the French beat everyone setting up a permanent settlement 1564. The French were the first non native Americans to successfully settle in the US.
The Spanish did not really take a liking to the French having settlements so close to their trade routes so in 1564 Menendez with about 600 sailors and soldiers beat the French out of La Flordia and started the settlement of St. Augustine La Flordia. The oldest permanent settlement in the US.
Now 447 years later people are still drinking and partying like a bunch of ship-bound Spanish Sailors on leave at the Tavern in the Old City. St. Augustine has done a remarkable job of preserving an old Spanish settlement within cannon-shot of the old fort. They employe hundreds to act as period characters, acting out life in late 1500 AD St. Augustin, Joyce the barmaid was one such character, dressed in period costume, serving a variety of local beers, chilled, to sooth the modern taste, along with a grog of wine and spirits. Between servings she showed all how to play a variety of Old World bar games, one being the forerunner to back gammon.
Throughout the evening, cast members would come and go, all in period dress to do repairs, to farm the garden in the back courtyard, to make brooms, repair and rebuild trying to make it as authentic as the history books and diaries told them what life was like in 1592. The day-to-day goings on of a Spanish settlement.
Joyce dressed in a flowing dress with a loose-fitting white blouse, with a concession to comfort she was wearing leather shoes.
“Don’t you get hot?”
It was 101 degrees outside with high humidity, I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and I was sweaty HOT. The tavern was not air condition and the only cool was an occasional breeze that blew through.
“No, I am wearing loose-fitting cotton cloths, just as the early settlers would have, it’s really comfortable. Plus I am use to working in this so it doesn’t bother me that much.”
“Would you wanted to live in 1592 La Flordia?”
What makes you think I haven’t?”
“You don’t look that old.”
The bar was closing and I was just about ready to head out when a family came in that were friends of Joyce and her husband Tom . At the moment the party began. They invited me to join them in the courtyard for another beer. As we all walked back Joyce’s husband, Tom, a carpenter in the Old City, dressed in period clothing of baggy pants, a white cotton shirt with no buttons, tied in the front, came in and we were transported back to 1592. Without use of the “Wayback Machine” thank you Sherman and Peabody (Sherman and Peabody were a boy and his dog feature on the Bullwinkle and Rocky cartoons of the late 60s, the wayback machine was a time machine that took the pair on their adventures).
Tom, Joyce’s husband and Joyce, a family that had known them in their earlier life circa 2011 and myself. Sitting in the cool of the evening enjoying the breeze and a beer.
“Tom I asked Joyce if she ever thought that she was back in 1592?”
Without hesitation Tom answered,
“Everyday, especially in the morning, when it is quiet and no one but the characters are at work. I walk to my job pass by the broom maker, the teacher, my tools in hand, seeing and feeling what it would have been like then. I know I walk in the footsteps of half a millennium and I am lucky to be a part of it. Yes I really feel like I am back there. I am not modern day Tom but Fernando the carpenter.”
“You from Pennsylvania right, Dutch country”
“Not anymore I am from the New World.”
Talked continued on, mainly on the cast of characters the work daily in the historic section. Their pride in keeping it as authentic as they can. Using old nails and not replacing them. Serving travelers as they would have over 400 years ago.
“How do you know what it was like, what do you base it on?”
“Augustine has been around continuously for over 400 years, day to day traditions carry on. They had a school and was the main mission for Florida so there is a lot of documentation. Plus you have this feeling that this is what it was like. I know folks who parents were around when Flagger built his railroad into St. Augustine turning it into a tourist destination. They tell stories like it was just yesterday. So it is not hard to go back even four hundred years and imagine what the sights, sounds, even smells were part of the everyday.”
I sat and listen as they talked about how they ended up here their friends a bit envious of Joyce and Tom’s retirement. In a cool breeze in a courtyard in 1592 St. Augustine I listen. I looked around and was there in 1592.
