This morning I had a chance to watch most of a movie I had seen many years ago called "Cross Creek". The star was Mary Steenburgen, who is married to Ted Danson in real life. She plays Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, the author of "The Yearling" and other books. The story itself is based on her life and its notes, telling about life living on Cross Creek.
This brought back memories of a trip my family took to Micanopy, FL and Cross Creek back in 1990's. We arrived too early to take the tour of Rawlings home and property so we had to hang out in Micanopy for a bit. This little town was nothing but little gift shops and antique stores. One thing I remember was finding a bin of albums in an antique store and seeing one of my collection for sale there. What? "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly was certainly NOT an antique album. It might be now, but then, no, it was not!
I also remember us visiting an ice cream shop and getting some fudge, if memory serves. Of course, things were expensive as they took advantage of the people passing through on their way to Cross Creek. I do not recall much about what we saw or did once able to take the tour other than walking around the grounds and looking inside the house. We did enjoy our day trips (Ha, Day trips!) and this was one of those.
A little piece of trivia about this sleepy town of Micanopy is the movie "Doc Hollywood" was later filmed there. I have not been back to see the place since the filming so don't know if the town was spruced up for the movie or not. Marjorie, in the movie today, was told over and over by people how difficult life on the creek can be, how some don't make it (physically or economically) and so on, but this did not deter her. She managed to have people around her to help maintain the cabin and her property so she could focus on writing. At this time she was penning Gothic novels which were not as good as her true tales from Cross Creek. And, of course, she had a love interest.
It was fun to watch it again after decades of my first viewing and have a new appreciation for the landscape and region where she lived here in N. Central Florida. Cross Creek is outside of Gainesville, about an hour and a half southwest of here. This was the first time, also, when we saw black and white striped cows, commonly called Oreos. For a boy raised on a farm, this was quite the sight! The ends of the cow with hooves was black and the middle was wide band of white. Most unusual! I had a fun trip today without leaving the house.
