Karma or Coincidence in Old Florida

Potluck is the name of the game when it comes to dinner companions at an academic conference in a small strange town in Florida.   I was in Tarpon Springs for the 32nd annual Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society conference meeting recently. As I was holding sway with my munchkin–the little people in the iconic movie The Wizard of Oz–info (I have no real stories, but I wrote in depth about Jerry Maren and Mienhardt Raabe, two of the last Munchkins, scroll previous blog stories), my dinner companion mentioned that Raabe and his wife had been her dinner guests.  She’ll remain anonymous, but Raabe  lived at Penny Farms which is close to her home in Green Cove Springs, FL.

Although meeting a kindred spirit is never to be dismissed lightly, there were other interesting takes from the mini-vacation. If there is an other worldly karma connection, Tarpon Springs would be the place compared to  too-cool-for-school South Florida or nobody-knows-what-really-goes-on-here rural North Florida.

Tarpon Springs is an old sponge-diving town on the gulf coast of Florida founded by Greeks.  The docks are about what you would expect in a tourist town  but two blocks off the main drag, the town turns ancient and individual.  There are men-only coffee houses, and Greek is the language of choice.  Myth and commerce, tourists and authenticity mix well in Tarpon Springs.

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church is still the center of Tarpon Springs, geographically and spiritually.  It was built during World War II before synthetic sponges were developed and the town was relatively prosperous.  These days tourists are a main source of revenue.

The tags in front of the portrait may have a stamped eyes—for literal improvement of eyesight or a more metaphysical request for clarity regarding a personal problem. Legs, arms and other symbols on the tags make up a language of their own that reflects the superstitious life of a small town.  According to our tour guide, many of the prayers have been inexplicably  answered over the years.

What kind of academic conference would be held in Tarpon Springs?  One with its roots firmly in Old Florida. The XXXII Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Conference was held here in early April.  Rawlings wrote the Pulitzer Prize (1939) winning book The Yearling.

Her first husband, writer Charles Rawlings, wrote a noted Saturday Evening Post story around that time named Dance of the Bends.  The bends is a slang name for  decompression sickness that afflicts divers.   Charles had visited Tarpon Springs with Marjorie’s friend Dessie Prescott Smith, a pioneering female figure in Florida.  One of Dessie’s six husbands was a doctor who treated bends in the Tarpon Springs  community and Charles used that connection to gain access to the closed society of Greek divers.

After the conference, it was time to shop the back streets and small  stores that are the building blocks for the kitschy main street of Tarpon Springs.  This zombie pirate seemed to capture the otherworldly feel of the town while adding a little humor and flavor to exploration.

The traveler who enjoys odd small places that are a little out of step with the culture that surrounds them may enjoy Tarpon Springs.  It is probably  a place that is best visited in the off season when the docks are quieter and the great Greek food and culture take their rightful places in the life of the town.