I LOVED THOSE DAYS...
IT WAS PRIMITIVE PEACEFUL. I WOULD FISH AND HUNT WILD GAME EVERYDAY AFTER SCHOOL. THERE WAS SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS ABOUT THE WILDERNESS. YOU COULD FEEL SOMETHING MAGICAL HAPPENING, BUT YOU COULD NOT SEE IT...
„ … In my younger years, the Robinson clan lived in Tallahassee, on St. Augustine Street in a community set down in a ravine. If it rained, all water would flow down to where we were, and the neighborhood would be flooded. It seemed like it was always flooded. All the houses sat up on stilts. Ours had not electricity, so we used kerosene lamps and cooked on a wood-burning stove. And because we had no running water in the house we had to draw our water from a faucet just outside and heat it for our baths in a large tin tub.
„ … Peach trees flourished in the area, and my family made part of our living off the harvest and a special brew called “buck”. We would collect peaches in pails and set them in the shed. The peaches would rot and create a fruity liquor: Momma had several was tubs full of it. She would pour it through a sheet to strain it and sell the peach brandy right out of our house to the locals. There were also a lot of pecan trees in the area. Later during our school days, many kids, including me, made their school lunch money picking up the pecans and selling them to the local pecan factory.
„ … One day in the spring of 1951, our peach buck liquor business came to an end when revenue agents showed up at the door: The two men went directly for the shed and busted up all the barrels of buck with their axes. There was peach brandy everywhere. It was during one of the many rains, and I remember being traumatized, looking out our front door, overwhelmed by the event and the smell of peach buck.
„ … By summer, Robert Sr. and Charlie Mae moved out of the St. Augustine Street house and out of the ravine. … My parents found a huge 14-room house to rent about ten miles from our old one. And though the house was just a mile down the hill form the Florida A&M University campus, we were deep in the woods, making us instant country folk.‟
„ … The plantation style house must have been a hundred or so years old. It had weathered wood siding, and like our last house, was perched seven feet off the ground. The house had a porch that wrapped entirely around the house and its shade drew my mom’s friends to gather and chat. I realized early on that none of the old folk were telling me what I thought one needed to know about life, and the only way I was going to learn anything was to hide and listen to their conversations. So underneath the porch quickly became my favorite spot.
„ … The move to this house on 727 West Wales Street felt like a move up and into a better situation. Unlike our last house, this one had electricity. I love the house and all its hidden nooks and crannies. There was a lot of space to explore, and my imagination ran wild … ‟
„ … We had been living for six years on Wales Street when the revenue squad was tipped off about our bootlegging. They raided the house as they did back on St. Augustine Street. … My parents were give a fine, but the worst part was that we were evicted. So we were in for another move. I was 10.
FAMILY ROBINSONS' HOUSE IN TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA
PHOTO FROM ROBBY ROBINSON'S MEMOIRS
"THE BLACK PRINCE; MY LIFE IN BODYBUILDING: MUSCLE VS HUSTLE"
▶ www.robbyrobinson.net/books.php
PHOTO FROM ROBBY ROBINSON'S MEMOIRS
"THE BLACK PRINCE; MY LIFE IN BODYBUILDING: MUSCLE VS HUSTLE"
▶ www.robbyrobinson.net/books.php
„ … The next house was smaller and further out in the woods, on South Western Street. The 30-year-old wooden house was raised up six feet like our other house, with a porch on just the front of the house. Even though there was less land behind the house because it butted up to some woods, my parents found room for a vegetable garden.
„ … The woods with its lakes and ponds became my play-ground, full of adventures. Because the land was so rich and lush, there was an abundance of wild critters, making it possible to hunt and eat a lot of game meat: quail, blue jays, deer, squirrel, fish and alligator … ‟
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Read more about RR's training and life experience, about other legends of Golden Era of bodybuilding and what really happened behind the scenes of Weider's empire - in RR's BOOK "The BLACK PRINCE; My Life in Bodybuilding: Muscle vs. Hustle" - available now on Amazon and Kindle -
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