The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1919-06-19
v. S. BASSETT
WRITES OF HIS TRIP
TO MISSOURI

The following letter from our old
friend, Mr.. W. S. Bassett, who, with
his family spent the winter in Lake
land, will be of interest to their. nu-
merous Florida friends, who will be
glad to know that dad" Bassett is
still enjoying excellent health and
continues to boost Lakeland in his
northern home:
We left Lakeland May 9th at IL
.. m. via st. Augustine. wanted
the girls to see the Oldest city in the
U. S. and the oldest house still use,
able, over 400 years old. l myself
was there ten days in 1S95-the win
ter of the great freeze OUTPUT |
surely had to note many changes
since that time; found paved streets
and concrete walks; many new
buildings and what's more street cars
running here and yon-one line go
ing across the harbor by bridge to
Anastacia Island. When went
there we went by ferry boat across
then on down the island by a narrow
gauge dinkey railroad. Engineer and
conductor combined in yellow mig.
ger, but withal he took us safely along
and from him | learned much valu-
able information about the country we
were in. l myself and the girls as
we'll had most delightful two hours
on the pleasant and hard sand beach.
The salty odor Of the old Atlantic
revived pleasant memories FOR us
both, and little Katharine also en-
joyed it greatly. We had her strip
off shoes and socks and go wad'ng IT.
the surf. All of us were very loath
to leave the scene and the ever-roll
ing in Of the surf waves, for 1t took
me back to those other days of the
long ago.
We left st. Augustine at 2:3O p. m,
This gave us some four hours II
jacksonville. Here we found oul
baggage sent direct from Lakeland
had time to get bite to eat, tickets
and luggage rechecked, to Tarkio. II
small park we found an enclosed
pool with about the largest gator w
: had ever seen. And 1t was q nigge
eater all to the good / must believe
! and how he would crawl out upon tn
: edge of the pool and wink his RICH
eve at us. A man standing by toll
: how he had seen flend of huma
being come along one day with
quite large "fnongrel dog; caught II
the dog and threw it into the water
t and Mr.. Gator put the poor and cry
ing dog out of sight in jiff. AL
he was an ugly looking brute about l
feet long, l think.
t At 7 D. m. that evening we LEI
Jacksonville and was out three night
. altogether.
From Lakeland its 1878 miles frol
: cur home here. We had the usual e.
t periences of travel under FEEDER;
6 management. The train to conne
in early morning at Palatka cid N
b connect as per the new May sche'
n ule. but did come that way about u
y noon hour. So here we were In
d PICKLE for we were to lose about a
our time we had counted upon N s
1t Augustine. So | told my tale CT WI
d to the policeman who started out
re the war path to find jitney car
run us the three miles to East P
v latka to catch the oncoming ira
Is there and between us both by gre
is effort on our part. woke up a YOU
r fellow sound asleep in his car. III
ID was about a. m. and the poor j
had gotten pretty sleepy by this hol
- I thought at first that he was und
n the influence of Florida hop up a
u was about to decline on account
Ok his condition but the officer convinc
'h we that he was just sleepy, pure
~ simple, so I chartered him to VIII
III us across the run Of three miles
ne time for the 6 a. m. train to
II Augustine. This he did and
found him all to the good after g
ting him finally awake. He did