Reece Caraker Jr.

I remember Will Flory from Webster Ave. Elementary if I'm not mistaken. I belive he had had polio at one time. We were in band at Lakeland Junior High, now Lawton Chiles Academy, and also at LHS. He managed to make a career in the U.S. Air and retired after 20 years service as a Lieutenant Colonel. Born November 24, 1945 he passed away April 19, 2006.

Augustine (Augie) Scafidi

Thanks Reece. He was quite an achiever.

Michael Durhan

"Willie" (as he was known back then) and I met and became best friends in the 7th grade.  He lived on 5th Street, near Webster Avenue.  His mother was some kind of nurse (dental?) and his father was a small-time, self-taught "bookkeeper".  He had another good friend named Darwin Parsons from the same neighborhood.  It is a very tough "Democrat" neighborhood today.  Darwin was not in the Jr. High band, but Willie, Reese Caraker and I were, under Mr. Bob Blanton.

Willie had an older brother named Ken, who seemed to me at the time, a thug-type.  But then, who wasn't a thug in the late 50's????  That was the fashion: Rebel Without A Cause.  Ken had been in the Navy; next, he had been in the Air Force.  Who knows where all he had been - but he had about a '49 Chev convertible parked in the Flory back yard with flat tires and grass growning around it.  And Willie and I would try to start that car until the wires under the dash near the key switch would begin smoking; or, until the battery went dead.  Then, we would walk to the Memorial Boulevard Overpass near the Chinese Jungle, where we would smoke grape-vines and practice cuss-words while watching Atlantic Coast Line Railroad trains with their purple and silver paint schemed locomotives glide by under Memorial Boulevard northward toward High Springs, FL - or southward into the Lakeland yard on West Main Street, across from McGinnis Lumber Co..  For you Southwest transfers, the Chinese Jungle was about like San Gulley (sp?) - only much worse.  It had real hobos who had jumped off trains, or who were waiting to jump on them.  And some of them were mean and/or crazy.  Those times are not something I am particularly proud of now, but it indeed was the times, and it was classic Willie Flory and me in 1957-58 - my little "thug" era before finding my salvation at Southside Baptist Church on McDonald Street.

Right at the end of the 8th Grade, Willie and his folks moved to Muskogee, OK.  Apparently, his father had lined up another bookkeeping job there - one of a long string of jobs.  I had lost my best bud, and for the first time in my tender life, I felt great emptiness for the loss of a dear friend.  This lasted about 2 - 3 years.  We wrote back and forth the entire time.  All of a sudden, one day, Willie wrote and told me they were returning to Lakeland - and they did!  His folks bought (or rented) a house on the east side of Lake Parker on one of the streets which ran from the lake to Combee Road.  It was a tiny place right next door to Earlie Bowden (Class of '63), whom I also liked, especially when combined with his baby blue '61 Ford full Galaxie size Fairlane with 352 V8 and 3-speed stick shift.  Willie by then insisted on being called "Will"; he had no doubt realized most "Willies" of that era were not white.  Too bad.  Willie is such a neat name and now, today, neither race will embrace it.  Just another casualty of the civil rights era.......

Will and I became close friends again in the 11-12 grades, but never quite as close as the 7th grade.  (Thomas Wolf was right; you cannot go home again.  Dave Hemstreet had, by then, become my very best friend and is still to this day a very best friend.)  After high school, both Will and I went to the University of Florida.  I was in the Tolbert area dorms and he was in the old, Murphree area near University Avenue.  We ate lunch together nearly every day at the College Inn.  He'd eat a hamburger with mayonaise and mustard; I'd eat a hamburger with mayonaise and ketchup.  Neither had enough money for both hamburger AND french fries (and that is fact).  When times got really tough, we'd just eat french fries and drink water for lunch.  No hamburgers or colas.

Will joined the advanced Air Force ROTC scholarship program while at UF, mostly for the scholarship it provided, and then when he graduated, he stayed in for at least a full 20-year career.  He had obtained his degree in Physical Therapy and that is the profession he practiced in the Air Force, then later around Dothan, AL. as a civilian.  He married early - a Lakeland girl named Carol Pyle, whom he first met in Jr. High; that didn't last long.  Later, he remarried and sired a couple of boy-child offspring. He and his wife, Jo, retired to the Panhandle coast of Florida, near Panama City.  We stayed in touch from time to time (I was then in Pensacola) but neither of us made any real effort to meet face-to-face, though we were less than 100 miles apart.  In retrospect, I think that was a mistake.  But, he had gone his way and I had gone mine, and we had little in common by then - mostly just jr high to college memories of long ago.

I believe later in life, especially after he retired, Willie became lonely.  I think he may have needed "a buddy" in a supporting way.  I think perhaps I should have made more of an effort to remain in contact.  I am haunted by these thoughts and I often ponder what actually caused his death.  The obituary reported he died "unexpectedly" at age 60.  I wonder..........

It is very difficult (at least for me) to know which friendships to work at saving, and which to let dissipate into the fog of time.........

Dick Sargeant

I learn more about you Mike, as the years go by. I also was a friend to Willie especially when he was in that roll around bed he had at school (Webster Avenue) as a result of the polio.  Thank you Mike for sharing. Love all the references to cars. (Remember flying down Thornhill Road in my Austin Healy Sprite & passing a cigar to another car (don't remember who) as we sped down the road.

Thomas Herring

I met Willie in the 11th grade.  I remember him as a nice clean cut fellow. Even though he ran around with Mike Durhan he was able to maintain his nice guy persona.  Willie, Mike, David Hemstreet, Blair Clark, Richard Putnam and I ran around together.  We were always in trouble but never got caught.  After graduation I only saw Willie once when he was home from UF in his senior year.  He had planned to go to active duty Air Force after graduation.  I lost track of him but heard of his success in the service.  What a good time we had.  Ask Mike!  The good die young!

Tom Herring

Michael Durhan

Dick:

We passed a cigar to Mike Chase, who was in another car beside us, as we went through a hairpin turn on Thornhill Rd, coming back to Lakeland, or going to PJC, Lots of fun........

Mike

Michael Durhan

Tom:

I hope you are doing well.  I remember when you, me, Hemstreet and Putnam all went camping in the Ocala National Forest right after graduation.  We had your truck, my boat and everybody's beer......

Mike