I am well aware that I read the wrong readings for this blog post, but I had an odd connection with Umberto Eco’s reading “The City of Robots.” In Eco’s piece, he describes how there are many fake cities that have been built in America. Our great country has created places like Las Vegas, Disneyland, and Disney World in order to give people a true escape from reality. As Doorman and Mattelart say, “ ‘Real life is unreal, unglamorous and boring in this world, while the spectacle is exciting and enthralling” (90). Reality must be taken into question when entering into the gates of these perfectly designed worlds. As I continued to read through Eco’s piece, an idea popped into my head about an imaginary world that can be found right in the heart of Tampa. Fortunately, this magical world takes you back to the rural days of 19th century Florida without warping your sense of reality. This beautiful taste of past reality is also known as Cracker Country.
What is Cracker Country you ask? Well, it is an outdoor history museum to show our generation what it was like to live in Florida’s rural heritage. According to Wikipedia, Cracker Country is located at the Tampa Fairgrounds and many of the buildings in the village date back as far as the 1870’s to early 1900’s. This small village may not sound all that interesting, but once you cross the wooden bridge, you feel as if you've been transported into another time period. Cracker Country, is obviously different than Disney World or Las Vegas but Cracker Country does provide a good illusion of what used to be reality for Floridians.
After one crosses the wooden pathway, they enter into the world of the 19th century Floridian. One will see the good ole blacksmith shop, an old school house, the corn crib barn, the governors inn, out houses, the cane mill, the post office and even old houses that real Floridans used to live in back in the 1890’s. When I was in fourth grade, my school took us to Cracker Country for a field trip. We made candles out of animal fat, we took a trip to the Blacksmith to see someone get their tooth pulled out, and we even got to pretend we were students in the old school house. The main wall in the school house was covered with a large chalk board and all of the desks faced forward the front. In the left corner of the room, there was a small wooden stool where misbehaved children would sit if they didn’t listen to the teacher.
We also visited the Cane Mill, which produced cane syrup for the community. A small donkey would power the mill by walking around to an attached lever system, which would squeeze juice from the sugar cane stalks and then eventually be turned into a sweet syrup. The kettle that the syrup is produced in is very large in size and can hold up to 80 gallons of sugary, sweet cane syrup. Another really interesting building in Cracker Country, was the train depot. My generation and many generations were fortunate enough to have cars as our sole form of transportation, but back in the 19th century trains were the only type of transportation. I don’t know why but it’s very hard for me to conceptualize old America with trains, cattle running around and old men spitting in spittoons. That is why I love visiting Cracker Country whenever I go to the Florida State Fair because it gives me a glance at what it was like to live in the ole days of Florida.
My favorite place in Cracker Country is their beautiful garden, also known as the Kitchen Garden. It’s upsetting in some ways because nowadays one doesn’t see many gardens due to our fast paced demand for fruits and vegetables. Today we have farmers to do all of our dirty work for us. It is always very pleasing to see a garden full of tomatoes, peas, radishes, lettuce, cabbage, roses and so many other greens. Yes, Cracker Country is a representation of the past, but it isn’t as damaging or manipulative on the brain as Las Vegas or Disney. Cracker Country offers a different type of reality because it mimics a past reality. If you want to escape the real world for a few hours, but not be stuck in a toy city, then you should visit Cracker Country in Tampa, Florida.
My question is, Cracker Country is a fake village that was created to show people 19th, rural Florida, but is it deceiving on our sense of reality like Disney and Las Vegas? Why or why not?
If you want to find out more about Cracker Country, please visit this link: http://www.crackercountry.org/index.php/come-visit/what-to-see
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