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Clinging To A Lifestyle That's Slowly Fading Away

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 8, 2008

Looking back, it wasn't long ago that Wesley Chapel sat unnoticed, tucked between the Hillsborough County line and Zephyrhills, in an area where cattle seemed to outnumber people and almost every backyard housed a pony, goat or handful of chickens.

As New Tampa marched steadily north, the landscape changed, and the local color dimmed. Today car dealerships clutter both sides of State Road 54, and neighborhood children are more likely to wear soccer jerseys than riding boots.

Yet yards from the congestion of S.R. 54 still stands a business tied to Florida's agrarian past.

Texlea Distributors caters to residents of south-central Pasco County who own and care for livestock on the area's few remaining working ranches and hobby farms that suburban sprawl has squeezed into the county's corners.

Monday through Saturday, pickup trucks back up to loading docks where muscular teenage boys heft 50-pound bags of feed and bales of hay.

Inside a woodframe house, proprietor Charlie Kelly takes orders and banters with customers from behind a desk barricaded by tall stacks of dog food, pot-bellied pig ration and chicken scratch. His uniform is a straw cowboy hat, denim work shirt and scuffed boots. He wipes his brow with a red bandana and chews on the end of a stubby cigar.

On this particular afternoon, he and his helpers greet me: "Hey! How's the schoolteacher?" I've come straight from work to purchase weekly rations of feed for my three horses, and my dress - black pants, starched button-down and high heels - is a sharp contrast to the boys' Wranglers and torn T-shirts.

But I don't feel out of place. I feel more at home than I do standing in front of my classroom. "Ah, just another day at the office," I sigh.

Charlie asks the newest boy about his grades in English. The boy grumbles that it's his worst subject. Charlie gestures to me with pride. "Do you know who this is?" he asks. "Teacher of the Year. The very best."

"Aw, Charlie," I say, "that was a lifetime ago. I'm washed up, a has-been. I'm ready to retire and work at a feed store." He laughs, and we make small talk about horses, the rising prices of grain and traffic on S.R. 54.

This is a bridge between two worlds: the professional life I lead and the country life I love. The moment the sweet scent of fresh hay waifs towards me, I shed my polished image and slip into the arms of a life less harried, less complicated. When I talk to Charlie, my tongue slows, my North Florida drawl finding comfort in familiar territory.

Later, I will pull my Chevy pickup through my barn and unload the hay and feed. I will put clean bedding in the stalls, empty the manure spreader and work the horses. As the shadows grow longer across my pasture, I will watch the moon rise, eerily backlighting the branches of grandfather oaks. I will listen as owls call to one another, each note dropping, octave by octave, through the cypress. In the distance, though, I will note the ambient light from the new car dealerships and shopping centers and wonder, "Are the stars still as bright?"

But for now, I linger by the loading dock, trading barbs with Charlie and watching the boys fling bales of hay into the bed of my truck. Between the strip malls and zero lot line communities, Charlie helps me cling to my past and look back to a place that seems to be slipping steadily out of reach: the Wesley Chapel I call home.

Christie Gold is an English and journalism teacher at Freedom High School in Tampa.

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