Menorcan Journey

                                                                 Menorca Cove

Jose Joaneda Floyd (Floid) was my 4^th great grandfather.  He was born in Ciudadella, Menorca, Spain in 1761.  Minorca is a beautiful Island just off the coast of the Spanish mainland.   I am less than 3 percent Spanish.

In 1767, Jose was six years old and with his parents they made their way to the northern part of Florida with as many as 1400 others that left their homeland to tame this wilderness. It took two ships and two months to arrive at their destination. Their hopes were high. 

They found the conditions were harsh and after much hardship and starvation they lost about half of their population. It was in 1777, Jose, now 16-years-old  and with those that remained walked to St. Augustine, Florida for a better life.

Popular legend tells us that in 1513, Ponce de León, a Spanish explorer discovered Florida while searching for the Fountain of Youth and he named the region La Florida which means "flowery land". 

In 1794 Jose married Elizabeth Maria Deweese.  They had six children.  He died in St. Augustine in 1818 at the age of 58. 

Florida didn't become part of the United States until 1845, after the Spanish American War.

In 1980, the Menorcan Society was formed to promote the culture and heritage who left their home to make a new life. 

St. Augustine celebrates every year the arrival of the Menorcan people with traditional  tasty food, music, and dancing. People dress in period costume and have a parade of men and women riding on  pure Spanish horses the breed known as Andalusion.

 

 

Alligator In The Sewer

         It's 1961 and we had been visiting my grandparents, Florence and Scott Hilligoss in Boneventure Florida located just outside of Cocoa.  Dad always had his vacation the first two weeks of  July, but the time had sadly come to head back to Massachusetts.

My three sisters and I hopped in the backseat of the new shiny black Ford, mom in the front seat with dad driving. But we had another making the trip home with us.  In the back window was a box carefully sealed .

Somewhere along the road we pulled over for gas.  This is where my mom climbed into the backseat to stretch out and take a nap.  My sister and I then climbed into the front seat.  Slowly but surely all fell asleep, except for dad of course who still had control of the steering wheel.

Suddenly, my sister was nudging me and telling me to stop it.  "Stop what?"  Touching my foot she complained. "I didn't touch your foot."  Yes you did.  We went back to sleep. When suddenly it happened again, and this time she was obviously mad and began yelling at me.  Then she yelled in pain when something bit her toe.

Now all hell broke out in the car for the alligator in the box had escaped. This carnivorous beast was just waiting to pounce on my unsuspecting sister.  It had to have crawled over my mother and two sisters in the back seat to get down to the floor to crawl under the front seat to reach my sisters feet.
Now we pull our feet up on the front seat screaming.

 Dad pulls into a gas station and gets out to try and capture this beast which proved to be an impossible task.  Fortunately, the gas station attendant, apparently a pro, appeared and grabbed the alligator as it was squirming around like a contortionist hissing with his mouth wide open exposing those sharp teeth.   We found it had chewed a hole right through that cardboard box, so the gas station attendant gave us a wooden box so it would not escape again.

When we got home the person I bought it for wanted nothing to do with it.  Can't blame him. So into the bathtub it went and we fed it hamburger.  Finally, a boy I had dated a few times said he wanted the alligator and he took it home, thank goodness.

It wasn't long after he too decided this was not exactly a friendly pet.  He told me he just let it loose somewhere.  So if you ever hear about an alligator in the sewer, you know where it came from.