By the Lakeside

After breakfast, the vehicle fluid checks, the book and the movie, and the lunch, came the laundry.  Then the library.  And then the park.

Downtown, old town, Kissimmee, Florida, has recently renovated its Lakeside Park. The lake is called Tohopekaliga which means in Seminole ‘We will gather together here’.  But many locals call it Toho (pronounced 2Ho). This is the second largest lake in Osceola County and was a grand meeting placed of Indians until they were driven out by Andrew Jackson’s soldiers and others from the 1820’s-50’s.

  

Kissimmee gets its name in a more tragic way, so legend has it.  When American soldiers raided a Seminole camp on the lake’s north shore a gallant woman stood up from the camp and screamed at the men, “Kish-a-me, no kill me.  Kish-a-me.  No kill!”  As the men took her up on her offer the rest of the women and children escaped. She has been a Native hero of the America’s ever since.

The park has a symbol of ‘Old Kissimmee’ that predates Disney World, at least.  In 1943 Senator Claude Pepper dedicated a local automobile club monument to all fifty states. Made from stones and natural pieces shipped from each state this tall flag pole, essentially, is built in front of the 1930’s lakeside community building.

 They say people used to drive from miles around to see it, and tourists wouldn’t miss looking for their state stones when they would come to swim in the cool lake, a pretty big deal before Disney World, after seeing the orange groves and cattle ranches of the area.

Homeward bound by supper time we now await a call back from a church we’d like to stay at just below Lake Okeechobee.  But if we get no call, we’ll find another place to park and live, and plenty to see and do.

-Ken