Around the Banks

Most of all it's the sweet memories that haunt, now faded into a past that was, for many decades the pillar of North Central Florida's agricultural economy.  The familiar aroma that floated on the hot, humid, north Florida air; the atmosphere of a holiday, young boys selling boiled peanuts, the unmistakable staccato of the sing-song chant of the auctioneer, the hand signals of the buyers, the warehouse office where bills were copied and re-capped for the companies and long awaited checks were distributed to the farmers.  I am, of course, referring to the tobacco auctions that took place in tobacco warehouses across our area in the Florida belt for flue cured tobacco.  Florida's largest