Lynyrd Skynyrd – Leonard Skinner and Curtis Loew

Coach Leonard Skinner

I drove up to Jacksonville yesterday. I went to see Coach Leonard Skinner. He’s in a nursing home. Been in the home for the living dead I call it for about 5 months I guess. Alzheimers has invaded his brain, a sad case. He only eats ice cream, so I stopped by an ole place we used to visit called the Dreamette. It’s an old ice cream parlor on Post Street in old Riverside in Jacksonville.
Leonard Skinner 1933-2010

After visiting with Leonard a few minutes I left and drove through the old neighborhood on the Westside. I turned onto Woodcrest Street on the corner where the old Van Zant house is. Drove by looking and thinking back 50 years. Just as I got to the corner of Pangola and Woodcrest the Ballad Of Curtis Loew came on the radio. WOW! I was right there on the streets where I use to walk as a young boy, picking up coke bottles. Kinda strange it would come on the radio just then. Coincidence I guess. It sure did bring back some old memories. I can remember when a Hurricane or big rain storm came through, we as kids would swim in those ditches. Now I can’t imagine doing that, you can catch all kinds of diseases. No telling what or who is covered up in them ditches. Driving through there and seeing what lives there, I would not even walk barefoot there. Crack houses, crack whores, crackheads, but that’s most places in the country nowadays.

The Van Zant house is still for sale after all these years. That whole neighborhood ain’t worth 20,000 dollars. Now days after moving down south of Jacksonville to Inverness I hate to even go to Jacksonville. “Beep” them big cities.

The only thing bad about living here in Inverness is them “Damn Yankees”. Who taught them damn yankees how to drive.. Nobody. I’m gonna open up “Redneck Driving School”, only yankees need apply. I’ll proboably get death threats from this, get in line.

Well I’m gonna cut this short. I gotta feed the chickens, dog, the deer and the wild hogs. Come back in, stumble over the grandkids, watch “Cops” and hopefully slip into a coma for 7 hours. Then, maybe I can do it all over again..whoopie. Looking forward to going fishing soon.

Thank the Fishing God.

Gene

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