It's not who you know, it's what you know

It's not who you know, it's what you know. This is the Elevate Folk Podcast and I'm your host Chrissanne Long, and with me as always is Rob Arturi.

Hello.

Howdy. So what do you know?

I have some punishment here.

Oh boy.

I have scoured the internets and I have researched some pretty obscure—

I'm sure if you were doing this, it was going to be obscure.

Well, now don't oversell it. But some interesting things I found out about Polk County. And we do this podcast and we talk about all kinds of stuff. And I thought this would be fun to just talk about some odd things that you might not know. Maybe some you do.

I'm going to be embarrassed to find out what I don't know.

No, it's not like that. It's not like that. Yeah, I know the teacher in you gets worried about that sort of stuff, but no, this isn't like that.

Am I gonna look like I'm not smarter than a 5th grader?

No.

Okay.

No. Phew.

I don't think so. I'm stressing out about this.

I don't know what they teach in 5th grade anymore. Okay, so.

Are there any literature questions?

No.

Oh, okay, well, I might be striking out, but we'll give it a shot.

No, no, no, it's not that. More noteworthy, right?

Noteworthy.

We'll get started.

Yeah, let's do it.

All right. In 1956, this rock and roll legend performed and reportedly autographed a dressing room wall at the iconic Polk Theater. Although rumor has it the autograph was supposedly destroyed by flooding. So it's hard to say if it's true.

So there's no proof.

There's no proof.

Hmm.

It's more lore than anything else.

Right. I'm glad you started out with this one, 'cause I know this one. However, I feel like I should say something funny, like who's that Gangnam Style guy? Was it him?

I forgot that guy's name.

What's his name?

It was like a one-name thing.

Yeah, but it wasn't him. This wasn't— he wasn't alive in 1956.

No.

So it was Elvis Presley.

Very good.

Yay! Ding ding ding ding ding! Do you have like sounds that like On the radio show, they, you know, they get like special sound effects. Do I get any for right answers?

I'll work on that. Yes. Yeah. All right. Very good. Um, it's hard to believe Elvis was here in 1956 at the Polk Theater, but I guess—

I mean, I think that it's not so hard to believe. I think in the dynamic that Polk County has today, we tend to forget that it was ahead of a lot of the curve in the earlier years. So I had a conversation with someone, I don't remember who it was, so I don't want to say it and be wrong, but I was talking about when some of these headliners came to Lakeland and it was like, to me, I think I had the impression or the perspective that we were always kind of a B-lister kind of place. People came either when they— before anybody knew them or when they were kind of on the downhill slope of their careers. And that wasn't the case. And I would really love to get Tony Camarillo or somebody in here from the RP Funding Center that can give us a history of what the Lakeland Center was in its heyday because it was a lot more of a hopping place And I think we have this attitude now that it's not, but it still has the facilities and has all of the capabilities. And so that's a question for Tony Camarillo.

All right. Well, we'll put that on the shortlist. And the fact that you pointed out that maybe Lakeland and Polk County were something pretty prominent back, way back when, mm-hmm, it might do better than you thought at some of this.

Mm.

Some of the answers are just stuff that you'll never know, and they're kind of funny, but Okay. I promise you it's not to embarrass you.

What's the next question? It's gonna be a little bit.

Okay. Question 2. By the end of the 19th century, only I think 16 years or so after the county was officially—

Incorporated. Named, yeah.

Polk County was responsible for producing nearly 1/3 of all the blank in the entire world?

The only thing that I can think of would be oranges. Eh.

You like those high-dollar sound effects there?

Yeah, that was great.

Yeah, you're welcome.

So it's not oranges.

It is phosphate.

Oh yes, I knew that. Yeah. Yep. Okay. And I know nothing about phosphate other than nowadays a lot of people go fishing in the phosphate mines or in the phosphate lakes that have kind of been left behind by the mining. Is that right? Yes.

Yes.

And that the fishing's real good. That's what I know.

Well, that I have, I won't dispute that at all. And I think you're, you're right. When I think of phosphate, I think of the stuff they took out of my dishwashing detergent, which is why the dishwasher doesn't work nearly as well and leaves all kinds of spots. Years ago they used to work so much better.

Right.

Phosphates. I hear they're bad, but you know, I like clean dishes.

At the expense of your health.

Well, I didn't eat the dishes. It just got them nice and clean. I mean, theoretically with phosphates, there was less on the dishes after the dishwasher. If anything, I mean, like the phosphates with some, it's not like they replaced the water spots with like a nice thin coating of phosphate.

Right.

I think it has to do with like groundwater and stuff. So I guess, you know, it's probably better that it's not, but.

I'm just gonna continue to say nothing more about phosphate 'cause I don't know anything.

Well, I don't know a lot about phosphate either, but I think we just—

But now we know in the— what, what, let's repeat the full statement so we have all of that on record.

So by the end of the 19th century, Polk County produced nearly a third of the world's phosphate.

The whole world.

The whole world.

Came from Polk County.

They did.

That's amazing.

I don't know if they had been really looking for it for much before that.

Right.

But, uh, Go for it.

So I guess I have a question now with the fact that phosphate is less essential or popular or used in all of the places that it is no longer used because you said it's no longer in your dishwashing detergent, right?

Unfortunately, yes.

So what are the current uses of phosphate? Or I guess we still have a lot of phosphate activity because Mosaic is still here.

Oh yeah.

And there's a lot of, a lot of things that they're doing. So I just would love to be more educated about phosphate, I think.

Well, as a result of this question, I'm not the authority on phosphate, but I do know that it is used extensively in fertilizer and supplemental animal feed and things like that.

So that makes sense.

Still quite a bit of a market for it, albeit they've taken it out of certain products, much to the chagrin of people who like clean dishes. But I don't hold grudges.

I think you are holding a grudge.

Maybe, maybe a little bit.

You need to let it go.

I'll work on it.

We'll sing Elsa's song later.

Oh, that movie. Oh, you know what I don't like about that movie? We're gonna get off on a little tangent here.

I know.

So I love Epcot at Disney. Haven't been in a while, but I, I, when I was a kid, we were at Epcot and the one person in our group that was supposed to make, uh, it was my aunt's ex-husband, supposed to make dinner reservations and he forgot. Well, the only place you could get into was Norway because apparently Norway is known for lots of things, but cuisine, Not one of them. No offense, Norwegians. So anyway, we go eat at Norway. The food was, you know, underwhelming.

Mm-hmm.

But they had the coolest ride at the restaurant where you go on these boats and there's these trolls and it was awesome. Totally redeeming for like the meatballs and mush that they had at the thing.

Right.

Well, they went and took that ride and all the money Disney has They didn't just bulldoze the whole thing. They took the ride and then they gutted it and then they rebuilt it so that it was like Frozen themed.

Oh.

But it's still the same premise.

So wasn't the old ride like Erik the Red?

Yeah, you're just like, you're going through this—

It was like the explorers.

I think that was the theme.

Yeah.

But there was like trolls and you went backwards and then forwards again and they just like recycled it.

Mm-hmm.

Which was, it's not anything like it used to be.

Right. And now it's Frozen theme.

Yeah, there's just enough of the old ride to make you resent the fact that they ruined a really good longstanding ride. Like I would've felt better if they just demolished it and built some Frozen garbage. I know that's very, it's a very popular movie.

Yeah. I've heard. Well, do they play Frozen music? Yes. Oh, I think I'm gonna love that ride. I need to get to Epcot now.

I think you and I have very different opinions of—

Well, what I love about those songs is hearing my nieces sing them because of course nieces love Frozen and they love Disney movies. And so I just have a picture of Maggie sitting with her headphones on, listening to Let It Go and screaming. Well, I don't know that she knew she was screaming, but singing really loudly. But you know how you have headphones on and you're listening to the music and you don't know how loud your voice is?

Yes.

So she's completely unaware of the people around her and she's singing Let it go, let it go. Totally off tune. Because then she's in my family, she cannot sing. So I just, I think that that's an endearing reason to go check that ride out.

Well, I have 3 boys, so none of them go around the house singing Let It Go. Not that there's anything wrong with that. If your little lad sings the song, whatever, that's fine. But it's not something I normally hear. So needless to say.

Okay, well, I think we should move on to the next question.

Okay. That was a Seinfeld reference. You didn't get the Seinfeld reference.

I didn't. I'm not a Seinfeld— I'm not a fan. I'm not— what do you say? How do you say that? I'm— it's not that I'm not a fan, it's that I didn't become a very avid watcher of Seinfeld. So references, I mean, I'll watch an episode and enjoy myself, but it's not to the point where I can recall the things that happen other than the Soup Nazi. I know that episode, but that's it.

That is a good one. There was an episode, I remember this is back in the early '90s, where they were talking about sexual preferences and they mentioned about somebody being gay. And they went out of their way to say, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." Oh, I see. Which was kind of like the, you know, "I'm accepting, but this is an alternative" type of thing. It's very different today.

Right.

Now today, if you even make a reference to it, that's looked at poorly. But at the time it was just— You know, funny. So nevertheless, totally shifting gears.

Yes, please.

This is Lakeland-centric. Donna, you're from Winter Haven originally.

Yeah.

But you've been here for a while. So some of the original names for what is now the city of Lakeland were, well, one of them was Munville after one of the founders who they eventually named a park after. I guess they didn't like him enough to name the city. Right. And then this name, which is in honor of apparently there was a bit of a chigger infestation problem back in the day.

Wow.

So.

Chiggers are horrible.

Yes, they are. So it's interesting to me that they would debate whether to name the city after one of the founders, Munville, kind of a boring name, but you know, understandable. And then a horrible pest. Like, those were the two options.

Wait, so the name of the city was going to be Chiggerville?

No, no, no, no. That'd be too obvious. But it is in relation to—

Oh my gosh. I have no idea what that would be. I can't even come up with something on the fly to tongue in cheek. What? What? Kind of city name would have something to do with chiggers.

Well, it's not quite as bad as chiggers, but it's Red Bug.

Red Bug was going to be the name of the city?

Yes.

Oh, and they chose Lakeland over Munville and Red Bug?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, definitely. I think they got it right.

Right.

I'm just a little bit surprised that that's what the final 3 choices were.

Right. Red Bug, Munville, which I think makes sense.

Right.

Or Lakeland. And now here's the disputable part of the naming of Lakeland, because I just had a guest coming into Lakeland that had never been here before. And so she was asking me questions that I don't have the answers to, but I know, but I don't know. So I can't give you the right number. But how many lakes are there in Lakeland? And my answer was actually there are more lakes, you know, more substantial lakes. I think if you add them all up, there are probably more lakes in Lakeland, but they're smaller. Maybe they're not. I don't know. Maybe that's a good question for us to dig out. Which city has more lakes?

I think it's Winter Haven.

But I think it's Winter Haven. I've always walked around with that in my head that there are more lakes in Winter Haven. And yet Winter Haven has the name Winter Haven and Lakeland has the name Lakeland.

Well, when I first moved here years ago, I was told that there was this folklore that Winter Haven was supposed to be named Lakeland and Lakeland was supposed to be named Winter Haven. And that something got mixed up in the, the the Pony Express and, and the names got assigned wrong. I can't for the life of me believe that that is true.

Right.

But I have heard it.

I bet one of our listeners knows whether that's true or not.

All right. And if— let us know if that's true. And if you know that it's true, let us know how you know that it's true.

Right. Because just, you know, and also don't judge me for how little I know about some of the history of this wonderful city. I am I'm now intentionally going to go find those books and try to get that knowledge to stick into my head. But just, you know, if you're listening and you're wondering, how does Chrissanne not know that it was Red Bug or Munville? Forgive me.

I think it's okay. I don't— if anybody out there knew Red Bug, I'm sure—

I am sure I know people who, if I called them and asked them that question, they would know the answer for sure.

All right, well, here's another one, another city naming one.

Mm-hmm.

This city got its official name in the year 1911, but it was once called Harris Corners in honor of F.A.K. Harris, who, he built the first building, a little store in what is now downtown. I don't, do you think they called it downtown when it was just one building?

I think they just said going uptown.

But then there would have to be like a downtown for there to be an uptown.

I don't know. I just remember listening to my stepdad say things that were awkward to me because they didn't make sense. But he would say, I'm gonna go uptown, and it meant downtown. And I don't know why it would be uptown if there—

I don't know.

We don't have an uptown.

Was that a directional thing?

It was meant to— he was going downtown, but he would say uptown.

That's a wild one.

And he's from Southern Ohio, and I don't know if that has something to do with it, but—

I think the compass rose up and down is still kind of a universal concept, even in Ohio. Well, it's interesting.

Maybe I have to ask him that question too. You're just creating a whole lot of work for me in this episode.

Well, I spent a lot of time researching, so I'm giving you homework here. Okay. So F-A-K Harris, Harris Corners. The answer is—

Ah, I'm going to go with Bartó.

No, sorry. No, no, sorry. That's my Alex Trebek impression.

I got the Alex Trebek. Um, can I have a second guess?

Well, there's only so many cities, but I'll allow it.

There's like 19 municipalities, so I have a little bit of time. Um, because my first thought was Fort Meade or Frostproof or Lake Wales or Davenport.

No.

Okay, so Dundee?

No, no, the answer is Winterhaven.

No.

Yes.

Seriously?

It's not like you were born in Winterhaven.

Well, I wasn't, but that— what was it?

You just lived there most of your China.

So who was, who was this guy?

He was a store owner. He was, uh, he owned a store, built a store, first building in downtown.

Wow. Now I've got to go digging into that one.

Harris Corners, uptown. I don't know that it's really that exciting if it's just like you and 5 other people and you name the town after yourself. Like, you know, I mean, how legitimate is that?

Well, I think that if the other people in the area want to vote for that to be the name of the city, then you probably are more than just some random Joe.

He's still 1 out of 5, right?

Well, I think there were probably more than 5, but you know, it's not like Little House on the Prairie. It's true, there were only 5.

I don't know, have you seen pictures of, of, you know what, it wasn't— they weren't prairies per se, but there was a lot of orange groves.

There were horses and carriages. Yes, there were, there were, there were a lot of orange groves, but maybe a milk stool or two. The pictures that I've seen show a little bit more, uh, development than what we would refer as the Little House on the Prairie ages in my memory. But I could be wrong. I don't know much about—

Well, it all started with F.D.K.

Harris. I think you just set up this episode so I could look really dumb.

No, I just, I mean, come on. The guy has two middle names. He's worth knowing.

Okay, well I'm gonna look him up.

I don't know. Why would you have two middle names then go by your first three initials?

Well, I don't have a middle name. Is that weird? Really? Yeah. Nope. Never, never had a middle name. I guess my mom thought 10 letters in my first name was long enough. Aha, get it?

Well, yeah, that does make kindergarten a little more difficult. Mm-hmm. It ensures that you'll never be able to go to a gift shop and find anything with your name on it.

Oh, totally. The coolest thing that has ever happened in my life was when my stepmom, my dad's second wife, started to give me personalized things. So she would make them. She was crafty. I loved getting presents from Drew because she would, she would paint, um, like my name on tennis shoes or on different little, you know, tchotchkes and things like that. And of course, you know, as a little girl and you walk in and all of your friends, you know, your Ambers and your Laurens and your, you know, right, even your Adrianas had a, had a thing out there, but no, nothing for Chrissanne Long. Oh, oh, what? Then my dad used to tell me that it was better because I got two keychains or two things because I would be Chris and Anne. I'm like, no, no, that's like a consolation prize. I want one with my name on it. So Drew was awesome and made me some really cool things.

Well, I have a— my friend Erlan, give a shout out to Erlan.

Um, I bet you he never found keychains with his name.

She used to say the same thing that, uh, you know, never And her two siblings have rather common names.

Mm-hmm.

So poor Irlan. So sorry, Irlan. We still love you.

Cheers to you.

Cheers to you. All right. Next one. Only a few more to go.

Okay.

Opening in 1929, this is Polk County's oldest tourist attraction.

Well, I don't think it's Spook Hill.

If you consider Spook Hill a tourist attraction, we're gonna have to have a conversation off air.

But I'm going to say it was probably Cypress Gardens or Bok Tower.

All right, so I made this one specifically tricky because I would've said Cypress Gardens. Most people would say Cypress Gardens. The fact that you got the correct answer that it was Bock Tower, which Cypress Gardens was 1936.

Ah, okay.

So I'll give you partial credit for that one.

Okay, good. I think I've got one and a half right so far.

Yes. I don't know what it says that you grew up with such a mindset where you consider Bock Tower a tourist attraction.

Oh, well.

But I guess people do.

I think, yeah. I mean, it's a beautiful garden. There's so many, There's so much wildlife, there's so much flora, fauna. I mean, it's beautiful.

It is. It is. I just— when I think of tourist attractions—

Well, you're thinking in the '20s. I mean, what tourist attractions were there? Disney didn't exist.

Let's hop in the one car and go look at a flower. I don't know.

There's this very tall building in the middle of a prairie.

I grew up in New York. When I moved here and they called it Bach Tower, I was— I was looking—

Did you do any research on Edward Bach?

I did not.

Oh, see, now that's why you need to— but that's what you need to know. And now I don't, I don't have a lot of history. I just know that I believe he was a Dutch immigrant.

I did a little bit.

Okay.

But yeah, not, you know, I don't want to make it Bock Tower specific. Um, all right.

So I got half a point for that one. What's the next one?

You have a point for that one. The world's first citrus juice processing factory was located in which Polk County city?

I think it's Auburndale.

Final answer? Uh, that your final answer? Horrible Regis Philbin impression.

I mean, I don't have a better answer. I feel like it's Auburndale. I don't think it's Lakeland. I don't think it's Winter Haven. So yeah, Auburndale.

Sorry, no.

Your face when you say that is better than what it sounds like when you say it.

Sorry, no. Sorry, no. All right. I just picture Alex Trebek in my head when I do that. No, the answer is Haines City.

Oh, okay, see, that's a part of the county that I'm not as familiar with, so. Now here's what really is interesting. Sorry to you guys in Haines City.

It wasn't orange juice, it was grapefruit juice, which I found really interesting.

Yeah.

You know? Almost as interesting as going to see a tower with some flowers. Sorry. All right, 2 more questions. All right, I think you can do it.

I think I'm almost finished strong, like 0.0100.

I don't think that's how batting averages work, but that's another episode.

I'm a pretty bad batter at this point in time. That's all I know. Um, all right, what's the next question?

We'll be coming in and guesting on our our podcast, our love of baseball might be questionable. Okay, so this is one that's really Lakeland-specific. Publix Supermarkets is known for being the first grocery store in the country to have doors that opened by those electronic eyes. I did not know that. That was pretty interesting.

Okay.

And the first grocery store in the country to have this.

Oh my goodness.

All right, I'll give you a hint because I realize that's very, very difficult. This—

Shopping carts.

Amenities. See, I would have given you a better answer. I would have given you a hint. You jumped the gun. No, not shopping carts.

Okay, now you can give me your hint.

We'll call it an amenity.

Indoor bathrooms? Refrigerated? I don't know. An amenity. A powder room.

No, no, no. They had bathrooms at other stores in the 1930s, but air conditioning.

Oh, okay.

First grocery store in the country to have air conditioning. I think some of that was—

And that's why shopping was a pleasure, because you could go and do it in the air conditioning.

You know what?

Hmm.

If there's any Publix historians out there, I wonder what the genesis of the, where shopping is a pleasure. Where did that come from?

Right.

And knowing that they were the first to have air conditioning, I don't know if the very first store had air conditioning, but of all the grocery stores, the first one in the country to have air conditioning, that would definitely be a pleasure because shopping for groceries in downtown Winter Haven.

Well, I think the way we shop is way different than it was back then. I don't think that they shopped for their whole entire month's worth of of things, you know, they would go and get what they needed. And so it wasn't, you know, 15 or 20 aisles, but—

Well, that's true.

What do I know?

But just going up those 2 or 3 aisles would be a pleasure.

It would be a pleasure with the air conditioning.

And now they have fantastic crab soup at that Greenwise store.

Yeah, I saw your post about that. And air conditioning. Well, and they also have generators, so when the power goes out that they can continue keeping refrigerated and air conditioning going, so. We've come a long way.

That's a beautiful thing. Mm-hmm. Last question.

I'm ready for this to be over.

Thank you for your confidence.

Well, I just don't— I just don't like being dumb, and I feel like I'm just—

This isn't dumb.

Throwing darts at the wall and missing every single one.

I didn't ask you to do the multiplication tables. These are obscure facts.

Yes, thank goodness. Then they'd really know how dumb I am.

Chrissanne Long.

I just have to count with my fingers.

Chrissanne Long. You know her, you love her. All right. The name Imperial Polk County, it's on the signs.

Yep.

Was adopted in 1914. And though there are various reasons for the name, some people even say it was a nod to the Imperial Wizards of the KKK, which I really hope that it's not, and I don't think that it was from my research, but, uh, that's kind of dark. But the real reason is, uh, that the county is referred to as Imperial Polk County, which has been made fun of by the likes of Jeb Bush and many others, um, is that at one point in time, the county, Polk County, was known for having some of the best blank in the entire state of Florida.

Wow. The best. Hmm. I have no answers that could even come close to being close to right. I'm sure the best.

So this one's really obscure and I don't— I don't— I didn't think you would.

Then I'm going to go with the best heart.

Oh, that's sorry. Very sweet. It's also wrong.

I think it's true though.

Okay. Sure. It's, if you want it to be true, it's true.

Mm-hmm. It's true. We have the best heart.

It's true, but it's wrong. The answer are, and this is gonna be laughable to many of you, but the answer is roadways.

Best roadways. Roadways?

Yeah.

Wow. I am— that's amazing.

It is amazing because if you look around today, we're debating transportation, chopping up roads, you know, in Lakeland, all kinds of stuff.

So the design, is it like the roads themselves were the best, or like the design of the way that the cities were laid out? Because I think that there is some really, um, sophisticated way I like the ways that we use the lakes in Lakeland and Winter Haven. We worked around some of those things using the roads, but I don't know if that was it. That was what they meant.

I don't think that that those were the roads they were talking about. So apparently at that time, Polk County invested $1.5 million, $1.5 million, which was a lot of money at the time, and expanded the roadways. And the idea was the name Imperial Polk County was because, as in, uh, the old phrase, all roads lead to Rome. Well, in their mind, all roads led to Polk.

Uh-oh.

So it would seem that, well, two things. Number one, logistics is not just something that's popular today. Apparently it's deeply rooted in 110 years of, of our county's culture. Mm-hmm. But what I took from that was they found it very peculiar that at the time that the people in Polk County were deciding what to name, or, you know, this Imperial name, right?

Mm-hmm.

That they went with a reference based upon roadways that paid homage to the Romans. At this, right around the same time, over in the city of Lakeland, they were debating whether or not to call it Munville or Red Bug. Quite a difference in the thought process of Lakeland and Imperial Polk County. There must've been some, I don't know, some world travelers on the county commission back then.

Wow. Well, I can't offer any insight to that whatsoever.

I don't know that there's any insight to be had from it, but it's just kind of peculiar.

Yeah. Nevertheless, I now know how many things there are that I don't know about this amazing county. So thank you for bringing that up.

Oh yeah. All of, all of this stuff will help you greatly in your quest through life for many years ahead.

Of course. Knowledge is power.

And not so much power in this list here, but yes, the more you know, generally speaking, you're right. That's a good, that's a good approach.

So as we discuss, as we wind this one down, you know, it isn't, It's not who you know, it's what you know. So hopefully you learned something that you can share at your dinner table this week with somebody and let them know how much you know and that you're learning it from the Elevate Polk Podcast. I hope you got a giggle or two out of some of the silliness that was— you should have seen Rob's face. Say it again.

Sorry, no, sorry.

We're going to have to get a video, but thank you for listening. And remember, we have a new episode each week, so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. And remember to leave us a review. We promise to read every one, and you can always find all of our episodes at elevatepulk.com. If there is something you want to hear about on an upcoming episode, reach out to us on Facebook at Elevate Pulk.