Me, Frank Thomas and, his wife, Irene.

After a rough few weeks, I wandered far afield of art and hit the road to the Dade battlefield in Bushnell, Florida, to attend the 5th Annual Frank Thomas Florida Music and Heritage Festival. Years ago I was very involved in Florida folk music. Along the way I started investing more into Florida history organizations. It was about five years ago I last saw Frank Thomas from a distance at the Florida Folk Festival. But it’s been around 25 years since I got to really hear and speak to him. And, back then, I got to see him quite a bit back into the ’80s as I traveled to most all of the music festival or helped put them on.

The legion of tunes Frank Thomas and his, now-gone, dear wife, Ann are a monument of Florida music and history. So much Frank and Ann wrote are songs of our great state’s history.

Frank has now remarried and singing as great as ever. Below is a photo of his new wife, Irene, and an incredible book produced by the Florida Historical Society, ‘Frank Thomas – Florida Songbook’. It’s full of the Thomas songbook, stories, photos and more! A fantastic book that is a must for any Florida library!

You can order the book from the Florida Historical Society here:
https://myfloridahistory.org/fhspress

When I arrived I knew I was getting there just in time for Rick Smith’s presentation, ‘A Land Remembered’. Rick’s multimedia, migh-tech, very cool presentation is of a further look into his father, Patrick, book, thee book of fiction of Florida, ‘A Land Remembered’. I never made it. Three booths in front nailed me to a stop. First was the Dade Battlefield Society which helps maintain the Dade Battlefield park, the annual Dade Massacre re-enactment and other duties. I had dues to paid and did that. Manning the table was a VERY enthusiastic young lady, which is nearly impossible to find involving ANY historical group. She trumped even me. The young part helped. Our state’s history needs her times a thousand.

Next was the Florida Historical Society book booth. Ben