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CITRA
They arrive in the rain to buy oranges, bags of them, and maybe a quart of juice, fresh-squeezed. At North Florida's last honest-to-God citrus stand, they drive up in cars bearing license plates from Delaware, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other Yankee states where orange-laden trees are only a winter's dream.
At the Orange Shop, established 75 years ago in Marion County, time has tried to stand still. Once there were dozens of similar mom-and-pop citrus shops and packinghouses standing like dominoes up and down the county's major road, U.S. 301. There were citrus trees by the thousands and grizzled men on wooden ladders plucking oranges. There were freezes, too, but when the ice thawed the farmers always replanted.
It's different now. Citrus is mostly a South Florida industry. In North Florida, shopping plazas and golf courses and gated communities have replaced the groves where old-time orangemen sweated, bled and raised families.
The Orange Shop is a relic. Behind the little family-run business, 10 acres of trees try to stay warm. Out back is a modest warehouse with a tin roof and an owner who refuses to quit.
Pete Spyke, 60, is the stubborn fellow. A third-generation orangeman, he sometimes hears a back-of-the-mind voice that says, "It's too cold for citrus in North Florida. Move south.'' He ignores it.
Yes, lots of his trees froze in 2010. But yes, he is poised to replant. That's what an orangeman does.
"You live with the cold up here," Spyke says. "It comes with the territory. You go on."
Spyke is part of an old Florida tradition. Spanish conquistadors brought citrus to North America five centuries ago — not to Miami Beach or Tampa but to the area near present-day St. Augustine. Floridians had been snacking on oranges for about six decades when the Pilgrims enjoyed their first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock. The citrus industry as we know it began in North Florida about the time of the Civil War. The Orange Shop opened in 1936. In the 1950s, the industry peaked in North Florida. Citra — the perfect name for a little orange-crazed town — was in the glorious middle of it all.
U.S. 301, one of Florida's busiest north-south roads at the time, delivered what seemed to be an endless stream of tourists eager to fill their car trunks with bags of oranges. But changes were on the way. First it was the construction of the interstate that diverted cars from small-town Florida. Next it was the worst cold snap in more than six decades. Single-digit temperatures in groves killed ancient trees in 1962. Many growers abandoned the business. Others moved operations south. Catastrophic freezes in 1977, 1983 and 1989 chased away all the die-hards except one.
The Orange Shop looks like a dollhouse — painted white, green and, of course, orange — with a steep roof, neon signs and mesh bags of citrus piled up out front. It has changed grudgingly since 1936.
Inside, the retail store seems about the same, too. Marmalade, peanut brittle, rubber alligators and coconut dolls line wooden shelves, as they have since day one. Plastic flamingos guard the corners. Inside the refrigerator is a six-pack of Yoo-hoo.
In the packinghouse, just-picked oranges roll down conveyor belts. They're washed and sorted by size and variety. Some end up in bags for tourists. Others go into boxes. By nightfall they'll be on trucks bound for Chicago, Albany, Boston.
Ocala, 20 miles south, seems about a half-century away. Despite the cell phone on his belt, Spyke seems like a throwback, too. He'd rather work in the groves than chat. He wears a ball cap, jeans and boots. If there's a heart on the sleeve of his flannel shirt, you can't see it.
His granddaddy started growing oranges after World War II in South Florida. His daddy did, too. The heir apparent, Spyke studied agriculture at the University of Florida. As a graduate student, he'd drive from Gainesville east down two-lane oak canopy roads past the cabbage palms and the sandhill cranes in the pastures until he hit U.S. 301. He'd turn right and head for the Orange Shop ahead. It reminded him of home.
After college he worked in Fort Pierce as the county's agriculture expert. Later he managed groves throughout the state, specializing in fruit grown along the Indian River. Yet he never forgot the Orange Shop. A decade ago, when it went on the market — the previous owner tired of fighting the weather — he and his wife bought it.
"I like a challenge," he told friends. "I like history."
He knows it sounds odd, but he also liked eating navel oranges grown in Marion County. "The best navel oranges in the world come from around here," he says, in beginning what, for him, amounts to a lengthy oratory. "I know everybody says their oranges are the best. But listen, I'm talking from long experience. Navels like cold weather. They need a little more cold weather to bloom properly. Listen, the navels from the Indian River region of our state are just as sweet. But they don't have the aroma, the bouquet of navel oranges from this far north."
He reaches into his jeans for a folding knife with an impossibly long and narrow blade. An orangeman's blade, the knife goes in and out of his pocket a dozen times a day as he samples today's fruit for shipping. He selects a plump navel, makes a cut, surgically removes a yellow wedge, pops it into his mouth.
"That's what a navel orange is supposed to taste like. You taste the bouquet."
• • •
He grows Satsumas, Fallglos, Sunbursts, Clements, Murcotts, Honeybells, Valencias and a variety developed in Citra after the Civil War, the pineapple orange. He is among the few growers who still bother with Temples, once the most famous of Florida oranges, now considered a high-risk variety. "Well, they're fragile," Spyke says. "They bruise. A lot of supermarkets won't carry them anymore."
The Orange Shop is among the growing minority of Florida roadside citrus businesses that persist in selling fresh-squeezed juice. "There are a lot of people living in Florida now who have never had a glass of fresh-squeezed juice,'' he says.
It's hard for him to fathom. Spyke has been around long enough to remember when the smell of blossoms from a million trees perfumed the winter air from the southern tip to the northern woods. The orange blossom perfume drifted across two-lane roads past the mom-and-pop stores and through the open windows of little bungalows.
Now we shut our windows and turn on the air-conditioning. Some of us have burglar bars. Many of us know the past from history books and musty postcards hidden in Grandfather's dresser drawer.
It's a Facebook world we live in now. In North Florida the Orange Shop continues its role as Indian head penny.
Jeff Klinkenberg can be reached at klink@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8727. His latest book is "Pilgrim in the Land of Alligators."
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