The Golden Honeymoon | Page 3

over 200,000 members to it and they call
themselves the Tin Canners on account of most of their food being put
up in tin cans. One couple we seen in the Tent City was a couple from
Brady, Texas, named Mr. and Mrs. Pence, which the old man is over
eighty years of age and they had come in their auto all the way from
home, a distance of 1,641 miles. They took five weeks for the trip, Mr.
Pence driving the entire distance.
The Tin Canners hails from every State in the Union and in the summer
time they visit places like New England and the Great Lakes region,
but in the winter the most of them comes to Florida and scatters all over
the State. While we was down there, they was a national convention of
them at Gainesville, Florida, and they elected a Fredonia, New York,
man as their president. His title is Royal Tin Can Opener of the World.
They have got a song wrote up which everybody has got to learn it
before they are a member:
"The tin can forever! Hurrah, boys! Hurrah!
Up with the tin can! Down with the foe!
We will rally round the campfire, we'll rally once again,

Shouting, 'We auto camp forever!'"
That is something like it. And the members has also got to have a tin
can fastened on to the front of their machine.
I asked Mother how she would like to travel around that way and she
said:
"Fine, but not with an old rattle brain like you driving."
"Well," I said, "I am eight years younger than this Mr. Pence who
drove here from Texas."
"Yes," she said, "but he is old enough to not be skittish."
You can't get ahead of Mother.
Well, one of the first things we done in St. Petersburg was to go to the
Chamber of Commerce and register our names and where we was from
as they's great rivalry amongst the different States in regards to the
number of their citizens visiting in town and of course our little State
don't stand much of a show, but still every little bit helps, as the fella
says. All and all, the man told us, they was eleven thousand names
registered, Ohio leading with some fifteen hundred-odd and New York
State next with twelve hundred. Then come Michigan, Pennsylvania
and so on down, with one man each from Cuba and Nevada.
The first night we was there, they was a meeting of the New York-New
Jersey Society at the Congregational Church and a man from
Ogdensburg, New York State, made the talk. His subject was Rainbow
Chasing. He is a Rotarian and a very convicting speaker, though I
forget his name.
Our first business, of course, was to find a place to eat and after trying
several places we run on to a cafeteria on Central Avenue that suited us
up and down. We eat pretty near all our meals there and it averaged
about two dollars per day for the two of us, but the food was well
cooked and everything nice and clean. A man don't mind paying the

price if things is clean and well cooked.
On the third day of February, which is Mother's birthday, we spread
ourselves and eat supper at the Poinsettia Hotel and they charged us
seventy-five cents for a sirloin steak that wasn't hardly big enough for
one.
I said to Mother: "Well," I said, "I guess it's a good thing every day
ain't your birthday or we would be in the poorhouse."
"No," says Mother, "because if every day was my birthday, I would be
old enough by this time to of been in my grave long ago."
You can't get ahead of Mother.
In the hotel they had a card-room where they was several men and
ladies playing five hundred and this new fangled whist bridge. We also
seen a place where they was dancing, so I asked Mother would she like
to trip tne light fantastic toe and she said no, she was too old to squirm
like you have got to do now days. We watched some of the young folks
at it awhile till Mother got disgusted and said we would have to see a
good movie to take the taste out of our mouth. Mother is a great movie
heroyne and we go twice a week here at home.
But I want to tell you about the Park. The second day we was there we
visited the Park, which is a good deal like the one in Tampa, only
bigger, and they's more fun goes on here every day than you could
shake a stick at. In the middle they's a big bandstand and chairs for the
folks to