Eastpoint childhood shaped Tucker's ambition

Kenneth Tucker’s memoir of his adventures as a tail gunner on a B-17 bomber go full circle, from his upbringing in Eastpoint all the way through to his return there after the war.

The son of A.L. Tucker, a seafood dealer who was the first in the state of Florida to ship crabmeat in cans, Tucker’s memoir “Last Roll Call” is full of marvelous memories of a childhood growing up in Franklin County during the Depression.

“Nobody had a dime,” he said. “A quarter looked as big as a cartwheel. My family never went hungry, but we sure did eat a lot of mullet and beans. Back then you couldn’t even find a rabbit back in the woods.”

In fact, a song “Cold Biscuits” written by his nephew, a bluegrass banjo player named Billy Samford, is based on A.L. Tucker’s stories, and is reprinted in the back of the book.

            Samford is the son of Tucker’s younger sister, Dattie, who has passed away, as has older brother, Arthur, and oldest sister, Hilda. His sister, Loyce Novak, lives in Panacea, and sister Thelma Rowell in Carrabelle.

            Tucker’s father died in 1956 at age 67, but his mother, Camelia Segree Tucker, lived as a widow for the 34 years, continuing to be an avid churchgoer, and fisher along the creeks, until she died in 1990 at age 93.

            In the opening portion of the book, Tucker relates tales from his youth, including how Apalachicola’s Dr. Moreau diagnosed his malaria when he was 9, and treated him with quinine, but kept him weak and frail over the next two years.

            As a result, he was often wrestled to the ground and pinned by two bullies, Jack Jetton and Tyler Crum, Tucker recalled, until summer work gathering beach wood enabled him to regain his strength.

            “I took both of those losers down,” he wrote. “I waited until I knew the time was right; they sure were surprised, but I wasn’t.

            “That was the end of it, I came out of the kinks,” he said. “What don’t do you in makes you stronger.”

            Tucker went on to become an athlete at Carrabelle High School, playing football first for Coach Scarborough, a Texan who still gives Tucker pause.

            “I don’t know why they hired him, because he didn’t know a thing about football,” he said.

            After that, he learned from Coach Ferrigno, a former player for the University of Florida Gators. “He taught us all we knew about football,” said Tucker, who in his senior year captained the team.

            Tucker also excelled in track, and broke the pole vault record in his junior year.

            Unfortunately, he would also later break the bamboo pole, and that ended that aspect of the program. “They never did get another one,” he said.

            Tucker was among about a half-dozen Carrabelle students to graduate in 1943, something that his parents insisted upon before he would pursue his dream of flying.

            In his memoirs, Tucker recalls the visits he made to Apalachicola with his father, and making the rounds to Buzzett’s and Creekmore’s drug stores, the George’s and the Nichols’ department stores, and the Sangarees’ barber shop.