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Seffner

His parents bought their two-room house for $150 during a time when most of the land was woods and cow pasture.

I'm a Florida Cracker and a Brandon native. I was born in the Tampa Municipal Hospital (now Tampa General Hospital) in January 1937.

My dad was a carpenter; he volunteered with the Little League and the Boy Scouts. Mother had a nursery at the house and enjoyed working with flowers.

Mom and Dad bought a two-room house with 21/2 acres off Fisher Avenue east of Falkenburg Road in 1934 for $150. The old house had no electricity, no running water or indoor plumbing until Dad added two bedrooms and a bathroom.

Growing up, my friend David Pardue, his brother, Warren, and I explored most of the woods between Falkenburg Road and Lakewood and between Woodbury Road and Columbus Drive. We were in the Boy Scouts and often would camp out in the cow pastures behind our homes.

In the late '40s and '50s, Falkenburg was a two-lane gravel road that dead-ended at Hopewell Road (now Brandon Boulevard/State Road 60). There were only two houses on the west side of Falkenburg Road, the Falkenburg home and the Allday home just north of the Seaboard railroad tracks. The rest of the land was cow pastures. There were about 10 houses on the east side of Falkenburg.

State Road 60 used to dead-end at U.S. 301. You had to take 301 north to Broadway or Seventh Avenue to go to a hospital, doctor or dentist in Tampa. There were pine trees at the corner of Kings and Brandon Boulevard where Clayton Plaza is now. And there was a large orange grove where Kmart is now.

Most of the roads in Brandon were dirt roads; there was only a flashing light at Parsons and 60 - and one gas station.

Buddy Siegel and I were the first Troop 35 Boy Scouts to be awarded the Eagle rank. My Dad along with our Scoutmaster, Hiram Carmichael, and Cliff Pardue and Max Siegel built the Troop 35 Scout hut behind the Sadie Park Community Center.

After graduating from Brandon High School in 1955, I attended the University of Tampa for two years then transferred to the University of Florida in Gainesville, where I received my degree in 1960. I worked in Akron, Ohio; Lakeland; Philadelphia; Charlotte, N.C.; and Tulsa, Okla., before retiring in 1998.

Now I enjoy woodworking, home repairs and being president of the Brandon High School Alumni Association. I live in Seffner and often take Windhorst, Lakewood, Woodbury and Falkenburg Roads to bypass the congestion on Brandon Boulevard. Of all the cities I've lived in, I like Brandon the best to raise my family.

- Lopez lives on Forestwood Drive in Seffner.