Interview with William Corpew O'Neal 9
February 22, 1996




C: Who were those four people? Did you get to fish with them some? 0: Oh yes, well, there was Henry Waits, who was the Seaboard Railroad agent. There were
 more than four now that I think about it. Mr. Joe Shannon, who owned the local bakery and had a mortgage on practically every fraternity house that wasn't financed by Uncle
 Gus Phifer, parenthetically, who was not a fisherman.

C: Well, that's not too important, but they would take you fishing. Did they have sons, or
 were these people your contemporaries?

0: They would take us fishing provided we paddled the boat. C: Oh, right. You did some of the work. Cleaned the fish? 0: Not necessarily that.

C: So that's an activity you enjoyed most all your life -- fishing. What else did you young
 people do. Did you do hunting, also? 0: Oh yes.

C: What kind of hunting did you do? 0: Dove hunting largely. Those of us whose families were fortunate enough to have bird
 dogs went quail shooting. Likewise, with deer. Farm boys became deer hunters. C: So you did all types of hunting in those days? 0: Different boys did different types of hunting. C: But all in this same area of Gainesville? 0: Yes. In deer hunting, there were deer camps near and far. There are general areas
 where they still might be. The Suwanee River swamp area, the Gulf Hammock area. C: Did they hunt in the Ocala Forest in those days? 0: Yes, the Ocala Forest area. There probably are fifty times more deer in this area now
 than there were then, perhaps even more than that. My father was not a hunter but

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