Letting the city come to you

Gordon Pearce EVAN WILLIAMS/FLORIDA WEEKLY When Gordon and Ola Pearce moved into their house in North Fort Myers, there were orange groves, "as far as you could see, and right up to the windows," Mr. Pearce said. That was in the early 1950s, after he came home from World War II.

He took a glance out the kitchen window last Sunday, where he stood in faded blue work pants and a red flannel shirt. The view had changed. The oak trees Mr. Pearce planted a half century ago cast expansive, late-afternoon shadows on parts of his 2 1/2 acres. It's surrounded by a residential neighborhood and the hum of urban growth coming from Bayshore Road.

"Where Wal-Mart is, there was a big grapefruit grove," Mr. Pearce said. "I spent a lot of hours down in that old grove."

George E. Judd, who operated citrus groves in Southwest Florida along with other real-estate ventures, used to own the property. Mr. Pearce worked for him, caring for the groves and maintaining farm equipment. He also ran an automotive repair business on the side.

The Pearces ultimately paid $6,500 for the three-bedroom home, including the land. The house was built more than a century ago, originally as a home for a foreman with Seaboard Railroad.

For decades, Mr. Pearce said, "You could hear owls — hoot owls in the morning. We had eagles come in at the creek in front of the house here. All that's destroyed and gone. It had an emotional effect on me." Another memory of that more private era in Florida's history: "I could pee anywhere on this property I wanted to and never be seen."

Mr. Pearce met Ola in 1950, while she was still in high school. He owned a "woods buggy," like a four-wheeler, and they had a first date when she wanted to take a ride in it.

"It's a good thing I got married," he said. "I probably would have turned out an alcoholic."

Now, to stay out of each other's hair, the Pearces divide care of the property between them, a gentleman's agreement.

"We're trespassing," Mr. Pearce said with a blue-eyed wink, strolling through his wife's "half" of the land, where there are numerous small flower gardens.

On his half he grows sugarcane, grape vines, grapefruit and tangerines. When he peels a tangerine with an old pocketknife and eats it in the field, as one imagines he has done on hundreds of warm winter days, it seems like some kind of ancient sacrament.

Mr. Pearce, 86 this December, was born in Mulberry, a small town in Polk County. His father was born near Arcadia, a farmer and repairman who did odd jobs such as well drilling, "anything to make a dollar," during the Great Depression. After his mother died in 1931, Mr. Pearce moved to Alva, where he entered the fourth grade.

"I looked out the window more than I did study," he admitted.

Mr. Pearce dropped out of school and joined the Navy — he was a machinist's mate 1st class — and served in the reserve for 17 years after WWII. Three years ago, the state awarded him a high school diploma, because he's a veteran.

"After about a half a century," he said, laughing at the absurdity of the now useless diploma. "I'd never been asked before for a diploma." He added, almost gasping, "It might come in handy one day… when I apply for another job."

The certificate is framed, hanging in his living room.

Mr. Pearce has worked for Raymond Lumber in North Fort Myers since the late 1950s, repairing cars and equipment. He still works there on an oncall basis, about one day every month.

"Whenever you get old, your friends all die off," Mr. Pearce said. "And when you work outside, you meet younger people and become friends with them — that way you're not in this world by yourself."

The Pierces also have a son and daughter, five grandchildren and a great-grandson, many of whom live in Fort Myers.

"We used to go to a drive-through theater here in North Fort Myers," Mr. Pearce said. (The screen still sits there, abandoned, but the property is sometimes used for a Saturday morning farmers market). "That is, until the kids got big enough to fight and raise hell in the back seat (a two-door, 1947 Chevrolet)."

When Mr. Pearce was a boy, he went to silent movies in Lakeland with his aunt. He also liked to "chase rabbits," hunt and fish. Out by his barn, he still has buckets where nets used to catch mullet are soaking.

"I go fishing once in a while when the mullet's running fat," he said.