By Tom.

Dania Florida 1950’s use to be the Tomato growing town in Florida. The east marsh was where they grew some of the best tomatoes. When I was very young we lived a block from the tomato packing house. Residents could go to the packing house and receive free tomatoes that were to ripe to ship but for eating them the next three or four days they were perfect. At about twelve I would take a bubbled brown grocery bag and walk there and ask for tomatoes and receive what ever I could carry back home.

Grand mother was living there watching us while our parents worked out of town. She would cook them down, make sauce and what ever. It was a free source of food.Dania Florida which is now called Dania Beach Florida had its own catchup factory. I never went into it the outside did not look like much. It looked like an old metal building with a couple of loading docks.

We had tomatoes day parades, tomato fight in a street they blocked off, by the cheerleaders from school. My older sister was in the  the tomato fight. The tom atom wound up in the grandstand and got the crowd of watchers. They had grease pole climb, Pie eating contest and many other things going on. It was the largest annual event in town. Continue reading →