My great-grandfather had a 5,000-acre ranch of unimproved pasture next to Crooked Lake (in Polk County), and from his writings, a life right out of A Land Remembered. He raised Brahman cattle, a mean but hardy breed that survived the Florida climate. ... I grew up hunting and on horseback and going to the packinghouse.
I started at (the University of) Florida but found that they didn't give grades in partying and chasing girls, so I retreated to St. Petersburg Junior College (now St. Petersburg College). I have a lot of respect for those colleges of second chance.
I moved to the Keys because I wanted to have a little last-minute fun and get some trial work experience before settling down back in Tampa. It was the most corrupt place because it had been almost taken over by marijuana smugglers. ... When I say 'corrupt,' I mean the state attorney told me within 30 minutes of meeting casually that he 'used to drink a lot, but now just smokes a lot of pot.'
The reform state attorney asked me to head up a narcotics task force to clean it up. We incarcerated over 100 smugglers in two years. In those days, it was a gentleman's game, and all but one shook my hand after sentencing.
When I ran for judge my third year out of law school at 28, I honestly didn't expect to win. When knocking on doors in Key West on a hot summer's day, I knocked on the door of a prominent local bondsman and alleged smuggler. We both looked startled. ... He asked in a great Conch accent, 'DeFoor, what are you doing out on a hot summer day?' I said, 'I am looking for votes, no point in stopping here.' To which he responded, 'Oh no, brother, I am with you. And my family and all my friends.'
When (former Gov. Jeb Bush) got elected, he called me into his office and he said, 'What do you want?' I said I wanted to be secretary of corrections. He said he would like me to be his Everglades Czar. I said, 'Perhaps you didn't hear what I said, governor. ... I want to run for attorney general someday.' He said, 'Perhaps you didn't hear me. I am the governor and want you to be my Everglades czar.' So I said, 'All right, let's go.'
I have come to believe that God imprints on each of us basically what amounts to a message. When we align ourselves with that call, it really lights up our interior life and accounts for extraordinary success by secular measure. ... I had always felt the tug, which led to governance of a school with a seminary, but resisted it.
There is an old poem by Francis Thompson called 'The Hound of Heaven.' ... It perfectly describes how God has his call on all of us, and He won't give up. He just relentlessly, tirelessly comes after us our entire life until we give up, or we stay restless and unhappy. I read that poem and felt it in my heart. ... I called (Bishop Leo Frade). ... I said, 'What do you think?', hoping and thinking that he would say it was impossible. He said with his great Cuban accent, 'Allison, I have been waiting for this call for 20 years.'
I had started all my sermons with 'My name is Allison, and I am a sinner,' because I want people to know we are in the same boat. In my last sermon (in a prison ministry), I said that preface and then added, 'It is hard for me to believe that I came in here over 10 years ago as a drinking trial lawyer, lobbyist and politician to save you.' And we all started laughing, the prisoners and me. We started roaring laughing, because the truth is, they had saved me, and that was God's punchline.
Probably the most important thing that anyone should know is how quickly Florida grew from being the smallest and poorest state east of Mississippi in my mother's time. ... Florida was smaller and poorer than Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia and thought to have less of a future before mosquito control and air conditioning and the military training here during World War II. Those things changed everything.
For this old Florida Cracker, the idea of preserving the last parts of Florida that we could for our grandchildren to be able to see what Florida really looked like — instead of thinking it looks like Orlando, no offense to Orlando — is very powerful. ... It is a race right now between us and the bulldozers to preserve anything in Northeast Florida.