Welcome Home

Bradenton became my home when I was four. My parents moved there after World War II ended to begin a new life after having lived in Lacoochee for several years. Since we were away from family, we took trips back to Lacoochee and Trilby to visit my father's parents and to Starke to visit my mother's parents. My mother and daddy had a '36 Chevrolet in that fashionable color of black. There were no interstates, and to a four-year-old, those trips seemed like an eternity.

Whenever we returned the trip, this sign was a welcome sight. It meant that we were home. This sign is now in our South Florida Museum...not the original sign, but a replica...a sweet reminder.

Carmi's theme this week is "signs." You can join in or see other signs at his site.

Smiles

I've read for sometime a blog by a mom of a 3-year-old toddler in California. Often she includes "Froggyisms," some of the funny things that her daughter comes up with. I commented once that I could hardly wait until Ella would be coming up with her own funny sayings.

Yesterday a nap was not in the schedule, Ella's schedule, that is. She usually goes right down and sleeps for three hours, and I generally get a nap in too. Not yesterday. I finally gave up and got some markers and paper out. When she managed to do it, I'm not sure, but sometime during our art project, she marked all over the bottom of her feet. When she got into the tub for her bath, she was quite upset that she wouldn't be "The Mixed-Up Chameleon" any more. Now you have to know Eric Carle's children's book by that title to understand..

Last night around 8 o'clock, she had her bath already and all the things that have to be done in getting her ready for bed. There was plenty of daylight outside, and she could hear children's voices outside. She went to the door and said, "My friends!" A couple of middle-school aged children from next door came over to the door, and Ella said, "I'm trapped inside!" That brought a chuckle to us all.

Growing up too fast

I'm going to take a quick trip to the store, Dad. Be back in a few.

Wordless Wednesday

Ask me what I did on Mother's Day

I read so many beautiful posts about Mother's Day yesterday. They were all so great. Sarah took me out for breakfast yesterday morning and then she asked me what I'd like to do. My response was, "Why don't we work on cleaning out the garage?"

Some time ago I had asked her to help me start getting rid of "stuff." My garage has lots of stuff. There is room for the car, but there is a lot of stuff. Sarah is super-organized. I'm not. Having taught kids who had labels like LD, EMH, EH, ADHD, I decided that I deserve the label OD - organizationally disabled. It's true... sad, but true.

We had worked on the garage some already, but yesterday as we worked there, actually Sarah did most of the work, we uncovered some treasures. In a small box were some school papers and art work that had been done over the years. I unfolded one paper, and it was quite a nice finger painting that Sarah had done. I opened another booklet, and it was a cookbook that David's kindergarten teacher had compiled and put together for the mom's.

I smiled as we went through the "stuff" and I discovered those treasures.
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I've had these photos waiting to be posted for a while. When I was on my way to Virginia back in April, I stopped in North Carolina for a couple of visits. Spring was just bursting forth.


A lovely home in a little North Carolina town.

The old tobacco barn at my friend's house

And a great friend, Kenju, whom I've met through blogging. This is the third time I've visited with her. The first time she drove over to the interstate for lunch. Last time I went to her house, and she served lunch. This time I took her out for lunch.

One of the lovely yards across the street from Kenju's house.

Fifty Years!

This past weekend our high school class celebrated our 50th year as graduates of Manatee High School in Bradenton. Friday morning several of us gathered to decorate the Palma Sola Botanical Park for the festivities of the evening.

Can you tell our school colors were red, white, and blue? As these balloons were being inflated, a few got away and landed on the ceiling. At the beginning we heard a loud pop as too much helium went into one of them. As they were tied, they were stored in the men's bathroom until ready to put them on the tables and tie them around the deck outside.

We were and are the Manatee High Hurricanes. On game day, hurricane warning flags fly. Our high school was the county high school until 1959 when the high school across the river had its first graduating class in many years. Now there are six.

It's always interesting to gather and reminisce. Some of the boys at dinner Saturday night were talking about cherry bombs and all the mischief they got into. The comment was made that you could walk into any store and buy the equipment needed for making all these things. They would have been a threat to the community these days. A lot of engineers came out of our class. Two of the very popular girls went into convents and lived as nuns for a few years. Our class president, whom we thought would surely be governor one day, did become an attorney, and continues to work in Dade County today.

The thing I like about these reunions is that we're all on a level playing field now. You can pretty much still tell who the cheerleaders were, who the rascals were, who the brainy ones were, but we've all gotten to be senior citizens with our extra pounds, some wrinkles where there were none, artificial joints here and there, but we still laugh together, cry together, and remember the "good times" we had in the fifties.

I think this is how most of us felt when the two evenings were over -- "too pooped to pop!"