Hey, "Baby Boomers"....Remember these drills...We were doing them in the '60's in my school.
I guess we had to do something but this wouldn't have done much to help.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Friday, November 11, 2011
LIVING IN SIN…..Grandma’s Struggle for Survival
Some women are still like slaves in the U.S. to be bought and sold by men and our government condones it. If men work for a company all of their adult lives they receive a pension for thirty years of devoted service. Women on the other hand, particularly those who have had no career of their own outside of being a homemaker, if they are lucky, receive a certain amount of “pension” referred to as alimony. The problem is that they can never marry again with out losing that money.
A man can remarry with out losing his pension but a woman , if she marries again , she supposedly becomes the “property” of her new husband so therefore the alimony stops. It is as though all the years she put in as maid, cook, nanny, companion, household manager, lover, hostess, personal shopper, partner in business endeavors, chauffeur, psychologist, nurse, broodmare, etc. never existed.
If a man were to have to pay for all those services from someone else the cost would be astronomical, but they are all received free of charge under the guise of “marriage”, from an unsuspecting female who is under the illusion that she will live “happily ever after”.
Generally, when the woman first suspects she has been “had” is when the children are raised, the husband is successful, commanding a large salary that she helped him to achieve and he decides that he no longer needs her any more and decides to trade her in for a newer
(younger) model.
What happens then? After the initial disbelief, breakdown and grieving, she tries to find a job, which isn’t always easy if she has had no training other than the domestic work she did for her husband. Sometimes the judge will award temporary alimony until she can get vocational training…In cases of older women the judge will award “permanent” alimony, which will terminate if the woman ever remarries as though she would then become the property of another man who will provide for her. A man on the other hand can remarry whomever and whenever he wishes and his income remains unchanged.
In earlier days the social norm was for a woman to marry shortly out of school, perhaps having a brief career before marriage which was usually given up to become a housewife…The “Mrs. Cleaver” syndrome.
Women did not question the practicality of this move because most marriages lasted in those days…My grandparents were married 60 years. The woman’s natural role was to care for the children and to keep the home fires burning. She rarely even considered preparing herself for the necessity of having to earn her own living. Men’s and women’s roles were clearly defined…Men went to work and were the bread winners while the woman ran the household. Sometimes the woman would work outside the home in the early years of marriage at a menial job so the husband could go to college while foregoing her own education. During the marriage at times of economic downturn the woman would sometimes take in laundry or baby sit other people’s children to help make ends meet.
I don’t know who decided that all that work and effort on the woman’s part was supposed to be freely given to the man.
During the 1960’s things started to change. Women decided to have careers outside the home and prepared themselves through education to be able to earn a decent living for themselves. Some women didn’t think marriage was a necessity for having children. For some of the career women that was alright, but for many more women who weren’t able to support themselves and their children, the government became their “husband” providing them with a check every month and food stamps as well. These were “informed” choices these women made because the world’s view of men’s and women’s roles had already changed. The idea of marriage as a career choice for women was obsolete.
The problems were for the unsuspecting older woman who was married under the old school of thought, before “woman’s lib,” who was still playing by the old rules. She entered into marriage genuinely thinking it was the right thing to do because her mother and grandmother and all prior generations had done it. It never occurred to her that the rug would literally be pulled out from under her after she had devoted all of her youth to her husband. The poorest economic sector of the US is the older female, who no doubt did not prepare to support herself when she was young because she trusted the institution of marriage to provide for her.
What adds insult to injury is the fact, not only of the alimony stopping if a woman remarries, but her Social Security check stops too. If a divorced woman has never worked outside the home and she has been married to the same man for 10 years or more she can draw off her husband’s Social Security benefits without his being decreased in any way. He still gets the same amount and she gets the equivalent of roughly one third of the amount he receives. How they think that is fair, I will never know, but regardless, that is how it is. If she remarries, the benefits stop, under the assumption she is like a piece of livestock being “sold” to another “owner”. No consideration being given to the years of hard work, sleepless nights and self deprivation she endured while keeping house for her husband.
They don’t even have un-employment for displaced homemakers to give them a chance to regain their equilibrium. One day they have a home and happy family and the next day they are pushing a shopping cart down the tracks containing all their earthly belongings (not such an outrageous exaggeration).
Some older women can support themselves if they are lucky enough to be able to find an employer that will hire an older person with virtually no experience .Even if she goes back to school, competition is tough and jobs are scarce.
If the woman has a family to fall back on that is a great help but if she is alone in the world, she will be very lucky to be able to attain a decent lifestyle on her own.
This is why many older women are forced to make certain choices that are not in keeping with their religious upbringing and moral beliefs such as cohabitating with a man outside of wedlock. “Shacking up” has become the only way a lot of women can survive today.
If she marries the new man, her income will stop. Even if he professes to love her and keep her, how can she trust that it will be true this time when it wasn’t before with her last husband?
There definitely have to be some changes made to the system that keeps women in the role of slaves to be passed from one man to another as property when she has worked all her life in a thankless marriage to be discarded at the husband’s whim. Yes, the women of the last generation were naïve to have let this happen to them and if they had it to do over chances are they would not. However, the fact remains there are still some relics of the old social order that are suffering the consequences of the way things were done then.
A woman’s alimony should be viewed as compensation for services rendered and not be stopped when she remarries. She still put in her time and effort. Why should it stop if she remarries? It doesn’t make sense. Certainly the Social Security should continue if she remarries and she should be given the same amount her husband gets as she was working at home for him all those years to enable him to accrue all those benefits.
Once you are divorced if you are fortunate enough to find another man you can love,
it is very difficult to not be able to marry him, and to not be accorded the rights of being a wife. Even if you and he want to marry, the financial repercussions can be devastating.
Living in sin is sometimes the only way to survive financially.
I have not seen very much written on this subject. It is time this issue was faced head on and corrected. These women have nothing to be ashamed of. They are not slackers looking for a hand out. They are the wives and mothers that made our country strong. They are the hands that rocked the cradle. How can it be that they can be treated so unfairly and then be the butt of jokes and be jeered at by the very men to whom they devoted their lives.
I’m sure this will not be a popular topic among the male sector of the population that have perpetuated this dominance over females for so long.
There are ladies suffering in silence that are too proud to speak up or complain.
The law must be changed to require permanent and fair compensation for home makers and must include, retroactively, all the mothers, grandmothers and housewives that devoted their lives to their families that are sitting out there broke wondering what happened. © VXA 2009
A man can remarry with out losing his pension but a woman , if she marries again , she supposedly becomes the “property” of her new husband so therefore the alimony stops. It is as though all the years she put in as maid, cook, nanny, companion, household manager, lover, hostess, personal shopper, partner in business endeavors, chauffeur, psychologist, nurse, broodmare, etc. never existed.
If a man were to have to pay for all those services from someone else the cost would be astronomical, but they are all received free of charge under the guise of “marriage”, from an unsuspecting female who is under the illusion that she will live “happily ever after”.
Generally, when the woman first suspects she has been “had” is when the children are raised, the husband is successful, commanding a large salary that she helped him to achieve and he decides that he no longer needs her any more and decides to trade her in for a newer
(younger) model.
What happens then? After the initial disbelief, breakdown and grieving, she tries to find a job, which isn’t always easy if she has had no training other than the domestic work she did for her husband. Sometimes the judge will award temporary alimony until she can get vocational training…In cases of older women the judge will award “permanent” alimony, which will terminate if the woman ever remarries as though she would then become the property of another man who will provide for her. A man on the other hand can remarry whomever and whenever he wishes and his income remains unchanged.
In earlier days the social norm was for a woman to marry shortly out of school, perhaps having a brief career before marriage which was usually given up to become a housewife…The “Mrs. Cleaver” syndrome.
Women did not question the practicality of this move because most marriages lasted in those days…My grandparents were married 60 years. The woman’s natural role was to care for the children and to keep the home fires burning. She rarely even considered preparing herself for the necessity of having to earn her own living. Men’s and women’s roles were clearly defined…Men went to work and were the bread winners while the woman ran the household. Sometimes the woman would work outside the home in the early years of marriage at a menial job so the husband could go to college while foregoing her own education. During the marriage at times of economic downturn the woman would sometimes take in laundry or baby sit other people’s children to help make ends meet.
I don’t know who decided that all that work and effort on the woman’s part was supposed to be freely given to the man.
During the 1960’s things started to change. Women decided to have careers outside the home and prepared themselves through education to be able to earn a decent living for themselves. Some women didn’t think marriage was a necessity for having children. For some of the career women that was alright, but for many more women who weren’t able to support themselves and their children, the government became their “husband” providing them with a check every month and food stamps as well. These were “informed” choices these women made because the world’s view of men’s and women’s roles had already changed. The idea of marriage as a career choice for women was obsolete.
The problems were for the unsuspecting older woman who was married under the old school of thought, before “woman’s lib,” who was still playing by the old rules. She entered into marriage genuinely thinking it was the right thing to do because her mother and grandmother and all prior generations had done it. It never occurred to her that the rug would literally be pulled out from under her after she had devoted all of her youth to her husband. The poorest economic sector of the US is the older female, who no doubt did not prepare to support herself when she was young because she trusted the institution of marriage to provide for her.
What adds insult to injury is the fact, not only of the alimony stopping if a woman remarries, but her Social Security check stops too. If a divorced woman has never worked outside the home and she has been married to the same man for 10 years or more she can draw off her husband’s Social Security benefits without his being decreased in any way. He still gets the same amount and she gets the equivalent of roughly one third of the amount he receives. How they think that is fair, I will never know, but regardless, that is how it is. If she remarries, the benefits stop, under the assumption she is like a piece of livestock being “sold” to another “owner”. No consideration being given to the years of hard work, sleepless nights and self deprivation she endured while keeping house for her husband.
They don’t even have un-employment for displaced homemakers to give them a chance to regain their equilibrium. One day they have a home and happy family and the next day they are pushing a shopping cart down the tracks containing all their earthly belongings (not such an outrageous exaggeration).
Some older women can support themselves if they are lucky enough to be able to find an employer that will hire an older person with virtually no experience .Even if she goes back to school, competition is tough and jobs are scarce.
If the woman has a family to fall back on that is a great help but if she is alone in the world, she will be very lucky to be able to attain a decent lifestyle on her own.
This is why many older women are forced to make certain choices that are not in keeping with their religious upbringing and moral beliefs such as cohabitating with a man outside of wedlock. “Shacking up” has become the only way a lot of women can survive today.
If she marries the new man, her income will stop. Even if he professes to love her and keep her, how can she trust that it will be true this time when it wasn’t before with her last husband?
There definitely have to be some changes made to the system that keeps women in the role of slaves to be passed from one man to another as property when she has worked all her life in a thankless marriage to be discarded at the husband’s whim. Yes, the women of the last generation were naïve to have let this happen to them and if they had it to do over chances are they would not. However, the fact remains there are still some relics of the old social order that are suffering the consequences of the way things were done then.
A woman’s alimony should be viewed as compensation for services rendered and not be stopped when she remarries. She still put in her time and effort. Why should it stop if she remarries? It doesn’t make sense. Certainly the Social Security should continue if she remarries and she should be given the same amount her husband gets as she was working at home for him all those years to enable him to accrue all those benefits.
Once you are divorced if you are fortunate enough to find another man you can love,
it is very difficult to not be able to marry him, and to not be accorded the rights of being a wife. Even if you and he want to marry, the financial repercussions can be devastating.
Living in sin is sometimes the only way to survive financially.
I have not seen very much written on this subject. It is time this issue was faced head on and corrected. These women have nothing to be ashamed of. They are not slackers looking for a hand out. They are the wives and mothers that made our country strong. They are the hands that rocked the cradle. How can it be that they can be treated so unfairly and then be the butt of jokes and be jeered at by the very men to whom they devoted their lives.
I’m sure this will not be a popular topic among the male sector of the population that have perpetuated this dominance over females for so long.
There are ladies suffering in silence that are too proud to speak up or complain.
The law must be changed to require permanent and fair compensation for home makers and must include, retroactively, all the mothers, grandmothers and housewives that devoted their lives to their families that are sitting out there broke wondering what happened. © VXA 2009
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
The Birthday That Almost Didn’t Happen
Today is my Birthday. I know my Mother would not mind me writing this. If she were still alive, I know she would have encouraged it.
Many years ago when birth control was even more unreliable than today…Some women who wanted to limit the size of their families used occasional abortion as a means to that end…Those who could afford to were able to obtain a relatively safe termination to their pregnancies…Some less costly ones were not so safe and downright dangerous.
When I was a nineteen year old widowed mother of a small baby, I thought I had become pregnant again…I was really not in a position to have another child…
I wasn’t much of a deep thinker in those days and really hadn’t given much thought to life in general or questioned why we are here or anything else philosophical…My life had pretty much been a series of struggles and trying to have some fun in between them.
When I was in the panic mode of thinking I was pregnant, I momentarily considered an abortion. I mentioned it to my mother, who confided to me that she had had a couple of abortions before I was born and that if she could have afforded it, I would have not been born either…I had always wondered why my sister and brother were twelve and fourteen years older than I am. It turns out that there were a couple of other brothers and or sisters of mine who never made it here because they were aborted.
Mom cried and begged me to forgive her and said she had always regretted her actions and they had caused a black cloud of depression over her ever since…She said she didn’t know what she would do without me and she was so sorry she had done what she did… The abortions were supposed to make her life easier but they made it much worse for the guilt that she lived with on a daily basis.
I was angry with her at first for killing my unborn siblings… I missed having them in my life even though I never knew them…I was even angrier at her for considering killing me and then telling me about it…
After a while of thinking it all over and letting it process through my brain and heart, I forgave her. I realized that at the time,she thought was doing the right thing for herself and her family…I also forgave her for telling me about it, as I realized she was trying to stop me from making the same mistake that she made, a mistake that might possibly haunt me for a lifetime.
As it turned out, it was a false alarm for me, I wasn’t really pregnant after all, but I had learned an entirely knew way of looking at life from the experience.
Every birthday, when my mother was alive, she would wish me a happy birthday on March 16th, and I would respond with a happy birthday to her too even though it wasn't her real birthday, she was the one who did all the work when I was born.
My mom has been gone many years,now, but I still keep her picture in my bedroom. When I awoke this morning, the first thing I did was to look at her picture and say “Happy, Birthday, Mom”. Then I got a flash of thought…What if I had been one of the kids my mother could have afforded to abort?
I wouldn’t have gotten to wake up to the sunlight streaming into my lovely room or smell the blossoms blooming outside my bedroom window…or been able to pet the cat and dog sleeping at the foot of my bed…I would have missed out on all the wonderful memories I am so thankful for having lived with my children and grand children, who wouldn’t be here either. The guy whose life I saved with the Heimlich maneuver, at my ex husband’s company bar-b-que , also would no longer be here and his kids would be without a dad. I started thinking about the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” and felt very much like the main character…I might not have done as many dramatic things as in the movie, but I know my life has touched many others and I would like to think that my being here has been a good thing for those whose lives have touched mine.
To think I almost missed out on birthday cake and ice cream and kite flying and the beach and the laughter of babies and the blue sky with puffy white clouds and Christmas and chocolate and a warm fire and books and music and flowers and giraffes and feeling my breath entering my body and stretching and dancing and my art work and my friends and my cozy home. The feelings of elation and sorrow of loving someone and losing that love…all these things that are part of who I am…
I am so grateful mom and dad were broke when she found out I was on the way and I was able to experience life…
I still think about my lost siblings who weren't so fortunate and hope that someday, somewhere, we will meet… That’s my birthday wish.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
FEARS
FEARS
Fears have become so specialized in recent years that there is a veritable smorgasboard of designer fears from which to choose. Once you cut through all the superfluous trappings, they mostly all boil down to the most basic fear plaguing mankind since time immemorial. The all time "Biggie"...Dying. In my opinion a little fear is not necessarily a bad thing. It keeps us from doing things that might make us dead. Many of todays fears are definitely not unfounded. I cannot understand why a person should try to overcome a fear of flying. Why try to convince yourself that you won't be instantly annihilated if the big mechanical bird crashes with you on board? I can't imagine a situation so important to me that I would risk my life to arrive somewhere a few hours sooner. I'll drive or take a boat or a train. There might still be an accident, but despite statistics, I feel my chances of walking or swimming away will be a heck of a lot better. Some of my other concerns, (not even counting terrorism or politicians or 2012) I won't go so far as to call them fears, are:
1.) Planes or space junk like Skylab falling on someplace I might be standing.
2.) Spiders, not in general, but I don't want them in my personal space.
3.) Being hit by a tossed dwarf or a tossed salad.
4.) Banana peels(this I am certain stems from early conditioning by Saturday morning cartoons and Three Stooges movies).
5.) Being in someones trailer during a tornado.
6.) Black cats(not necessarily crossing my path, but forgetting to feed my black cat "Killer", and sitting down to eat a tuna sandwich).
7.) Electro- magnetic fields(high-voltage wires, microwave ovens and electric blankets).
8.) Cancer and cancer "cures".
9.) AIDS
10.) Social Security running out before my time comes.
11.) Destruction of the ozone layer (global warming or second ice age I can't remember which).
12.) Salmonella in chicken and eggs.
13.) Free radicals in cooking oils.
14.) Mercury in fish.
15.) Insecticides in fruit and vegetables.
16.) Antibiotics and steroids in red meat(not to mention cholesterol and fat).
17.) Mosquitoes with encephalitis.
18.) Amoebas in the lakes.
19.) Asbestos, radon and mold in the buildings.
20.) Caffeine as well as the decaffeinating process.
21.) Sugar and sugar substitutes.
22.) Acid rain.
23.) Oil spills.
24.) Overpopulation of whales.
25.) Killer bees.
26.) Aluminum causing Alzheimer's disease(does this mean I can't sit in my folding lawn chair anymore?)
27.) Second hand smoke.
28.) Calling 911 and being put on hold.
29.) My car stalling in rush hour traffic just as my laxative starts to work.
30.) An uprising of the poor in this country and I'll somehow be mistaken for rich.
31.) Being stuck between floors on an escalator.
32.) My deodorant failing.
33.) Overlooked straight pins in new shirts.
34.) Being punished for removing the tags from pillows and mattresses.
35.) Alligators in the sewer.
36.) Finding rat parts in my Pepsi.
37.) Fingers in my chili.
38.) Germs from salad bars.
39.) Television evangelists.
40.) Subliminal satanic messages on my records.
41.) Bottled water.
42.) Lead pipes, lead crystal and lead paint.
43.) Hitch hikers.
44.) Pit bulls.
45.) Product tampering.
46.) Crazy drivers with road rage.
47.) Drive by shootings
48.) Side effects from medicines being worse than the condition you take them for.
49.)Identity theft.
50.) And finally oat bran(I'm not afraid of it, just highly suspicious).
With all this going on, if a person isn't a little nervous, he obviously doesn't understand the situation. We are up against a lot more than our early ancestors whose biggest fears were minor things like the Mastodon and the Saber Tooth Tiger. I guess the best thing for me to do is try to take it all in stride and live as fully as possible without taking any unnecessary risks. After all, I want my life to be interesting and fun, but I want to put off dealing with the "Biggie" as long as possible. VXA©
Fears have become so specialized in recent years that there is a veritable smorgasboard of designer fears from which to choose. Once you cut through all the superfluous trappings, they mostly all boil down to the most basic fear plaguing mankind since time immemorial. The all time "Biggie"...Dying. In my opinion a little fear is not necessarily a bad thing. It keeps us from doing things that might make us dead. Many of todays fears are definitely not unfounded. I cannot understand why a person should try to overcome a fear of flying. Why try to convince yourself that you won't be instantly annihilated if the big mechanical bird crashes with you on board? I can't imagine a situation so important to me that I would risk my life to arrive somewhere a few hours sooner. I'll drive or take a boat or a train. There might still be an accident, but despite statistics, I feel my chances of walking or swimming away will be a heck of a lot better. Some of my other concerns, (not even counting terrorism or politicians or 2012) I won't go so far as to call them fears, are:
1.) Planes or space junk like Skylab falling on someplace I might be standing.
2.) Spiders, not in general, but I don't want them in my personal space.
3.) Being hit by a tossed dwarf or a tossed salad.
4.) Banana peels(this I am certain stems from early conditioning by Saturday morning cartoons and Three Stooges movies).
5.) Being in someones trailer during a tornado.
6.) Black cats(not necessarily crossing my path, but forgetting to feed my black cat "Killer", and sitting down to eat a tuna sandwich).
7.) Electro- magnetic fields(high-voltage wires, microwave ovens and electric blankets).
8.) Cancer and cancer "cures".
9.) AIDS
10.) Social Security running out before my time comes.
11.) Destruction of the ozone layer (global warming or second ice age I can't remember which).
12.) Salmonella in chicken and eggs.
13.) Free radicals in cooking oils.
14.) Mercury in fish.
15.) Insecticides in fruit and vegetables.
16.) Antibiotics and steroids in red meat(not to mention cholesterol and fat).
17.) Mosquitoes with encephalitis.
18.) Amoebas in the lakes.
19.) Asbestos, radon and mold in the buildings.
20.) Caffeine as well as the decaffeinating process.
21.) Sugar and sugar substitutes.
22.) Acid rain.
23.) Oil spills.
24.) Overpopulation of whales.
25.) Killer bees.
26.) Aluminum causing Alzheimer's disease(does this mean I can't sit in my folding lawn chair anymore?)
27.) Second hand smoke.
28.) Calling 911 and being put on hold.
29.) My car stalling in rush hour traffic just as my laxative starts to work.
30.) An uprising of the poor in this country and I'll somehow be mistaken for rich.
31.) Being stuck between floors on an escalator.
32.) My deodorant failing.
33.) Overlooked straight pins in new shirts.
34.) Being punished for removing the tags from pillows and mattresses.
35.) Alligators in the sewer.
36.) Finding rat parts in my Pepsi.
37.) Fingers in my chili.
38.) Germs from salad bars.
39.) Television evangelists.
40.) Subliminal satanic messages on my records.
41.) Bottled water.
42.) Lead pipes, lead crystal and lead paint.
43.) Hitch hikers.
44.) Pit bulls.
45.) Product tampering.
46.) Crazy drivers with road rage.
47.) Drive by shootings
48.) Side effects from medicines being worse than the condition you take them for.
49.)Identity theft.
50.) And finally oat bran(I'm not afraid of it, just highly suspicious).
With all this going on, if a person isn't a little nervous, he obviously doesn't understand the situation. We are up against a lot more than our early ancestors whose biggest fears were minor things like the Mastodon and the Saber Tooth Tiger. I guess the best thing for me to do is try to take it all in stride and live as fully as possible without taking any unnecessary risks. After all, I want my life to be interesting and fun, but I want to put off dealing with the "Biggie" as long as possible. VXA©
Monday, January 24, 2011
Crisis in Our Country
Millions homeless in the USA...Sky rocketing unemployment...People without enough food to eat or without necessary medicines or health care...While practically everything we buy is made in China or some other foreign land...and everytime we call "Customer Service" for any reason whether it be for our mortage company or our cell phones or credit cards we are connected to someone in a foreign country..usually India, the Philippines or Mexico. The government talks of "creating jobs"...For starters why not just hire our own citizens to be customer service reps instead of outsourcing the jobs so the corporations can save money while starving their countrymen..or why not manufacture our goods here and not somewhere where labor is "cheaper" so the corporations can line their pockets while American families live in the woods. This country is in a crisis mode and it should be considered an act of treason to give a job to someone outside of our country that someone here can do..(By that I mean an American citizen NOT an illegal alien) This is America..We should take care of our own people first...We should only buy what is made in the USA and not outsource any jobs at all.
We always seem to be able to help other countries that are in need, ie. Haiti, but where is the money to help our poor and unemployed right here in this country?
And while I'm at it Americans should not have to be denied a job because they do not speak Spanish... English is the language of the USA...None of the other nationalities that form our melting pot had the luxury of continuing the usage of their native tongues at work or in school...At home they could speak what ever language they chose...They had to learn the English language to assimilate into our culture. That should not change..United we stand and divided we fall..Speaking two different languages in our country divides us.
Valerie X Armstrong 2011 ©
Friday, January 7, 2011
A Fish Tale or The One That Got Away
I own some rental property and one of my tenants moved out and left his huge Oscar Fish.I had no idea how to care for fish, but thanks to my local pet store and the internet, I soon learned.I was instructed to buy some "Feeder Fish" for the Oscar, which were adorable little Goldfish, to supplement his diet. I thought it was a barbaric idea but I did it anyway. There were several "feeders" in the little bucket I carried in from the pet store. My kids thought it was Chinese food from the looks of the container, but I told them it was Oscar's dinner not theirs.When I dumped the feeders into Oscar's tank there was a mad flurry of churning water as Oscar charged his victims. It was a disturbing sight to witness. In the aftermath of the mayhem the water sparkled brightly with what appeared to be gold glitter settling to the bottom very much like a snow globe after it has been shaken. It was the golden scales of the goldfish which were all that remained after Oscar's attack. Later that evening, my son called to me to come and look in Oscar's tank.One of the little feeder fish had escaped the massacre. He had hidden up under the filter where Oscar could not get to him. The little guy had used his brain and outsmarted the big guy in sort of a David and Goliath fashion. My son begged me to get the little fish out of Oscar's tank and set him up in his own fishbowl. I "fished" him out and we named him "Dave".Dave turned out to have a great personality. He was so entertaining and seemed to be genuinely glad to be alive. We never got any more feeder fish for Oscar. He had to get by with regular fish food. He didn't seem to mind and lived a long healthy life as did Dave. VXA©
Sunday, January 2, 2011
LAKESIDE MUSINGS
Every morning when I wake up it amazes me to think I have remained here so long…I am even a little afraid to acknowledge that thought in this writing for fear I will “jinx” my good fortune.
I am still living on the shores of beautiful Lake Susannah where I have been a dweller for many years…The first couple decades of which were spent in a much bigger house three doors down. I have lived here in my current home for over five years…
The sunsets over the lake are still the same but the neighborhood is evolving from a quiet little country environment to a more upscale area that includes houses in the five million dollar bracket.
The kids that my boys grew up with are still around but they are now sporting a few gray hairs. It is so strange to see their familiar faces with the subtle first signs of aging…like they are wearing those clear plastic Halloween masks with wrinkles that make a person look instantly older when they put them on. I keep waiting for them to remove the masks and reveal their youthful faces underneath.
I have been here so long that it is difficult to remember ever belonging anywhere else.
I am so in tune with the subtleties of this place that it’s every nuance is an inherent part of my being..The sights, the sounds, the smells, the slightest change in the temperature or breeze do not go unnoticed by me
..
There is a Bald Eagle that I watch every day from my bedroom window…He sits atop an old dead tree in my neighbor’s yard that juts above all the other green bushy surrounding trees with just a spikey skeleton of a trunk and branches…He sits there for hours at a time…Sometimes he will bring a freshly caught fish with him to devour..other times he will bring some other indistinguishible bit of prey. I remember once while living at my other house down the street..the same bird dropped a partially eaten duck from the top of my nearly hundred foot pine tree which slammed to the ground like a sack of potatoes just barely missing me by about six inches…As I sit spying on him I think, “You could have killed me you ‘birdbrain.’”
The lake herself has many moods…sometimes she is sultry, as glassy and reflective as a mirror..an occasional fish will jump creating endless rings in the glossy surface.
Other times she is sparkling bright blue and active with the sun glistening off her waves like diamonds…other times she is is dark gray , nearly black and ominous with choppy turbulance and white caps slamming against the sea wall..Sometimes she turns a bright orange in the evening reflecting the sunset. This is usually in the fall when the weather turns crisp and cool…At these times the trees on the far side of the lake resemble black lace against the horizon. At night she really comes alive..She reflects the lights of the houses on the opposite shore and on the Fourth of July the panorama of fireworks in the distance is enhanced by her reflection of them…Small boats coming from all directions gather by my dock to view the spectacle every year..
I have heard people from up north say they miss the change of seasons in Central Florida..We do have changes but not as extreme as other places…If one is tuned in to their surroundings here, the changes are unmistakable.
We have a tree called the Golden Rain Tree…Early in the Fall it blooms with vibrant gold colored blossoms that morph into a delicate peach colored flower…This might not be quite the same as the Maple’s turning a bright fiery red, but it is a signal to me that Fall has arrived. Our weather becomes drier in the Fall and much more comfortable…The temperature drops a few degrees but the humidity subsides making it seem cooler.
At my other house I had an upstairs bedroom..Sometimes I would hear the wind whistling around the corner of the building…I really loved that sound…I could just picture the North Wind as a big cloud with a bearded Human face and big puffy cheeks blowing out that bone chilling air . This was particularily in the Winter and the early Spring as I would be washing the windows in preparation for the Holidays or starting my Spring cleaning…There would be a distinct smell to the air, like snow, although snow is extremly rare around here.
I love it when it gets dark earlier in the Fall and Winter…It is so cozy inside with the fireplace going and perhaps a cup of cocoa…The grass seems to even have a certain crunchiness to it when it is walked on in the cooler times of year…
I spot the flocks of birds heading South for the Winter as they fly overhead, some in formation and some in a big noisy group that seems to have no rhyme or reason.
I notice that there are always one or two stragglers bringing up the rear in both groups…
We had two huge Camphor trees at our old place that had deep purple berries…The birds heading back home in the Spring always landed in those trees for a snack while traveling…The branches came alive with the hordes of hungry noisy vagabonds as they picked the trees clean of the berries and left evidence of their visit on our freshly washed cars parked in the yard.
There is a bird that was quite poorly designed,in my opinion, that sits on my dock with his wings outstretched, waiting for them to dry..He is the Cormorant or Water Turkey…He eats fish from the lake, but once he dives in to get a fish and his wings get wet..He has to air dry them before he dives in again or else he will sink like a rock and drown…I have seen that poor bird make attempt after attempt to catch a fish and get soaked and come up empty handed , so to speak..Sometimes he gets so desperately hungry that he dives in again before his feathers are completely dry and just his head and neck will be visible above the water. Meanwhile, the Ducks and the Coots glide by topside with a superior look on their faces as they watch him struggle back to his post on the dock.
Regarding the Coot or the Loon as it is sometimes called….When I first moved to Central Florida, I woke my husband in the middle of the night to tell him there was an escapee from the insane asylum in our back yard laughing hysterically…My husband went to investigate and discovered the sound was coming from a group of Loons huddled together close to our shore…The Loons are a hardy bunch..They stay through the Winter here although some times the weather drops below freezing…One time I remember the lake freezing all the way around the perimeter from the shoreline out a few feet toward the center…When it started to warm up there was steam rising from the lake resembling a witch’s cauldron boiling…The Loons remained despite the cold…The sound of their demonic “laughter” and the spooky fog hovering around the lake would have been the perfect setting for a horror movie.
I always tried to point these things out to my children to spark their imaginations and to encourage them to see things from different perspectives..They have exceeded my greatest expectations by becoming very interesting and entertaining young men whose company I find quite pleasant at times.
The Coots and Moorhens are an interesting looking bird..They are smaller than a duck and black in color...The Coots have a white beak and the Moorhens beaks look exactly like a piece of candy corn stuck to the front of their heads.
When we first came to the lake we, my second husband, my two sons and I, were looking for a place to rent. The owner of the property wanted to only rent out half of the place and live in the other side herself…We were in love with the place but we told her one half of the house would be too small for us..We turned to leave..She said “Wait a minute…If I rented you the whole thing for $20. more a month would you take it?” We jumped at that opportunity.
She went to live in Jacksonville and she eventually sold the house to another man who ultimately sold it to us. When we went to see the house that first day, I was carrying a bunch of Daffodils that my mother had given me..Every Spring around my birthday she would present me with a bunch of Daffodils. I carried them all through the house on the grand tour as it was warm in the car and I didn’t want them to wilt..The owner of the place confessed to me that it was my holding the Daffodils that influenced her decision to rent the house to us despite the many others who were interested in moving in..That was one of my first signs that I am supposed to be here on the lake…The second was even when the owner wanted to sell to us we didn’t have the financial wherewithal to make the purchase..We were sick when the new owner arrived and introduced himself…We were afraid we would have to move.. but,after renting from him for a couple of years, he sold us the house with very little money down, which my mother helped us with, and he held the mortgage so we did not have to go through the rigors of qualifying…It was so simple…The man said he could tell how much we loved the place and even though he had had bigger, better offers, he wanted it to be ours.
Our lives there were wonderful…Swimming, boating fishing. Huge holiday celebrations surrounded by loved ones…Laughter and singing and musical instruments being played was the order of the day..There were times when everything wasn’t perfect, but for the most part it was idyllic. We had a huge yard with an eighty foot dock with a twelve by twelve party deck on the end..We had a canoe and a sailboat and my son eventually got a powerful sleek ski boat. We would play badminton and croquet and tether ball and the kids would play on their swing sets.
There were the two huge Camphor trees I mentioned earlier and the tall pine..There were five stately palms along the waters edge that we planted and they grew to make it a tropical paradise..I also planted a Golden Rain Tree that was almost killed by my son’s girlfriend when she backed her car into it, but it survived and as I write this it is blooming in it’s full glory.
There was also a Florida Holly Tree that would herald the Christmas season with it’s crop of bright red berries. There were three Grapefruit trees, one ruby and two regular yellow, with the sweetest fruit. We would peel and eat them right from the tree . There were also four orange trees a couple of Navel and a couple of Valencia.
One of the Valencias got struck by lightening and the fruit was never the same…It became very sour and I could make a pie from it that tasted just like Lemon Meringue.
One of the grapefruit trees was struck by lightening also and the tree stopped bearing fruit for a couple of years, but when it started to bear fruit again the grapefruit were huge! Super charged!
In the front yard there was a very lovely stately magnolia tree with lemony fragranced blossoms as big as dinner plates..They were so velvety and beautiful.. like charming southern belles. There was a large Norfolk Pine that perished in the great freeze of 1988.
Also there were two Silk Oaks that I thought were Cypress trees for the first several years we were there…There was a gigantic spreading Live Oak that grew so fast that it deprived the other trees of sunlight killing not only the two Exotic Wild Orchid trees that we brought back from a trip to Miami and the Chinese Ornamental tree with the yellow flowers but it also snuffed the life out of my beloved Magnolia.
The rest of the yard was landscaped with Night Blooming Jasmine whose heady fragrance was nearly overwhelming, as well as bright colorful Hibiscus, a trellis with a showy magenta climbing Bouganvilla,a Surinam cherry bush with the unusual sweet and sour reddish orange fruit, reportedly to be very high in vitamin C. There were annuals carefully planted each season. Two giant Grecian urns filled with Geraniums, and of course my rose garden…I had lavendar roses , yellowroses, Tea roses, American Beautys, and pure white roses… …In the center of the rose garden was a sundial with a quote from Robert Browning …”Grow old along with me…The best is yet to be”..that I had given my husband on one of our anniversaries….I thought that that was going to be the natural course of events , so I believed the gift to be totally appropriate.
Along the fence on one side of the property were blue Morning Glories and 12 foot tall Sunflowers..there was also bright orange Flame Vine that when viewed against the backdrop of the bright blue sky was absolutely breathtaking…There was another vine that had purple Passion Flowers on it…They are the most intricate and amazing flower I have ever seen…I believe they are my favorite..They have a cross in the middle and have so many parts to them it is fascinating…each part is supposed to have a meaning relating to a certain aspect of Christianity..I nearly forgot to mention the fragrant Gardenia bush in the back yard beside the tall pine tree...Gardenias always were my sister, Ginny's favorite flower...I would bring her a bouquet of them every day or so while they were in bloom...Their fragrance always reminded me of Easter Sunday church services when a lot of the ladies wore a Gardenia corsage.
There was an abundance of Spanish Moss hanging from the large trees giving the look of the deep south to the surroundings….It was our own personal Garden of Eden..We had lovely pets…dogs and cats, even ducks that would eat out of our hands and fly up to tap on our bedroom window in the morning when they wanted to be fed..
There were giant waterbirds, Cranes and Ibis,and Egret, smaller birds like Cardinal,Redwing Blackbird, Blue Jay, Mocking Bird, Mourning Doves with their soulful cry and wise old Owls.…There were even Peacocks and a Rooster that made their way through our property….There were Possums, Raccoons, Squirrels, Armadillos, Otters and an occasional Gator eyeing us through the weeds from the lake. ©
To be continued….
I am still living on the shores of beautiful Lake Susannah where I have been a dweller for many years…The first couple decades of which were spent in a much bigger house three doors down. I have lived here in my current home for over five years…
The sunsets over the lake are still the same but the neighborhood is evolving from a quiet little country environment to a more upscale area that includes houses in the five million dollar bracket.
The kids that my boys grew up with are still around but they are now sporting a few gray hairs. It is so strange to see their familiar faces with the subtle first signs of aging…like they are wearing those clear plastic Halloween masks with wrinkles that make a person look instantly older when they put them on. I keep waiting for them to remove the masks and reveal their youthful faces underneath.
I have been here so long that it is difficult to remember ever belonging anywhere else.
I am so in tune with the subtleties of this place that it’s every nuance is an inherent part of my being..The sights, the sounds, the smells, the slightest change in the temperature or breeze do not go unnoticed by me
..
There is a Bald Eagle that I watch every day from my bedroom window…He sits atop an old dead tree in my neighbor’s yard that juts above all the other green bushy surrounding trees with just a spikey skeleton of a trunk and branches…He sits there for hours at a time…Sometimes he will bring a freshly caught fish with him to devour..other times he will bring some other indistinguishible bit of prey. I remember once while living at my other house down the street..the same bird dropped a partially eaten duck from the top of my nearly hundred foot pine tree which slammed to the ground like a sack of potatoes just barely missing me by about six inches…As I sit spying on him I think, “You could have killed me you ‘birdbrain.’”
The lake herself has many moods…sometimes she is sultry, as glassy and reflective as a mirror..an occasional fish will jump creating endless rings in the glossy surface.
Other times she is sparkling bright blue and active with the sun glistening off her waves like diamonds…other times she is is dark gray , nearly black and ominous with choppy turbulance and white caps slamming against the sea wall..Sometimes she turns a bright orange in the evening reflecting the sunset. This is usually in the fall when the weather turns crisp and cool…At these times the trees on the far side of the lake resemble black lace against the horizon. At night she really comes alive..She reflects the lights of the houses on the opposite shore and on the Fourth of July the panorama of fireworks in the distance is enhanced by her reflection of them…Small boats coming from all directions gather by my dock to view the spectacle every year..
I have heard people from up north say they miss the change of seasons in Central Florida..We do have changes but not as extreme as other places…If one is tuned in to their surroundings here, the changes are unmistakable.
We have a tree called the Golden Rain Tree…Early in the Fall it blooms with vibrant gold colored blossoms that morph into a delicate peach colored flower…This might not be quite the same as the Maple’s turning a bright fiery red, but it is a signal to me that Fall has arrived. Our weather becomes drier in the Fall and much more comfortable…The temperature drops a few degrees but the humidity subsides making it seem cooler.
At my other house I had an upstairs bedroom..Sometimes I would hear the wind whistling around the corner of the building…I really loved that sound…I could just picture the North Wind as a big cloud with a bearded Human face and big puffy cheeks blowing out that bone chilling air . This was particularily in the Winter and the early Spring as I would be washing the windows in preparation for the Holidays or starting my Spring cleaning…There would be a distinct smell to the air, like snow, although snow is extremly rare around here.
I love it when it gets dark earlier in the Fall and Winter…It is so cozy inside with the fireplace going and perhaps a cup of cocoa…The grass seems to even have a certain crunchiness to it when it is walked on in the cooler times of year…
I spot the flocks of birds heading South for the Winter as they fly overhead, some in formation and some in a big noisy group that seems to have no rhyme or reason.
I notice that there are always one or two stragglers bringing up the rear in both groups…
We had two huge Camphor trees at our old place that had deep purple berries…The birds heading back home in the Spring always landed in those trees for a snack while traveling…The branches came alive with the hordes of hungry noisy vagabonds as they picked the trees clean of the berries and left evidence of their visit on our freshly washed cars parked in the yard.
There is a bird that was quite poorly designed,in my opinion, that sits on my dock with his wings outstretched, waiting for them to dry..He is the Cormorant or Water Turkey…He eats fish from the lake, but once he dives in to get a fish and his wings get wet..He has to air dry them before he dives in again or else he will sink like a rock and drown…I have seen that poor bird make attempt after attempt to catch a fish and get soaked and come up empty handed , so to speak..Sometimes he gets so desperately hungry that he dives in again before his feathers are completely dry and just his head and neck will be visible above the water. Meanwhile, the Ducks and the Coots glide by topside with a superior look on their faces as they watch him struggle back to his post on the dock.
Regarding the Coot or the Loon as it is sometimes called….When I first moved to Central Florida, I woke my husband in the middle of the night to tell him there was an escapee from the insane asylum in our back yard laughing hysterically…My husband went to investigate and discovered the sound was coming from a group of Loons huddled together close to our shore…The Loons are a hardy bunch..They stay through the Winter here although some times the weather drops below freezing…One time I remember the lake freezing all the way around the perimeter from the shoreline out a few feet toward the center…When it started to warm up there was steam rising from the lake resembling a witch’s cauldron boiling…The Loons remained despite the cold…The sound of their demonic “laughter” and the spooky fog hovering around the lake would have been the perfect setting for a horror movie.
I always tried to point these things out to my children to spark their imaginations and to encourage them to see things from different perspectives..They have exceeded my greatest expectations by becoming very interesting and entertaining young men whose company I find quite pleasant at times.
The Coots and Moorhens are an interesting looking bird..They are smaller than a duck and black in color...The Coots have a white beak and the Moorhens beaks look exactly like a piece of candy corn stuck to the front of their heads.
When we first came to the lake we, my second husband, my two sons and I, were looking for a place to rent. The owner of the property wanted to only rent out half of the place and live in the other side herself…We were in love with the place but we told her one half of the house would be too small for us..We turned to leave..She said “Wait a minute…If I rented you the whole thing for $20. more a month would you take it?” We jumped at that opportunity.
She went to live in Jacksonville and she eventually sold the house to another man who ultimately sold it to us. When we went to see the house that first day, I was carrying a bunch of Daffodils that my mother had given me..Every Spring around my birthday she would present me with a bunch of Daffodils. I carried them all through the house on the grand tour as it was warm in the car and I didn’t want them to wilt..The owner of the place confessed to me that it was my holding the Daffodils that influenced her decision to rent the house to us despite the many others who were interested in moving in..That was one of my first signs that I am supposed to be here on the lake…The second was even when the owner wanted to sell to us we didn’t have the financial wherewithal to make the purchase..We were sick when the new owner arrived and introduced himself…We were afraid we would have to move.. but,after renting from him for a couple of years, he sold us the house with very little money down, which my mother helped us with, and he held the mortgage so we did not have to go through the rigors of qualifying…It was so simple…The man said he could tell how much we loved the place and even though he had had bigger, better offers, he wanted it to be ours.
Our lives there were wonderful…Swimming, boating fishing. Huge holiday celebrations surrounded by loved ones…Laughter and singing and musical instruments being played was the order of the day..There were times when everything wasn’t perfect, but for the most part it was idyllic. We had a huge yard with an eighty foot dock with a twelve by twelve party deck on the end..We had a canoe and a sailboat and my son eventually got a powerful sleek ski boat. We would play badminton and croquet and tether ball and the kids would play on their swing sets.
There were the two huge Camphor trees I mentioned earlier and the tall pine..There were five stately palms along the waters edge that we planted and they grew to make it a tropical paradise..I also planted a Golden Rain Tree that was almost killed by my son’s girlfriend when she backed her car into it, but it survived and as I write this it is blooming in it’s full glory.
There was also a Florida Holly Tree that would herald the Christmas season with it’s crop of bright red berries. There were three Grapefruit trees, one ruby and two regular yellow, with the sweetest fruit. We would peel and eat them right from the tree . There were also four orange trees a couple of Navel and a couple of Valencia.
One of the Valencias got struck by lightening and the fruit was never the same…It became very sour and I could make a pie from it that tasted just like Lemon Meringue.
One of the grapefruit trees was struck by lightening also and the tree stopped bearing fruit for a couple of years, but when it started to bear fruit again the grapefruit were huge! Super charged!
In the front yard there was a very lovely stately magnolia tree with lemony fragranced blossoms as big as dinner plates..They were so velvety and beautiful.. like charming southern belles. There was a large Norfolk Pine that perished in the great freeze of 1988.
Also there were two Silk Oaks that I thought were Cypress trees for the first several years we were there…There was a gigantic spreading Live Oak that grew so fast that it deprived the other trees of sunlight killing not only the two Exotic Wild Orchid trees that we brought back from a trip to Miami and the Chinese Ornamental tree with the yellow flowers but it also snuffed the life out of my beloved Magnolia.
The rest of the yard was landscaped with Night Blooming Jasmine whose heady fragrance was nearly overwhelming, as well as bright colorful Hibiscus, a trellis with a showy magenta climbing Bouganvilla,a Surinam cherry bush with the unusual sweet and sour reddish orange fruit, reportedly to be very high in vitamin C. There were annuals carefully planted each season. Two giant Grecian urns filled with Geraniums, and of course my rose garden…I had lavendar roses , yellowroses, Tea roses, American Beautys, and pure white roses… …In the center of the rose garden was a sundial with a quote from Robert Browning …”Grow old along with me…The best is yet to be”..that I had given my husband on one of our anniversaries….I thought that that was going to be the natural course of events , so I believed the gift to be totally appropriate.
Along the fence on one side of the property were blue Morning Glories and 12 foot tall Sunflowers..there was also bright orange Flame Vine that when viewed against the backdrop of the bright blue sky was absolutely breathtaking…There was another vine that had purple Passion Flowers on it…They are the most intricate and amazing flower I have ever seen…I believe they are my favorite..They have a cross in the middle and have so many parts to them it is fascinating…each part is supposed to have a meaning relating to a certain aspect of Christianity..I nearly forgot to mention the fragrant Gardenia bush in the back yard beside the tall pine tree...Gardenias always were my sister, Ginny's favorite flower...I would bring her a bouquet of them every day or so while they were in bloom...Their fragrance always reminded me of Easter Sunday church services when a lot of the ladies wore a Gardenia corsage.
There was an abundance of Spanish Moss hanging from the large trees giving the look of the deep south to the surroundings….It was our own personal Garden of Eden..We had lovely pets…dogs and cats, even ducks that would eat out of our hands and fly up to tap on our bedroom window in the morning when they wanted to be fed..
There were giant waterbirds, Cranes and Ibis,and Egret, smaller birds like Cardinal,Redwing Blackbird, Blue Jay, Mocking Bird, Mourning Doves with their soulful cry and wise old Owls.…There were even Peacocks and a Rooster that made their way through our property….There were Possums, Raccoons, Squirrels, Armadillos, Otters and an occasional Gator eyeing us through the weeds from the lake. ©
To be continued….
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
The Yamduck
Just before Thanksgiving of last year while shopping at my local grocery store ,I spotted what appeared to be a sculpture of a duck among the large display of yams in the produce department. It was partially sticking out from under a huge pile of yams and it was difficult to retrieve it with out causing what might have been an embarrassing avalanche of tubers. Once I had it in my hand I realized this was not a sculpture but an actual yam that looked exactly like a duck. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was one of Mother Nature's little oddities. The produce manager walked by and I showed him my little treasure. He examined it and said he had never seen anything like it before( and this guy sees a lot of yams). He took out his pen and marked it "No Charge", and after showing it around to his co-workers, he handed it back to me with a wish for me to have a Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy my "Yamduck." I proudly showed it to everyone on the way out of the store. It was a big hit in the checkout line, in fact a crowd gathered to see it. As soon as I got it home I took pictures of it and emailed them to everyone I knew, including the Food Editor at our local newspaper. She asked if she could do an article on it and I eagerly agreed. The Yamduck had hit the big time with it's picture in the paper. It was a local "celebrity" overnight. My brother came up with the idea of trying to sell the Yamduck on Ebay. He thought that it might get on the Tonight Show's segment, "What We Found on Ebay". I thought it would be neat to possibly have him(Yamduck) on National TV so I said, "Why not?" As you can tell from the previous sentence, I was already beginning to refer to the Yamduck as a living breathing entity. I was becoming very attached. I listed him on Ebay, never in my wildest dreams thinking someone would bid on him...but they did. My heart sank. I was going to have to part with my little friend and send him to a stranger in Ohio. I guess, I knew all along that the relationship couldn't last forever as the Yamduck was starting to shrivel a little like most veggies do when they have been around too long. After a tearful "Goodbye", I packaged him up and begrudgingly mailed him to his new owner. In a few days I received glowing feedback from Yamducks buyer telling me how thrilled he was to have Yamduck and thanking me profusely. I was able to enjoy Thanksgiving , knowing Yamduck had a good home. I couldn't bring myself to eat any sweet potatoes, however. When ever I see a display of yams my eyes scan automatically for a duck shaped one. I know that I will never find another like him again, but I am glad to have had the opportunity to know and love him. Even though his personality wasn't all that great..He was still cute. VXA©
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
The Hazards of Trying to Buy Land in Florida
Many years ago, my husband and I were looking for waterfront property in Florida. We had seen an ad in the newspaper for undeveloped lake front lots near Panama City which is in the Florida Panhandle and is nicknamed "The Redneck Riviera" as it is the closest beach to Alabama and the people from Alabama really flock there especially on holidays.
We had never been there before but said to ourselves, "How bad can it be?
The ad we saw in the paper said "Free weekend at our new development, food and lodging included."
It just happened to be Memorial Day weekend and we had three days off. We called and made an appointment to come up and look around. We drove miles off the highway into a swampy, spooky, desolate area that was reminiscent of scenes in the movie "Ten Thousand Maniacs". We expected others to have answered the ad and we thought that there would be other prospective buyers there. There were not. It was just us.
There was an "Igor" type fellow that came out to greet us and showed us to his "Master", I mean boss who's eyes seemed to light up when he saw us, like a hungry
man seeing a steak dinner for the first time in a while...I took it to mean that he was glad to have a potential buyer for his desolate property..at least that was what I was trying to convince myself.
There was no civilization for miles and no scream for help would ever be heard. There was heavy gray Spanish moss draping eerily on dead grotesquely shaped trees. The roads were narrow ruts with muddy water filling the tire tracks. It was a perfect place to hide a body, I thought, letting my imagination run wild.
The property owner was very accommodating and said we could set out early in the morning after a good night's sleep and tour the property. He instructed "Igor" to get our bags and take them to our cabin.
It was the beginning of Summer and the mosquitoes were unbearable. It was hot and humid and the rainy season had rendered all the narrow roads virtually impassable.
When we were finally alone in our room I told my husband of my feelings of uneasiness about this place and asked him if we might please go into the next town to find a motel because I was,to put it mildly, terrified to stay there. He laughed and did the "There, There" thing that men do when they think their wives are being silly or unreasonable. I insisted that we get the heck out of there together or I was going alone. He finally acquiesced. This was in the time before cell phones, so we tried to call some motels from our room but the line didn't work. We complained to the owner and he said the rains had seeped into the phone lines but in a week or so they should be fine. Okay, now I had seen enough scary movies to see where this was going. My husband, in his condescending best, said to the owner that "The Little Woman"(me) wanted to sleep in town tonight and we would be back in the morning to take the tour. The property owner and Igor went out of their way to try to convince us to stay but by that time my "fight or flight" mode was kicking in and I grabbed my husband and said, "We are leaving NOW!" We pushed past Igor and his master who were standing in front of us trying to form a barricade with their bodies. We ran to our car, abandoning our luggage which was still in the cabin, started the ignition and tried to speed away which only caused us to become partially stuck in the mud (I was surprised the car even started). Finally after several tries we freed the wheel and were on our way to safety, we thought. We were panicked and lost in the woods and kept driving in a circle with out knowing it till we kept passing the same landmarks. It was nearly dark. Finally we found the road to the highway and sped to town.
When we arrived in Panama City Beach we were shocked to see the road literally bumper
to bumper with cars filled with young people drinking beer and shouting to each other. We got in the line of traffic which was nearly at a standstill from the crowds. We looked at the motels lining the street on both sides and they all read "No Vacancy". We went into a couple of them and were told there were NO available rooms in town. We asked the desk clerks to call around for us and they said it wouldn't do any good. We drove and drove at a snails pace trying to spot any signs of vacancy anywhere. We were exhausted after our long drive in the morning and our ordeal with the spooky development guys. We just wanted a place to lay our weary heads, when I spotted a Holiday Inn with a "vacancy" sign. I ran in the office hoping it wasn't a mistake. It wasn't... The reason it was still available was that it was $200. per night (remember this was in the early eighties and this was a Holiday Inn!)minimum of three nights. We said we only wanted it for one night and they said that was fine but it would still cost us $600. We took it.
When we got to our room there was no TV, no lamps, just the glaring over head light, no pictures on the wall. You could see the spaces on the wall where pictures had recently been removed. It was like a very expensive prison cell. We called the desk and they said they always had to remove anything breakable from the rooms on holiday weekends because of the rowdy guests. We said we weren't rowdy and we would like our tv. The desk clerk said,"That's what they all say" and hung up.
We spent that evening getting a few bags of snacks out of the vending machine's
depleted selection, and went to bed. We did not venture out till morning.
We got up early while the revelers were still sleeping off the night before and hightailed it back toward home and civilization.That was one of the strangest weekends we ever had and it gave us good conversation material for years to come.
We never went back to see the property....something told us that just wasn't where we were meant to be. ©
VXA
We had never been there before but said to ourselves, "How bad can it be?
The ad we saw in the paper said "Free weekend at our new development, food and lodging included."
It just happened to be Memorial Day weekend and we had three days off. We called and made an appointment to come up and look around. We drove miles off the highway into a swampy, spooky, desolate area that was reminiscent of scenes in the movie "Ten Thousand Maniacs". We expected others to have answered the ad and we thought that there would be other prospective buyers there. There were not. It was just us.
There was an "Igor" type fellow that came out to greet us and showed us to his "Master", I mean boss who's eyes seemed to light up when he saw us, like a hungry
man seeing a steak dinner for the first time in a while...I took it to mean that he was glad to have a potential buyer for his desolate property..at least that was what I was trying to convince myself.
There was no civilization for miles and no scream for help would ever be heard. There was heavy gray Spanish moss draping eerily on dead grotesquely shaped trees. The roads were narrow ruts with muddy water filling the tire tracks. It was a perfect place to hide a body, I thought, letting my imagination run wild.
The property owner was very accommodating and said we could set out early in the morning after a good night's sleep and tour the property. He instructed "Igor" to get our bags and take them to our cabin.
It was the beginning of Summer and the mosquitoes were unbearable. It was hot and humid and the rainy season had rendered all the narrow roads virtually impassable.
When we were finally alone in our room I told my husband of my feelings of uneasiness about this place and asked him if we might please go into the next town to find a motel because I was,to put it mildly, terrified to stay there. He laughed and did the "There, There" thing that men do when they think their wives are being silly or unreasonable. I insisted that we get the heck out of there together or I was going alone. He finally acquiesced. This was in the time before cell phones, so we tried to call some motels from our room but the line didn't work. We complained to the owner and he said the rains had seeped into the phone lines but in a week or so they should be fine. Okay, now I had seen enough scary movies to see where this was going. My husband, in his condescending best, said to the owner that "The Little Woman"(me) wanted to sleep in town tonight and we would be back in the morning to take the tour. The property owner and Igor went out of their way to try to convince us to stay but by that time my "fight or flight" mode was kicking in and I grabbed my husband and said, "We are leaving NOW!" We pushed past Igor and his master who were standing in front of us trying to form a barricade with their bodies. We ran to our car, abandoning our luggage which was still in the cabin, started the ignition and tried to speed away which only caused us to become partially stuck in the mud (I was surprised the car even started). Finally after several tries we freed the wheel and were on our way to safety, we thought. We were panicked and lost in the woods and kept driving in a circle with out knowing it till we kept passing the same landmarks. It was nearly dark. Finally we found the road to the highway and sped to town.
When we arrived in Panama City Beach we were shocked to see the road literally bumper
to bumper with cars filled with young people drinking beer and shouting to each other. We got in the line of traffic which was nearly at a standstill from the crowds. We looked at the motels lining the street on both sides and they all read "No Vacancy". We went into a couple of them and were told there were NO available rooms in town. We asked the desk clerks to call around for us and they said it wouldn't do any good. We drove and drove at a snails pace trying to spot any signs of vacancy anywhere. We were exhausted after our long drive in the morning and our ordeal with the spooky development guys. We just wanted a place to lay our weary heads, when I spotted a Holiday Inn with a "vacancy" sign. I ran in the office hoping it wasn't a mistake. It wasn't... The reason it was still available was that it was $200. per night (remember this was in the early eighties and this was a Holiday Inn!)minimum of three nights. We said we only wanted it for one night and they said that was fine but it would still cost us $600. We took it.
When we got to our room there was no TV, no lamps, just the glaring over head light, no pictures on the wall. You could see the spaces on the wall where pictures had recently been removed. It was like a very expensive prison cell. We called the desk and they said they always had to remove anything breakable from the rooms on holiday weekends because of the rowdy guests. We said we weren't rowdy and we would like our tv. The desk clerk said,"That's what they all say" and hung up.
We spent that evening getting a few bags of snacks out of the vending machine's
depleted selection, and went to bed. We did not venture out till morning.
We got up early while the revelers were still sleeping off the night before and hightailed it back toward home and civilization.That was one of the strangest weekends we ever had and it gave us good conversation material for years to come.
We never went back to see the property....something told us that just wasn't where we were meant to be. ©
VXA
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