[Calpernia]

A good story from LadyX

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day....05-02-06....A Walk on the Beach

Posted by LadyX to GodBlessUSA; Mrs.Nooseman; MEG33; WVNan; snugs; DollyCali On News/Activism 05/02/2006 12:59:51 PM EDT · 70 of 194 It has been an incredibly wonderful and varied life, spanning so many major events in America's history. Born at the end of The Great Depression in a quite different America, where doors were not locked, strangers welcomed and fed, and as litle girls (my sisters 5 and 9 years older), we freely and safely left home and either walked or went by Coral Gavles and Miami city buses anywhere we desired, without an adult. WWII impacted us greatly, Pearl Harbor happening when I was 7 1/2 - sharpening my patriotism to the 'nth' degree. No time to indulge in fairy takes, instead playacting how brave I would be if I were a prisoner of the Germans or Japanese...collected scrap metal and newspapers to turn in for the War Effort...dug play foxholes in vacant lots with the little boys in the neighborhood... Okay - it was a tad extreme to go into the U.S. Marine Corps!! LOL - I loved being a classroom instructor, though, and feeling useful to my country, during The Korean Conflict. Spent 12 years as a military wife (Korean Conflict, The Cold War, Cuban Missie Crisis, Nam) - taught school one year - then spent 6 years in retail management, and after that, 18 1/2 years in and around medicine. Crisscrossed up and down and around America (lived in 8 states, including Ohio twice and South Dakota) and in 1965-66, drove literally a line from above the Arctic Circle in Alaska to South Florida, and then up to South Carolina...in childhood, down the Florida Keys. Lived in Rochester, NY 2 years, and of course into that end of Canada... Gypsy Woman is an All-American Woman...:)

[Calpernia]

Another good one!

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day....05-02-06....A Walk on the Beach

Posted by LadyX to GodBlessUSA; MEG33; Mrs.Nooseman; DollyCali; The Mayor; WVNan; LUV W; Lakeside; Kitty Mittens; ... On News/Activism 05/02/2006 11:10:05 AM EDT · 54 of 194 Beaches have been a huge part of my life. My first 9 1/2 years were in Coral Gables; a lovely residential area within Miami, Florida. Born in 1934, my earliest memories were of - I kid you not! - "Sunday Drives in the Country" to Miami Beach! Driving over the causeway to the beach area, there were numerous homes along the Biscayne Bay side, but on Miami Beach itself, there were only about a dozen blocks of development. Reaching the Beach, we had no problem finding a good spot, if we wanted to swim there. World War II, however, brought the big boom. We usually drove up from Miami Beach to Baker's Haulover, where we could watch vessels going from the Inland Waterway into the ocean itself - and back. The beach line was total wilderness, with nothing but sand dunes and palmettos the whole way. We also would park beside Biscayne Bay to watch the Pan American Clipper Ships (airplanes) take off for South America! For family serious swimming/picnic times, however, we often drove down to Mathison Hammock Beach, where many knobby-kneed trees rose from the shoreline, and the wave action was more gentle, and there were covered picnic areas. On my hall wall, I have a priceless photograph of my parents in their early 40's, posing by one of those trees... Florida, of course, is rampant with flora and bird life of every description - - as is all of the state. Going to Parris Island, that first fall we were just 3 blocks from the ocean, and were threatened by two hurricanes. If they had arrived at high tide, we at first floor level would have been washed over by 20-foot waves. We had to move all our clothing and bedding and gear to the second floor for the duration to save it if that happened. The same was true when I lived on Chincoteague Island, Virginia in 1955 - 2 x 7miles "big." We had to go over the one causeway to stay with friends inland, when, again, two hurricanes brushed by! [Always wondered if I were a *magnet* for storms!!] Leaving Fairbanks, Alaska in the summer of 1966, we were blessed to be sent to Myrtle Beach AFB, in base houring, located directly across the highway from a South Carolina State Park beside the ocean. Living later in both South and North Caroina, we often made treks/vacations to beach areas. ======================================= Sharks played a major role in meeting my husband! Living then in Melbourne, Florida, I often took my two little boys to the beach after teaching a 5-year old Sunday School Class, and sometimes during the week. I had seen him at Indialantic Beach, the head Lifeguard, dramatically going out to retrieve from the surf a large plastic ball a little boy had let go. (He was a partner in a restaurant business with his brother, and with days free, he as a Water Safety Instructor was talked by the Kiwanis Club into heading the guards at the beach, going there anyway to swim.) A few days later, my friend and her son went with us there. It was a usual summer of *Shark Sightings* up and down the coast, including there, sometimes having to close the beach to swimming. Leaving my boys with Dot, I went up to ask him if any had been sighted this day, so I could go out and swim alone. ...(with a negative answer, I did, and he caually strolled over to Dot, and ascertained the fact I was not married..:) About two weeks later, he and I took my sons' inner tube, with me in it, out in the fairly calm water to chat while we enjoyed the warm water. Of course, the tide was slowly pushing us out, and intent upon our conversation, we had not reali zed how far from shore we had drifted - - AND... saw nearby a FIN circling us!!! He protectively got between me and The Beast, and quietly told me to get to shore WITHOUT OBVIOUS SPLASHING!! Talk about a L-O-N-G and harrowing journey - LOL now... propel, but don't make waves..:)) As it turned out, he was the predator shark, lo those 46 years ago..:))