September 22nd is my Dad’s birthday. If he were alive today, he would be 119 years old! He was born in 1897 and saw much in his 66 years of life. Dad was but a year old when Teddy Roosevelt charged up Kettle Hill. He was 20 years old when the United States entered World War I and he immediately joined the Navy. The Great Depression hit in 1929 when he was 32. At 44, he married my mother just months before the United States entered World War II. At the age of 47, Dad and mother started a family which ultimately would consist of my sister, two brothers and me. As a child, I doubt that I appreciated his wealth of knowledge and the vastness of his experiences. Typically in those days,
When I was 12 years old, my mother took my siblings and me to Gator Growl, a large pep rally held in the University of Florida’s football stadium, on the Friday evening prior to the Homecoming game. Prior to Growl, there was a pre-Growl which highlighted various high school bands as well as the UF Band, all of which I really enjoyed. Once pre-Growl was over, the UF students put on skits that just didn’t appeal to me and I became fidgety. It was then that I became aware there were teenagers walking through the stands selling cold drinks and obviously making some money doing it. This sparked an idea. In my household, if you wanted something, you had to earn the money for it yourself and I want
In 1948, my parents bought 40 acres in Waldo, FL where they opened a truck stop on Hwy 301 and raised their family. Of all the places in the world, why did they pick Waldo? This question is compounded by the fact that my family’s roots are deep in rural North Carolina. We are talking Revolutionary War deep. But, in 1945, the doctors recommended that my parents move somewhere near the ocean due to my father’s chronic asthmatic bronchitis. With my father’s health in mind, my parents packed up and moved to Ft. Lauderdale in south Florida. But as time went on, my parents questioned this move. My father was a traveling salesman and between his absences and the negative influences of the area, the
