Apparently everyone residing in trailer homes or motor homes – as they were – had a mandatory evacuation just before the storm hit. Fortunately for them, they were building a house and they had a safe place out of the storm.
And fortunately for their neighbors they also had two generators which were put to use during the days following the storm. Because there was no electricity for several days, mother-in-law and hubby spent their time taking the generator from neighbor to neighbor long enough to make sure that refrigerated items didn’t spoil.
She also cooked breakfast and served coffee during the outage.
Thankfully, no one was seriously injured or killed, but several folks did lose their homes.
One of our daughters also lives in the area, but she evacuated to another part of the state because weather forecasters had predicted the storm path through her back yard. As she traveled to safety, she took a road through Arcadia, Florida.
She told us the devastation in that area was absolutely unbelievable. “When we went through Arcadia,” she told us, “it was just another normal small town. Buildings downtown and homes where people were busy boarding up their windows. When we came back through a couple of days later, there was nothing.”
She said the entire town was gone. Nothing was left but piles of rubble where houses and business stood only two days before.
And the place she left, Bradenton, received little more than a lot of rain and some high winds.
••••
Not a day goes by that we don’t compliment the wife on her looks and how attractive she is to us. We’ve done that almost every day for more than 30 years. Not only does it make her feel good, but we feel better also.
She repaid the compliments last week when she looked us over and noted: You know, for the first time you are looking old. Your hands are wrinkled and those places on your arm are really showing your age.
WHAT?
Guess that’s what 30 years of compliments will get you.
In the first place, our hands aren’t wrinkled like some little old man that has been out in the sun all his life and is now pushing 90.
Secondly, those places on our arm aren’t age spots but are the result from taking an aspirin a day for the past two years as an effort to ward off a stroke.
And, lastly, if we keep hearing talk like that, we’re gonna, . . . well, we don’t know, but we’ll do something.
•••••
We read that John Kerry is going to sue the Bush campaign if it doesn’t stop some of his supporters from speaking out in support of the President.
It all has to do with the four months Kerry spent in Viet Nam and the fact that he received three purple hearts and several other medals. There are some who served with him that say his medal were not deserved.
Deserved or not, he received them and then threw them away.
Our father served in World War II and received two bronze stars. Instead of making the trash can upon his return, he kept the medals and they are now in the possession of our younger brother.
If Kerry is elected President, what’s he going to do when a group protests one of his decisions? Sue them?
Vyron Mitchell is editor and general manager of The Cadiz Record. He can be reached at vmitchell@cadizrecord.com.
