'57 Corvette

 Of Cars, Corvettes, and Kids

When I married Mike, I entered the world of Cars. Not the animated movie. The world of going to car shows and learning to appreciate the wonder of metal and motors. The world of fiberglass and chrome. 

I already had an appreciation for cars. To a degree. I knew what I liked and didn’t like. I hold dear the memories of my first car, a ’66 Mustang.

A “first car” is a memorable experience. So much so, that when Mike retired from his work at the electric company, he treated himself to a car identical to the first car he owned. The one he drove in high school. A ’69 Chevelle Super Sport. 

I don’t want or need my old Mustang back, but the memory of driving to high school, taking friends to the beach at a place called Lake Ellen, and to Frisch’s restaurant and such…those memories are strong. Good. And sufficient.

I remember the day I wrecked it, too. 

This past week, I was able to be a part of a different car experience. One that touched my writer’s soul.

Interesting Car Show...
More Than I Ever Expected

Mike and I drove to a Corvette show in a place called Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida. The town may be small, but it boasts a beautiful golf course, country club, and resort. The show was sponsored by the National Corvette Restorers Society (NCRS). Mike’s friend, Jay, took his 1957 Corvette to show. He didn’t want it judged. He has not restored it nor will he ever restore it.

The 1957 Corvette

The vehicle was originally purchased in La Jolla, California, shipped to Germany for a short period of time, then back to the United States. To Florida. Jay purchased it from the original owner in 1974. He had it for forty-one years, before bringing it out of storage. It had a history. Moreover…it has a story.

Shortly after Mike and I arrived at the show, a man walked over, looked at the car, and introduced himself as William. He handed a small keychain to Jay. “I thought I might have to mail this to you,” he said. The keychain belonged to his father and bore the image of the original license plate of the car.

William was the son of the original owner of the car. “You know how that scratch on the front fender got there?” he asked.

“I’ve heard a story,” Jay answered. “But you tell me what you know.”

“I did it,” William confessed. “I peddled into it with my toy John Deere tractor.”

Jay smiled and nodded. “That’s the story I heard.” 

William pointing to the scratch he inflicted
 on the fender of the car with his peddled tractor.

Soon after, William’s sister, Elizabeth, arrived. “How about that,” she marveled. “And the faculty parking sticker from the college where Daddy taught is still there on the bumper.”

The parking sticker for 
Lake Sumter Community College
Note the plywood cover
for the spare tire in the trunk.

Elizabeth told me how her dad loaded four of the kids in the small car, the two older boys sitting on the passenger seat holding two younger ones on their laps to take the “littles” to the babysitter and drop the older ones off at school. Car seats weren’t required back in the day.

Shortly after that, another brother, Byrnes, arrived on the scene. He, too, had stories to share with Jay. The three siblings walked around the vehicle, talking, remembering, laughing, and leaning into the memories of their father. 

The Corvette with the siblings and Jay
A good day to remember.

It was a hot, sunny, November day in Florida. A day to enjoy. A day made richer because three adults returned to their childhood memories and, in a way, have their father with them again. 

And they were willing to share their stories with me. 

 

It's a Small World

 Six Degrees of Separation or…Kevin Bacon, Are You Out There?

“What a small world!”

You’ve heard the phrase. A 1929 short story by Frigyes Karthinthy and a 1990 play by John Guare came out purporting that everyone is connected by six degrees or less. Sort of a small world ideology, if you will. For a while, people would suggest that everyone in show business was somehow connected to the actor Kevin Bacon by a mere six steps of separation.

The first time I heard of this “theory” was when I was teaching overseas. One of the teachers invited a few of us newbies on the scene to gather and get to know each other.

Living In Europe Has Perks

As we talked, two of the new teachers noted an immediate connection to me. 

One coming from Pepperdine University in Malibu, had as her professor the woman who started the program I inherited at the University where I taught for over a dozen years. Her professor and I had met and talked on occasion. Another was the daughter of a woman I knew in Cincinnati. 

A third teacher, a woman from Germany, there to teach mathematics in the high school, said it was not likely we had any sort of connection. I agreed. 

Later that evening, the conversation turned to our first impressions of the city we now called home, crazy drivers and unusual traffic patterns came up as we talked.

"I’ve never seen people drive like this,” one of the women noted. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” I offered. “I think this is nothing compared to the traffic in Cairo.”  

“How do you know about the traffic in Cairo?” the math teacher asked in her heavy German accent. 

“I spoke for a group of teachers and parents at an international school there.”

“What school?”

“Hmm…I’m trying to remember the name. The director was Hope Boyer.” (Note, I am not using the real names of any of these folks since many of them still teach abroad.)

“Hope Boyer!” the German woman called out.” She is the reason I became a teacher! I went to the international school in Cairo when my father worked there.” 

I love those kinds of interesting ways complete strangers come together and find they have something or someone in common. It seems to happen to me quite often. 

This past week, Mike and I went to a great little diner in Inverness a few miles south of where we live. We’ve eaten there before. The food and service are great. 

The name of the place on US 41 in Florida is simply “The Diner” and I DO recommend it. 

During the “snowbird” months, they host a Friday evening car show on the premises. As Mike and I ate, our server told us they are trying to boost their clientele. I offered to put some pictures up on Facebook. I walked around the restaurant and took a few photos. One couple said I didn’t need to cut them out, they didn’t mind if I shared their picture. Then Mike and I headed outside to sit with the Chevelle for the show. 

A restored 1950 Ford coupe had parked near us. Not long after, the pleasant couple from the diner came out. It was their car. Their son joined them for a while and we all engaged in easy conversation on a comfortable November evening in Florida. 

Soon after their son left, the woman, Jill, asked where we live. 

“Inverness” we replied. Mike went on to tell her exactly where we were located. When he started offering landmarks on the road leading to our house, the expression on the woman’s face changed. 

“What color is your house?” she asked.

“Uh, we had it painted gray,” I told her. 

“Was it an ugly pumpkin orange?” she asked.

Mike and I looked at each other. “Yes.”

“That was our son’s house.” They shared his name and sure enough, though we had never met him before, that was the name of the previous owner. “The man who just left,” she said. That was our son. It was his house.” 

Jill and her husband, Patrick, and Mike and I enjoyed our time together.

 Oh yes…it is indeed a small world. As for Kevin Bacon? I’ll let you know. I’m only on step one…

 

 

Lemonade

 Lemonade

I’ve long embraced the saying, “When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.”

It’s a perspective. A way of taking something difficult or unexpected and turning it into something good. 

There are many examples in the Bible. For instance, jealousy drove Joseph’s brothers to beat him up, steal his coat, throw him in a pit, then sell him into slavery, but God later used Joseph to save his family from famine. Long story, but if you want the details, read Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible. The Bible is full of such examples, the ultimate being the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus had to die so we can live. 

There are modern day examples of “if that hadn’t happened…I wouldn’t be here.” 

But this blog post isn’t really about those types of events. It’s actually about…well…lemonade.

This is the Pure Lemon Juice,
Lemons, and Nifty Juicer.
Cool, Huh?

When Mike and I moved to our home in Citrus County, we inherited a couple of fruit trees. We’ve enjoyed fresh picked grapefruit at breakfast several mornings. Though we think of them as yellow, grapefruit are generally ripe when they just start to turn a bit yellow… while they are still mostly green. They’ve been a tasty treat for us and a good source of vitamin C.

This week, Mike handed me a lemon. Actually, he carried in a bucket of lemons he picked from our lemon tree. I didn’t have a juicer but found a handy dandy one at the grocery store. 

Fresh squeezed lemonade. There is something fulfilling about harvesting a crop and feeding your family. In my past I’ve grown tomatoes and canned them, picked berries and made jelly. I’ve made pickles out of cucumbers I harvested from a backyard garden. But that was all in the past. 

This week, I squeezed a full jar of lemon juice. Enough to quench the thirst of a large crowd…or two people who happen to love lemonade as well as a refreshing glass of lemonade mixed with tea, known as an Arnold Palmer.

Here’s the recipe I use:

Lemonade:
1) Gently cook one cup of water with one cup of sugar, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.

2) Slightly cool the syrupy mixture and add 1-2 cups of lemon juice. (We like about 1½ Cups. You know, lemony but not too tart.) 

3) Stir.

4) Add five (5) more cups of water. Stir and chill. 

Enjoy! And if you have lemon to lemonade life stories…please share!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Mixed Bag of Tricks

 October is A Mixed Bag of Tricks

No. This is not a Halloween Post. I’m not a big fan of Halloween. So the bag I’m opening this October isn’t filled with candy.

First in the bag is JOY:

My second daughter, Danielle, was born in the month of October. October 26^th to be exact. We lived in Florida. The weather was perfect. Our daughter, Allison, was 4 ½ at the time. We were excited to welcome a new member to the family. 

This one was due in November but arrived a bit early. We called her “our yellow rose.” The moniker came from the fact we had a rose ready to bloom any day. I told Tom, “The day that rose blooms is the day I’m going to have the baby.” It opened in full bloom the morning of October 26^th. A few hours later, we held Danielle in our arms.

I was blessed with three beautiful little girls who have turned into three beautiful women. All wives and mothers now. That is, for me, pure JOY.

This Yellow Rose Bloomed 
This October in Ohio
Happy Birthday, D!

Second in the October bag is the opposite of joy. It is SORROW. 

On October 29, 2014, my husband of almost forty-three years, left the house for his daily bike ride. He rode for exercise. He rode to keep his heart healthy. He rode because he enjoyed it. He hadn’t been gone long when I received the call that he had an accident. His bike went off the pavement and threw him into a tree. I was there in minutes. So were the paramedics. But two hours later, Tom was pronounced dead at the hospital. That can only be described as sorrow. Deep SORROW.

It is hard to imagine it has been ten years now. 

In that ten years… I traveled to India with my daughter to work with young women rescued from human trafficking. I moved to into a new house. I moved to Kosovo for a year to teach fourth grade. I saw my second novel, Libby’s Cuppa Joe published, helped organize a writing conference, and welcomed grandchild number eight into the world. 

And I remarried. Mike Tyler is a wonderful man. Recently, he and I traveled from our home in Florida to visit my mother and our family in Ohio. He loves my family. And they love him. He and Tom were friends. We speak easily of Tom as we also speak easily of his late wife, Betty. 

So what will I pull out of the bag now?  The third item is CONTENTMENT

Contentment is a state of happiness and satisfaction. That is where Mike and I are now. We are content. We are happy and find ourselves satisfied with life.

It is October. We left the warm weather of Florida expecting cooler temperatures and falling leaves as we headed to Ohio. But the weather in the Cincinnati area was like summer. In fact, my grandson, Spencer, arrived at my mother’s house in Ohio to mow her lawn.

Then…after church on Sunday, we met some of the family for lunch. Driving back into our neighborhood in Ohio, we noticed the trees had seemingly changed overnight. I took a picture. The grass is as green as ever, but the trees are yellow and red and orange. So beautiful. 

The changing of the seasons reminds me how life is ever-changing. Each season of life offers something new. We can weather the storms of life because of the promise of tomorrow. 

Like I said, “October is a mixed bag of tricks.”

"I'll Pray for You"

 “I’ll Pray For You”

Ever say those words? When someone shares something about a decision to be made, a problem, an illness, or a worry over a family member, I often utter those words, “I’ll pray for you.” 

We say the words, but do we follow through? 

I think sometimes we use the words as a message of comfort. We may have every intention of praying for the person or the situation, but we walk away and forget until something else happens. 

Through the years I’ve learned enough about myself to make sure “I’ll pray for you” is not an empty promise. Here are five strategies I've found helpful.

1)     Pray then and there. If it is appropriate, take the person’s hand or put your hand on his or her shoulder and pray immediately. If it is not someone you do not know well or it might appear inappropriate to touch, you can still pray for that request immediately. Audible or inaudible…it doesn’t matter. God hears it all.

 

2)     Keep a Prayer Journal. A prayer journal need not be a fancy leather-bound journal, it can be a spiral bound notebook you picked up at the back-to-school sale at Wal-Mart. Write down the date and the request. Pray about it even as you write. And when the prayer is answered? No matter how God chose to resolve it, put that date in as well.

  

3)     Text Yourself a Message. Or send yourself an email. I have a terrible memory. I’ve sent myself an email on Sunday after church and when I open my emails on Monday, I realize I told someone I’d continue to pray over a situation and I’ve already put it out of mind. At least until I open my email. 

 

4)     File the request in an Alphabet Prayer List. For years I’ve mentally filed requests in what I call my Alphabet Prayer. I can mentally go through my list while I’m washing dishes or if I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep. (My grandmother told me if you can’t sleep, pray.) Aside from my family members, I have a few people I continue to keep in that list. Some, I’ve been praying over for better than thirty years. For more on that, I’ll share the link to an earlier post at the end I think you’ll appreciate.

 

5)     “As often as God brings this to my mind.” As I’ve noted, I learned early on that I have a terrible memory. I learned that if someone asks me for prayer, I tell them, “As often as God brings you to mind, I’ll pray.” And He does it. I’ll be in the grocery store, picking out the nicest Sweet Vidalia Onion I can find and a name or need pops into my head. I pray while I pick. I have to be careful, though. I’m at that age where other shoppers likely look over and wonder about “that poor old woman talking to the vegetables.”

There is power in prayer. I serve a living God. Not a statue or an idea. God is real. God loves me. He cares about me and my worries and concerns. He cares about people. He made us, died for us, rose up from the grave for us, and loves us beyond measure.

And...God Listens. He can see the big picture, so when my prayers don’t seem to go the way I would have chosen, I still trust He heard them and answered with what was right. Because even though I ask, like any good Father, sometimes God says, “No.”

And here is the link to the Alphabet Prayer I mentioned above. Enjoy!  https://rebeccaawaters.blogspot.com/2022/09/ready-to-party.html

 

 

Spanish Moss

Spanish Moss

Most people in the southern states know and understand Spanish moss.  Most visitors from the northern states don’t.

When I think of my first visits to Florida as a child, images of Spanish moss swaying in the trees are as strong as my memories of sandy beaches. Maybe stronger. 

Spanish Moss
in the Magnolia Tree

Mike and I were talking about how we used to play with Spanish moss. He and his buddies would stuff a feed sack with it, tie it to rope, hang it from a tree, and make a swing out of it. 

I remember playing dress-up with it, using it as a stole or wig to be a gray headed woman.

We both remember the results of playing with Spanish moss: Redbug bites. And boy would they itch!

Spanish moss was at one time used to stuff furniture and car seats. I hope they cured it properly. I can’t imagine sleeping on a moss stuffed mattress.

When Tom and I were both in college and poor newlyweds, we looked at Spanish moss as an opportunity. The house where we lived sat quietly on a tree covered acre of land. We gathered the moss, picked out all the twigs, stuffed it in plastic bags and let it “cure.” Supposedly, the redbugs would die in a month or so without oxygen. I really don’t know that to be a fact. But that’s what we did.

Tom and I had a couple of florists who occasionally bought the moss from us for a dollar a bag. We’d save the money until we had enough for McDonalds. We called it our eating out money. 

In some ways that feels like a long time ago in a galaxy far away. This month…This year…marks the ten-year anniversary of Tom’s death.

When I married Mike in 2023, I left Ohio and moved back to Florida. His house was surrounded by big oak trees. Each tree wore a garland of Spanish moss. I loved to sit on the porch and watch the moss sway in the southern breeze.

 

Soon, we moved to our own home in Inverness, Florida. A place to build new memories and enjoy life together. We left the Lutz moss behind. No worries. We had plenty of moss at our new house.

Evening.
Moss in the Trees. 
Sunset Over the Water.

As I said, most people in the southern states know and understand Spanish moss.  

Most visitors from the northern states don’t.

Spanish moss is beautiful hanging from the trees. And yes, it is the home to redbugs. But when you have hurricane force winds blow it down, it is a bear to clean up. 

We’ve cleaned up after each storm this season, but Milton’s powerful winds brought down more moss than I had ever seen in our yard before. We raked piles of the stuff. If we cured it as Tom and I did in the old days, Mike and I could eat at McDonalds for weeks. 

I’m glad we’re beyond those days. 

And I know we are blessed. We had moss to contend with along with a few tree limbs. People elsewhere are trying to find their houses. Or what is left of them. We were without power overnight. Some are still living in shelters. The Waters’ family home in Lutz is surrounded by downed trees, including a hundred-year-old cypress tree the storm chose to pick up like a toothpick and spit out into the lake.

But as Mike reminded me, every morning we look out over the lake as we eat breakfast. We watch the moss swaying in the morning breeze, the sun glistening on the water and we are grateful. Grateful to enjoy our little corner of “old Florida.” Spanish moss and all.

 

  

Hurricane Season

 Run From the Water...

Hide From the Wind

Consider this a public service announcement.

I am sitting at my computer watching the news. Florida is in the path of its second major hurricane in three weeks. 

As we watched Hurricane Helene head our way, she looked as if she would merely brush the western coastline of Florida. 

Weather forecasters warned of a “storm surge” …though we had no idea what that would look like. In fact, as the storm was churning, local surfers grabbed their boards to ride the ever-increasing waves. Families gathered to take pictures before finally leaving the area to find shelter in the interior of the peninsula.

Mike and I have friends who live on the Gulf coast. Though their own home was untouched, it was like a war zone around them. The nation gathered around the television to view unimaginable images. We saw houses and furnishings, appliances, and cars floating far from their owners. We watched in horror as entire communities were flattened by the surge. People died. The west coast of Florida looked more like a war zone than a once peaceful string of coastal communities.

THEN…

We were horrified to see Helene blast her way north, ravaging unsuspecting communities in Georgia and Tennessee. Helene carried with her wind, rain, and mudslides unequaled in the memory of mountain communities in the Carolinas. 

Hurricanes are Nothing to Blow Off.

Accuweather Image of Hurricane Milton
at this Writing...

NOW... 

Now we watch as Hurricane Milton crosses the Gulf of Mexico, wreaking havoc along the Mexican costal area and taunting the peninsula of Florida as a Category 4 or 5 Bully of the Sea.

This time, Florida will take a direct hit. Projections of where Milton will throw the first punch vary. We know it will stretch along the Gulf coast and will sustain hurricane force winds across the peninsula to the east coast of Florida. 

Many predict this could be the worst storm in a hundred years. In part because of its power. But also because there are more people in Florida now than ever.

Hurricanes are Nothing to Blow Off.

If you are in an evacuation zone…Evacuate. 

Take with you: medications, cash, ID’s, water, food, flashlight with extra batteries, cell phone and charger, and candy. 

(Okay, you don’t actually need candy, but this has been such a heavy post, I decided to throw something in to make you smile.) 

The bottom line? Stay safe. Pray. Do what you are told to do. 

I know I sound like a mom or teacher.

Actually, I’m both. So do it.