Enjoying Vacation Time

We left a "Cold & Damp" New York, drove to Virginia and got on the Auto-Train in Lorton, Virginia and rode the train with our car from Lorton to Sanford, Florida, it was a fairly nice ride and us and the car arrived all in one piece, it was about 40 when we left New York and when we arrived in Florida at about 8:30 Wednesday morning it was 60, sunny and has been nice every since we got here, actually it has been "HOT"!!!

Neither one of minded the "Train Ride" as we got to Florida feeling relaxed and ready to go, we did have to strip off the Flannel Lined Pants, sweat shirts and jackets and put them away in the trunk of the car as we will need them when we get half way home next week!!

It didn't take me long to get to what I like to do best beside cook and that is fish, while anna mae unpacked the car and got our things into the house, I got the Pole and was fishing!!!!!!!

I practiced some casting and managed to catch a few "Crappie" and some "Specs" but threw them back to get bigger!!!

Fishing is almost as much fun as Cooking!!! and standing around in the sun was fun also!!!!!!!!

Anna Mae and her Mother, Irene got a chance to spend some nice time together sitting out in the gazebo overlooking the Canal behind her house and I fished it all I could as there are some nice Bass here right out the "back-door"!!!!!

We went down to "Buckhead Ridge" where we had a nice place and checked out the sights, got real cold and had to put on a jacket cuz it was down in the 60's!!! We are standing over the canal to Lock # 7 and on my favorite fishing bridge, right behind us is Lake Okeechobee behind the green knoll.

We went around the Village of Okeechobee checking out the place and went downtown to the park where they have Tanks, Military items and a nice Memorial Park for all "Veterans"!!!!!

We took a break in the afternoon and shared a nice "Ice Cold" glass of home made wine while soaking up the SUNSHINE"!!!!!!!!

We finally went Bass Fishing out on Lake Okeechobee, our "Guide" was Anna Mae's Uncle John Waite, he has lived here a while and has fished this Lake for a Long time and knows the spots to go.

All "Bass" caught out on the Big " O " have to be at least 18 inches to keep, this was one of the many we caught pictured above??? Lake Okeechobee is about 35 miles long and 45 Miles wide and in the deepest parts is about 15 feet deep. When we spent the winter here 2 years ago it was "BAD", there was only abpout 8 to 9 feet of water here in it and the fishing was bad, nobody came to fish and it hurt the economy, thankfuly this year is is almost full at 14 to 15 feet deep.

Above is our local "Guide" Uncle John and his niece Anna Mae heading out of the Canal out on to the Lake and we are MOVING!!!

Uncle John holding up one nice "Bass" he caught BUT over the side it went, this is just one of the 20 some Bass he caught!! The Lake was like a Mirro and we could see the smole off in the distance where they were "Burning" the sugar cane fields getting them ready to harvest

This is one of the 6 Bass I caught and they were sure "scrappers and fighters" which made it worth while to drag one in and not feel bad because he was short of 18 inches to keep and also not feel bad for all the ones I caught that ALMOST made it into the boat as they can sure spit out a hook!!!

This beautiful little "Fisherwoman" was the first one to catch a bass, she got 5 and also lost a few almost getting them into the boat!!!

An 18 inch Bass is big, these darlings beauties were all put back in quickly after the photo was taken!!! The totals for the day were I got 6, Anna got 5, Our "Guide" had over 20 when I quit counting, they were many, many hits which made you keep casting and reeling in to get the next one into the boat!!!

We took this Air-Boat path down one of the many canals off the Lake to see find the gators and birds and look at the flower and fauna which was fantastic!!

This "Little" beauty above was one several we saw along the banks of Lake Okeechobee and along the side canals, Uncle John said this one was about a 15 foot one, I was in the front of the boat with the camera and to me he looked like he was about 25 feet long as I got closer and closer to him before he slid off into the deep.

Hope everyone is doing great!!

AND:

Don't forget, "REMEMBER THE VET"!!! Those who have served and those serving!

Vacation

Well its time to take a break, We are heading for Florida for a few days, then we are heading out to be "ON THE ROAD!!!!!

Don't know where we are going but will know when we get there!!!

My Dad

Today's entry is in memory of my father, John Ellsworth Wood who passed away 27 years ago today, Father passed away just before Thanksgiving in 1984, he was a good man, a hard worker, a slow, methodical man, raised on a farm, built his own house, (Log Cabin) just a short ways from the farm he grew up on and raised a family there.

My father was a family man, he raised 6 boys and 2 girls who all went on to raise families of their own and Dad was a proud and excited "Grand Father" and we all made sure we made treks home with each and every Grandchild to meet "Gramps".

I was only 35 years old when my father passed away, it was a very hard time for me and a hard thing to accept and sometimes it still is, I have a son and daughter, granddaughter and grandson but I think as the generations come the closeness somehow fades, at least in my family.

I would have loved to have the relationship with my son that I had with my father and also my grandfather, both great men in my eyes, at least my father got to see me live my dream of becoming a Policeman, and I have the memories of going home and sitting with my dad and just talking and visiting about anything and everything.

I am still kind of angry that I did not have more time with him but that was not my call, I think God wanted someone interesting to talk to and add to his flock so he called him home!!!!!!!

Well, I have layed low, am taking massive anti-biotics, resting but things must go on, Thursday night was our "Stone Soup Supper, so Dan and Ginny and Anna Mae and I started out early Thursday morning cooking.

Dan and I fried up about 20 pounds of nice lean hamburger, we fried up some onions sprinkled with garlic, we opened up the kidney beans and rinsed them in cold water and then started mixing the "Chili", ( Ginny and Anna Mae hand crushed the whole tomato's), we put the meat, onions, hand crushed tomato's in 2 large broilers and and a big army kettle, we added tomato puree and some tomato juice, and started to let it simmer, putting in secret ingredients in later.

*(When I say WE, Dan did all the lifting, carrying and moving of anything heavy) as this old body just barely could move!!!!!!!!

The "Chili" simmered for about 5 hours, at 3PM we put on 2 pots of water and cooked over 100 all beef hot dogs and stacked the rolls.

Anna Mae and Ginny took care of the desert table which was full of cake, brownies, homemade pies, cup-cakes and cookies brought in by our church ladies.

We had Sandy and her daughter Jill show up to help the 4 of us and at 4:45 P.M. we opened the doors and in they flocked for a nice delicious dinner, everyone said what a treat it was to have Chili as it was cold out side and a cold drizzle of a rain coming down.

I got the chance to sit and visit with some friends while the others covered the chow line and served people.

We served close to 90 people not counting the ones who came back for 2nds and thirds of the Chili and all agreed it was delicious.

I was slow working, did have a couple bad spells but managed to make it thru the day and evening, we got cleaned up and were home by 8PM, I took my pain killers, drugs, anti-biotics and I went to bed.

HOPEFULLY ON MONDAY, Good Lord willing and the Creek don't rise, we head SOUTH.

We are heading for Lorton, VA. to take the auto-train to Florida, then hopefully depending on how I feel and how Anna Maes Back is we want to head up to Newton, NC to visit friends and then head out to the Outer Banks of NC and then work our way home.

Don't forget our men and women in uniform serving for us this Thanksgiving so we can enjoy all our freedoms and families!!!

SICK PUPPY

Sick Puppy for sure, after church Sunday, I got the worse pains an cramps in my abdomen and stomach and ended up in the emergency room, I have diverticulitis, (Inflammation of large Intestine), it has not acted up for about a year, I am VERY, VERY careful on my diet.

I ate something that attacked me, after the nurse stabbed me 3 times to get an IV into my right arm she quit, then the male nurse came in and after stabbing me 2 times in my left arm he got a 16 inch needle about as big around as my thumb into a vein in my arm, started a dose of heavy duty antibiotics and then the Doctor came in, touched my abdomen and stomach at which point I YELLED....(OUCH).

He then gave me a shot of Demerol *(Happy Juice) and I felt like I drank a quart of Whiskey, Anna Mae said I was acting LOOPY!!!

After 8 hours in the ER, pumped full of anti-biotics, put on some pain killers my Honey brought me home!!

Bed rest and Pills, more pills, and more pain killer pills, NO FOOD!!!! Chicken Broth, Tea, Apple Sauce, jell'o, milk toast, and GRITS and I have used 25 rolls of toilet paper!!

Nice thing if you can call it that is I have lost about 12 pounds!!!!!!

I see the Doctor tomorrow at 2PM, hopefully everything is going OK and I can EAT FOOD!!!!!!!

AND we can leave for Florida for thanksgiving on Tuesday, we have tickets for the Auto-Train from Lorton, VA to Sanford, Florida on Tuesday at 4PM!!!!!

Sure hope I can hear that Conductor yell "ALL ABOARD"!!!!!

Holiday Time

Today in Carthage was our "Holiday Parade", for years it was the "CHRISTMAS PARADE" the Village Board of Carthage changed the name some years back to "Holiday Parade" to be "politically correct", for a few years petitions were started and signed, presented to the Board, people attended meetings, wrote newspaper articles and even as popular as it was to change the name to "Christmas" instead of "Holiday" they couldn't do it!!! It was a nice parade no matter what you call it and there were several local "Churches" with floats, bands from the High School and the Catholic School.

It was nice as our float "Sign" said "Jesus was the Joy of the Season", thankfully they did not have restrictions on signs with the word "Jesus" printed or written on them, BUT I did not see any crosses because I think there was someone from the A.C.L.U. there looking for them.

As with any parade there was a lot of candy, gum, suckers, thrown from the floats, fire trucks, car dealerships and business floats in the parade, I am glad I am big because I managed to get my 8 pieces of bubble gum by snatching it out of the air above the heads of the little buggers trying to hog it all for themselves!!!

The last float was "Santa" which all the little "urchins" were waiting for and he was well received by the "young-uns"!!!

Our day started yesterday as we spend Friday sitting up the church and dining room and getting craft tables, knitted goods, Bake Sale, and things ready for this morning.

We got to church at 6:30AM, made a pot of good strong "NAVY COFFEE" and Dan and I started cooking sausage and making urns of coffee for the morning.

This tarp was set up for a reason which you will soon read about!









Dan and I finished cooking all the breakfast sausage and started cooking Pancakes!! We use the cheap pancake mix and then doctor it up with fresh whole milk, eggs, touch of this, dab of that and Of course we had to sample a sausage wrapped in a pancake dipped in fresh New York State Maple Syrup and savored with some Navy Coffee!! YES!! they were delicious!!!! "YES" those are bags under my eyes!!!!!












Anna Mae, Marty and Ginny, Marty just got done working a 11PM to 7 AM shift at the paper mill and showed up to start another shift helping his honey cook homemade home fries and cooking scrambled eggs!!

Above Anna Mae, Ginny and Sandy getting the Homemade "Home Fries" and "Scrambled Eggs" ready and sitting up the coffee table!

Some of our people above enjoying Orange Juice, Coffee, Pancakes, Homefries, Eggs and Pancakes at our "All you can eat" breakfast for $6.00 and we went thru lots of pancakes and sausage, and the pictures on the table are real homemade Maple Syrup, right now it is about $45.00 a gallon, thankfully one of our long time church members once again donated it, *(Thanks Richard)!!!

At 11:00 a.m. our U.C.C. church youth group with some youths from our neighbor Baptist Church decided to try "Fried Dough" this year as we get a large crowd on our corner as this is where the parade turns off the main street down a side street to disband. The tent served several purposes....1st, it was a little rainy and it kept the kids and youth leaders dry, 2nd, with the amount of small children running and racing around and people coming into church it cut down on the chance of someone bumping into the boiling hot grease the fired dough was cooked in, there was 2 long lines waiting for the treat and of course I had to taste test it and it was delicious covered in powdered sugar and hot!!!

We had a back up team inside cooking more fried dough, Carmen and her son Michael being watched by Penny cook more of the delicious fried dough!!!

There was no "Fat" or "Calories" in our fried dough because it was cooked in "CRISCO!!!

This is the corner view of United Community Church, a lot of these people came to visit us for breakfast this morning and then got their position to view the "Parade"!!!

This is our "Float" in the Christmas Parade, we were lucky today as it was a very light rain and the temps were not bad!!! I hope I don't get in trouble for saying "Christmas" Parade instead of Holiday Parade!!!

Our Minister and "Angles" singing as they pass by the church!!!

It was a long day, hard work, a lot of fun, and at about 2PM we finally got all the food put away, dishes washed, trash picked up, dishes put away and ..........

.
.
.

Marty just didn't get enuff work after working all night and cooking eggs and homefries this morning, so he finished his second shift about 1PM this afternoon making sure the floors were clean for church tomorrow morning!!!!!

.

Make sure you remember our Armed Forces and those

men and women serving who won't be home for "Turkey Day"

this year and will not be with their families!!!

VETERAN"S DAY 2009

Veteran"s Day arrived, we met at the Legion at 9:30 AM for Coffee and Doughnuts, we got flags, rifles, ammo together, Color Guard assembled and we "Marched Off" at 10:45AM for the 10 minute march to our Monument, we met the VFW at Monument Park for our 11AM Service.

We have an impressive Honor/Color Guard but had one short and had to have a fill in for today.

While attempting to get the above photo of some of our "Sailors" we were attacked from the rear by the United States Army and and savagely and viciously grabbed by the neck to mess up the near perfect picture!! Lucky he had his cover on or his "Bald Head" would have caused some camera glare and ruined the picture more then he did!!!

Above photo of our (Army) Honor/Color Guard while missing one who had to work on Fort Drum today was filled by one of our Sailors, Thanks Richard!!

The program, prayers and readings were done by Navy Veteran and Post Adjutant Mastin, Army Veteran Tallman, Navy Veteran and Post Commander Miner, Auxiliary President Mandy, Army Veteran Kuhar, and Navy Veteran Chief Genter. They did a nice job and was well received by the crowd.

These 3 above are some of our "Vietnam Veterans", the other Nam Vets there declined the photo op!!

Above is part of the Crowd and Veterans assembled.

This picture above is "Veteran's " of WWII, Korea,

Vietnam, Persian Gulf.

The Crowd enjoyed the Balmy 50 degree temps and the sunshine, last year it was cold, windy and Snow covered.








The "Navy" finished the program with "Honors" and laying a Wreath at our Legion Post done by these 4 Sailor's.

Following the Services we went back to the Legion for Lunch, Shown above are Legion Member Veterans from WWII, Korea, the lady on the right in back just returned from Iraq and is Joining our Post.

The man in the cap and plaid shirt is a friend of mine, it's Mr. Baker, a WWII Veteran who was a Turret & Belly Gunner, and Tail Gunner on the those Old B-52's, His flight record is awesome, *(I have seen it), and as the Post Historian he has given me some of the most awesome photos I have ever seen of "Air Battles" he was in and pictures of the Shot-UP planes he was in that limped back to base!!! Simply Awesome!!

DON"T FORGET-REMEMBER THE VET!!!

X

I N D I A N S U M M E R ???

Its going to be busy here, this week I am getting the ingredients for 150 seervings of chile for our "Stone Soup Supper" next week, and on Sunday the 22nd I am cooking a Turkey Dinner for our Church members and family.

One thing they say about living in New York, if you don't like the weather, just wait a day and it will change, well it sure has changed here, Today was a beautiful day, sunshine, warm breeze, and nice being outside, almost like "Indian Summer", would have grilled out but all our cooking grills are put away for the winter.

We had out start of winter, SO, we have purchased out tickets for the Auto-Train from Lorton, Virginia to Sanford Florida, we leave the 24th for Florida, we put the car on the train and we sit back and enjoy the ride, take naps and arrive in florida relaxed, plans call for going to the Beach, Fishing and Thanksgiving with Anna Mae's family in Lake Okeechobee and I want to make a trip down the coast to the Keys.

I Love the Ocean, the Beach, the waves and really like a nice heavy pounding surf hitting shore!!!!!

The trip Home is planned with a trip up into Newton North Carolina and across to the Outer Banks then a nice drive home so we are home for Christmas.



Today I stood around in a T-Shirt this afternoon in the sun like this summer picture taken earlier!!!!

Then 2 days ago I stood outside in Flannel Lined Pants, fleece lined jacket at 28 degrees and cold!!!





We had our first SNOW and there's always the scraping and cleaning of the car before traveling and my Honey always makes sure I can see before I drive!!




We need to keep our service men and women in our prayers from the tragic events at Fort Hood Texas!

We must continue to keep all our Military in our thoughts and prayers!!

Staying busy

We have been staying busy, Today started out with my 1 mile walk on the treadmill at the YMCA while my Honey did her exercise routine to help her back, we go to the "Y" 3 days a week for an hour.

After the "Y" I went to Church and spent this morning painting a new ceiling in the entrance and then painting a large ceiling we just had done. Anna Mae is checking my "Paint Job" below!! Naturally when I got home and showered and cleaned up I had to take a "NAP"!!!

We have been busy here, the Housing Authority provided us with fresh CIDER and CIDER DOUGHNUTS and we spent a Tuesday Morning decorating "Home-made" sugar cookies, drinking cider and enjoying the morning, we had a nice group in attendance!!

The "Sugar Cookies were fun to decorate, we did it last year and this year I tried not to make a "Hog" of myself and see how many of them I could eat!!!

Halloween night we had all types of Trick or Treaters show up!!!!

These 2 tried to hide and scare the little buggers as they came to the door!!!

We treated almost 100 little ones to candy Halloween night!!
As President of the Tenant's Association one pleasent job is I get to pass out the candy and greet the little ones!!

We took time out from our Cookie Decorating to get a group photo of some of out neighbors who live here!! Stupid Computer loads the Pictures out of order, I know it's the computer and not the operator!!






We had a "Community Work-Day" at church last Friday, we stayed in the kitchen and cooked Chicken and Biscuits for about 30 "volunteers" who went out in the community and painted the local food pantry storage room, worked at several local charties and had a "Give-Away"!!







This group spent all morning at the "Farmers Market" with a free give away of very nice, almost new donated items ranging from televisions, dishes, clothes, knick knacks, towels, blankets and what have you and it was a success, it was well advertised and the items given away were sought after by many people and there was very little left to take to the "Good-Will" store. They were brave sould as it was windy, rainy and cold but that did not stop all the people coming and I brought them fresh hot Coffee to keep them warm!!!!!

After spending the day on all our projects we all gathered for home-made Fresh Biscuits with Chicken and Gravy for a late lunch!!

I close this with a sad note, for the past several days we have been back and forth to the hospital visiting friends, and praying for My Doctor who was in intensive care for days, Dr. Frank, who was a Major in the Army and a very close friend who went into private practice years ago has passed away, he was only 51!!!

My wife was his Office Manager for years before she retired. We camped with them, spent Christmas visiting them, office parties, birthday parties, cook-outs, graduation parties, we watched his 2 daughters grow up, saw him become a proud grandpa, he was adored by his medical staff and clerical staff, well respected in the community and also at the Hospital and American Legion, he leaves a wonderful wife, 2 daughters, a grand-daughter, his parents and a brother and sister and hundred's and hundred's of patients from this area who he saw and cared for, Frank, you will be greatly and sadly missed and will leave a big void in our little community and a big ole empty place in my heart!! !

DON'T FORGET OUR MILITARY!