Just watched the salute to the Bee Gees….taped from last weekend…..Wow!  Not one I will delete any time soon.  I am a 40’s to present music lover.   Learned and listened to the 40’s with my parents….and still do to this day.   Being 10 in 53 put me smack dab in the middle of the beginning of rock n roll……Ballroom dancing with Aleda Rose Alexander when I was in 6th grade taught me the box step, and a little of the new stuff that went along with Bill Haley & the Comets…..Yes, that was really the beginning.

I lived in central Indiana and listened to all the Chicago music stations….still remember how I had to listen in my room cause my parents couldn’t and/or wouldn’t put up with the sound.  Yes kids,  that really did happen….

The 50’s were the best…we’ll talk at length about them in another writing…but compared to now….life in the 50’s was the perfect time for learning to grow up and living to talk about it, compared to some of the ugly choices teens have presently.  Don’t get me wrong…I love most of today’s music…but I think it is because I grew up with the 50’s and 60’s stuff that helps me pick and choose between words of love, innocence, and safety and those of immaturity by dominance, fear, and pain.  What kind of lyrics would you have liked sung to you, when first knowing that someone wanted to be near for just a moment, and then another moment and then another moment?  I know the times, they are always a chang’in, but  c’mon.    Mean then and mean now are the same.  What a shame girls don’t seem to want to be proud and boys….boys will be boys always, but they could have a little class!

Oh well…..the tribute was wonderful. The songs were great..The pop singers of today sang them and sang them well…..Shows again what happens when a star today is given good stuff to sing…..it sounds good, it feels good, it loves and cries good…and the beat does go on.

Here’s to the Gibb bros…..for all they gave us, in both writing and performing.  And here’s to the 20 somethings who attended the gala and really liked it…..maybe there is hope yet!!  later

So….we as a street have been petitioning the town to make good on their bad mistake by putting money where mouth is and seeing that this year’s current budget has money in it for replacement.  We wrote letters…we attended council meetings, we spoke for our 3 minutes over and over again. Promises were positive….planning was minimal and a year drug by with nothing.

Now, in 2017 there is money supposedly set aside for the dock…No admittance of any error has ever been suggested, but any fool knows this is a way to get hold of land for future use that the people on the street don’t want or need.

As everyone on the street smiled in hearing of the new construction…plans were put on hold, as only a town can do.  You see, prior to this, dock builders were sent bids, they replied, one was picked and off it went.   Now…sudden problems occurred with the way the bid process was being done……Now, the way it was usually done, was out of the question….there had to be proper bidding contractors found and put on a computer program….the contractors then had to be assigned  in order, and then bids could be sent.

Big picture…big BS.

And that is where we are today…..in a few months it will be 2 years….houses have lost 10% of their value because of the loss of the dock.  A gathering place for families, grandkids, and birthdays, let alone good fishing, has been on hold with no future predicted. And although we know we are being took, there is probably nothing we can do, unless we find a way legally to demand what is ours, regardless of what opinions are stated.  And that in and of itself is a problem too….our/their mutual land was not taken care of by the county or city until greed came into the picture.

Our town is 6000….9 months a year and a whole hell of a lot more in the winter. Bed tax collected by our little town offers bunches of money for use to advertise for more tourism…more things for them to do…more ways to spend money, etc.  Our public works is bound and determined to take over our local streets in order to use them for tourism by using this tourism money they get only for the asking…if the request is written in a way that tourism dept. lawyers don’t know it is on a local street too narrow for cars too pass.

The noose is growing tighter for our little local streets and no one  listens. We have no recourse because we think attorneys would probably be local and don’t want to get into anything messy with the city or county. It is uncanny how things happen in the summer months when locals go north to visit..that’s when the docks left.  Locals must always be aware of what comes up on the council agendas because items brought up and decided on and moved to drop for good last fall…suddenly rear their ugly head for next month’s meeting and a new decision.

So now, we are still on hold…no plans, no bids, but lots of promises.  Our street is looking for someone who would take this on for the sake of our mess and other streets who are about to be changed forever, because of greed.  (our bid for a replacement dock was $7000) the city’s bid estimate was for a nte of$90,000….. see what I mean,)

later…..

For those of you who are not aware….and Lord knows there are a bunch cause I haven’t written about it here…..I live in So. Fla. on a street that ends in the water.  In and on that water for over 40 years, there was a dock.  It was there when the land was county, and no one cared.  No one looked at it, repaired it, painted it, decorated it, and especially no one kept it clean from trash and safe from people who didn’t belong there…i.e. drunks, transients, etc.

The people on our street…who range from 60 to 90, w/ one 40’ish mom and six year old son thrown in for good times….have always taken care of that wonderful dock. Money was collected, plans made and people would get together and fix what needed to be fixed.

Even when the county turned it over to the city over 10 years ago, no one ever bothered to check out our dock…no one cleaned, or trimmed the trees.  They didn’t send the street cleaner down once a week…or once a month, or once every six months.  We took care of our street, and one another.

Then, one day (it will be 2 years this August) the head of public works decided he not only need control of our dock, but the water in and around it, along with the other streets in our town. Greed and power is the word I use, however, it was his decision to demolish the dock….in one afternoon, with no warning…and …he decided to destroy the one dock, one street over while he had the equipment.

It has since been  found and proven that his reasons (someone called and said it was dangerous) were in fact false…and, that he illegally used funds from another department to do the deed……..more later  (this evening)

Never be a prisoner of your past……

It was just a lesson……not a life sentence.

Oh let me remember this each and every day……I’m part of the ‘guilt’ generation.

Don’t even recognize the page to write..wonder who is going to begin reading again!

I promise I will try to be interesting….opinionated…and upbeat in letting you know about everything…..  boy that does sound boring…..

last time I wrote a letter to the editor, I got up at midnight to get it out of my head and down on paper. That is a good time for the thoughts to be boiling for me, I guess.

Things to look forward to…..moving from home I’ve lived in for 30 years…..tearing down one home to build another…..thoughts and feelings about…..”the second house”…that built me.

Losing my pet after 22 years at age 24……Pookie is the best!

Being married almost 40 years (next month)

Having not see one of my sons for over 25 years…..

Being in good health (at least for today) and being so happy about it.

Family records, pictures, and stuff….as far back as the  early 1900’s..what to do.

Loving California and my 40 years in that great state…compared to some others

Moving along at 73 when I feel 37 most of the time.

Friends I love

and more……take care peeps…..talk later

Was it something bad that happed to you or was it a wisdom-building experience!

Just was watching the nobodies at Burlingame, Ca. hoping they would interrupt Mr. Trump’s speech. What a crowd!  I am sure they had read up on all the candidates and had come to this decision.  I also can see they knew immigration rules and rulings of the United States and were well versed on how to handle the problems of illegal aliens.

They were quiet, well dressed, educated in world affairs, including stock markets world wide, and the many survivors of war torn areas trying to make it to a safe place.  They definitely impressed me with their entrance and their presentation….enough to really make me think twice about who I would vote for and why.  I was really hesitant with myself until I saw the “F” word sign, the little kiddies milling around, and how kindly they treated the police and hotel people.  But a combo of those things helped me decide.  Thank you nobodies…Take your hooded faces and go home.

I know it’s been a while and we’ll talk later about that, but this is just too good…..

Ft. Myers Beach, Florida voting day….

Friends of mine went to vote and were given two pages for voting  for the president..Yes not one,  TWO. We had a number of items to vote on so there numerous pages.  More than person came to page two of presidential choices and thought it was very very odd.  They matched the two together quickly and could not see a difference, but went ahead and voted.  Now…after one votes this year it is then taken to a machine where the sheets were entered and the count was made with a computer.  They did and so did the machine.

After going outside the voting area, these people returned and said something they felt something was just not right in that they swore they had identical pages allowing them to vote twice for the presidential choice.  The lady they talked to said no..they were wrong.

Friends then went over to the table where a person was handing out the ballots and sure enough, she was handing out voting sheets but two were the same.  Someone gasped!  Do ya think!!  Phone calls were made and it was stopped……

The local news reported it but said there were just a few before it was caught….Answer to that is no….but it was early in the day.

Question of the day… did the machine accept all the extra votes…did the machine cancel the voter’s whole ballot, just a portion or not at all!

later…..

To be glad of life, because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars,

To be satisfied with your possessions, but not contented with yourself until you have made the best of them,

To despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice,

To be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts,

To covet  nothing that is your neighbor’s except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners,

To think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends and every day of Christ,

And to spend as much time as you can with body and with spirit, in God’s out-of-doors —

—- these are the guide-posts on the footpath of peace

The train rushes past, while small sister and I,

Look on from our place in the meadow close by.

The puff of the engine, the click of the wheels,

The odor of smoke. Oh!  the way that it feels—

To stand there and watch it go rum-bl-ing past,

A-whirly the dust, and a-chugging so fast—

Is something I never could ever explain,

But always we feel it when watching a train.

And always we say: now how do you suppose

Those funny old grownups can sit there in rows,

Their noses all buried in papers so deep,

While some of them even– just think — are asleep?

If sister and I got a chance for a ride,

We would not read books or gaze ’round the inside.

We’d stare out the windows as hard as could be,

And I’ll bet there’d be nothing that we wouldn’t see

G H Berard Smith, Jr.

(from my stack)