Contributing writer
Several years ago, my daughter Wanda and I were in Hawaii. We took a small plane to a small island where a friend lived. As we flew low over the Pacific, we could look down and see some huge whales leaping in and out of the water. I read in a paper recently that a huge whale had overturned a rather large fishing boat in the ocean. There were three men aboard and one of them drowned. The ocean is a dangerous place. Some years ago, a young girl was playing in the ocean near Hawaii and a shark bit off both her arms.
I remember walking in the sand along the ocean and as the water rolled over my feet, the sand kept washing out as the water receded. I felt like I could go with it.
The Marion County Record gave me a nice birthday gift. In the package was a book “Lou’s Dirty Dozen,” written by Ranny Grady, quite interesting and humorous. It must be a true story. Many towns around Tampa are in the story, even Marion.
Speaking about small towns, I was asked to be interviewed by a University of Kansas professor about Florence during the oil boom in the 1930s. I guess I’m the only one left to remember that.
Florence, at that time, had some wonderful shops and a great movie house. We loved to go there and shop; of course, the movie was a great attraction. Florence was really a very fun place to go at that time.