Uttermost Parts of the Sea
For the moment I'm done reminiscing about Alfred. But the photocopies of St. Andrews Bay News that Dr. McKenzie sent me have fascinating old news clips and bits. The four editions are January 8, 22, 29 and February 5, 1918. World War I was in progress, the Germans were the bad guys. And there was local news, a few tidbits below from January 8, 1918:
“The grading on Bay View avenue is complete. Now, for a good, wide coat of clay on top of it.” (Bay View Avenue was later renamed Beach Drive. I don’t know when the street was paved, obviously after 1918, but it was already concrete paved from my earliest memories in the nineteen-thirties.
So were a few streets in The Cove, concrete paved, from Cherry Street north a few blocks and from E. Beach Drive east a couple of blocks. 12th Street in St. Andrews, on which our fishhouse was located, was wonderfully deep, thick sand, and
where the Shrimp Boat is now was wide white beach swarming with millions of fiddler crabs).
So were a few streets in The Cove, concrete paved, from Cherry Street north a few blocks and from E. Beach Drive east a couple of blocks. 12th Street in St. Andrews, on which our fishhouse was located, was wonderfully deep, thick sand, and
“Miss Dorothy Ware left yesterday morning for Tallahassee to resume her studies at the Florida State College for Women.”
“The breeze early Sunday morning did no damage here but at Panama City the three big iron stacks at the A. E. Turner Co. plant and also the one at Powers’ mill were keeled over by the wind. Repairs are now in progress.”
“Mr. George Cummings, of Bayhead, came down the last of the week to get his fine launch which has been undergoing repairs necessitated by injuries receive in the hurricane last summer. ...” (I did not realize a hurricane came through here summer 1917, but here’s a report of it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Atlantic_hurricane_season
Friends invite me to join them on LinkedIn and Google+. I accept although I have no idea what either one is or does or is for. Don't be disappointed that I'm "in" but nothing comes of it.
We have good Bible lessons for this morning. The OT Sunday school story of Jacob's ladder. A passage from Paul's theological treatis that is Romans 8. In Matthew's gospel Jesus tells another seed parable. Best of all, at least to my liking, is Psalm 139 extolling the omnipresence of God. Just before the end of his psalm the poet slips in three rather nasty verses that we shall leave out, otherwise a lovely hymn. My favorite part of it, as a naval officer, or as a priest who has often said it to consecrate the act of scattering ashes, or just simply as a son of the earth whose lifelong love is St. Andrews Bay, is "If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me."
A perfect Florida predawn. Damp, a Gulf breeze coming in off the Bay, half-moon high and slightly to the east of meridian, and that green navigation light to lead me home.
TW+