Thursday before TGiving Day
Under heavy, low clouds, that's all of Beach Drive this early morning, including Harrison Avenue and the downtown marina, Beach Drive from Foster Avenue in St Andrews where it begins to Cherry Street in the Cove where it ends, looking east from 7H.
Especially if I snapped it while one of the red or green channel lights is flashing, usually I prefer to show looking west, across St Andrews Bay toward the Pass and Magnolia Beach to the high-rises on Thomas Drive.
Or straight across St Andrews Bay from Davis Point to Courtney Point, including if a ship passes 7H as she is arriving at Port Panama City's West Terminal or leaving for ports beyond, the largest ships arriving to load wood pellets for UK or Denmark or Japan; the actual largest is usually Bahama Spirit 615x106 arriving to offload aggregate, which, IDK, is for road construction? Generally the biggest ships of all are traffic for the East Terminal, arriving with lumber, I'm thinking, for the building construction industry here. Before the paper mill closed, the largest ships were arriving to load wood fluff.
+++++++
IDK, maybe I've said it before, but still at 88 life is fun and good. Interesting, I could add "never a dull moment" and it would take me back to hearing my mother say she couldn't stand hearing people say "I'm bored," because life was never boring and anyone with any sense could always find something to do. Sometimes she'd add, "people who say 'I'm bored' bore me to tears."
Mama read books and cooked and sewed and gardened, then mainly in old age watched the Atlanta Braves. She knew every player on the field, every player on the bench, all their statistics, where they were from, what clubs they'd played for before coming to Atlanta, and she knew all their families.
She also remembered every tragedy that'd happened in our family, or in Panama City since she moved here upon marrying my father in 1934, and would tell me about it in detail, bringing the clouds of darkest gloom down on me until finally I started saying, "Mama, please don't tell me about that again, there's nothing I can do about it, and having it in my mind will ruin my day."
Thursday before Thanksgiving Day, we've not bought our turkey yet. I'm wanting a thirty-pounder but Time has shown that I'm not in charge. My objection to a twelve pound turkey is that there's never enough leftovers for me to have a turkey sandwich every meal for the next several days. I love a turkey sandwich. Dark bread, mayonnaise, slices of turkey, white meat or dark meat but not mixed. Sometimes I toast the bread beforehand, usually not. Sometimes lettuce, sometimes not. Now and then a slice of cheese. A mug of hot & black to go with. A twelve pound turkey just don't git it, nomesane?
Okay, mind and topic seem to have shifted to Thanksgiving, so I'll finish there. Sam's Club had Maryland oysters the other day when we went to their pharmacy, so I bought four pints, one to eat now, including four raw oysters on saltines for breakfast the next morning; and three pints into the freezer for my oyster dressing next week. Once, instead of oyster dressing I made oyster casserole, which Mama used to make but we always called it scalloped oysters. This year it'll be oyster dressing, my base being Pepperidge Farm dressing, not the cornbread one, the other one.
Because of the oysters and the lobsters and what all else was in my grocery cart when I met her at self-check-out, Linda may require that I wait outside in the car from now on, and if so that's okay, because with my phone and personal hot spot I can go wherever in the world I want to.
Life is fun and good, never boring, never a dull moment. I pray that when you get to 88 you find your life as good as mine is this early Thursday. Knocking wood and wishing us long years.
RSF&PTL
T88&c
