Friday the 13th
Okay, I'm not sure this is it, the old ice plant in St Andrews (it's at the Bay shore, not referring to the ice plant next to Windham's fish market, that all my growing up years was on Beck Avenue where Captain's Table parking lot is now, that's not the one). The structure I remember from the late 1940s or early 1950s was an old, long closed and abandoned rusting tin ice plant that, among other clients, served my grandfather's business Bay Fisheries, and was located almost adjacent to it, at the foot of Frankford, where Frankford Avenue meets W Beach Drive, that in the early days was Bay Shore road or drive or avenue or street.
Several other photos marked "ice plant" to help jog anyone's memory.
We always had to walk past the old ice plant on Sunday afternoons when we went down to swim off the jetty that was there, where Landmark Condominum is now. The door to what had been the old ice plant's office was often standing open. Visible there was a cot against the far wall, and I remember one Time, walking by, seeing a man lying under the cot, and I thought he must be dead, or sick. I went and got my father and showed him the man, but my father said he was just sleeping off a drunk. A day or so later, an article in the Panama City News Herald wrote that the man had been discovered dead there. Nothing suspicious, an elderly vagrant who had crawled under the cot, likely indeed to sleep off a drunk, and had died there.
That's my only memory and story about that old ice plant, which was torn down maybe while I was away at college or early Navy years, and at some point I noticed that the old building was gone.
Not exactly a historic landmark, and I'm not even sure that the pictures posted here, all marked St Andrews ice plant, are the same building I remember, but I'd bet a nickel on it. And the evidence of a rail spur running down to it, as there was a rail spur running out on the pier to Bay Fisheries, increases my confidence slightly but not much.
If someone argues or proves me wrong, I'm okay with that too!!
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Friday the Thirteenth, we feel like we've had not just the day, but a Friday the 13th week of it. It began with my stunning disappointment when our interim rector told me that he had accepted a call to a church in Delaware and would be leaving the end of December. Then our refrigerator suddenly went bad and we had to panic and move all the fresh and frozen food into several temporary places. Then the customer reports on the company that would be repairing the broken refrigerator freezer under extended warranty had abominably atrocious reports of dissatisfied and unhappy clients, moving us to give up on repairing it and going to Lowe's to purchase a new refrigerator - - which is due to be delivered tomorrow. Then the television went bad - - I don't give a damn about the television unless there's a hurricane in the Gulf, but Linda watches it, so we called and obtained an appointment and waited two days for WOW to send a technician out, diagnose the problem as a failed modem and replace it.
On top of that, work was going on in the condo garage concrete floor, so like everyone else here, I had to keep track and move the cars around out of the way of the workers, including we got a phone call from the HOA office while, in Linda's car, we were at Carousel at the beach, asking if we could move my car. Not a problem, the work is to help settle the dust that gathers in the underground garage, and we're glad to cooperate!
The outside wall light outside our front door has been out several weeks, reported several Times but it's still out, and quite dark down here at the end after sunset, so the hell with the rule that we're not supposed to mess with it, I'm going to replace the bulb myself tomorrow.
On top of all that, Bubba's CHF that was diagnosed fourteen years ago just keeping on keeping on with increasing tiredness and dispnea and seeing me having to watch myself to avoid being snappy and grouchy, which is not my nature. Years ago as we were checking out of Cleveland Clinic, a paper they gave me said heart surgery patients can expect to feel depressed and grouchy, which I disputed for myself, never depressed because after all, I am alive in spite of all medical prognoses, and not grouchy because that's not my nature. I'm pretty much quiet, not a glad-hander, but never of irritable character until now I have to watch myself. Although It's all helped by multiple naps throughout most any given day. Do some work or exercise, take a nap. Work, nap. Eat, nap. Walk, nap. Maybe one martini a month now instead of one after church most Sundays, maybe one cold beer a month, maybe a glass of wine on special occasions anymore instead of a glass of red on 7H porch as the sun goes down. We live life in phases and stages, if you haven't noticed, you will notice soon enough. Withal aging and grouchy old man, Life is Good and certainly worth all the trouble.
Wishing you long years.
RSF&PTL
T89&c
Where the heart is: 1952 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe club coupe.