To Envision Life

St. Louis Cardinal's farm team

Today, I had some chores in Pace. This included a nice quiet coffee respite at the Coffee Break cafe. My brother Jim Joined me and Bill Lundin and Stuart Pooley (the poet of Bagdad). Jim was wearing a cap from the New JerseyCardinals who were once a farm team in Sussex County, NJ. Jim went to a game with us almost one thousand years ago when we lived there. HE got the cap - which is now antique.


Million Dollar Bridge

Then, I drove up to Chumuckla to confer with my advisers about logs and timber and living life with gusto. Then, I drove by the "million dollar" bridge as one of my advisers calls it. It is there, he takes his grandson to swim in the cold spring waters. His barely teen grandson slapped a new set of spark plug wires on his truck - almost blindfolded. A wonder. Swim call - deserved. I never really knew where the "million dollar bridge" was -- but it is not far at all from the old McDavid place near Chumuckla Springs (also known as "mineral springs". The McDavid Place is also near "Coon Hill" which as it turns out - is mentioned in the new historical novel by Gaylier Miller.



I stopped for a moment to capture a picture of some young cotton plants
reaching for the sun.

From there I hastened my path on over to the home of Louise Arnette who is a native of "Mineral Springs" but the Mineral Springs of Philadelphia, Mississippi. Now she lives near Jay, FL. Louise had some of her famous chicken salad made up for Roy Allen and for me. Before I took Roy his Chicken Salad - I convinced Louise to give her "basic origins" story to my smart camera video recorder. Enjoy the video at the end ) Her history is purely rugged survival and success. Such people we should be thankful to live among.


Louise Arnette

I delivered to Roy his chicken salad. We talked about his step dad - Don Bales - (Pat Allen Bales) who is recovering from serious surgery at West Florida. My aunt Louise Chavers Carswell - (age 94) called my smart phone while I was at Roy's and he got to tell her hello and she spoke with him. She always asks about my blind friend, Roy.

I suggested to Roy that her immobility at her age leaves her in a position she cannot enjoy the full beauty of God's creation every day and it becomes her joy to remember people I tell her about - like the river logger and Roy the blind BBQ man, and the handyman and my son the marine and my sister's fourteen grandchildren and my brother's Disney vacations -- and envision their lives.

A THRILL TO ENVISION, I said .... to my blind friend, Roy.
Got home and ate my chicken salad with Karen Gatewood Campbell.
I cannot describe how good it was !
(I think my sister only has ten grandkids but I lost count )
Louise TELLS HER STORY