Five hundred years ago in 1513, Ponce de Leon discovered Florida and Don and I arrived in 2001 to begin our next adventure. What a difference 500 years make! We moved into our condominium at Spring Run in The Brooks and when the Barbers were enroute to see us our first Christmas the song led by Keith was “over the River and through the gate to Grandma’s condo we go.” Our third retirement brought us to beautiful southwest Florida. We had already sampled the mountains and the desert and now it was time to try the beach and the gulf. We arrived In May, a warm humid time of the year in Florida, the exact opposite of the hot dry climate of Arizona, whose motto was “but it’s a dry heat!”
Kelly was nine years old, and Laurie was five, the perfect age for granddaughters! The Florida years with Jennifer, Keith and the girl were about to begin. To complete the picture our good friends Bill and Marie Demmer lived five miles away on the beach in Bonita Springs. We had stayed in touch through the years by annual Christmas cards, but now picked up in person where we left off after our wedding. Many great boat trips, lunches, concerts, and visits to their house at Lake Winnipesaukee filled the next years, not to mention days at the beach!
Florida memories are like looking through a kaleidoscope, there are so many in a wide variety of colors..Jennifer was now the media specialist at Pinewoods Elementary, a nearby school, and I was ready to put my library skills to work shelving books. Dinosaur books were among the favorites of boys and girls and it was fun to be around the children. Kelly and Laurie had plenty of energy and enthusiasm to share and they spent many hours and days with Grandpa and me at our condo. They would come overnight with their backpacks and suitcases and proceed to set up shop with dolls and other toys in the middle of the living room floor. They were very inventive and creative and could play for hours in their own world. Many art projects were worked on at the kitchen table and some of my vintage clothes worked perfectly for dressing up. They also had one outfit that came via a shopping trip to Good Will with Jennifer and Keith. They put together some very glamorous outfits and Laurie’s flair for clothes may have started there.
When they started Tae Kwon Do Grandpa and I went to watch their sessions. It was very hard to watch the struggle they had to get into their gear, which they had to do themselves with no help from grown ups, as part of the program. Sometimes they would practice their routines on the golf tee outside our condo, watching out for errant golf balls and golfers! They progressed through many belt colors and I imagine their training stands them in good stead traveling in Oakland and San Francisco today. There were also gymnastic sessions to see and balance beams to conquer.
On Saturdays their friend Sam would spend the day and was always part of any excursions. It was on Saturdays that I learned how to order a sandwich at Subway by standing behind Kelly and Laurie and saying “I’ll have what she’s having.” Laurie liked the meatball sub and through Kelly I learned to add banana peppers to my sandwich. I also learned you could create drinks at the soda machines by pushing different levers!
And then there was Halloween in Orange Tree, a night not to be missed! Such excitement, it was like a giant festival where many houses were decorated with pumpkins and witches, and people sat outside giving out candy. It was the perfect place to live with so many houses to visit. Kids came from miles around because Orange Tree was not a gated community. As I walked around with them on Halloween night I was enjoying my second childhood.
Birthday parties were fun events, especially ones held at Germain Arena ice skating rink. Ice skating in Florida is still a novelty to me. Pizza and ice cream and birthday cake were the refreshments provided and of course, ice skating. Grandpa was excited to take part and was out on the ice skating around only to learn that our session hadn’t yet begun! We had done a lot of outdoor skating in NJ growing up and were happy to learn that our skating abilities had held up, but we sure didn’t have the endurance of ten year olds! Not bad for sixty five year olds though.
An easier party for us was the pool party Laurie had for her ninth birthday at the Orange Tree Clubhouse and pool. Her whole class was invited; it was a beautiful day and a birthday to remember! And easier on our older bodies.
On occasions when Laurie’s school had an early dismissal day I would pick her up, and we would go home to her house for the afternoon. What I remember most about those days is that Laurie would get in the car and talk excitedly all the way home. What she probably remembers best is the time I drove right past the turn for her house and kept on going. I believe she pointed out my error. Years later Grandpa called her Magellan as she called out directions from her iPhone as we were looking for the restaurant after Kelly’s graduation from the University of Florida.
One day I took Kelly to a downtown federal building for something she had to do there. I wasn’t familiar with the area but felt confident that I could return a different way. As I drove I realized I was lost when it turned out we were on the road leading to the small Naples airport. Kelly’s comment was “I didn’t even know Naples had an airport!”
Grandpa and I enjoyed going to Kelly’s swim meets and football games where Laurie played in the band, with an instrument that was bigger than she was. The school concerts and awards ceremonies and banquets rounded out their school years.
Grandpa thought that since we were surrounded by water here we should have a boat. He had loved fishing growing up and Florida fishing from a boat would be great. He had many good hours exploring the waters in the area and sometimes the Barbers would join us. Kelly and Laurie would struggle into their cumbersome life jackets and away we would go. One time Grandpa asked Kelly and Laurie if they would like to take the wheel. Kelly declined but Laurie jumped at the chance. Might have been a precursor of travels to come for her as she has accumulated many driving miles driving coast to coast!
One of our boat trips was to Mound Key, which was the home of the Calusa Indians for ages. The key was comprised of millions of shells piled up by the Calusa. Our boat trip ended at Strawberry Corners for ice cream. We went there often with Bill and Marie Demmer on some of our adult excursions. Some days we would take Kelly and Laurie in the boat and anchor and go to the beach.
In the meantime, Keith was running an entertainment company, so sometimes small hermit crabs would be delivered to the house. They were painted with numbers on their backs and were used in crab races at the Ritz Carlton. Once Grandpa had to deliver something to Keith that he had forgotten, and on his way out helped himself to some refreshments at another party.
We had one very enjoyable weekend at the Sandpiper Club Med where Keith was doing caricatures. Kent joined us from California and we learned about his girlfriend Kimberley on that visit. One of the most memorable parts of that trip was watching Kelly and Laurie on the trapeze. Perhaps a better way to describe it would be to say that it was a very scary part of the trip watching Kelly and Laurie flying through the air with the greatest of ease. And Kent also did it. A weekend to remember.
A few years later Kent asked Kimberley to marry him and the Demmers offered their beautiful beachfront home for the wedding. They had to attend a wedding in Boston so were not there. It was a beautiful wedding on the beach, followed by an elegant dinner at the Ritz Carlton in Naples. We have lovely pictures of the Barbers and Grandpa was resplendent in his “penguin suit” as he called it. Apropos as Kent spent time in Antarctica with penguins, flying helicopter support for the National Science Foundation.
Jennifer was now at Sabal Palm School as the media specialist and Grandpa and I helped her in setting it up. She also held book fairs twice a year where I was able to help. It is a major undertaking, not just books but so many other things to chose from. I loved being part of the whole reading scene.
Kelly in the meantime could often be found in her “tree,” reading a variety of books. A tree is a good place for reading if you can’t find a quiet corner!
And then there is the story of Keith and the motorcycle. He knew I hated motorcycles; I won’t count the ways. It was the one opinion I was loud and clear about. So through the years we would give him toy motorcycles, motorcycle birthday cards, etc. and I was hopeful that would be enough. Until one day Kelly and Laurie, with gleeful expressions on their faces, said “We have something to show you in the garage” and voila! There was Keith’s motorcycle. Seems there was some discussion ahead of time as to “who was going to tell Grandma that Dad has a motorcycle!”
Since my days seeing shows in New York I have always loved theatre and Naples has a lot to offer. It was great going to the lunch dinner theatres with Jennifer, Kelly and Laurie, seeing The Secret Garden at the Naples Players and West Side Story at the Philharmonic, in addition to seeing Laurie’s friend Chris in Cats at the Kidz Act. Grandpa and I joined Bill and Marie at many wonderful concerts at the Phil, now Artis Naples. The Christmas concerts are magnificent and the Patriotic Pops concerts where Grandpa and other service members would stand when their service song was played were memorable.
One summer, Don and I spent one month in Highlands in the mountains of North Carolina in a fabulous house on the side of a hill among the trees. We did a lot of hiking, especially to waterfalls, visited beautiful homes on a garden and home tour. Grandpa loved seeing the landscape design of these mountain homes. One summer we took the Rocky Mountaineer train trip across Canada, a wonderful trip through gorgeous scenery and especially nice for Grandpa. On camping trips he was driving and couldn’t enjoy the scenery too much. We returned to Caneel Bay three times. Once for our 50th anniversary, but went on our 49th, in case we didn’t make it to the 50th. We spent time each summer with Bill and Marie at their great waterside home at Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, where every day we went out to lunch by boat.
In the meantime we were living in Florida enjoying the beach and the boat. Grandpa was playing a lot of tennis, I was doing water aerobics, I learned to play mahjong, we were going out to lunch frequently, and Grandpa volunteered at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida as a boat captain. He was a great boat captain, taking guests on boat tours and giving talks on the Florida ecosystem, he is a born educator. Laurie volunteered there for a period of time, working in the animal hospital. One of the supervisors gave Laurie the job of cutting up a dead rat to feed a snake. The woman told Laurie that she couldn’t do it because she was a vegetarian! There really is humor everywhere.
In 2016 we were now in our eighties (how did that happen!)? And time for another move. This time we moved a few miles down the road to a new rental retirement community, American House. We continued to “downsize” and are almost down to two reclining chairs and a television set! We are in Independent Living; there is an Assisted Living Section and a Memory Care unit. Since moving is in our blood, we may not be done yet! Our sense of humor is intact and every day brings something new to laugh about!