Ridin’out the Recession
From: Larry
Dear Dub and Deb,
Made me laugh. Several summers ago, about 50 plus or minus, I took my trip to the “Big Lake”! My Uncle Bob had been in an auto accident and was in a wheel chair. He could drive but not get around very well on his own. He was a little crazy on a good day! Anyway, his Dad had a trailer park on Marathon Key and Uncle Bob decided to drive from De Land to Marathon with myself and his three small children. He sold it as a better place to convalesce for awhile. I think he wanted to get away from my Mother’s younger sister! We had one of those crazy trips that all kids love.
We stopped at all those eccentric roadside tourist traps. We saw wigwams, snake pits, alligator farms, the largest Magnolia Tree, biggest Cypress, we saw it all! We all decided to go to the “Big Lake”. Uncle Bob had a cast on one leg, a cast on his arm. Uncle Bob pulled his Ford up to the dike and we drug his wheel chair out of the trunk and started for the lake. We discovered a glitch in our plans. We had to push Uncle Bob up the dike to see the lake. It all seems easy except, Uncle Bob had to depend upon a two year old, a four year old, a six year old and a 10 year old to get him up the dike and back to the car. Well, as you can imagine, this was a recipe for disaster! Uncle Bob weighed about 180 lbs, had a left leg cast and a right arm cast (latter he cut off with a dovetail saw!), anyway, we got him up the dike and lost him on the other side. It was one of those America’s Funniest Video’s moments! We were soon helped by the kindness of strangers! It was a great summer for a kid. I fished every day, stayed up late, lived in a trailer by myself, ate mangoes and lived the life of Huck Finn. It was great. Uncle Bob never let us forget how we dumped him in the lake, he was a tough guy that didn’t like to be embarrassed!
Thanks for the memory.
Larry, New Orleans, by way of Texas, Florida and other wanderings!
**Hey Larry. Thanks for coming back to visit with us, and we loved your story of Lake Okeechobee too! At least once you saw the lake you actually “stayed awhile,” unlike us. Sounds like you had a wonderful trip and we can easily see it made for some great memories.
I would imagine “Uncle Bob” had some memories of being helped up the dike by you guys, but much stronger and longer lasting memories of once reaching the top, the trip down the other side! That was hilarious!
What a summer for the ages that has been for you, huh? As you said, living the life of Huck Finn! Creating fond memories, Larry is what life is about. We so appreciate you taking your time to relate one of yours for us and our readers! We thoroughly enjoyed it, and we’re sure everyone else will as well!
This is exactly what we’re trying to do in our columns such as the one Larry was mentioning .To bring back those memories for you guys as well, simply through sharing ours with you. Thinking back both Dub and I actually lived great childhoods. They weren’t all “peaches and cream,” of course, but we both enjoyed our youth to the extent, that really, most all our growing up memories are good.
To all you readers, if you’d like to share any memories you may have, please feel free to do so. We’d love hearing them!
Thanks again Larry, come see us anytime!
God Bless you all!
Deb………….and Dub