It's the summer of 1979, things are going reasonably well. The motels are doing very good; the only problem is personnel, mainly managers. They seem to think that a manager was worth twice as much as the going rate, and if they were that important, they shouldn't have to work! Leroy was having a fit finding and keeping people in place. We had received a good offer from Regal 8 Inns, our ex partners, to buy us out. This sounded good but what would we do? We couldn't sit around and twiddle our fingers, and we definitely didn't want any business that depended on people.
This was the summer of my 30th class reunion, which was held at the Ramada Inn at Blackstone and Shaw in Fresno. Margaret and I decided to attend. Most of my classmates were there and we had a good time. About half of them were farming and farming was doing very well. I had enough experience as a young man growing up to properly handle a vineyard, and they were turning good profit at a selling price of $1000 a ton with costs of about $500 a ton. This made sense and my entire life I had heard the advise of "Buy land, young man, buy land". "You can never lose money on land".
I decided to check it out, so once a month I flew to Fresno looking into vineyards and the farming market in general. It looked very good but the vineyard cost was high (approx. $14-15,000 an acre).
We decided to go full steam ahead and made the deal with our ex-partners. I looked at property from Delano to the south, Merced to the north and everything inbetween. I considered everything - grapes, almonds, walnuts, oranges and pistaccios, and settled on grapes.
Our first purchase was a twenty acre vineyard on Cedar Ave, 1/2 mile south of Manning (Fresno area). It had an old small beat-up house which we removed and bought a new double-wide modular. Katrina, Lynn and family lived there.
Our second purchase was a 40 acre vineyard on Klepper Ave, 1/4 mile west of Elm Avenue (Caruthers area). This had a good home on it.
Third came a 60 acre vineyard south of Madera, a nice older home, two big barns, employee home and came with all the equipment I needed. The property backed up to the San Joaquin River (we had 1320 feet of River frontage),
We sold our home in Marco Island for a profit (but wish we could say the same for the sale of the boats!). We loaded up with a rental U-Haul, pulling my pickup which Leroy drove for us. Leroy had opted to stay with us and live on our 40 acres near Caruthers and help me with my farming. In the meantime Bill and Frances chose to move their operation of Regal 8 Inns of California back to California, buying property in Oakhurst. Ralph and June decided to stay in Florida.
This all took place the first of June 1980 and Margaret and I drove to California via southern Illinois picking up Debbie who was spending the summer with us.
Margaret had not seen any of the three properties, including the one we were moving into in Madera, so there was some apprehension on her part.
So that's the story on how we wound up in Fresno and became farmers!
Monday, August 29, 2011
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Last of the Marco Highlights
We invited Debbie (16 in the May) and my niece from England, Sarah (16 in the April) to spend the summer with us. We used to say that Debbie was 16 going on 18, and Sarah was 16 going on 14. But it was wonderful to see a friendship grow over the weeks - although it had its 'moments' at first - competition and both a little threatened by the differences. 
We did all the touristy things - including one of my five trips to Disneyworld during that time - and I thoroughly enjoyed taking them shopping. Sarah may have come to us a kid, but when she returned to England (I made the trip with her) we all went out to dinner that first night and Sarah dressed in her sundress, heels, and hair and makeup learned from Debbie. We were all in the hallway when she came down the stairs and my poor brother exclaimed, "what happened to my little girl". Her two brothers living at home simply stood there with their mouths open! It was great.
Another great visit was my cousin Audrey and husband Derek. Added to enjoying all that Marco and Florida had to offer, we also added a surprise trip for them by flying them out to California. Dick was already there and had a vehicle he had purchased that he wanted to have driven back. But first Gordon and Irene joined us out there and the six of us had a fantastic time seeing Yosemite, the Coast and Las Vegas. Dick, Gordon and Irene left us at that point, and I drove Derek and Audrey across country back to Marco sightseeing along the way.
The above and the next photo are of my sister Mair and her husband Norman's visit. All the usual things were done of course (Disneyworld, etc.), but we also took a fun driving trip to the Florida Keys. Norman was especially thrilled with this trip as we ended up visiting Key West with all of its Hemingway memorabillia. The above photo which shows singer (from the 50's) Johnny Ray kneeling and signing to Mair at the Marco Country Club has a story behind it. Mair is 12 years older than I and when I was a teenager, Johnny Ray was the 'big thing'. My sister used to tease me about how he sounded like a cat wailing, so when I saw he was going to perform at the country club when she and Norman were visiting, I organized a dinner/party get together with three other couples and reserved the main table immediately to the left of the performing platform. It was luck to a great extent, but I had been to enough concerts to pick up on the fact that performers almost always played to the table on their right. I seated Mair on the end, facing the performer and all our friends were in on the joke, so as we arrived at the club, they stood in front of all the signs announcing it was Johnny Ray so she had no idea who was performing. It couldn't have worked out better - not only did he 'play to the right', but ended up kneeling in front of Mair for one of his songs.
One other thing we did that was a real departure from the norm for Dick and I was to join a bowling league with Leroy and Betty Hatfield. Leroy was an excellent bowler, but the rest of us left a lot to be desired, although we did end up winning the most improved team at the end of the year. Let's face it when you start out as bad as Betty, Dick and I were you had no place to go but up!! Dick and I used to joke that we wished we could swap our golf scores and our bowling scores. 160 in bowling and 80 in golf would have been splendid.
We did all the touristy things - including one of my five trips to Disneyworld during that time - and I thoroughly enjoyed taking them shopping. Sarah may have come to us a kid, but when she returned to England (I made the trip with her) we all went out to dinner that first night and Sarah dressed in her sundress, heels, and hair and makeup learned from Debbie. We were all in the hallway when she came down the stairs and my poor brother exclaimed, "what happened to my little girl". Her two brothers living at home simply stood there with their mouths open! It was great.
Another great visit was my cousin Audrey and husband Derek. Added to enjoying all that Marco and Florida had to offer, we also added a surprise trip for them by flying them out to California. Dick was already there and had a vehicle he had purchased that he wanted to have driven back. But first Gordon and Irene joined us out there and the six of us had a fantastic time seeing Yosemite, the Coast and Las Vegas. Dick, Gordon and Irene left us at that point, and I drove Derek and Audrey across country back to Marco sightseeing along the way.
The above and the next photo are of my sister Mair and her husband Norman's visit. All the usual things were done of course (Disneyworld, etc.), but we also took a fun driving trip to the Florida Keys. Norman was especially thrilled with this trip as we ended up visiting Key West with all of its Hemingway memorabillia. The above photo which shows singer (from the 50's) Johnny Ray kneeling and signing to Mair at the Marco Country Club has a story behind it. Mair is 12 years older than I and when I was a teenager, Johnny Ray was the 'big thing'. My sister used to tease me about how he sounded like a cat wailing, so when I saw he was going to perform at the country club when she and Norman were visiting, I organized a dinner/party get together with three other couples and reserved the main table immediately to the left of the performing platform. It was luck to a great extent, but I had been to enough concerts to pick up on the fact that performers almost always played to the table on their right. I seated Mair on the end, facing the performer and all our friends were in on the joke, so as we arrived at the club, they stood in front of all the signs announcing it was Johnny Ray so she had no idea who was performing. It couldn't have worked out better - not only did he 'play to the right', but ended up kneeling in front of Mair for one of his songs.
One other thing we did that was a real departure from the norm for Dick and I was to join a bowling league with Leroy and Betty Hatfield. Leroy was an excellent bowler, but the rest of us left a lot to be desired, although we did end up winning the most improved team at the end of the year. Let's face it when you start out as bad as Betty, Dick and I were you had no place to go but up!! Dick and I used to joke that we wished we could swap our golf scores and our bowling scores. 160 in bowling and 80 in golf would have been splendid.One of our favorite lines that we love to quote is Betty's opinion of golf, which she only did once, and bowling which she loved. She said she didn't like any sport where the ball didn't come back to her.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Before we head west to California.....
some random memories of those two years in Marco...
My Mother, and older sister Aunt Peggy and younger sister Aunt Lu spent three months with us in Marco. During that time we took many trips to see the sights that Florida has to offer and they seem to love every minute of it - except perhaps getting there in the first place! That was an experience. They flew into Miami - about 100 miles straight across Florida to the East Coast of Florida from our Western shored Marco Island. Dick was in California at the time, so I drove to Miami to meet them. They were supposed to come in about mid afternoon. The plane arrived and the people started coming through the gates. No ladies. Knowing that my mother would be in a wheel chair, I thought - they're probably going to be among the last, so I waited. More people, no ladies! Finally, no more people! Quick enquiries showed that they had never gotten on the plane! Now what. This is well before the days of cell phones and noone is home to answer any calls there. I call my brother in Canada - had he heard? No, but he'd call England. He called my sister and she called our cousin Mary who had taken them to the airport in London. As far as anyone knew they had gone on the plane! I finally decided there was no point in hanging around the airport, no one could reach me there - so I drove home. There was a message waiting for me from the airline in Miami. Where was I - they had three ladies (79, 81 and 83 years old). Apparently they had missed their intended flight (something about having to go a roundabout way because of my mother's wheelchair and they were too late!!) and they had put them on the very next flight which left 30 minutes later. Miami airport is strangely laid out and each gate is separated from the other gates in what appears to be separate rooms. They were announcing my family's arrival in their gate, but it wasn't sounding in my gate. So most of the time I was frantically making the phone calls to Gordon and he was transmitting the news from Mair and Mary, they were sitting in the gate right NEXT door waiting for me. By this time it was late evening, the ladies were exhausted and the airline put them up in a hotel and I picked them up the next morning.
During that time, we arranged a vacation with Bill and Frances, and Jerry and Bev to go to Hawaii. We had a fantastic time there staying on four islands - Oahu, Maui, Hawaii and Kauaii. They were filming a movies at one of he hotels with Paul Newman, William Holden, Jaqueline Bissett, Red Buttons and Ernest Borgnine. Dick, Bill, Jerry and I golfed that day but Bev and Frances watched some of the filming.
My Mother, and older sister Aunt Peggy and younger sister Aunt Lu spent three months with us in Marco. During that time we took many trips to see the sights that Florida has to offer and they seem to love every minute of it - except perhaps getting there in the first place! That was an experience. They flew into Miami - about 100 miles straight across Florida to the East Coast of Florida from our Western shored Marco Island. Dick was in California at the time, so I drove to Miami to meet them. They were supposed to come in about mid afternoon. The plane arrived and the people started coming through the gates. No ladies. Knowing that my mother would be in a wheel chair, I thought - they're probably going to be among the last, so I waited. More people, no ladies! Finally, no more people! Quick enquiries showed that they had never gotten on the plane! Now what. This is well before the days of cell phones and noone is home to answer any calls there. I call my brother in Canada - had he heard? No, but he'd call England. He called my sister and she called our cousin Mary who had taken them to the airport in London. As far as anyone knew they had gone on the plane! I finally decided there was no point in hanging around the airport, no one could reach me there - so I drove home. There was a message waiting for me from the airline in Miami. Where was I - they had three ladies (79, 81 and 83 years old). Apparently they had missed their intended flight (something about having to go a roundabout way because of my mother's wheelchair and they were too late!!) and they had put them on the very next flight which left 30 minutes later. Miami airport is strangely laid out and each gate is separated from the other gates in what appears to be separate rooms. They were announcing my family's arrival in their gate, but it wasn't sounding in my gate. So most of the time I was frantically making the phone calls to Gordon and he was transmitting the news from Mair and Mary, they were sitting in the gate right NEXT door waiting for me. By this time it was late evening, the ladies were exhausted and the airline put them up in a hotel and I picked them up the next morning.
During that time, we arranged a vacation with Bill and Frances, and Jerry and Bev to go to Hawaii. We had a fantastic time there staying on four islands - Oahu, Maui, Hawaii and Kauaii. They were filming a movies at one of he hotels with Paul Newman, William Holden, Jaqueline Bissett, Red Buttons and Ernest Borgnine. Dick, Bill, Jerry and I golfed that day but Bev and Frances watched some of the filming.
We had great fun with Bev after Paul Newman had touched her arm asking to go by. We were not allowed to 'touch the arm'. We rented mini motorcycles on one island and I was the chicken slowpoke of the crowd. They would all take off and then would have to stop for me to catch up! Two of Dick's and my long time friends from Motel 6, Ralph and Alma Playle lived on Kauaii (near Bali Hai where South Pacific was filmed) and we spent one great day with them as they showed us around their magnificent island.
I went home to Wales during this time - for my mother's 80th birthday party. We had a very nice evening and dinner in Llandudno, with friends and relatives and my mother was in 7th heaven with the attention - although she never liked to admit her age!
Suzanne and Becky spent one summer with us and needless to say most of the visit was spent in bathing suits. They enjoyed our pool and fishing off the dock (do you remember catching this fish Becky?). I took them for swimming lessons, and we did some sight-seeing on the beaches, boating, and Sea World in Miami.
Some shots of a couple of our boats. You can see how Buddy is having a great time.
I went home to Wales during this time - for my mother's 80th birthday party. We had a very nice evening and dinner in Llandudno, with friends and relatives and my mother was in 7th heaven with the attention - although she never liked to admit her age!
Suzanne and Becky spent one summer with us and needless to say most of the visit was spent in bathing suits. They enjoyed our pool and fishing off the dock (do you remember catching this fish Becky?). I took them for swimming lessons, and we did some sight-seeing on the beaches, boating, and Sea World in Miami.
Some shots of a couple of our boats. You can see how Buddy is having a great time.There's lots of golfing memories of course, but one really fun event at the course was the Tony Lima Pro Am Tournament. Many celebrities turned out (although James Garner canceled at the last minute - and him I wanted to see!!). Arnold Parmer was among the golfers and for two days Dick and I became part of his "Army". What a nice guy - and he has the most gorgeous blue eyes. So did Paul Newman come to think of it!
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Marco Island - by Grandpa
In January 1978 Gordon (Margaret's brother) who lived in Canada was off work with a sciatic nerve problem. He and wife Irene were suggesting a visit, and at that the same time Don and Penny Geary, one of our ex-partners, owned a condo on the 6th floor of a high rise building sitting right on the beach in Marco Island. It was a beautiful 2 bedroom/2 bath with balconies overlooking the beach and beautiful Gulf of Mexico.
They were offering it to us free of charge for a couple of weeks, so we jumped at it, inviting Gordon and Irene to go with us.
We met there and spent two great weeks. We were all impressed!
We got home and decided to follow up on the possibility of moving us and the company to Florida. So we rented a house on an adjacent island called Isles of Capri - a three bedroom house on the water.
Margaret's mom (Annie) and her Aunt Peg were visiting us during this time so we took them with us and we occupied one bedroom and Mam and Aunt Peg had one. The third one was used by Bill and Frances, then Leroy and Betty and then by Ralph and June for 10 days each.
During this period of time, we were able to buy a home for ourselves and rent a second story office in downtown Naples (which was 20 miles north of Marco Island). Bill and Frances lined up a house in Naples, as did Leroy and Betty. Ralph and June decided yes to the move, but arranged their home later. So the deed was done - nothing to do but go home, sell and prepare to move. We rented a huge moving truck to accomodate the bulk belongings of all four families and office.
We got possession of our home in June, and Ralph drove my truck down there with some of the lighter possessions. Margaret met him to take actual possession and arrange electric, etc. and Ralph 'camped' there taking care of the house and pool until we arrived in July. It was during this time that he lined up his and June's place to live. By mid July we were all there, settling into our respective homes and setting up the office - quite an undertaking really when we look back on it.
One of the first items on my list was the purchase of a boat. I went to a boat broker in north Naples and found a 30 foot long x 10 foot wide Bayliner with dual 395 engines and air-conditioned cabin. It also had a seven seat fly bridge, did 28 knots/hour and 2 miles to the gallon fuel usage! Cost $30,000. Ralph and I went up the next day to pick it up. Margaret drove us up and then went back home to wait our arrival. Debbie was staying with us at the time. We had about a 25 mile run in the ocean, just off shore, then we came to the northern waterway between Marco Island and the mainland. It was wide, 1/2 - 3/4 mile, and they had posts marking the deep water way. Unfortunately I did not know the rules and did not know which side, left or right, I was supposed to go. So we guessed..... About 2/3 of the way we discovered we had guessed wrong and came to a sudden halt from 24 knots to 0 knots in about 40 feet. Lo and behold, we were sitting on top of a sand bar. This boat required 3-1/2 feet of water and we had 2-1/2 foot max. I checked and the tide was coming in, we were just a little off low tide. Ralph asked what to do. "Get our fishing poles and a couple of beers, pull up a chair and pretend to fish" I said. I didn't want any of the other passing boaters to think we were this dumb!
About 1-1/2 hours later, the tide did rise enough that I was able to wiggle it back into deep water. When we came around the corner into the bay where we lived, Margaret was on the phone with the coast guard. When she saw us approaching, she called off the alert.
We made one 'deep sea' fishing trip - a few guys and I went out about 15 miles and were still only in about 20' of water. I did not realize the Gulf was so shallow. We caught about 3/4 of a gunny sack full of fish, had lunch and spent about 6 hours out. When we got back, nobody wanted the fish - so that was the first and last fishing trip.
This boat turned out to be too large and required so much water that I was too restricted on where I could go so I bought a nice 14 foot outboard, shallow water boat. My dog Buddy was a boat dog and loved both our boats. Finally though we traded both boats in on a Penn-yann (not sure of the spelling). It was 24 foot long and 8 foot wide, one inboard motor with speeds of about 26 knots. But it drew only 14" of water and had what was known as a tunnel prop. The prop was inset into the center bottom of the boat so that it was protected from any damage if it went on a sandbar. We had to hire a diver to go down and repair the prop and driveline on the Bayliner.
Anyway enough about boats, except to add that after the sandbar incident, I did take the Coast Guard course on boating. This helped.
Was there anything besides boats? Oh yes, one evening Margaret advised me that we were signed up for golf lessons starting the next day.
Marco Golf consisted of two courses, the main one on the island which was very nice, fancy and high class and very social minded. The other one was called the Shores. It was just off the island and a very good course (complete with alligator!), but not fancy or social. It had one small bar but no dining room, ballroom, pool, tennis court, etc. We became members of both, bought our equipment and outfits, met with the pro and had our 30 lessons. The Shores was the easier course and our early games were all there. My first round after lessons was about 180 strokes, Margaret did a little better, and after a few more rounds I got my score down to approx. 140 strokes. We were ready to take on the main course! We got our tee time, and started out. The course on Marco Island was water everywhere - and no slopes leading down to the water. It was all man made and each water hole was surrounded by pilings so that the water was four foot below the golfing surface. They had put in steel interlocking pilings and driven them into the ground to form a wall. The #6 hole was a very small green approx. 60' wide, surrounded completely by water except for a narrow cart path leading to it. It was located 160 yards from the men's tee. The final report on this first game on Marco was that we didn't get to finish it. We ran out of golfballs, having started with about 30 between us! The next day we tried it again with some improvement. This time we set out with about the same amount of balls and finished the full 18 holes with one ball to spare! And I found that one en route.
Our golf did improve over the two years, primarily because of the number of games we played. We both played both courses in the men's and ladies' groups. I played Tuesday and Thursday at the Shores and Wednesday and Fridays at Marco Island. Margaret played a similar schedule with the ladies, except just one game each club. We played together in a mixer each Sunday. Add to that games with friends, and company, Margaret played an average of four or five days a week, and mine was more likely six or seven. More sometimes, as Marco's rules were very strict on their mens/ladies groups. If you signed up to play and didn't show, you were penalized by not being allowed to play in the next two tournaments. They always made up the foursomes, intermixing them always, so that you always played with different people - a wonderful way to meet everyone. So whenever we had company who wanted to play (and most did, especially the men), I would play with my group in the mornings and then go out again later with the company.
Both of us played in the lowest divisions, but did progress to the point that both won our championships in those divisions.
We had a couple of well known honorary pros at these clubs. Marco Island had Ken Ventura and the Shores had Gene Sarazen. During our Marco years, we sponsored a lady pro from the Shores. Her name was Maureen something, and we supplied her with $25,000 expense money for one year's tour. Her first contest, the Women's PGA Open, started out well, with her leading after three rounds. She told us later that she had spent the whole evening and half the night before that last day telling herself this can't be true. I'm not that good. And it worked (1) - she totally fell apart on the last day. She then went on a California tour playing several towns including Fresno, Bakersfield, Sacramento, etc. but never made it big and we lost touch with her. She was an excellent golfer and could hit the ball a country mile.
The male pro at the Shores became a good friend, and we financed him in opening a golf shop in Naples. This was not a success either and we had to close it down after a couple of years.
They were offering it to us free of charge for a couple of weeks, so we jumped at it, inviting Gordon and Irene to go with us.
We met there and spent two great weeks. We were all impressed!
We got home and decided to follow up on the possibility of moving us and the company to Florida. So we rented a house on an adjacent island called Isles of Capri - a three bedroom house on the water.
Margaret's mom (Annie) and her Aunt Peg were visiting us during this time so we took them with us and we occupied one bedroom and Mam and Aunt Peg had one. The third one was used by Bill and Frances, then Leroy and Betty and then by Ralph and June for 10 days each.
During this period of time, we were able to buy a home for ourselves and rent a second story office in downtown Naples (which was 20 miles north of Marco Island). Bill and Frances lined up a house in Naples, as did Leroy and Betty. Ralph and June decided yes to the move, but arranged their home later. So the deed was done - nothing to do but go home, sell and prepare to move. We rented a huge moving truck to accomodate the bulk belongings of all four families and office.
We got possession of our home in June, and Ralph drove my truck down there with some of the lighter possessions. Margaret met him to take actual possession and arrange electric, etc. and Ralph 'camped' there taking care of the house and pool until we arrived in July. It was during this time that he lined up his and June's place to live. By mid July we were all there, settling into our respective homes and setting up the office - quite an undertaking really when we look back on it.
One of the first items on my list was the purchase of a boat. I went to a boat broker in north Naples and found a 30 foot long x 10 foot wide Bayliner with dual 395 engines and air-conditioned cabin. It also had a seven seat fly bridge, did 28 knots/hour and 2 miles to the gallon fuel usage! Cost $30,000. Ralph and I went up the next day to pick it up. Margaret drove us up and then went back home to wait our arrival. Debbie was staying with us at the time. We had about a 25 mile run in the ocean, just off shore, then we came to the northern waterway between Marco Island and the mainland. It was wide, 1/2 - 3/4 mile, and they had posts marking the deep water way. Unfortunately I did not know the rules and did not know which side, left or right, I was supposed to go. So we guessed..... About 2/3 of the way we discovered we had guessed wrong and came to a sudden halt from 24 knots to 0 knots in about 40 feet. Lo and behold, we were sitting on top of a sand bar. This boat required 3-1/2 feet of water and we had 2-1/2 foot max. I checked and the tide was coming in, we were just a little off low tide. Ralph asked what to do. "Get our fishing poles and a couple of beers, pull up a chair and pretend to fish" I said. I didn't want any of the other passing boaters to think we were this dumb!
About 1-1/2 hours later, the tide did rise enough that I was able to wiggle it back into deep water. When we came around the corner into the bay where we lived, Margaret was on the phone with the coast guard. When she saw us approaching, she called off the alert.
We made one 'deep sea' fishing trip - a few guys and I went out about 15 miles and were still only in about 20' of water. I did not realize the Gulf was so shallow. We caught about 3/4 of a gunny sack full of fish, had lunch and spent about 6 hours out. When we got back, nobody wanted the fish - so that was the first and last fishing trip.
This boat turned out to be too large and required so much water that I was too restricted on where I could go so I bought a nice 14 foot outboard, shallow water boat. My dog Buddy was a boat dog and loved both our boats. Finally though we traded both boats in on a Penn-yann (not sure of the spelling). It was 24 foot long and 8 foot wide, one inboard motor with speeds of about 26 knots. But it drew only 14" of water and had what was known as a tunnel prop. The prop was inset into the center bottom of the boat so that it was protected from any damage if it went on a sandbar. We had to hire a diver to go down and repair the prop and driveline on the Bayliner.
Anyway enough about boats, except to add that after the sandbar incident, I did take the Coast Guard course on boating. This helped.
Was there anything besides boats? Oh yes, one evening Margaret advised me that we were signed up for golf lessons starting the next day.
Marco Golf consisted of two courses, the main one on the island which was very nice, fancy and high class and very social minded. The other one was called the Shores. It was just off the island and a very good course (complete with alligator!), but not fancy or social. It had one small bar but no dining room, ballroom, pool, tennis court, etc. We became members of both, bought our equipment and outfits, met with the pro and had our 30 lessons. The Shores was the easier course and our early games were all there. My first round after lessons was about 180 strokes, Margaret did a little better, and after a few more rounds I got my score down to approx. 140 strokes. We were ready to take on the main course! We got our tee time, and started out. The course on Marco Island was water everywhere - and no slopes leading down to the water. It was all man made and each water hole was surrounded by pilings so that the water was four foot below the golfing surface. They had put in steel interlocking pilings and driven them into the ground to form a wall. The #6 hole was a very small green approx. 60' wide, surrounded completely by water except for a narrow cart path leading to it. It was located 160 yards from the men's tee. The final report on this first game on Marco was that we didn't get to finish it. We ran out of golfballs, having started with about 30 between us! The next day we tried it again with some improvement. This time we set out with about the same amount of balls and finished the full 18 holes with one ball to spare! And I found that one en route.
Our golf did improve over the two years, primarily because of the number of games we played. We both played both courses in the men's and ladies' groups. I played Tuesday and Thursday at the Shores and Wednesday and Fridays at Marco Island. Margaret played a similar schedule with the ladies, except just one game each club. We played together in a mixer each Sunday. Add to that games with friends, and company, Margaret played an average of four or five days a week, and mine was more likely six or seven. More sometimes, as Marco's rules were very strict on their mens/ladies groups. If you signed up to play and didn't show, you were penalized by not being allowed to play in the next two tournaments. They always made up the foursomes, intermixing them always, so that you always played with different people - a wonderful way to meet everyone. So whenever we had company who wanted to play (and most did, especially the men), I would play with my group in the mornings and then go out again later with the company.
Both of us played in the lowest divisions, but did progress to the point that both won our championships in those divisions.
We had a couple of well known honorary pros at these clubs. Marco Island had Ken Ventura and the Shores had Gene Sarazen. During our Marco years, we sponsored a lady pro from the Shores. Her name was Maureen something, and we supplied her with $25,000 expense money for one year's tour. Her first contest, the Women's PGA Open, started out well, with her leading after three rounds. She told us later that she had spent the whole evening and half the night before that last day telling herself this can't be true. I'm not that good. And it worked (1) - she totally fell apart on the last day. She then went on a California tour playing several towns including Fresno, Bakersfield, Sacramento, etc. but never made it big and we lost touch with her. She was an excellent golfer and could hit the ball a country mile.
The male pro at the Shores became a good friend, and we financed him in opening a golf shop in Naples. This was not a success either and we had to close it down after a couple of years.
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