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.

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.