Here's one of the pictures my daughter took of
Marge and me going in to the club for the ceremony
described below. To clarify, I was the 3rd commodore
the club had, in 1973. I an not today's 3rd commodore!
RHD

This is the picture taken yesterday,11-5-06,
of the change of watch ceremony at Old Port
Yacht Club. This is the club Marge and I spend
a lot of time at. These are the incoming officers.
I was the 3rd Commodore 

reflections

reflections

Marge and I at the 2006 Halloween
party at Old Port Yacht Club.
Marge wore the same costume about 15 years ago. Picture by Barbara Oetzman.

reflections

Marge and I have lived on or near the water for all of our 58 years of marriage. But we have been in our condo
for 14 years. This is the view in the early morning hours looking East. The condos you see are on Singer Island, where we lived for 23 years. It's a beautiful, and satisfying view to get up to in the morning!

morning view from our condo

 

reflections

reflections
About 3 months ago, Marge and I decided we no longer needed
two cars. We gave our daughter Marge's Chrysler town car.
The major change in our lives, I am now going to church regularly so I can drive instead of Marge going alone as she has for several years. I won't say I am suddenly converted back to religion, but I did decide to be active. I'm now an usher!
Anyway, today, Oct. 8, 2006, was "the blessings of the animals". Dogs and cats all over the place, really quite a bit of fun. The pictures are from this event.
Incidentally, the town car replaced my Daughter's small truck with about 180,000 milea on it!

 

 

 

Bless the animals Sunday at St. Mark's
church, Palm Beach Gardens, Fl. 

reflections

reflections
My first political comment. I'm 83, so buying a Prius cannot possibly pay for itself in my lifetime. However, I feel strongly that we as a country MUST wean ourselves from the oil dependency to the Arabic world. I'm from Detroit where I lived for 46 years. I have friends who criticise me for buying a "Jap car", and sending my money to the Japs who we fought in WW II. My reasons : First, our own car companies, Ford, Gm.,
and Chrysler were derelict in not seeing that the end of the SUV era was here, dictated by high gas prices. The Japs saw it coming 5-10 years ago. The two best hybrids on the road today, are the Toyota Prius, and the Honda Accord.

The American companies are waking up only because they're
bleeding money trying to sell huge SUVS, and Hummers! Sure they are now going to bring out Hybrids, but I will bet that they are too big, and after the first rush will not begin to eat into Toyota and Honda, who will also by then have larger models.

THe Hybrid is not the final answer, I believe that fuel cells will be the wave of the future, and will last for decades.

As to sending money to Japan, Toyota has created more jobs in America, than any other manufacturer.

Wake up Detroit, and then wake up our government!
RHD

Marge and Julie Carvin, one of her long time
bridge friends. They both look pretty damned
good for Marge, 81, and Julie, 82 

A picture of Marge and me at our 58th
anniversray, Marge is 81, and I'm 82 

I finally got around to having this map, which I brought
back from my tour of duty in WW II, scanned and
put on a CD. It is a map we used in flying to targets,
to avoid flak concentrations. The circles in orange
are flak concentrations.
RHD 

The area we have lived in for the past 13 years, is Old Port Cove. It is quite large, with 8 buildings, a group of town houses, and a large, well maintained Marina, and a yacht club. The grounds are beautifully maintained. After one of the hurricanes, I don't remember names well,
we lost over a hundred trees. The ones our sub association is responsible for, have been supervised by Marge and my friend, Lee Fisher. Lee was our first lady commodore, and is a real dynamo. Anyway, she supervised the replanting of most of our trees. The picture above is of one of the 4 palms she had planted in front of our 2 buildings, Cove Towers East and West. They may not be unique, but they are the only ones I have ever seen like them. I love 'em! Thanks Lee.
RHD

Palm Tree 

This 23 foot alligator was caught and
killed while trying to eat a full grown
male deer! They grow 'em big in Texas

My Daughter has been shaming me by the beautiful pictures
she's been posting on her blog. She takes most from her Kayak.
At 82, I can not Kayak, so I took one of these pictures
from our balcony, where we sit each night for our cocktails.
The other two are from my parking place in the condo parking
lot, looking at the lawn of our neighbor condo. So there!
RHD

The Ibis

  

Some feathered friends

  

view from our Condo

  

This handsome couple were my Mom
and Dad. Mom was born on July 14, 1901.
Dad was born on July 21, 1896. Today is
Mom's 105 birthday, and a week from
today is Dad's 110 birthday!.
Happy birthday!!!
RHD 

More browsing. This is my Grandma Dodd. The
picture was taken right after the war. I was still
in my uniform. I went back to Ann Arbor to finish
my degree in Aeronautical Engineering. My folks
went to Florida for most of the winter, and my
Gramma. age 86. stayed in our house. I came
home some weekends. On one, Gramma handed
me a postage due slip from the post office, she
wouldn't pay for it! I went to the post office, and
retrieved the package.
While flying home from Italy, we landed at Natal
Brazil. We were going to post a guard, but the field
Super said no need, just check in our first aid kit,
had morphine in it, and my 45 Caliber revolver,
and pick it up the next morning before takeoff.
Of course, I forgot it. The Natal tower called me
on the radio, and assured me they'd send it along.
I forgot about it again, but guess what was in the
package, you guessed it, my 45, and 6 first aid
kits! 6 months and about 5 stops, and there
it was!

I was browsing through old pictures this
morning, and came across this one.
It is my beautiful daughter and our Grandson
Nathan. I won't tell you how old Deb is, but Nathan's
23. 

This is the picture I wanted to post on the fourth
when I found I had been locked out of this
blog by a mistake neither my PHD daughter
or I could solve. But through a combined
effort, I'm back in business.
The scene is from our balcony in Cove Tower East,
fourth floor, looking directly South down the
Lake Worth Lagoon.
RHD  

The longest barge tow I have ever
seen in our Lake Worth Lagoon
Incidentally, I have finally recovered
my origninal Blog!
EUREKA 

testing

This is out of order, but I want it
in my blog. I stole it from Debby's
blog, but what the hell, she stole it
from me in the first place. It is, of
course, a picture of my beloved
Labradore retriever. She loved
going sailing, and if we raised
a Porpoise or two, it was all we
could do to keep her from jumping
overboard, and joining them! 

reflections

reflections
This last few days, June 22,23,24, we spent in Mount Dora, Fl.
We stayed at the lakeview Inn hotel, built in 1883. The highlights of the weekend were dinner with my old cohort, Dual South and his wife Jane, and a trip through the Dora Canal. The canal connects Lake Dora with the rest of the lakes in Lake County, and was once used by steamboats to ferry people to their Island homes. The canal is a couple of miles long, and is unique in its pristine loveliness. It's hard to do it justice in pictures taken from the little cruise boat we were on, but I tried. We saw alligators, turtles, and many species of birds. These included, eagles, anhingas, cormorants, blue herons, Ibises, and others. In addition, the banks are filled with growth of all kinds. The most impressive to me were the giant Cypress trees, many dead, but also alive. These trees are upwards of one thousand years old!
All in all, it was one of the best "Nature trips" I've ever taken.

Another Blue Heron 

A Blue Heron on the log., Dora Canal 

On the Dora Canal, a Blue Heron in
the center of the picture.