Larry writing...... 

It's been a fun week here on SPI.  Lots of fun things to report.  One thing I have observed since we have been here, and have been socializing with the other older residents, is that peoples' behavior kind of follows a bell curve over the course of a lifetime.  When they are young, their behavior is sometimes silly, and often characterized as immature.  As we grow older, we get less silly, and more mature.  As we get older, some of the silliness returns.  For example, we have been to play bingo and Farkle during the last several days.  Whenever the number 22 is called in bingo, a bunch of the women say the words "two two" in a high pitched, birdlike trill.  Then everyone laughs.  Whenever this happens I wish there was some way the kids could see us now.......or maybe not.  At the Farkle game they have times, based upon good or bad performance when they actually sing to one of the participants.  More laughter.......  I think it's more fun to be a little immature.

I went fishing on Wednesday.  It was a really nice day, and I went out on a bay fishing boat.  $22 for a 4 hour trip.  They provide bait and tackle.  When we first went out, we went straight to the shipping channel that comes in between the jetties on the south side of SPI and goes to Brownsville.  We had just set the anchor when everyone (about 15 people on the boat) started catching fish, one after another.  Too good to be true.......yes!  Along comes the Coast Gurad and tells the Captain that we cannot anchor in the shipping channel.  Of course it's ok to fish in the channel, so we pulled up the anchor and started just "drifting" in the channel.  We had to repostion frequently because of the current, but we did catch a nice bunch of fish.  Almost all of the fish caught were whiting.  See the picture.  It's realy pretty nice.  When you bring in a fish, there is a deck hand who comes and takes the fish off and puts it on a stringer for you.  When you get back in, there are more people who clean and bag the fish for you for $.50 apiece.



Last night was All-American dinner night.  The residents work together to put on a hamburger supper.  Kay and I signed up to help serve the food.  They had plenty of help, so Kay just worked on the serving line and I sat around watching and talking.  We met a couple from Quebec who got here the first of November, and is staying until April.  They followed the Florida coast, through the Keys, and then the Gulf Coast to get here.  Just the nicest, most friendly people.  We will be looking forward to seeing them again.

One of our really fun-filled activities is visiting the laundr-o-mat.  It seems we usually wait until we have 100 pounds of laundry before we make ourselves go.  Kay tries pretty hard to get all of the clothes sorted before we get in the truck to go.  We try to pick out a bad weather day, so we don't miss any good, outdoor activites.  Of course everyone else has the same idea.  Anyway, when we get to the laundr-o-mat, it's like a hive of bees in a patch of daisies.  Invariably, in the confusion, good old helpful Larry puts grease rags in with the bed sheets.  I think next time we need to go at midnight on Saturday night.

Busy day planned for today.  We are going for our daily beach walk early......better shelling.  Then it's Walmart for supplies.  Farkle in the afternoon - maybe they will sing to me again.  Then home tonight for a fish fry - whiting, fries, and hush puppies.  No cholesterol problems here.

Until next time....................Larry