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As many of you know Barb and I have a little cottage in Milton FL. It sits on the upper reaches of Pensacola Bay. If you were tracking hurricane Ivan last September you saw that the powerful east side of the category 3 storm made a direct hit on the Pensacola Bay area. The damaged I -10 bridge that made the national news is 6 miles up the bay from our place. We were very much blessed however. We ended up with some swollen hardwood flooring, missing shingles, 10 downed trees and a soggy camper and car. I wish I could say the damages were similar for other homes in our neighborhood. At the water's edge there were mobile homes ripped apart with only the steel frames and axles left behind. Concrete block houses were completely leveled and their remnants spread over several house lots.
The end result for the Pensacola area was mind boggling. Over 80,000 roofs were covered in blue tarps. Over 35,000 families displaced. Hundreds of million cubic yards of sand covered the roads to and from the beaches. It will be many more months if not years until things get back to normal down there. I know one thing, I'll never complain about shoveling snow or loosing my electricity for a few days in an ice storm ever again.~

I sit here in my office writing this on a day like so many others this time of year. Its 22* snowing and blowing out of the north east. I look out the window at the frozen creek that winds its way east to the main body of the Kennebec and think of all the times I've done just this same thing. You see my office today is what used to be my bedroom as a youth. I would lay on my bed and stare out through the snowflakes or the spring tree buds and look at the creek. The same creek that I learned to swim, paddle, row and eventually use an outboard powered boat on. That first outboard was a 1956 Elgin 7 1/2 hp. It had a pull start that engaged by holding down on a start button that stuck out of the top of the engine mounted fuel tank. I can still feel the burning tickle of that button in the palm of my hand as the motor would start. The outboard sat on the stern of a 12' Sears jon boat. I caught my first striper in that boat. I retrieved my first duck in it too. I spent some very special times with my dad in and centered around that boat. He passed away 18 years ago. I still miss him but my memories are comforting. Funny how the things of your youth can mold you, if you let them. ~