How to fill time in retirement

After the passing of my brother John, I have spent a lot of time going through old photos. Jared wanted some for the wake and I have been posting a new photo of John each day on Facebook. Also, my previous two posts in this BLOG have been mostly photos. I started to see something. You could call it an analysis of big data (I have over 50,000 photos online) or just how my brain works. I saw that seagulls have played a role in not only my life but that of the whole family. Here is a photo of my paternal grandmother Lois Orvis Provoncha. She is on Daytona Beach in front of the pier with a flock of seagulls next to her. Was she feeding them? Daytona Beach, my father feeding the seagulls. Maybe it was a one-time occurrence... Nope, there is Dad (Harold) feeding the seagulls again, he must have learned it from his mother... So, we all know John liked to feed the seagulls. I am sure his kids can attest to that. I do have some proof. Look at my little nephew Israel learning fro

Hurricane Irma, although not a direct hit on where I live in Melbourne Florida, was a large storm that caused lots of damage and stress to the people who live here. There were moments when the winds were at their highest that I thought the front door might not hold. The wind was banging it and it was creaking. I placed a 2x4 against the doorknob and kicked it tight so it would hold onto the tiled floor. That board started to squeak. I had bought a new Yeti cooler that was full of drinks and ice, I placed that against it but the door continued to make noises under the strain of the tropical storm force winds with the occasional gust near hurricane speeds. I had no power so the only noise I could hear was the howling of the winds and the sound of debris falling throughout the neighborhood and that damn door. That is stress. I was lucky that my power came on within two days. Some people waited a week and there are others that do not have it yet. The next day the phone rang; it was my ne

When my parents bought the Weybridge street house in Middlebury, it was 1950 and the year my older brother John was born. Dad and Mom had planted a pine tree. I am not sure if it was before or after John's birth, but I know it was that year. At about 3 months old, John had his picture taken with the small pine tree. John continued to grow and so did the pine tree...  At three years old, John was still taller than the pine tree as he posed with his older sister Patsy... You can see the pine tree is doing well as Patsy poses; that is the Congregational Church to the right... Since the pine tree and John were one, he just posed in front of it... And the pine tree continued to grow through springs, summers, falls, and winters...(Benjamin's House) Tom was born and he was posed next to the pine tree too which looks good at six years old... John went off to high school and started dating girls, cheerleaders no less. The pine tree was proud and grew bigg