How to fill time in retirement

Since my last post on Digital Hoarding back in March, I have added about 50 more photos to my collection. These are photos I have been sent or have saved off the Internet, but not taken. Let me discuss some of these pictures...and why I have hoarded them... The dismantling of the A-Frame restaurant in Satellite Beach Florida. When I first moved here, one of my favorite places to go play pool was the A-Frame. The food was pretty good too but they had like 8 tables and cheap beer. It is easy to see where the place got its name from this photo I found. Of course, the crane was usually not there removing the A... Another photo of the A-Frame, this time after both of the As have been removed. The place would become Bunky's Raw Bar and then a few other places that have failed. It is currently being remodeled again, it kind of looks like a tiki bar. A cousin sent me this next photo. It shows my grandfathers service in World War I. His name was Albia Albert Provoncha and h...

The following is something I wrote almost 30 years ago. The photos, which I just scanned, brought up some fond memories and I found the heart-felt letter hidden away in an old computer folder. I wish to share it here after a few photos introducing the cats. Mimi Deja Nixie Marquis Boo October 15, 1998 Today I buried my cat. She was a beautiful cat and I miss her already. It was over 14 years ago when I got her. She was a present from my friend Nancy. I still remember the day we went to the Humane Society in Melbourne to look at cats. I was getting my choice and we entered the cat room. There were lots of cats there but Marquis stood out. I called her Marquis because Nancy and I had recently got engaged and the diamond I was giving her was a Marquis cut. The cat glittered like a diamond with her beautiful long, white fur with streaks of silver and gray. But it was her eyes that glittered the most. Large, green eyes that looked at me, almost begging me t...

When I was going through old photos and trying to group them, one category that was obvious was Pets .  Every once in a while there would be a photo of an animal with no human in sight. I guess people like to take pictures of the family pet. I am no different, my current cat Pumpkin has her own folder with 80 pictures. (Note to self, clean up that folder...) The first three photos in the pile were presented in my last post about Peggy the Bear taken in 1937. I am not sure if she can be classified as a pet, but there were not tons of photos of animals drinking fizz-less soda either, I had to put it in one of the piles (categories). I must say, the other photos in that pile are kind of interesting. Taken around 1943, the first photo is of a cat lounging in the shade. It is annotated with "camouflaged cat". The name of the cat is Spooky and it was a pet of the Albia Provoncha family when they lived on Seymour Street in Middlebury. There was another of Spooky lounging on...

Let me tell you a story about Peggy the Bear. In the July 1993 issue of the Provoncha Newsletter I wrote a story about a picture I had found of a black bear. Since my dad Harold had died in 1991, I had to ask my Uncle Ken what he knew about the photo. He handed me a business card, and told me this tale. Apparently, back in the summer of 1937, my grandparents, Albia and Lois Provoncha, ran a gas station 3 miles south of Middlebury.  It was called   The Bear Filling Station and Uncle Ken remembered that they moved there to live in May, spent the whole summer, and moved out in October of the same year. Obviously, there was a gas station, but there were also over-night cabins and a small restaurant serving hot meals on weekends. You could also buy candy, cigarettes, and other items through a window. And then there was Peggy, a black bear chained to a pole and fenced in near the restaurant. Customers could buy root beer, without the fizz, to feed to Peggy. You can se...

I went to the soft opening of the new restaurant named The Cottage Irish Pub. Located on the corner of Highland and Montreal in downtown Eau Gallie, it used to be a South African establishment. The hype has been big and the wait has been a while, so when I drove by on Tuesday on the way to my Tuesday drinking club at Lou's Blues, I saw the open sign... After a few beers at Lous, Mac and I decided to stop and give it a try. As we walked into the room, a good friend Don and his wife were on their way out. ALready people I know which is a good sign. Mac saw one of the waiters he knew from a differnet establishment. Already we were feeling at home and we had not even found a table yet. They have a small deck in front with a few tables, a porch and garden area in the back with a few tables, and an inside dining room with small bar. Melissa, our server for the evening, got us a table that was being cleared from a previous group... Mac and I got settle at a table that co...