A Very Loooonnnggg Book Signing

Mr. Snowbird with a copy of the new book.

This year, Mr. Snowbird and I got hooked on a local author, Randy Wayne White. Randy used to be a fishing guide on Sanibel at Tarpon Bay Marina. When the government took over Tarpon Bay Marina to become part of Ding Darling, he became an author of the Doc Ford series. Doc is a marine biologist who lives at Dinkins Bay on Sanibel. Dinkins Bay just happens to be where Tarpon Bay Marina was. Randy chose today, March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, busiest week of the year on Sanibel for his book signing of his latest book, Black Widow. If you check out his site (which I linked above) it states that national publication date of his 15th book is March 18th,2008 and that it is illegal to sell the book before that time. Soooo, I guess my book and hundreds of others sold today are illegal!

The book signing was held at--where else--Doc Ford's Rum Bar and Grille on Sanibel. Randy is a part owner and apparently does a lot of his writing in one of the booths at Doc Fords. Anyway, the signing was supposed to be from 2-5 and from 9-? today. We got there right at 2:00 and couldn't even find a parking place. Many cars were even parked across the street in the church parking lot. Luckily someone was pulling out as we pulled in. Then when we walked into the restaurant, it was nuts!!! First of all we were to take a number but couldn't find the gal who was handing out numbers! Finally found her then we had to go to the bar to buy the book. (No one told us we could buy it in the other building where the signing was). They obviously had NO idea that there were going to be hundreds of people showing up not only to eat but for the signing. So, the poor gal at the bar selling books was also making drinks, taking orders etc. After we finally got out number--#105--we went out to stand on the walkway between the restaurant and the Rum Bar. And we stood and we stood and we stood. It seems that Randy was flying in and then had to drive from the airport to the island. Doc Ford's is pretty much in the center of the island and today what usually takes about 10 minutes was taking 45 minutes!! Did I mention it is the busiest week of the year? So Randy was about 45 minutes late. So, we stood and stood and stood some more. We stood in line from another volunteer from CROW who had been to all of his book signings and she said she had never experienced anything like this.

We finally got through the door of the Rum Bar at about 4:35 and managed to get up to the table at 5:00.

Here we are inside, finally. Look at all those people eating, drinking and enjoying the atmosphere while we stood and stood and stood!! Either they had lower numbers than we did or they didn't buy the book.

Of course they had all kinds of Doc Ford stuff for sale while we were in there waiting. Books, T shirts (which I had to get), coffee cups, shot glasses, etc.

Here are some of the Doc Ford goodies tempting everyone.

Joy was in front of us so I got to get a picture of Randy signing her shirt.

Once we got to the table, we handed him a piece of paper (actually our #105) with what we wanted him to sign in the book. He actually wrote To Dear Chuck and Nancy, Randy Wayne White 3 17 8. So now everyone who ever sees my book will know it was purchased on the day before it was supposed to. :) Randy was very personable and took time to sign books, shirts (mine included) and to take pictures with people. I'm sure glad we had #105. I feel sorry for the person who had #192.

So, after we stood and stood and stood, I finally got to stand next to Randy Wayne White. Doesn't he look thrilled??? LOL

We decided that after waiting for 3 hours to get our book signed, we would sit down and enjoy a meal at Doc Ford's Sanibel Rum Bar and Grille. So, we headed to the front desk and were told that it would be an hour wait!! Guess what? We ate at Matzaluna tonight instead.

Happy Birthday Karen

My baby girl turned 42 yesterday. OK, so I missed posting this ON her birthday but heck, she is in Hawaii and probably didn't get a chance to check her mother's blog anyway. :)

Here she is on her first day of school. She will tell you she could kill me for cutting her hair that short. But she sure was adorable. I think that's the last time her hair was ever that short.

See what I mean by the hair? She is 11 here. I should tell you that Karen was "born in a trunk". That is an old theatre expression. I was VERY involved in the Fort Findlay Playhouse when she and her brother were growing up. As a baby, she would play in her playpen while I helped build set, act, direct, what have you. She soon became involved herself helping to build set, run lights, act, run props, what have you. This turned into a career when she got older when she became a Technical Assistant/Stage Manager for the South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, California.

She graduated magna cum laude from Ohio University with a degree in Fine Arts, majoring in photography. If you ever check out her blog, you will see that she is putting that degree to good use.

Here she is when she married Michael in San Juan Capistrano in August of 2000. (No not at the mission but in the city of SJC). You can read all about how she met him here. It is a beautiful love story. And didn't she make a beautiful bride?

A couple of years later her first son, Noah was born. And just a little over 3 years later, along came Ethan and Luka. The idea of twins was a bit overwhelming to both Karen and Michael--as well as to the grandparents!

I am soooo proud of my beautiful daughter. She is the best mom in the world. She is the most patient (even though she will tell you she isn't), loving, nurturing mom there is.

You can see what kind of a mom she is by just looking at these two pictures of here spending time with her kids.

She is a traveler.

She is a dreamer.

She is daring.

She is a hippie.

She loves her Pepsi.

And she has the best husband in the world. She always said when she was growing up that she was going to marry either a doctor or a cook. Well, believe it or not, he is both. And the greatest daddy going. A parent couldn't ask for a better husband for their daughter. But wait, this blog is about her right? Anyway, Karen, sorry this is a day late. But just know that your dad and I are so proud of what you have done and who you have become. I want to be just like you when I grow up!!!

Wordless Wednesday-Just Hangin' Out

Enjoy more Wordless Wednesdays at Wordless Wednesday and 5 Minutes for Mom

Also, I know you are all busy checking out everyone's Wordless Wednesday but take the time to bookmark me and drop back to check out my blog. I am a retired Special Ed teacher who now spends most of her time on Sanibel Island, Florida volunteering for a Wildlife hospital rescuing and rehabbing wildlife. I even dumpster dive for injured Raccoons!! I am also the proud grandma of 5 wonderful grandkids and brag about them often!! OK, enough about me. Back to Wordless Wednesday.

Cybershelling

On the Best of Sanibel Captiva (BOSC) Message Board, we do what we have named "Cybershelling". For those who are stuck in the ice and snow, those of us who are fortunate enough to be on Sanibel post pictures of shells. Shells on the beach, shells we have collected, shells, shells, and more shells. And strange as it may sound, those of us who are fortunate to be on Sanibel LOVE it when a storm hits and we get a wind out of the Northwest because that means shells, shells, and LOTS more shells!!!

This past week we had a storm. Two days of winds, high surf, and you guessed it--shells, shells, and more shells. I went out Sunday and Monday. The first day mostly what I did was open up about 20 crab traps which had been washed up on shore and release the poor Stone Crabs who were stuck in said traps. I sincerely doubt that the trappers were going to seek out their traps up on the shore and claim their Stone Crabs even though one lady questioned if what I was doing was legal. There were lots of shells but not the kind I generally collect. There were lots of Sea Urchins, Scallops, Giant Cockles, Pen Shells, and Star Fish (I don't think I need to link this since you should all know what a star fish is).

But Monday was a different story! Ok, maybe I was greedy but this is the first time in 15 years of shelling on Sanibel that I filled my bag, went to the car and emptied it and returned to the beach for more. And I didn't even make a dent in the shells out there!!! I can't tell you how many Alphabet Cones, Horse Conchs (my favorites), and Lightning Whelks I had to put back in the water because they were alive. (We have a no live shelling law on Sanibel.)But as you can see by the picture above, I managed to find a lot that weren't alive. I found lost of Lightning Whelks, Tulips, Apple Murex, Lace Murex, Shark's Eyes (the shell not the real thing) , and Olives (again, the shell, not the real thing). And of course there were the usual assortment of scallops, Florida Fighting Conchs etc.

So, today, after I had rinsed them all, I laid them out nicely and took a bunch of pictures and posted them at BOSC for all to cybershell. Then I decided that maybe some of you would like to learn a bit about shells and do your own cybershelling. So, go check out all the links, look at all my pictures and see what you can find. It should help while away the time waiting for the snow and ice to melt!!

Can you spot the broken piece of Junonia? This is the prize shell to find on Sanibel.

Can you name these shells?

Roots

Yup, that's me with my big brother, Bill

I am and have been for 40 years a genealogist. I'm addicted to finding my roots. It all started over 50 years ago when my Dad's cousin, Eliza, introduced me to my Brooks/Dye/Sayers ancestors. She gave me pictures. She gave me heirlooms. She gave me jewelry. And, she set in motion what would become a hobby, a passion, and a wonderful way to relate to history. Years later, soon after my dad died, I went to visit his brother and sister in law, my Uncle Earl and Aunt Geneva. Aunt Geneva had been tracing her genealogy and took me to the local library in San Angelo, Texas where they lived. I had very little to go on but found an article in a DAR magazine tracing the John Dye family back to the 1600's to a man named Laurens Duyts. This was my line. John Dye was my great great grandfather. And so it began.

My grandfather, my Aunt Maxine, my mother, and my grandmother.

I dragged Mr. Snowbird through more courthouses, libraries, and cemeteries than he cares to remember. I spent what seemed like a thousand dollars in dimes photocopying articles, books, court records, pictures etc. I traveled to Salt Lake City twice to their HUGE genealogy library. I wrote letter after letter after letter. I spent hours and hours and hours nearly going blind looking at old, faded, hard to read reels of census tapes. Now, mind you this was 40 years ago. Not too many personal computers then, right? No, hopping on line, plugging in a name, and getting all kinds of records and information. Nope, this all had to be done by hand--or on foot. I began to collect a massive amount of photocopies, letters, birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, service records from the Civil War etc, etc, etc. This meant piles and piles of papers and row upon row of big brown envelopes and shelf after shelf of genealogy books.

Finally, we got a computer and I bought a genealogy program to finally keep track of what I had done and where I needed to go. I got in contact with the guy in Salt Lake City who had written this program and he asked me for input and eventually let me pilot his upgrades. How cool is that? His program finally became so outdated I had to move on to Family Tree Maker. Then Ancestry.com and Genealogy.com came into being and I bought everything they had to offer so I can now go on line and sit in front of my computer and find all that stuff I used to have to go to the library, or courthouse, or cemetery to find. Mind you, I still take these little trips periodically, just for old times sake.

What is really neat is because of this passion of mine, I was able to find my husband's birth family. He is adopted and I chose to trace his adopted line first. He then gave me some papers his adopted mom had given him and in there was his birth mother's full name and his birth father's first name plus their siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, country of birth etc. Wow! So I went to work. I was able to find a little on his birth mom but not having his birth dad's last name, not much luck there. Soooo--I wrote to Lansing, Michigan for his birth certificate. Back came his adopted certificate but on there it stated that he had been born in Ohio, not in Michigan as we thought. Soooo--I wrote to Columbus, Ohio asking just to take a peek at his birth certificate. In a week, back came his original birth certificate with both birth parent's full names. Wow!! I was off and running!! To make a long story short, we found he had an aunt and cousins in Israel, an aunt in Detroit, and a half sister in Indiana. We have met most of these people and are in contact with all of them. Talk about lucking out. His ancestors go back to Wales and Russia/Poland. That was really refreshing to be able to look in foreign countries for ancestors. You see, some of my ancestors met the first people to come over to Jamestown. No lie! Or some of my ancestors lived near Jamestown. Most of my families go way, way, way back in America.

Both of my kids have taken an interest in genealogy. Karen traced her husbands line in Austria, Yugoslavia, and Hungary. Dave has helped his kids with numerous reports for school by looking up some of our ancestors. Parkersburg, Illinois was named for my ggg grandfather. Finneytown, Ohio was named for another ggg grandfather. President John Adams and I share ancestors. His grandfather, Henry Adams, was my whatever grandfather (way to far back to even count). And remember, Laurens Duyts, who I mentioned earlier? I love this guy. Talk about your skeleton in the closet. Well, first of all, to pay for his passage over to New Amsterdam, he cleared a bunch of land for a man named Jonas Bronk. Sound familiar? The Bronx? But, that's not all. He then sold his wife into adultery. Nice huh? For that, he had his ear cut off and was banished from New Amsterdam by Peter Stuyvesant himself. Good old Laurens got banished to New Jersey of all places. :-) But, he didn't go alone. He took his wife's sister with him and married her. You gotta love this guy.

And I leave you with Uncle Delbert Brooks. He was my dad's brother. I guess Uncle Del was always kind of a loner. He took off for parts unknown and no one heard from him for years and years. My cousin had a career in the Navy and had to have a security check done. Apparently during this check, they found that good old Uncle Del had joined Pancho Villa and became one of his lieutenants. After that was done, he worked on the railroads for awhile then ended up in Utah. One day, he went to the post office to get his retirement check. The postmaster said it wasn't there. Well, he thought that the postmaster just wasn't giving it to him so--yup--he got a gun and shot up the post office. Thank goodness, no one was injured, but that was my Uncle Del.

Ok, I know this is long and boring and I could go on and on but I won't. But--if anyone out there would like me to do a little bit of online research on their family, let me know. I LOVE doing research and I've gone about as far as I'm able for now on mine.

OK, now I'm going to bore you with some family pictures. Hee, hee.

The infamous Uncle Delbert himself. Doesn't this look like someone who would ride with Pancho Villa?

My great grandfather, Nicholas Brooks, Jr. and his wife Eliza Rebecca Dye Brooks. Don't you love the fact that she is pregnant, probably with my grandfather? And you have to love the fact that his father, Nicholas Brooks, Sr. had 4 wives, God knows how many kids, had his last kid when he was 99 and lived to be 110? What a guy!!





















I call this Beauty and the Beast. On the left is beautiful Lucinda Montgomery Roberts Muncey McGuire. She was my g.g.grandmother.On the right is the very plain (possibly even homely) Mary Eliza Preston Morgan, another g.g.grandmother. (I know, the picture says g.g.g.grandmother. I goofed!!)

Between them, they produced my great grandparents, Laura Belle Roberts and Calvin Douglas Morgan.

Is this not the most handsome guy you would ever hope to meet?? This was my dad's Uncle Ben Brooks. Gotta love those Brookses. They were all such handsome men!! At least my Daddy was!!Meet my dad, George Edwin Brooks. Handsome devil!!

And my beautiful mother.

And last but not least, I am also a descendant of this guy--Edwyn Sandys, Archbishop of York. Hey, you never know who you will find on your family tree if you go back far enough.

Wordless Wednesday-Flutterbyes

This was taken at the Butterfly House in Key West

Enjoy more Wordless Wednesdays at Wordless Wednesday and 5 Minutes for Mom

Also, I know you are all busy checking out everyone's Wordless Wednesday but take the time to bookmark me and drop back to check out my blog. I am a retired Special Ed teacher who now spends most of her time on Sanibel Island, Florida volunteering for a Wildlife hospital rescuing and rehabbing wildlife. I even dumpster dive for injured Raccoons!! I am also the proud grandma of 5 wonderful grandkids and brag about them often!! OK, enough about me. Back to Wordless Wednesday.

Happy Birthday David

My oldest "baby" turned 44 today!!! Geez, how can that be--unless I was a very young child bride. Oh, that's right, you already know that I turned 70 in January. Oh well. Anyway, Dave, you have always made us proud. Happy Birthday and many, many more.

Wasn't he a cutie??

You gotta love that smile!

Yup, that's Dave up there on top. This is what I called the Freddie Mount. Dave was Freddie Falcon, the Bowling Green State University mascot in 1985-1986. This was shot at the Raisin Bowl Game in Fresno, California.

Graduation from Bowling Green State University.

Dave in one of his sillier moments with son Sam.

Dave with daughter, Erin, and nephew Noah.

One of my favorite pictures of Dave. Here he is with nephew, Ethan.

Once again, Happy Birthday Dave. You are a great son and brother, a loving dad and husband, a favorite uncle, and a trusted friend of many. You are the best!!