After years of trekking the shores of Michigan's Great Lakes, my parents set their sights on a new coastline.
Florida.
The rock-hunting era was coming to a close. My father discovered he didn't really enjoy the jewelry-making hobby. The rock tumbler was breaking down more than it was running. My mom was becoming more frail. She had undergone a triple by-pass when I was in seventh grade. We found out many years later two of the three failed. She didn't have as much energy she once had. On top of all of this, she continued to smoke until one she didn't have the breath to ignite the cigarette.
Before that day came, the Florida Years arrived. We stayed. in Flagler at a place called Bev's on the Beach. The sunrises were spectacular. Our first trip down my nephew and I got what the locals called a Yankee Tan aka sunburn.
In the evening, we'd walk the beach looking for seashells. There were some interesting ones. We put some in the plastic bag bearing our name and my dad put the bag in the car. Shell collecting just wasn't the same as rock collecting. Shells were fragile. You couldn't really do anything with them. On top of it all, the shells stank as we found out the next afternoon when we got in the car to find a place to eat because even with the AC going full blast-a in the Shasta it was too hot to cook.
We left the shells in the bag on the picnic table the next night. They still stunk.
STUMPSTONE QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"Yes, if the stones that we walked upon could talk, they would surely tell our story." --Nico J. Genes, Magnetic Reverie
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