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So you know there are monumental times, when your life changes. The day you get married, the birth of your children, the loss of a parent. All of these moments cause your perspective of life to change. When first had to worry about one person, now you think about two, three, four, five or six!! When the last of your parents are gone, and all your aunts and uncles have passed on your position in the universe has shifted and now you are them. As long as they are around you are still someone’s child! read more

Edward: Yeah, it was back in 1969 on a farm in upstate New York.500,000 people….. and there were no computers or Internet, we had to go outside and play!!

I’ll write a little more later, and certainly in the future because.it’s……

So over the last few days my wife has scanned and posted old photos from her grandmother to Facebook. Her grandmother was born in 1888 and most of the pictures are from 1910 to 1930. Most of them we had no idea what the pictures were of, but the amazing Paul Schopp has identified many for us. Here are a few of the pictures of ships!

Paul’s identification:

Launched in March 1930 at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, the Morro Castle could accommodate 489 passengers in first and tourist class and carried a crew of 240. She sailed on a route between New York and Havana, Cuba. On an ill-fated return trip to New York, she caught fire on 8 September 1934, reputedly after a mentally ill radio operator set a fire in a storage locker. At the time, the ship was battling a nor’easter. With the wind blowing hard, it only took 30 minutes for the flames to engulf the entire ship.Being only 8 miles off Long Beach Island when the fire started, the crew attempted to beach the ship in an effort to save themselves and the passengers. The electricity went out in only 20 minutes. Only half of the lifeboats launched and many people lost their lives when they hit the water. The Morro Castle finally came to rest in shallow water off Asbury Park with the fire continuing to consume all combustible materials for the ensuing two days. A total of 136 passengers and crew members lost their lives in the disaster. The ship’s hulk became a tourist attraction until its removal from the Asbury Park beach in March 1935. read more

.Der Bär spricht die Wahrheit!!! The Bear speaks the truth and it has haunted me for many many years!! (I had to go to Babelfish to write that by the way) So here’s the story, to graduate from the University of Florida and receive my BA in Political Science, I needed a year of a language. What ever made me think I could handle the German language, I don’t know. Maybe I thought that the ghosts of my ancestors on my father’s side, who all came from Germany, would come to me in the middle of the night and by morning I could speak like a native – not! Anyway, for someone who hates English grammar, can’t diagram a sentence if his life depended on it, German is not a great language to study. With der, die,and das, changing with direct and indirect objects,and verbs that split and part of it moves to the end of the sentence, (what;s up with that!) I was quickly lost. Well, not quickly because I did make it through the first semester, but that was because my roommate was taking the class with me and we studied together. But then, he didn’t take the second semester – that’s when I was quickly lost!! So rather than struggle through and feel stupid, I took the easy road and dropped the class! Unfortunately, that was my last semester at school, so the only way that I could get my degree was to take the class via correspondence. (this was in the days before on-line classes)   At least I didn’t have to feel stupid in front of a teacher, and I could actually not feel stupid at all because I could just put off doing the work!! I had more important stuff to do, I had a girlfriend to be with!! read more