Reflecting on Reflections

I just reread the Reflections that I posted earlier, and maybe I painted a gloomier picture than what life was really like. It’s true enough that we had few conveniences like we have today, and my folks never had the opportunity to enjoy retirement like I have, but life back then wasn’t all bad.

We knew our neighbors in a much better way. The neighborhood was a closely knit friendly community, and folks helped each other. Without air-conditioning, everyone spent a lot of time outside. The windows of the house were always open, so neighborhood sounds were always with us. Doors were seldom locked, and Miz Florrie Allen, who lived right across the street, just came in without knocking whenever she pleased, calling, "Is anybody home?" She’d come over to borrow something or just to visit. I think that most of the other neighbors at least knocked first.

There was a sense of duty among friends - a duty to look out for each other. There was a beggar in the neighborhood who slept in a cardboard box on a vacant lot. He made the rounds of the neighborhood about once a week, asking for handouts of food or discarded clothing. He was always courteous and never caused any concern about stealing things. He was just there. I guess things like duty, and honor, and honesty were just taken for granted, but they existed then to a much greater degree than nowadays.

There were terrible things going on in the world. Hitler was committing atrocities in Europe big time in the 1930s, but we were insulated from that. Maybe not having round-the-clock, 24/7 news on TV was a plus to life in a sense. Tampa had its share of crime and corruption. The mafia was known to exist, and there were occasional gangster style killings that never got solved, but the news of such activity was not a part of everyday life. Drug addiction was almost unknown. I think I heard about marijuana in high school, but I never knew anyone who actually used it, much less the harder stuff.

So, in retrospect, those growing up years in the 1930s and 1940s were not all bad. Some of our modern conveniences have just made us lazy, and there were a lot of good times spent with family and friends.

Imprompto Family Reunion

The family gathering at Brush Creek, North Carolina on Saturday, February 18th almost didn’t happen. Weather reports were not good with forecasts of a wintery mix for the day. But Cathy was determined. Cathy Tyler, Ann’s niece from Richmond, Virginia came down for a visit, wanting to hike The Pinnacle near the family homestead. She also wanted to see as much of her Georgia relations as possible, so gather we did, despite the weather at Fred and Sara Creighton’s almost complete cabin on the property. Fred’s Ann’s nephew from Atlanta.

Present were Jesse and Margaret Lewis from Patterson, Georgia, Ann and Walter Berg, Dian and Don Woodruff from Young Harris, Georgia, Martha Louise (Ease) Hudgins, Stan Hudgins, Lydia Nelson, David Nelson and five of his friends. Cathy and Lydia made their Pinnacle hike; David and his friends camped out on the mountain; and the rest of us had a picnic in a makeshift dining room in the cabin watching the rain, sleet and snow out the window.

Here’s some pictures:

The Georgia Aquarium

I’d better get the tale about the Georgia Aquarium down while it’s still fresh in my mind. This place is really special - the largest in the world, and even more remarkable because it’s located in an inland city. Between 100,000 and 120,000 fish and other aquatic creatures now have their home at the aquarium - the most notable being the two whale sharks and the five Beluga whales.

Our tickets, purchased online a couple of months ago, were for entry at noon. Once inside, you can stay the rest of the day. Tuesday was recommended as one of their slower days, but there were still a lot of people there. The aquarium is located on a 20 acre site just north of Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta. The architecture is striking - designed to resemble on the outside a giant ship. Inside there are five sections with themes like "Georgia Explorer,""River Scout,""Cold Water Quest,""Tropical Diver," and "Ocean Voyager."

There’s a tremendous variety of colorful fish in a number of separate tanks that contain over 8 million gallons of water. The next largest aquarium is in Chicage with 5 million gallons. The largest tank is in the Ocean Voyager display and is as about as large as a football field - 290' x 50' in area and 20' to 30' deep. That tank alone contains over 6 million gallons of water. That’s where the two whale sharks, named Ralph and Norton, live. This is the first time whale sharks have been kept in captivity in North America. I believe they said that the only others are in Japan. These two are both juveniles, about 16 feet long and are expected to grow to 30 feet or more at maturity in a couple of years. There are literally thousands of other fish in the tank too. All this is viewable through the largest aquarium window ever made. The window is about 30' tall and 39' long, made of a strong, clear acryllic that’s 2' thick. It’s a constant show watching the antics of the fish. The sharks continually glide around the outer edge fairly close to the top. Seven or eight little yellow pilot fish swim in front of them only a couple of inches from the shark’s nose. These sharks don’t feed on other fish, and apparently these little pilots know they are safe. The sharks are fed about 30 pounds of plankton and other small aquatic creatures each day.

The story of how the whale sharks were transported to Atlanta is amazing. All of the fish came in via UPS free of charge. It was UPS’s contribution to the aquarium. The whale sharks came aboard a 747 from Korea. It’s hard to imagine how they were captured, put in shipping containers with water, loaded aboard the UPS jet, flown to Atlanta, off-loaded and brought to the aquarium in a healthy condition.

The bulk of the funding to build this place came from a $200 million gift from Home Depot founder, Bernie Marcus. He is credited with many of the display ideas and building design too.

The Beluga whales put on a show too, constantly doing their underwater acrobatics with a fixed smile on their faces. They’re in the Cold Water Quest display, in a smaller tank by comparison, but it’s still pretty big. That section also houses a penguin exhibit which includes a tunnel and sealed tube that allows kids of all ages to crawl in and stand up right there among the birds - guess they are birds. They waddle around on land, and swim very gracefully in the water. They’re cute to watch, but we’ve seen more impressive penguin exhibits at other places. There’s room though for more of them, so maybe the exhibit will be enlarged in number.

I can’t remember all the names of what we saw, but here’s some more of them: California sea lions, sea otters, Australian leafy sea dragons, a giant Pacific octopus, Garibaldi damselfish, Japanese spider crabs, horseshoe crabs, starfish, squadrons of stingrays, shrimp, Georgia sea turtles, toothy cubarra snappers, schools of predatory trevally jacks, a goliath grouper, hammerhead sharks, the world’s largest freshwater fish, the arapaima, piranha, seahorses, small aquarium fish like angelfish, swordfish, neon tetras, a sawfish, and a thousand varietis of living corals. Lots more too, displaying every color in the rainbow.

It’s incredible to think about how they control the environment in all these tanks. We were told that a lot is done by computer, maintaining the proper water temperature and salinity, daylight and dark . Feeding has to be done at proper intervals, and just keeping all those windows clean has to be huge task.

We wandered through all of this for two hours and could have stayed much longer but for tired feet. I look forward to a return trip a couple of years when some of the young fish grow to maturity - particularly those whale sharks.

Snowed In

It started a couple of days ago and has been falling slowly but steadily ever since - 3" or 4" now. Melted a little yesterday, then temperature dropped to 20 degrees during the night. Nice coating of ice over everything, so nothing's moving. Just got word that church has been cancelled for the day.

Pearl Harbor

No other event of historical significance that has occurred in my lifetime has etched itself in my memory like the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. I’ll never have to look up the date - December 7, 1941. I remember exactly what I was doing when the news came over the radio. I remember President Roosevelt’s speech the next day in which he called December 7, 1941 the "date that would live in infamy."

We were just finishing supper around the kitchen table on that Sunday evening. Dad had retired to his favorite spot in the living room and turned on the new radio. As soon as he heard what was happening, he called out, "Come in here and listen to this!" Many men were killed. Many ships had been sunk in that Hawaiian harbor. We were at war with Japan. At eight years old, I didn’t know what that meant, but it surely didn’t sound good.

In the days to come life changed. Fathers of my friends at school were drafted into the army. Other men were joining the navy and marines to avoid the draft. My Dad was too old for any of that - he was 52 - and he still had that crippled foot that had kept him out of the first World War. Shipbuilding became a major source of employment in Tampa, and men who had been out of work now had no problem finding a job. My Uncle Wade moved to Tampa to work in the shipyards and lived with us for awhile. The newspapers were full of the call to arms. Patriotism was at a high level.

The first real effect the war had on our family was the rationing of food and gasoline. Every household had a "Victory" garden. We grew corn, tomatoes, potatoes, okra, radishes, and squash, and our chickens with their eggs became more valuable. Some of our neighbors were even frying squash blooms for dinner.

Dad could barely get enough gasoline to get to and from work. It was impossible to buy new tires for the car and retreads were hard to find, so driving for pleasure was really limited. Mom bought an old used bicycle and learned to ride it for the first time so she could get to the grocery store. She liked to say that I taught her how to ride. She really taught herself, but I did run along beside her when she was practicing and tried to keep her from falling. As she improved, I’d ride my bike beside her around and around the block until she got it mastered.

War bonds were sold to finance the war effort. $25 bonds were sold for $18.75 that were to mature in 10 years at face value. At school we were encouraged to buy 25 cent savings stamps to paste in a book. Sometimes I’d skip lunch and use the quarter for a stamp. When the book was filled, it could be exchanged at the bank for a $25 bond.

There were "victory" scrap drives. We had a scrap pile in our yard. Neighbors would bring all sorts of old metal things and throw them onto the pile. An army truck came by periodically to pick up the stuff, and it went to reclamation depots where it was melted down to become war material. One thing was thrown on the scrap heap that I wanted to keep - a bugle - but Mom wouldn’t hear to it.

The automobile companies suspended the manufacture of new cars, devoting their plant capacity to building war machines - tanks and trucks, etc. They didn’t start making cars again until 1946.

My friends and I had endless debates on which branch of the service we’d prefer if the war was still on when we got old enough. I didn’t want any part of the army or navy. My preference was the air corps. Airplanes appeared in the sky for the first time, and that looked exciting. Tampa was the home of two air bases - MacDill and Drew Fields. It was the Army Air Corps back then - not the Air Force. Drew Field later became Tampa International Airport, and MacDill Field became MacDill Air Force Base and is still there.

Soldiers and sailors appeared on the streets in uniform, and were instant heroes to the kids. Some came to Dad’s church, and he’d bring one or two home every week for Sunday dinner. That began some lasting friendships. They were from all over the country. I remember Nicky from Brooklyn, New York, Oscar from Pennsylvania, and Carl from Peoria, Illinois. Carl Woerner moved with his wife to Tampa after the war was over and remained friends.

It was a long four years, but it was not all unpleasant. Everyone in the neighborhood was in the same boat, so to speak, and there was a lot of sharing. When Oscar was shipped out, he sold Dad his car - a 1937 Lincoln Zephyr, and for the first time we had a car that was comfortable to ride in. It was a quiet and smooth with a 12 cylinder engine. That was the car I later learned to drive in.

Ann and I visited Pearl Harbor a few years ago, taking a boat out to the memorial that marks the spot where the USS Arizona sank. The memorial lists the names of all the sailors that died on the Arizona that fateful day. It’s a somber place. Very few of the bodies were ever recovered. Oil is still leaking out of the fuel tank and bubbling up, making a circular rainbow on the surface of the water as each drop arrives.