Vacation Day 5 Lauderdale by the Sea, Visit with Don & Kathy

Saturday May 9 found Linda and us in Fort Lauderdale.

I moved to Fort Lauderdale when my Dad retired from the NYC fire department in 1959 when I was 11. Here is a picture of me and my then 2 brother George 9 & Donald 7 in front of our home. Unfortunately we can't see our house. That first year in Florida was very interesting. My Dad always wanted to move to Florida after he was a caddy at Aurthur Godfrey's golf course in Miami Beach when he was in his 20, so we moved. It was very much an adventure for me. We stayed in a motel in Pompano Beach for a week until my parents found a house to buy and a school to enroll us in. I remember my Dad saying that was the fastest he ever bought a house. They paid $12,500 for it, you can't buy a car for that now. Anyway my parents weren't sure if they liked it in Florida or not, one day my Mom won't like it, another day by Dad won't like it. If they had ever not liked it on the same day we would have been back in Whitestone NY. About a year after we moved into the house my parents finally bought curtains for all the windows, they had decided to stay.
As a kid I loved it, my Dad worked a job that had him home by 3 PM and we went to the beach everyday. In the summer the winter visitors left town and if you saw 3 cars on US 1, that was a lot of cars. Friday nights my Dad would take us to a drive in movies. My Mom was pregnant with my youngest brother and I'm sure she enjoyed the peace and quite. For a couple of years when I was in high school we joined a Beach Club to swim at all summer long. We were living it up. We didn't have air in the house for a long time, my Dad did add it.

Here I am my Senior Year Sept of 64 in front of the house. I went to Cardinal Gibbons High School.



So Linda took us by my old house, but it has changed. Here is how it looks today.

We had lunch at a restaurant right on the beach by Lauderdale by the Sea. After lunch we walled on the pier.

Linda took me to a quilt shop, Richard stayed in the car. The poor guy has been to every quilt shop in AZ, and several now in FL, CO, CA. He is defiantly a quilt widower.

Next stop my brother Donald's house. He is 5 years younger than me. Here is a picture of him on his wedding day and a picture of us now. They were married in 1981. We had a great visit catching up and remembering our childhood.




Well I half way through my vacation and I'm going to take a break and do some sewing, something I haven't done in a few weeks. More to come. I hope this isn't too boring for you all but I'm also doing this for my kids so they have a little record of my childhood.