You know there seems to be a recurring theme when we meet with members of our faithful reading public. They will soon say that they are in Cbay withdrawal and miss their daily doses of adventure from The Great Loop. Well we miss it too and whenever we are asked if we would do it again our answer is a resounding YES, if there are no family or financial considerations. But those will always exist and our travels may have to be more reasonable in the future. Only time will tell but we are leaving next week to attend a Gold Looper Reunion at the Marriott Resort on Hutchinson Island in South Florida so who knows what that might kindle. Mostly we are going because we are bored with land life. As they once said about the doughboys returning from WWI, “it’s hard to keep them down on the farm once they’ve seen Paree!”
So what has the crew been doing since our return? Many things just like the rest of you. The very first order of business was for the deckhand to get a haircut. My friend Dewey Bass at Bass Styling Center said he had not seen my hair this long in 35 years.
Like many of you we had yard work to do. Jan and I do all our own yard work and though the yard was well kept while we were gone, a number of landscape features were overgrown and we took the opportunity to go ahead and make some changes. We trimmed and mulched and planted until the trash bags were overwhelming. We had to farm some out to the neighbors trash in order to stay within the bag limit.
We attended the 75th birthday party for Cbay’s limo driver Dr. Allyn Bell. Don’t let age fool you. He can still ride men 50 years his junior in the ground on a bicycle. We are already planning next June’s ride from Cordele to St. Mary’s. Remember when Cbay docked there after the Yellow Fly attack on Cumberland Island?
Unfortunately we also have attended several funerals since our return. Men who never really had a chance to enjoy a day of retirement. We know that we have been blessed.
Once things were looking up we were prepared for the arrival of our first Looper guests. After Thanksgiving Dean and Beth Jones from Kismet dropped by from Wisconsin. They even brought Ziggy the African Gray parrot, who seemed to enjoy our humble home. While they were here we visited Stone Mountain where we almost lost Dean when he got too close to the edge but disaster was averted. We took them to see our landmark The Big Chicken and enjoyed a meal with Joe and Tara Parker from Seabatical. The bonds you make on the Loop are strong.
Christmas is always a special treat and we decorated our tree with ornaments we picked up on the Loop. It was neat to have so many stories on that one tree. And on Christmas Day we got up early and took off for Lexington, KY to pick up another member of our crew. Yes for the first time ever we had old Alex down for the holidays. When we got there I hardly recognized him as you will see from the pictures. He had refused to get a haircut until he got to our house because he wanted our daughter Karen to cut it. She drove all the way down from Dawsonville to cut it in our bathroom. And once she was finished we had our boy back again!
When we took Alex home after ringing in the New Year, we had an opportunity to visit other Loopers Pam and Bill Maley of Seabiscuit on Chestnut Hill, a horse farm in the Bluegrass Country. And we met their dog Huckleberry who missed the Loop but is ready for the next one. We may all go to Florida next year by boat!
For now that is about all the news from Cbay except we have moved the boat to a new slip this past week. We got bumped from our sublet but now we have our own lease and cannot be moved again unless we choose to go. Also I agreed to serve on the LGYC Board of Directors for 2013. I am not sure about their wisdom in offering me this but I will try to make all our readers proud.
By the way, reading this blog must have inspired a few people because since we returned 4 Judges and our District Attorney have retired in Cobb County alone. And statewide I cannot tell you how many Judges came up to me at the Fall Seminar and said they had decided to retire after seeing how much fun we were having. Stay tuned because we ain’t quitting yet.
