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After several decades I finally digested my dual identity;  Pete went to Central Elementary School, George went to Sarasota Junior High School where Pete played drums in the marching band.  Pete lettered in baseball and George sang a solo during our baccalaureate service and received his diploma.

Several years ago I ordered a part for a washing machine from Sentz-Whitesides appliance store.  Now, Mrs. Sentz had such a southern drawl, when she said "am" it had three syllables.  I told her to call me at my shop and if I'm not there, leave a message for Pete and I'll come pick up the part and write a check.

She did and I did.  However, the part didn't fit so I returned it and ordered another part, giving her the same instructions.

When the part came in, she phoned and told Diane, but she didn't know if it was for George or for Pete; "Pete ordered the first part but George picked it up and wrote the check," she said.

When Diane told her that Pete and George were the same, she said "Well Honey, I thought they looked an awful lot alike."

George (left) and Pete (right) (or is it the other way around) wish you all a happy Wednesday the 22^nd.  Life is good.

Wow, it's already April and as graduation time draws closer my thoughts go back to my own SHS commencement.

Our class was about 265 students, and we only had one high school then, so the Municipal Auditorium was certainly adequate to hold our graduation but in order to accommodate the guests they turned the auditorium around with the graduates seated in the balcony and family members seated on the main floor.  With the current class numbers ranging up to the 500 mark they have had to use Robarts Sports Arena for the ceremonies for the last 20 years or so.

This gives me a perfect segue to reunions. We are currently working on the next Sarasota High School Grand Reunion to be held on April 17, 2010 and we need both class representatives and class rosters for the classes from 1965 to 1980.  If you will check www.grandreunion.org you will find the information to help us include your class in the next Grand Reunion.  Let's make this a Grand Grand Reunion.  Life is good.

Back in 1950, when I was an Aviation Radioman in the U.S. Coastguard, stationed at Port Angeles, Washington, I went on an air/sea search and rescue flight as far north as Prince Rupert, British Columbia. On our return flight, we remained over night on Vancouver Island at Comox, a community of about 6,000 inhabitants.

For your aviation buffs out there, we went in a JRF-5A, Grumman Goose, twin engine amphibian, with Pilot, Co-Pilot, Flight Mechanic, and Radio Operator. Comox did have a movie theater so the four of us went and saw "The Stratton Story" starring Jimmy Stewart and June Allyson.

When the film ended, the house lights came on and the audience stood up and, to the accompaniment of a scratchy record, began to sing "America", you know..."My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of Liberty, of thee I sing".

I leaned over and asked the pilot, "Did they do that especially for us Americans?"  By the time they started singing the third verse, it dawned on me that they were not singing "America",they were singing:

God save our gracious King,
Long live our noble King,
God save the King.
Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the King.

P.S. How's this for irony? The tune was found in a collection of German melodies in 1832.

Life was/is good.

Watching the residents, on TV, trying to create a sand bag wall to stave off the Red River in Fargo brought to mind our own struggle with Phillipi Creek back in 1958 and 1959.  I can assure you it is not fun and my heart aches for those folks.  We knew the water was coming in the house so we used some furniture to prop up other pieces we deemed more valuable or necessary.  Fortunately we didn't have any carpeting.  We even used cans of food to prop up some things.  For months we had potluck dinners because all the labels washed off the cans.  That provided some necessary comic relief.

In September 1959 we had another deeper flood and as we cleaned and scrubbed away the debris and mud, I wished I owned stock in the Clorox Company.  Then 2 ½ weeks later we were flooded again.  That was enough for us and we decided that was no way to live so we moved to higher ground.  We have been high and dry ever since but our old house continued to flood time and time again as Phillipi Creek came out of her banks.  The last time was in September 2001 and finally the County resolved the problem and now we're in a drought.  How ironic....Life is good....

Want to read some surprising statistics?  Walk this way.  The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) published the following 2008 annual information for Florida:  Total acreage in citrus-621,373,  Production-162 Million boxes, Florida's total value produced $1.4 billion.

It takes a lot of people to move the crop from the grove to your table.   One of those people was Tony Saprito, who with his brothers Salvatore and William, operated Saprito Grove and Fruit Co. at Main Street and Osprey Avenue for over thirty years.  During the season, several times a week, you could see the Railway Express Agency truck picking up a hundred or so half-bushel hampers destined for the folks "back home".

Tony was on the City Commission and served as mayor several terms.  His conservative environmental concerns brought him much notoriety.  When the F.D.O.T. put "no fishing" signs up on the bay bridges he championed the causes of the boatless fishermen by ramroding construction of the Saprito Fishing Pier, named in his honor in 1979, seven years before he died.

Another person, involved only slightly, in the distribution of citrus was myself and fellow SHS classmates.  As seniors, in 1945-46, we reigned over the front walk and steps of the building.  When the fully-loaded semi-trailers from the nearby Hyde Park Grove (now SouthGate) crawled by through the "school zone", a couple of my buddies would climb on the load and lighten it by a dozen or so.  I was a "designated catcher".  Life was/is good.