7th ANNUAL SALEM OHIO DAY IN SOUTHWEST FLORIDA

Our second trip to Port Charlotte to visit Audrey's niece, was also to attend the seventh annual Salem Ohio day in N Fort Myers at the Shell Factory.  We had attended it in 2009 and 2010 and enjoyed it very much, so we were looking forward to it again!!  There were 119 in attendance, many who were Salem alumni.

It was great to see former classmates who we had not seen for many years (We won't put numbers to those years!).  The attendees were from the Classes of 1947 through 1972.  Ah-h, we are somewhere in the middle those years!!

Can you Salem people put names to the rest of the pictures??

 

 

Ray Esterly introduced the speaker who had been a Salem football coach in the 50's and had gone on to coach for Ohio State for many years.  He was an inspiring speaker and had many antidotes to tell.

And what is a banquet without a little dancing??  Richard Hary and Helen Brown Esterly have been on the comittee for this function since it's inception seven years ago.  This year they have invited Gary and BJ Abrams to join the comittee for the future events.

Hope that you can relate to the flow of conversation around the room!!

Pic - 1  Tim Bowser and his wife.  Tim is very involved with Salem BSA Troop 2, although he is not originally from Salem.
Pic - 2  Bill Goodchild, his wife Esther and her friend Janice Wells.  Gary served with the BSA Troop 2 for many years with Bill.   Janice worked at Lincoln Machine when Gary worked there.
Pic - 3  David Eastlake and his new wife.  But sorry to say I do not know the lady David is talking to.  Audrey worked with David's son-in-law for a brief time at HS&L.   David's son-in-law was the son of Audrey's manager Bob DeCrow.
Pic - 4  Paul Lippiatt talking with Bobbadean and Tom Foreman.  Bobbadean was a classmate of Audrey's who she had not seen for several years.  Great to catch up!!
Pic - 5  Bill Goodchild talking with Denton Herron and his wife Marilyn.  Gary had worked with Denton at Herron Transfer just after high school.
Pic - 6  Joe Kozar and Tim Dean catching up on news.  Both were classmates of Audrey's.
Pic - 7  Sorry to say, the only ones who I am sure of are Sam McKinney and his wife. 
Pic - 8  Bob Sebo who hosted the 2012 Salem Ohio day in Naples.
Pic - 9  Gary socializing as usual.

While visiting around, we met up with Gail Bowen who had worked at Bliss when Gary worked there.  Gail had also played cards with a group who met in an apartment we rented out in the early '70's.  I also played with this group.  We were amazed to learn from Gail that Karen, our former renter, is now residing in Foley AL and working here in Pensacola. Gail assisted us in making contact with Karen and we have since spent a Sunday afternoon with her and her husband, Dennis, for dinner and much visiting .  Had a wonderful time and again we forgot the camera.  Such a small world though!!

After the Salem Ohio dinner and social, Gary and I went through the Shell Factory store very leisurely.  Very interesting and so many awesome things with AWESOME prices as well!!

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend, including some more one on one visiting with Audrey's niece, Tina.  She was amazed to find out things about us that she had not heard before.  We will have to do this visit again!! 
After leaving Port Charlotte, we stopped in Bushnell, where we had spent our first two winters of fulltiming, for a couple days.  We joined friends who we had met at First Baptist Church of Bushnell those first two winters,  Lee and Karen.   Gary keeps in touch with Lee often as they share an interest in classic cars.

                  

They were committed on our first evening in town to a fund raising dinner for the Cattleman's Association. So we joined them there for the evening.  We loved it and learned things about farming/ranching that we had never heard before.  We have been amazed since our first visit to Florida to learn how much of Florida is a cattle, horse and produce state.  It was wonderful to see them again and we joined them again the next day for Sunday School and church.  Sorry folks that I had to dig in the archives for pictures, as we forgot to use our camera that evening!!   Such delicious beef, that we did not think about the camera.

We stayed over until Monday to go to the large Webster Flea Market.  We were going to meet up with Fran, 

 

a friend from our winters in Mesa, Arizona, who is spending this winter in Florida for a change. However, after her big Sunday in Sarasota, she was not up to the Flea Market, so we promised to meet up again in the near future.  We had stopped and visited with her the first of January, so we were glad for that visit.  She is originally from Illinois so we are thinking that we might meet up with her there in May.  Time will tell.  Sorry Fran, I also had to dig in the archives for this picture.  I am getting out of practice with the camera.  Shame on me!!

Thanks goodness for a Creative Memories consultant here in Pensacola, who located all of my pictures on the computer hard drive after our recent upgrade.  I could not locate them, but since am learning much about navigating around the computer.   I have also been able to spend some time with other women scrapbooking here in the area because of my contact with this consultant.  It has been fun.

Stay tuned and I will bring you the rest of the way up to date in the next Blog.