It's Christmas time. Just in case you missed it I wanted to remind you. I am going to use that as the excuse for being so late with this months posting. Yea, that's it. That darn Christmas!
This year our company is having a large party with all the employees from all of our South Florida marinas. Each marina has always had their own, so this should be fun. It will be at the Diplomat Hotel this year.
This is the tree inside the store/office of Haulover Marine Center in North Miami Beach. Below is a driveby snap of a tree in the median in Bal Harbour, right in front of the Bal Harbour Shops on Collins Avenue. They always do something very nice every Christmas.
You know it's the winter season 'cos the Canadians are here! Eh?
Over the past year or so I posted about this strange tree I have that was passed down from Jack. It stayed the same for about 10 years then the roots broke the pot and it went crazy. It then had a really bizarre exploding flower. A few months later it had a pod similar to a mango but hard. I found out it is commonly called a Money Tree, also called a Malabar Chestnut. The pod ripens, splits and drops chestnut like nuts. They are edible if you roast them. What happened to mine was it dropped and they sprouted. I now have 5 transplanted babies and still several in the original container. Now I found that there are two more pods. I think I created a monster. The odd thing to me is that it took over 10 years for it to do its thing!
This month, our niece and nephew Bob and Dara Freeman will be leaving sunny South Florida for the northern regions of Tennessee. We wish them well and safe travels. We do expect them to make return visits often.
I have been wanting to post this for some time. I wanted to prove how true beauty is passed down from generation to generation. I have always been amazed how Donna, Dara and Bri resemble each other.
Have no fear, this beautiful young women will be featured in an upcoming issue of Sliders Place.
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| Sabrina Freeman is about to conquer the world. Don't get in her way! |
There are few people that I know who loved Christmas as much as my friend of 49 years, Marty Altstock. I have documented many of our adventures on these pages over the last couple of years. It is with a very heavy heart that I will be celebrating Christmas due to his passing away on November 13th.
He loved visiting Fuzzy and Neva at Christmas time and really enjoyed the decorations and the huge village that Neva worked so hard on. As they do with everyone, Fuzzy and Neva made Marty and Sunny part of the family.
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| THANKSGIVING FUZZY AND NEVAS 2009 |
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| New Years Day at my house 2015 |
Since 2008, I celebrated two Christmases every year. Christmas day with Family and again the following week with Marty and his partner of 15 years, Sunny.
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| CHRISTMAS AT MY HOUSE 2009 |
His friends Ann and Tom Porter of Goodland, Florida, came over last week to help us with a ceremony to celebrate his life. We met with our friends from the South Florida Mustang Square Dance group. The ceremony included some Jewish traditions, including singing of the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. There were some laughs as Ann (she was his friend as long as I was) and I shared some of the hi jinks we shared with Marty.
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| Marty in Midsummer Nights Dream in New York 1971 |
They worked together in the theater in Naples, Florida and I worked with Marty in the theater in NYC. Most of his friends did not realize that.
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| Tom, Sunny and Ann at the ceremony |
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My favorite picture of Marty and I. Taken in 1968, Marty was Santa at Burdines downtown Ft. Lauderdale.
