Anchors A-Weigh

The other day, my wife and I went on a cruise. We went to Progresso and Cozumel, and our third stop was Belize. We actually never went to the mainland of Belize. Instead we choose for one of our "excursions" to go snorkeling at Goff's Caye (pronounced KEY, I've been told).


Goff's Caye turned out to be a small island. When I say small...I mean SMALL. Tiny. It was right off the coral reef, and was surrounded by crystal clear water. The picture attached to this post is Goff's Caye. There was a place to dock a couple of boats and a little cabana with some people selling drinks and snacks out of ice chests. It was a beautiful place.

Goff's Caye is not what this post is about. It's about Larry.

Larry was the "deckhand" on the boat that we took from the cruise ship to the island. He had a brilliant smile, a quiet manner, and a quick laugh. He was less than 18 years old, and weighed a buck 'O five soaking wet. One of Larry's jobs was to help people back into the boat.

You see, we snorkeled from the boat about 300 yards off Goff's Caye. When you finished snorkeling, you swam back to the boat, and got back in. At least that was the general idea.

There was a ladder on the back of the boat. However, one side of it had broken loose from the fiberglass of the boat. So Larry would stand with one foot holding the broken piece of the ladder in place, hanging a rope over the back for each person to pull themselves up. The ladder was so short that only the bottom step was actually in the water. I had to practically float on my back to get my foot up on to it.

Now picture Larry, all 105 lbs of him, trying to hold a rope that I'M pulling on, while keeping the ladder from pulling loose with one of his feet.

After about 10 minutes of me attempting to get in, Larry and I both realized that if I were to pull hard enough to pull myself up onto the ladder, what would actually happen would be the quick extrication of Larry from the boat.

Fortunately, another snorkeler was willing to give me a shove on the derrier to give me the extra boost I needed to get in without pulling Larry out.

Embaressing? Yes.

Funny? Absolutely.

A Family Heirloom

One fine day in 1991, my wife-to-be came to my parent's home for the first time. She came to attend my childhood best friend's wedding. While she was there, I of course gave her the grand tour of my home, showed her the family scrapbooks, etc.

One of the things that I showed her was one our family heirlooms. It's a porcelain wall vase, shaped like a handfan, dipped in 24k gold. It's one of the few "fancy" things we have. My family usually goes for more of the rustic antique-type things.


I wanted to show my wife-to-be the markings on the inside where is showed that it was 24k gold, etc. So, I took it off the wall...and dropped it. That's right. I dropped it.

And. It. Broke.

Into pieces. Just a few. I was able to glue it back together, and when it is hanging on the wall you can't tell it was ever damaged. It's our family secret.

Can anyone top that story?

A Joyful Melancholy Christmas

Christmas is always somewhat of paradox for me and my family. We, as a family, love Christmas. However, it's always a little bitter-sweet.

We lost my dad on December 1st, 1999. Bad enough to lose a family member during the holidays, but Christmas we very special to my dad. He played Santa for years. If you would like, take a minute and click here to read my previous post.

Of course, we have LOTS of great memories of dad, and we always talk freely about him. At the same time, I always miss him the most during Christmas.

He played Santa many places, but he was THE Santa at our local mall for years. Just after Christmas, I had a chance (yeah!) to stop by the mall. The Santa Land display was still set up. There's a pretty green package with a plaque on it sitting just to the left of Santa's chair. In case you can't read it in the photo, the plaque says:

This Gift Box

Displayed
In Memory Of
"Santa Bob"
Bob Butler
3-11-1936 to 12-1-1999

Again, a little bitter-sweet...but it brought a small to my face to think of him.

Milk Does A Blogger Good

So, along with my post about misleading advertising done by a major jewelry maker, I thought I would point out something else that everyone else may not know.

Whole milk is 3.25% butterfat. That's right...3.25%.

"What does that mean to me?" you ask.

What it means is that 2% milk does not have 2% of the butterfat that whole milk has. It has 61.5% of the butterfat that whole milk has!! A cup of whole milk has 28 more calories from fat than a cup of 2% milk.

In the words of my mother:

"I don't like little percent fat milk...I like real milk better than fake milk."

So drink whole milk. Enjoy it. It's not 98% worse for you than that 2% the establishment tries to push on you, but it does taste 300% better!

A Christmas Eve Tradition

Okay, I admit it. I like opening presents. I like surprises. My wife laughs at me because I always want to open presents 1 to 12 days early.

I managed to talk her into exchanging our gifts on the 20th this year! We're out of town for the holidays, and it seemed just silly to tote all those presents half way across the country to open them and tote them halfway back. Right?!? :)

Every year growing up I always worked my parents hard about opening presents. Usually, what would end up happening is I could open just one present a day early. Just one. Now, it was never THE present. You know the one I'm talking about. The one that you especially wanted. The one that you had been asking for for weeks. In my house, that present was usually reserved for delivery by Santa, and was opened Christmas Day morning. But I usually managed to squeeze out one present early.

Today, we're keeping that tradition alive (at my request). My son is going to open one present tonight, then tomorrow we're opening the rest. The present he is going to open is actually some of my old Fischer Price toys that my mom and sister got out of the attic and wrapped up for him.

I'm a believer in thinking out of the box and being innovative...but not all traditions are bad.

Merry Christmas