I’ve been spending too much time at my desk working on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal so when my nephew Steve contacted me to say that he and his wife Denise were going to be in Daytona Beach over the weekend and asked if we could get together, I was quick to say yes. Not only because of the chance to get away from work for a while, but also because we really like Steve and Denise.
Steve is one of my late brother Jack’s sons, and after his dad died and my parents passed on I lost contact with that side of the family. We reconnected a few years ago through Ancestry.com, and when we have visited Florida in the past, Steve and Denise have hosted family reunions at their home in Pinellas Park so I could see his brothers and sister and all of their kids. Here is a picture of my nephews, niece and myself from one of those reunions. From left to right there is Harold, Steve, Jack, Cheryl, Lou, and me. Is that a motley crew or what?
We enjoyed showing Steve and Denise our house and had a nice visit them, and I think they liked to place. Steve works for Spectrum, which used to be Bright House cable before a recent merger or buyout or something, and he showed me several things I didn’t know about our receiver and programming. He said the installer should have gone over all of that when they set the system up for us, but we had three different installers come out before they got it to work right, and none of them took the time. Thanks for all the help, Steve.
After a while we decided it must be time for dinner and headed to the Seafood Shack, one of our favorite restaurants in New Smyrna Beach. But our timing was bad because Sunday is customer appreciation day there and they draw big crowd. If you don’t get there early you can expect a long wait. As soon as we pulled in, I knew that was going to be the case. People were standing around outside, and the entrance was packed. When I managed to make my way up to the front, I was told the wait would be approximately 90 minutes.
We decided that as good as the food is there, we didn’t feel like standing around in a crowd of people for 90 minutes. So we went to Beef O’Brady’s instead, another of our favorites. The food was as good as always, and we had a lot to talk about. Eventually we headed back home and visited for a while longer before Steve and Denise left to go back to their hotel in Daytona Beach. I’m really glad we got to spend some time together without the big crowd of a family reunion, where conversations can be hard because so many people are talking at once. We look forward to seeing Steve and Denise again soon.
Congratulations Aaron Borovoy, winner of our drawing for an autographed copy of John and Kathy Huggins newly updated and expanded So, You Want to be an RVer?: Celebrating the RV Lifestyle. We had 196 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon.
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Thought For The Day – The other day I got drunk and took a cab home from a bar. The cops and the cab driver seemed really ticked off when they came to get it.
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Nick Russell
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