This will be my last post in Florida. We have had a marvelous vacation here and soon we will be headed back to our Finger Lakes home. The weather has been beautiful in Florida but we must get prepared for the fickle temperatures of spring in Upstate New York.
We celebrated the birthday of one of my high school teachers last week. Fifty six years have passed since I met Harold and his wife Phyllis Taylor. They had both just started their life’s work of school teaching at Smithville, Ohio. Smithville, Ohio is one of those small towns with a population of 1150. One of those places like Mayberry, USA which not only existed on television but in reality actually did exist some fifty years ago everywhere in rural USA! It was one of those times when you went to school with your classmates for twelve years, where your father served on the school board, and the local grocer drove the school bus. School teaching was a life profession, a vocation followed by those people who had a passion for helping young people find their way in life. And the results could not always be measured by the scores on the tests given, or by the number of baskets made at the Friday night basketball games. No, the real scores come much later.
The Stables Back Porch Restaurant near Lake Alfred, Fl. is unique. After ordering off the menu, you go to the cashier and pay for your lunch which is then brought to your table in a square picnic basket. It’s up to you to get your own drinks and clean up your table.
Part of the attraction of the Stables Back Porch Restaurant is that there are many out buildings filled with antiques and items for decorating your home. It was here that we celebrated Harold’s 86th birthday and we wished him many more.
