home | board | compass | prayer | eCard

[Main Index]

07/05/2002 Entry: "A thought or two"

No overall theme today, just a few random thoughts.The 4th of July experience was very entertaining. I'm amazed that "small town" America can put in so much energy (and cash) into the celebrations. I expected the festivities to be more "gung-ho", this being the first Independence Day after 9-11, but I saw mercifully little of that.One surprise was how political the parade in Mt Dora was. Evidently there are local elections in the offing, and several of the candidates were in the parade, throwing candy and trinkets to the children. (A tempting metaphor, but we'll let it go.) One of these candidates was a local Circuit Judge who wants to keep his job, a strange sight indeed.We've been to Daytona Beach today with the church youth group, and a good time was had by all. "Rain stopped play" in the early afternoon, which as a pity, but it was good fun nonetheless. As the thunderclounds hoved into view the beach lifeguards were quick to begin advising people to gather their stuff and leave. And everyone did. Mind you, two people have been killed in Florida by lightning strikes just in the time we've been here - finding proper shelter in a storm is pretty good advice.Driving too and from Daytona took us through an area which had been part of a forest fire in 1998. Hearing about these things on television did not prepare us for the obvious scale of these fires. Mile after mile of forest still show th signs of the damage. It's impossible to imagine what it must have been like while it was burning.Finally, Ruth (aged 5) had the following take on Independence Day:

Daddy, did you know that a long time ago, people from Swansea owned Florida? And the Florida people had fights with the Swansea people and killed them. But we're friends now.

Posted by alice @ 07/09/2002 11:38 PM CST

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings....

good for Ruth!

Posted by alice @ 07/09/2002 11:37 PM CST