Visit

My wife had a birthday yesterday. Today my son,Fritz, paid us a visit. He brought my wife a dozen roses and a new refrigerator, ours recently gave up the ghost. Nice to have a son who cares ! Fritz also brought his daughter, my grandaughter, along, shown in photo. We had quite a time getting the new fridge up the stairs,as I live in a stilt house on the river. We had a pleasant afternoon re-hashing old times and I hope they come back again soon. My son manages the bar in a fancy restaurant at Feather Sound in St.Pete called Cafe Ponte, how he ever got mixed up in the bar business is beyond me, although when he was growing up I had been known to toss down a few shots now and then.........

Deli World

If your ever in Brooksville,Florida, a great place for lunch is Deli World. They are located at 701 W. Jefferson Street. Its run by Adrian, his wife, Grace and their waitress,Sandy. They specialize in sandwiches, but have a complete lunch and salad menu. I happen to like their tuna sandwiches on rye bread and for some reason I can't make tuna salad at home that tastes as good as theres does., I buy two at a time to take home. My wife is fond of their Gyros.. The place is spotlessly clean, the service is quick and all the food is freshly prepared. If you'd like an order to go, call- 352-797-7474

Istachatta, Florida

Istachatta is a small hamlet of probably 350 souls, its located in central Florida, surrounded by the Withlacoochee State Forest and nestled beside the beautiful Withlacoochee River. A winding asphalt road lined with huge live oak trees draped with spanish moss wends its way thru the center of town. It has seen better times, in 1926 Seaboard Coastline built a railroad thru central Florida and Istachatta had its own train depot, the railroad was abandoned and a bike trail now takes its place. Istachatta has three churches, a small trailer park and its own small post office. There has been a general store in town, it seems like forever, different owners have tried having a restaurant in conjunction with store , but the last one failed due to poor management I think.

A new gal recently showed up in town, lets call her Jane, if you've ever heard of the group- "Back Street Boys" , Jane is the mother of Nick, a member of that band. Jane has leased the old store and will attempt to open the restaurant again. She has named the place-"The Blue Canoe", and a blue canoe sits on the lawn near the door. She serves breakfast, lunch and dinners. She has a fairly large and varied menu and on weekends she has a fish fry, during the fish fry, local musicians play country and bluegrass music. I wish her the best in her new undertaking and so far, as more people learn of her re-opening, she is gaining new customers every day.

P.S. The lady next to the Post office sign is my lovely wife, Marilyn.

Contenders ?

I have followed the Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball team thru-out the season, during the good times and the bad. After a nail biting run at the end of regular season, the Rays finally managed to edge out the Yankees to win their division. Noe the play-offs start, first game tomorrow, wednesday, with the Rangers. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm predicting Rays will lose this beginning series, making their season over ! I only say this becauseI have little faith in their pitching staff, Its been iffy all year...again I hope I'm wrong and wish them luck, they'll need it the way they've been playing recently....

Back on the farm

During the forties & fifties I raised Chesterwhite hogs on our farm in Michigan. We never had less than 500 at one time, we let them forage in a 300 acre woodlot and have their litters out in the open. We hauled garbage from supermarkets and dumped it off the trucks directly into the field. We also hauled sour milk from the local dairies, poured this in long troughs. Twice a week I took a big cattle truck to Detroit and filled it with bananas from the banana warehouses on Fort Street, we dumped these bananas from big barrells right into the field. Those pigs could peel a banana with one flip of the jaw. I think we had the only banana raised pork in Michigan or anywhere else for that matter. The photo shows the southern end of one of our Chesterwhite sows. I miss those days back on the farm, the days of the small farm are gone forever...

A long time away, now back...

I met a fellow at my local coffee watering hole, we call the joint- "Nobleton Hilton". His name is Peter Stewart and is an ex-Michigander or Michigoner as I like to say..I happen to also be from Michigan and was born in Ann Arbor a great college town. He was explaining to me that he came to our coffee joint to get material from the local colorful characters to put on his blog. I seemed to remember that at one time I also had a blog, a little checking and I found our blogs were at the same spot, so here I am back blogging...The site has changed some since I've been here so it will take awhile before I feel comfortable here again...

Nobleton News: Nobleton news and events.

I printed up a sign to tack on tree at Nobleton Hilton tomorrow, it reads thus- ATTENTION: DON'T DROP CIGARETTE BUTTS ON GROUND AS THEY BURN THE HANDS AND KNEES OF CUSTOMERS WHEN THEY LEAVE