Sunday, November 26, 2023
HOT FLORIDA NIGHTS - A POEM BY DONOVAN BALDWIN
As a boy,
Half a hundred years ago,
I lay sleepless,
Shirtless,
Sweat trickling,
Sheets sticking to me,
The one window of my room open,
Old box fan
Droning in the corner.
I dreamed and imagined all sorts of things,
But never thought
To dream about a cooler place.
In Florida in the Summer, heat was...
And humidity went without saying.
So, each Summer night,
A few steps short of misery,
I lay awake for hours,
Mind traveling along the corridors
Built by images made from
The books I read incessantly.
Later,
Girls and cars having been discovered,
And cars,
At least,
Conquered,
Hot nights became cooler,
Driving down Palafox Street
With windows down,
Or,
Out to the Gulf Of Mexico.
Eventually,
Hot Florida nights included
Two A.M. feedings,
And the occasional rush
To an emergency room.
Now, no longer in Florida,
I have air conditioning,
But...
Still often lie awake,
Sleepless, sticky with sweat,
As the medicine works
To slow the progress of
The cancer within.
...Which the boy never imagined.
On nights like these,
My mind wanders up and down
Even more corridors,
Including those built by more books,
And a half century of living.
No more chasing girls
Or driving up and down Palafox,
Or to the bay,
In the moonlight...
Except in my memory,
When I remember...
Hot Florida nights.
Labels: boy, cancer, donovan baldwin, Florida, Gulf Of Mexico, man
Friday, October 15, 2021
NSFW POEM: SUMMER LOVEMAKING IN FLORIDA
In 1975, two young bodies entwined,
Naked in their bedroom,
Window open, able to watch
Children at play outside,
As they made love.
Hot summer day in Florida,
And they sweat, no matter
What they do,
But,
No matter,
What they do is hot as well.
Naked and familiar, yet today,
That day,
Somehow different with
The sheen of sweat, which,
Unintrusive,
Becomes part of the lovemaking.
Breasts and nipples become salty treats,
Sweat becomes another
Lubricant of love making,
Mingling with the juices
Which make an even more slippery, slidy,
Entrance to her warm, comforting, exciting,
Chamber of love.
So, I enter easily, and,
Raising on my arms, begin,
The thrust, thrust, thrust,
Her hips rising to meet me,
Moist bodies slapping together.
She speaks words that mothers
Are not expected to say,
But, hot lovers may.
The thrusting becomes faster and faster,
The slapping of the bodies harder,
The penetration even deeper.
Her shining, sweat covered body twists,
And turns,
And thrusts, thrusts, THRUSTS,
As she bites her lip to stifle,
The ecstatic scream which is part of her orgasm,
So the children playing outside will not hear,
Their wanton mother.
As she twitches and holds her hips high,
I thrust into the wonderfully slippery,
Canal which, with wave after wave,
Tightens and releases,
Until...
I cannot help myself and add
My liquid contribution to the
Hot and mingled confluence.
Slick naked bodies entwined,
Gasping from the efforts,
Laughing at the secret,
Shared from neighbors
We can hear outside,
And children
Playing.
Labels: donovan baldwin, erotic poem, Florida, lovemaking, naked couple, summer
Friday, November 09, 2018
POEM: CHILD OF MAN - "SEAGULL"
By: Donovan Baldwin
BACK STORY: In the 1950's, a great deal of sand was dredged up from the mouth of the Bayou Chico, near Pensacola, Florida. Some of this sand was used to make a "peninsula" of sorts, upon which a chemical company installed the gas tanks shown in the picture I took somewhere around 1970.
The dredged up sand, and resulting "gas island" as it was sometimes referred to, made a great habitat for seagulls, who would lay their eggs in the sand. It also made a hunting ground for at least two destructive boys, who were just on the edge of learning the difference between life and death.
The following poem was written many years ago as I thought about those days, and those birds and their eggs.
FEATHERED FURIES DIVE THE BEAST
SOME FROM THE WEST, SOME FROM THE EAST
"Be gone! Now leave the seagull's land,
You are not welcome, child of man.
You've taken lives ere they began,
You've smashed our eggs hid in the sand."
He raises up his BB gun,
Blinks as his eyes brush past the Sun.
Holds and squeezes...down falls one.
He runs to see what he has done.
"Now gone a year, and gone a friend.
The tale unfolds without an end.
As man-child joins the ranks of men,
But, others come to hunt again."
Feathers gray and white, now red,
The eyes are closed, the bird is dead.
One instant in the man-child's head,
There comes, then goes, some unnamed dread.
"They learn from us, from how we die,
As from us they learned to sail the sky.
There are a few, as years pass by,
Who sometimes learn to heed our cries"
HE LEAVES THE BEACH ON LEAN, BROWN LEGS,
BEHIND...
DEAD BIRDS...CRUSHED SEAGULL EGGS.
Read more poetry and writing by Donovan Baldwin at http://ravensong.mysite.com.
BACK STORY: In the 1950's, a great deal of sand was dredged up from the mouth of the Bayou Chico, near Pensacola, Florida. Some of this sand was used to make a "peninsula" of sorts, upon which a chemical company installed the gas tanks shown in the picture I took somewhere around 1970.
The dredged up sand, and resulting "gas island" as it was sometimes referred to, made a great habitat for seagulls, who would lay their eggs in the sand. It also made a hunting ground for at least two destructive boys, who were just on the edge of learning the difference between life and death.
The following poem was written many years ago as I thought about those days, and those birds and their eggs.
FEATHERED FURIES DIVE THE BEAST
SOME FROM THE WEST, SOME FROM THE EAST
"Be gone! Now leave the seagull's land,
You are not welcome, child of man.
You've taken lives ere they began,
You've smashed our eggs hid in the sand."
He raises up his BB gun,
Blinks as his eyes brush past the Sun.
Holds and squeezes...down falls one.
He runs to see what he has done.
"Now gone a year, and gone a friend.
The tale unfolds without an end.
As man-child joins the ranks of men,
But, others come to hunt again."
Feathers gray and white, now red,
The eyes are closed, the bird is dead.
One instant in the man-child's head,
There comes, then goes, some unnamed dread.
"They learn from us, from how we die,
As from us they learned to sail the sky.
There are a few, as years pass by,
Who sometimes learn to heed our cries"
HE LEAVES THE BEACH ON LEAN, BROWN LEGS,
BEHIND...
DEAD BIRDS...CRUSHED SEAGULL EGGS.
Read more poetry and writing by Donovan Baldwin at http://ravensong.mysite.com.
Labels: birds, donovan baldwin, eggs, Florida, Pensacola, poem, poetry, sand, seagulls
Saturday, October 27, 2018
Liberty Valence Was Shot Too Many Times For Me
By Donovan Baldwin
In 1962, age 17, I was a theater usher at the Saenger Theatre , in Pensacola, Florida.
Teenage dream. Free movies!.
Just had to stand there, red blazer or vest, and black bow tie, a few nights a week, holding a flashlight, and help people find their keys, answer questions about the next showing or coming movies, and, eat popcorn.
The first movie I worked was "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence", with John Wayne, Lee Marvin, and Jimmy Stewart, three of the biggest stars of the day.
First night was great... but, by the third showing, I was beginning to get a little tired of Liberty Valence being shot.
By the third NIGHT, I wanted to shoot him myself.
CUT TO THE CHASE, ALREADY!!!
John Wayne did it!!!
Everybody go home!
Of course, for a while, each new movie had an appeal, but, over the next year, even that, and the free tickets to the Saenger, and its sister theater down Palafox Street, the Rex, wore thin.
Since then, movies have never quite had the attraction for me as they once did.
Part of that is simply age, but, part of it was being... well part of it.
Sometimes, if we get too close, or something becomes too common to us, it loses its appeal.
You know what? I think I'd like to see John Wayne gun down Lee Marvin one more time for old time's sake.
In 1962, age 17, I was a theater usher at the Saenger Theatre , in Pensacola, Florida.
Teenage dream. Free movies!.
Just had to stand there, red blazer or vest, and black bow tie, a few nights a week, holding a flashlight, and help people find their keys, answer questions about the next showing or coming movies, and, eat popcorn.
The first movie I worked was "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence", with John Wayne, Lee Marvin, and Jimmy Stewart, three of the biggest stars of the day.
First night was great... but, by the third showing, I was beginning to get a little tired of Liberty Valence being shot.
By the third NIGHT, I wanted to shoot him myself.
CUT TO THE CHASE, ALREADY!!!
John Wayne did it!!!
Everybody go home!
Of course, for a while, each new movie had an appeal, but, over the next year, even that, and the free tickets to the Saenger, and its sister theater down Palafox Street, the Rex, wore thin.
Since then, movies have never quite had the attraction for me as they once did.
Part of that is simply age, but, part of it was being... well part of it.
Sometimes, if we get too close, or something becomes too common to us, it loses its appeal.
You know what? I think I'd like to see John Wayne gun down Lee Marvin one more time for old time's sake.
Labels: donovan baldwin, Florida, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Palafox Street, Pensacola, Rex, Saenger Theatre, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence
Friday, January 12, 2018
I Love Rainy Days...And...
By: Donovan Baldwin
I love rainy days.
Don't get me wrong, I love sunny days too. I even love partly cloudy, or are they partly sunny, days.
I'm an equal opportunity day lover, I guess.
However, I think there are a couple of levels, or more, to this "love" of these certain kinds of days.
Sunny days remind me of my home in Florida, when I was a boy. Sunny days are uplifting, raising my spirits, at least. A sunny day can make me happy.
Rain?
Well, I've had some good times in the rain, and, partly along that same note, I consider rainy days romantic. You cuddle safe and warm inside, in the arms of your lover, while nature puts on a show, or show-er (couldn't resist) outside.
Thunder and lightening and wind remind me that there's a lot more exciting things in the world than the pap and pablum on TV and at the movies.
A Batman movie may rev you up for a bit, but an offshore squall can make you feel alive, and not just "pumped up". Still, I think one of the things that makes me love a sunny day, or a rainy one, is that it isn't the other.
Sameness can be nice, comforting, but, for me, it's also sometimes called a "rut".
I like it when Mother Nature reminds us that we don't have to be the same every day.
Kind of her.
Thank you, Mother Nature.
Don't get me wrong, I love sunny days too. I even love partly cloudy, or are they partly sunny, days.
I'm an equal opportunity day lover, I guess.
However, I think there are a couple of levels, or more, to this "love" of these certain kinds of days.
Sunny days remind me of my home in Florida, when I was a boy. Sunny days are uplifting, raising my spirits, at least. A sunny day can make me happy.
Rain?
Well, I've had some good times in the rain, and, partly along that same note, I consider rainy days romantic. You cuddle safe and warm inside, in the arms of your lover, while nature puts on a show, or show-er (couldn't resist) outside.
Thunder and lightening and wind remind me that there's a lot more exciting things in the world than the pap and pablum on TV and at the movies.
A Batman movie may rev you up for a bit, but an offshore squall can make you feel alive, and not just "pumped up". Still, I think one of the things that makes me love a sunny day, or a rainy one, is that it isn't the other.
Sameness can be nice, comforting, but, for me, it's also sometimes called a "rut".
I like it when Mother Nature reminds us that we don't have to be the same every day.
Kind of her.
Thank you, Mother Nature.
Labels: donovan baldwin, Florida, Mother Nature, rain, rainy days, sunny days
Thursday, December 28, 2017
Jack Of All Trades?
By: Donovan Baldwin
The old phrase, "Jack of all trades, and master of none", fits me pretty well.
I've done a lot of things in my life.
As a man, I have been a soldier, truck driver, instructor, restaurant manager, and certified optician, just to name a few things.
As a boy, I helped my father do carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, auto repair, and, of course, had a paper route and did the standard yard work.
My dad was interesting to me. He seemed to know something about everything, and, never seemed to stop learning.
Through his interests, I learned to enjoy opera and classical music, became an amateur radio operator, and learned how to fish, including the part that came afterwards...gutting and cleaning the fish. He made his own cast nets, and taught me how to use them.
A lot of what I learned to do in my life had dirty, grungy sides. Just ask mom when she would look at us in the back yard cleaning fish, or I would come home filthy from a day spent on a construction crew in the hot Florida summer.
Still, it was fun catching the fish, with rod and reel, or with cast net (which my dad made), cleaning them with my dad, and, once mom got her hands on them, eating the cooked fish as a family meal.
My dad was a quiet man.
Few words. Lot of messages, however.
I've done a lot of things in my life.
As a man, I have been a soldier, truck driver, instructor, restaurant manager, and certified optician, just to name a few things.
As a boy, I helped my father do carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, auto repair, and, of course, had a paper route and did the standard yard work.
My dad was interesting to me. He seemed to know something about everything, and, never seemed to stop learning.
Through his interests, I learned to enjoy opera and classical music, became an amateur radio operator, and learned how to fish, including the part that came afterwards...gutting and cleaning the fish. He made his own cast nets, and taught me how to use them.
A lot of what I learned to do in my life had dirty, grungy sides. Just ask mom when she would look at us in the back yard cleaning fish, or I would come home filthy from a day spent on a construction crew in the hot Florida summer.
Still, it was fun catching the fish, with rod and reel, or with cast net (which my dad made), cleaning them with my dad, and, once mom got her hands on them, eating the cooked fish as a family meal.
My dad was a quiet man.
Few words. Lot of messages, however.
Labels: cast net, donovan baldwin, fishing, Florida, jack of all trades
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Frank Was Drunk And Disorderly...Again
By: Donovan Baldwin
When I was a boy in Florida, there was a family three houses from ours. They had three kids at home, and one grown and on his own. N
Nice enough people, except Frank M., one of Mrs. M's older sons. He could be nice too, but, he had this bad habit of getting drunk and disorderly...often.
My father, interested in radios and electronics, bought a police scanner so he could monitor the calls and maybe get some "news before it was news".
One of the first nights he had it on, there was a series of calls between Escambia County sheriff's deputies about something going on at the end of our street, Cary's Lane, in Warrington, Florida. Warrington was not part of Pensacola at the time.
That Summer night, with the windows open, we heard the sirens of multiple police cruisers converging. Flashing lights were bouncing red in the darkness (before blue lights).
We were glued to the exciting story unfolding before our ears, you might say.
Suddenly, a deputy came on the air, "It's okay. It's just Frank M. again. We're taking him home."
The lights went out, the night became still, the radio was silent, and the room suddenly lost the excitement it had held.
We heard knocking on Mrs. M's door as the deputies delivered Frank...again.
Simpler days.
Today, he would be thrown in the lockup, go to trial, cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars, and have to pay a few hundred in fines...which he would get from his mother.
But, we were a smaller world back then, and, perhaps, neighbors more comfortable with each other's sins.
Nice enough people, except Frank M., one of Mrs. M's older sons. He could be nice too, but, he had this bad habit of getting drunk and disorderly...often.
My father, interested in radios and electronics, bought a police scanner so he could monitor the calls and maybe get some "news before it was news".
One of the first nights he had it on, there was a series of calls between Escambia County sheriff's deputies about something going on at the end of our street, Cary's Lane, in Warrington, Florida. Warrington was not part of Pensacola at the time.
That Summer night, with the windows open, we heard the sirens of multiple police cruisers converging. Flashing lights were bouncing red in the darkness (before blue lights).
We were glued to the exciting story unfolding before our ears, you might say.
Suddenly, a deputy came on the air, "It's okay. It's just Frank M. again. We're taking him home."
The lights went out, the night became still, the radio was silent, and the room suddenly lost the excitement it had held.
We heard knocking on Mrs. M's door as the deputies delivered Frank...again.
Simpler days.
Today, he would be thrown in the lockup, go to trial, cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars, and have to pay a few hundred in fines...which he would get from his mother.
But, we were a smaller world back then, and, perhaps, neighbors more comfortable with each other's sins.
Labels: donovan baldwin, drunk, drunk and disorderly, Escambia County, Florida, Pensacola, police scanner, Warrington
Sunday, October 15, 2017
My High-Heel, Pointed Toe, Cowboy Boots...
By: Donovan Baldwin
I was once guilty of animal cruelty.
Sorry about that, but he started it.
Here's how it happened.
I used to go horseback riding in Pensacola, Florida. This would have been about 1966.
The area is car dealerships now. Back then, there were fields, pecan orchards, and a riding stable. I went riding every week for several months.
At first, I rode wearing tennis shoes, until one day they gave me an ill-tempered horse, who had a habit of turning his head and trying to bite your feet.
They warned me. Told me to just kick him in the mouth and he would stop.
Well, seems this horse didn't mind if you kicked him with tennis shoes. So, I rode him up to their store, went inside, and bought a pair of pointy-toed, high heeled, cowboy boots.
Got back in the saddle.
He tried to bite one more time.
I kicked him one more time.
Problem solved, resolution achieved.
Of course, in those days I had no more use for the boots, except when I went riding.
However, I thought they made me look cool.
When the army sent me to Germany, I found they had a certain appeal to some Germans...especially of the female persuasion.
A lot of times we do things that seem to make sense at the time.
Sometimes, when the real reason has passed, we find other reasons to keep on doing what we do. Sometimes it doesn't really matter.
I could have switched horses, I guess, and never bought my fancy, pointed toe, high heel, cowboy boots.
Although they generated interest, I really didn't pick up more chicks, and they hurt my feet.
The horse won in the long run, I guess.
Sorry about that, but he started it.
Here's how it happened.
I used to go horseback riding in Pensacola, Florida. This would have been about 1966.
The area is car dealerships now. Back then, there were fields, pecan orchards, and a riding stable. I went riding every week for several months.
At first, I rode wearing tennis shoes, until one day they gave me an ill-tempered horse, who had a habit of turning his head and trying to bite your feet.
They warned me. Told me to just kick him in the mouth and he would stop.
Well, seems this horse didn't mind if you kicked him with tennis shoes. So, I rode him up to their store, went inside, and bought a pair of pointy-toed, high heeled, cowboy boots.
Got back in the saddle.
He tried to bite one more time.
I kicked him one more time.
Problem solved, resolution achieved.
Of course, in those days I had no more use for the boots, except when I went riding.
However, I thought they made me look cool.
When the army sent me to Germany, I found they had a certain appeal to some Germans...especially of the female persuasion.
A lot of times we do things that seem to make sense at the time.
Sometimes, when the real reason has passed, we find other reasons to keep on doing what we do. Sometimes it doesn't really matter.
I could have switched horses, I guess, and never bought my fancy, pointed toe, high heel, cowboy boots.
Although they generated interest, I really didn't pick up more chicks, and they hurt my feet.
The horse won in the long run, I guess.
Labels: cowboy boots, donovan baldwin, Florida, horse, horseback riding, life lesson, Pensacola
Monday, October 09, 2017
Growing Up As Part Of A Neighborhood...
By: Donovan Baldwin
In 1945, at the end of World War II, my dad started work at the Pensacola Naval Air Station, while I was busy being born in Atlanta, Georgia.
He found a home for us, Mom, my sister, and me, and brought us down to Florida six weeks later in a 1939 Ford, I believe.
We lived in an area called Warrington, which lay between Pensacola, and the Naval Air Station.
Warrington had a grocery, a drugstore, a hardware store, shoe repair, a barber, a gas station, and other amenities.
Dad drove to work through the shopping area daily for the next 30 years.
We moved three times over the next four years, but, in 1949, my parents bought the house I lived in for the next 20+ years. I went to school in Warrington. We shopped there. All my friends, until high school, lived there.
People in the drug store, the grocery, the gas station, knew me as "Mr. Baldwin's boy". I had identity and community.
I think that is one of the finest gifts I was given, with health, and a good education...that feeling of being known and identified as part of a neighborhood, a community, for all the years of my childhood and youth.
So many kids today don't get to know that.
Always sure of myself as "Mr. Baldwin's boy", I also got to be Tom Sawyer, running off with Huck Finn on the Mississippi, or sometimes Jim Hawkins, aboard the Hispañola, at sea in search of treasure, with adventurers and pirates.
I did try to build a raft. I climbed trees and sat in them staring out at the bay, dreaming of Treasure Island, and listening to the waves, and, for the voice of Long John Silver.
I got to be a boy, living among friends before "growing up"...or did I ever really grow up? Sometimes I wonder.
He found a home for us, Mom, my sister, and me, and brought us down to Florida six weeks later in a 1939 Ford, I believe.
We lived in an area called Warrington, which lay between Pensacola, and the Naval Air Station.
Warrington had a grocery, a drugstore, a hardware store, shoe repair, a barber, a gas station, and other amenities.
Dad drove to work through the shopping area daily for the next 30 years.
We moved three times over the next four years, but, in 1949, my parents bought the house I lived in for the next 20+ years. I went to school in Warrington. We shopped there. All my friends, until high school, lived there.
People in the drug store, the grocery, the gas station, knew me as "Mr. Baldwin's boy". I had identity and community.
I think that is one of the finest gifts I was given, with health, and a good education...that feeling of being known and identified as part of a neighborhood, a community, for all the years of my childhood and youth.
So many kids today don't get to know that.
Always sure of myself as "Mr. Baldwin's boy", I also got to be Tom Sawyer, running off with Huck Finn on the Mississippi, or sometimes Jim Hawkins, aboard the Hispañola, at sea in search of treasure, with adventurers and pirates.
I did try to build a raft. I climbed trees and sat in them staring out at the bay, dreaming of Treasure Island, and listening to the waves, and, for the voice of Long John Silver.
I got to be a boy, living among friends before "growing up"...or did I ever really grow up? Sometimes I wonder.
Labels: donovan baldwin, Florida, growing up, Long John Silver, Pensacola, Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, Warrington
Thursday, October 05, 2017
Poem: Old Sights Through New Eyes
By: Donovan Baldwin
Prologue:
Many years ago, as a small boy, already immersed in the age of automobiles and airplanes, I saw, a couple of times, an old farmer come into my hometown of Pensacola, Florida. He was riding in an old wagon drawn by an old mule.
Quite a sight for a young lad as I was.
The following poem came to me a few nights ago (8/14/2017), as I was thinking about that young boy and the old farmer with his mule.
Old Sights Through New Eyes
Old dusty dirt-colored farmer,
In his old, frayed and, once blue, now faded, overalls,
Guiding his old, weary, dun-colored mule,
Pulling the old, unpainted wooden wagon,
With the old, rusty, iron-rimmed wheels,
Rattling on the old, gray, cobbled streets,
Of the dozing old, Gulf Coast town...
Old hat, to the old.
But, seen with the bright eyes of a boy,
A dazzling new sight.
Prologue:
Many years ago, as a small boy, already immersed in the age of automobiles and airplanes, I saw, a couple of times, an old farmer come into my hometown of Pensacola, Florida. He was riding in an old wagon drawn by an old mule.
Quite a sight for a young lad as I was.
The following poem came to me a few nights ago (8/14/2017), as I was thinking about that young boy and the old farmer with his mule.
Old dusty dirt-colored farmer,
In his old, frayed and, once blue, now faded, overalls,
Guiding his old, weary, dun-colored mule,
Pulling the old, unpainted wooden wagon,
With the old, rusty, iron-rimmed wheels,
Rattling on the old, gray, cobbled streets,
Of the dozing old, Gulf Coast town...
Old hat, to the old.
But, seen with the bright eyes of a boy,
A dazzling new sight.
Labels: donovan baldwin, Florida, old farmer, Pensacola, poem, poem about a farmer, poetry
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Pleasure Of The Great Outdoors
By Donovan Baldwin
Mother Nature put on a bit of a show in the Fort Worth area between 4 and 6 AM.
Big thunderstorm, or, as I have heard them called in this part of Texas, "thunder boomer".
I grew up in Florida, on Pensacola Bay along the Florida Gulf Coast, so, thunderstorms are not new to me.
However, in this part of Texas, dreaded "water from the sky" is not as common as it was down on the coast.
Over the decades, I have worked many jobs that took me outside a lot. Mama Nature and I are old friends, if not always good friends, in my boyhood, on beaches, in woods, and as a working man. Even my "fun" activities often occurred outside.
(Side note: If you are not from the coast and love on the beach sounds romantic to you, ditch that idea. Sand gets into everything....everything.)
Anyway, I have gotten away from Lady Nature, what with advancing age and other responsibilities.
Pity.
It's always (Except when it's Summer in Texas...) a pleasure to reconnect with the Great Outdoors.
Most days, these days, it's through my sitting room window. However, today, I am taking the trailer to nearby Benbrook Lake, and am going to renew my friendship with Ol' Ms. Nature for a week.
Comments may not be as often as normal, but, expect the pleasure meter to be near the top of the scale. Nothing like a little quality time with Mother Nature to make you feel you're home, and whole, again.
NOTE: The above comment was written several weeks prior to being posted here, and I have been back from that pleasurable outing for several weeks.
Big thunderstorm, or, as I have heard them called in this part of Texas, "thunder boomer".
I grew up in Florida, on Pensacola Bay along the Florida Gulf Coast, so, thunderstorms are not new to me.
However, in this part of Texas, dreaded "water from the sky" is not as common as it was down on the coast.
Over the decades, I have worked many jobs that took me outside a lot. Mama Nature and I are old friends, if not always good friends, in my boyhood, on beaches, in woods, and as a working man. Even my "fun" activities often occurred outside.
(Side note: If you are not from the coast and love on the beach sounds romantic to you, ditch that idea. Sand gets into everything....everything.)
Anyway, I have gotten away from Lady Nature, what with advancing age and other responsibilities.
Pity.
It's always (Except when it's Summer in Texas...) a pleasure to reconnect with the Great Outdoors.
Most days, these days, it's through my sitting room window. However, today, I am taking the trailer to nearby Benbrook Lake, and am going to renew my friendship with Ol' Ms. Nature for a week.
Comments may not be as often as normal, but, expect the pleasure meter to be near the top of the scale. Nothing like a little quality time with Mother Nature to make you feel you're home, and whole, again.
NOTE: The above comment was written several weeks prior to being posted here, and I have been back from that pleasurable outing for several weeks.
Labels: donovan baldwin, Florida, Florida Gulf Coast, Mother Nature, nature, Pensacola Bay, texas, thunderstorms
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Trust In A Small Texas Town
By Donovan Baldwin
A few years ago, around 2006, in Gatesville, a small Texas town, I was looking for an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) at a local Wells Fargo Bank. Not seeing one I went inside the bank and asked the bank manager if they had one. He, greeted me kindly, and, unlocking the teller's cage, led me behind the tellers, past the opened vault, unlocked a door overlooking the drive-up banking area and showed me where their one ATM was located.
This little display of trust reminded me the first time, about 1972, I was asked to give a piece of identification for a check/cheque at a local grocery store.
Until then, I had written a check, handed it to the clerk, took my groceries and left...as did every other patron.
However, hot checks had become such an issue, people writing worthless paper, and businesses were losing so much money, they had to begin requesting identification.
In bigger cities this had been a practice even before I encountered it in my small southern city of Pensacola, Florida.
Over the years, we've lost trust.
At least a lot of it.
You know, years ago, before identity theft became such a big issue you could find people's social security numbers on lots of things. Many organizations, such as the U.S. military services figured out that, instead of issuing individual service numbers to each soldier, sailor, or Marine, they could just use social security numbers for identification numbers instead.
Well, because of identity theft, the military has gone back to issuing individual identification that does not use social security numbers as have many other businesses and government agencies.
I believe most of us still WANT to trust one another, but, every day, we are reminded of bad people doing bad things, and, because of those bad things we have to surrender more of our personal data, and freedoms.
Still, trust is one of the most powerful components of freedom.
I'll keep on trusting until I just cannot anymore.
This little display of trust reminded me the first time, about 1972, I was asked to give a piece of identification for a check/cheque at a local grocery store.
Until then, I had written a check, handed it to the clerk, took my groceries and left...as did every other patron.
However, hot checks had become such an issue, people writing worthless paper, and businesses were losing so much money, they had to begin requesting identification.
In bigger cities this had been a practice even before I encountered it in my small southern city of Pensacola, Florida.
Over the years, we've lost trust.
At least a lot of it.
You know, years ago, before identity theft became such a big issue you could find people's social security numbers on lots of things. Many organizations, such as the U.S. military services figured out that, instead of issuing individual service numbers to each soldier, sailor, or Marine, they could just use social security numbers for identification numbers instead.
Well, because of identity theft, the military has gone back to issuing individual identification that does not use social security numbers as have many other businesses and government agencies.
I believe most of us still WANT to trust one another, but, every day, we are reminded of bad people doing bad things, and, because of those bad things we have to surrender more of our personal data, and freedoms.
Still, trust is one of the most powerful components of freedom.
I'll keep on trusting until I just cannot anymore.
Labels: donovan baldwin, Florida, Gatesville, identity theft, Pensacola, texas, trust
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Everybody's Somebody in Someone Else's Story
By Donovan Baldwin
In 1963, a metal safety helmet saved my life.
I was 18, and I was spending the Summer working on a construction crew for Soule Construction Company in Pensacola, Florida, as an apprentice carpenter.
One job was widening a bridge over the Escambia River, near Century, Florida.
Talk about getting old.
That bridge, and several other things I helped build, overpasses on Interstate I-110, going into downtown Pensacola, for example, have since been torn down and replaced.
Anyway, they insisted I wear this ugly metal helmet, and, as a rebellious teenager, I took it off at every opportunity.
On this particular day, my job as apprentice was to crawl up under the bridge, and, lying on a beam about 30 feet above the river, set some framing in place so that concrete could be poured later to cap a pier.
As I was under the roadbed of the bridge, there was a huge "pavement breaker" tearing up the concrete above me.
Suddenly, a huge chunk of concrete, about the size of a soccer ball, broke loose and hit me in the head.
Actually, it hit my helmet and left a pretty big dent in it, but, I was okay.
I kept that helmet for nearly 50 years after that.
So many times, so many ways, my story, could have ended. So many stories have ended before they should have.
Sometimes even doing everything right doesn't save the hero.
Everybody around you is the hero of somebody's story, even if it's just their own.
Enjoy them, their story, and their place in YOUR story.
They might not be here tomorrow.
I was 18, and I was spending the Summer working on a construction crew for Soule Construction Company in Pensacola, Florida, as an apprentice carpenter.
One job was widening a bridge over the Escambia River, near Century, Florida.
Talk about getting old.
That bridge, and several other things I helped build, overpasses on Interstate I-110, going into downtown Pensacola, for example, have since been torn down and replaced.
Anyway, they insisted I wear this ugly metal helmet, and, as a rebellious teenager, I took it off at every opportunity.
On this particular day, my job as apprentice was to crawl up under the bridge, and, lying on a beam about 30 feet above the river, set some framing in place so that concrete could be poured later to cap a pier.
As I was under the roadbed of the bridge, there was a huge "pavement breaker" tearing up the concrete above me.
Suddenly, a huge chunk of concrete, about the size of a soccer ball, broke loose and hit me in the head.
Actually, it hit my helmet and left a pretty big dent in it, but, I was okay.
I kept that helmet for nearly 50 years after that.
So many times, so many ways, my story, could have ended. So many stories have ended before they should have.
Sometimes even doing everything right doesn't save the hero.
Everybody around you is the hero of somebody's story, even if it's just their own.
Enjoy them, their story, and their place in YOUR story.
They might not be here tomorrow.
Labels: Century Florida, construction crew, donovan baldwin, Escambia River, Florida, life lesson, Pensacola
