swamp cabbage

My daddy worked for the USDA until his retirement at 55.  One of the reasons he retired is that his job had turned into a lot of travel for things like inspecting stuff from the Cuban refugees that were pouring in at that time.  I was going through a box of family stuff ( there are still MANY ) and found a program from a United Methodist church that he attended in LaBelle Florida.  I had always pictured him on the shore in Miami or something so I was curious about this tiny town.  It only has about 5K residents and sits close to Ft. Myers.  It is the home of the Swamp Cabbage Festival and I have a t-shirt somewhere.  Small world.  His 35 years were met for federal retirement which included his duty in the Air Force when he was stationed in the Azore Islands during the Korean conflict.  Technically, he was a plant protection specialist and also farm manager for all those years.  After retirement, he became a one job man managing the farm until about 8 years ago.  Then the job was passed onto my brother.  

It's funny....the little things that we forget about until we run across a reminder of days gone by.  These boxes hold the history of my parents' life together.  Some of it is being pitched while other parts will remain a part of my heritage to be passed onto Lauren and Reaves.  My mother was a meticulous historian.

It's finally above 20 around these parts which is a welcome warmup.  Hopefully I can turn off the dripping faucets soon.  We are still here so I'm assuming nobody pushed their big button yet.  Since I've had the time I've watched a few White House press briefings and I must say that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the perfect mouthpiece for this administration.  Full of it.  

More later from Pecan Lane ~