Ah, small town life! I would never have said that the country's largest city in terms of land mass and 11th largest in population would fit that sentiment, but Jacksonville is, indeed, a small "everyone-knows-everyone-else" kinda town.
Many of the stories for our monthly community paper are fun to cover and, selfishly, I keep most of the good ones for myself. This past month I partook in a wine tasting for the opening of a new wine boutique, shot a doughnut-eating contest, watched the demolition of a 50-year-old garage, covered the ribbon cuttings for a new credit union and an assisted living facility, took a "dusty shoes" tour of a memory care facility not quite ready to open, covered a back-to-school backpack giveaway for underprivileged children, and witnessed the honor of Jacksonville being named the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts 14th city in a partnership program called Any Given Child. I also attended a Dreams Come True event for a young girl whose wish was for a miniature Australian Shepherd.
I took a photo of one woman who was closing her florist shop after 30 years in one location, another couple celebrating 25 years of their floral shop, and interviewed a 90-year-old blind quilter. I ran around taking photos of historical markers and huge murals, and I talked to arborists, bakers, construction workers, girls who went on mission trips, women who run food pantries, men who have started late-in-life careers as an owner of a health store for Baby Boomers or as a community courier service for people who can't get out to the grocery store.
Every day is bright with opportunity to meet more people and connect the dots. "Oh, are you related to...?" "Do you know...?" are questions I ask regularly.
Next month I will attend a quilt show and I hope to shoot photos from a small boat of 10 people who will swim the St. Johns River and in November I'll most likely be manning a booth for our newspaper at the First Annual Jacksonville Honeybee Festival. Life is good!
Bill and I are halfway through our second summer in Jacksonville and, at this point, I think I can say that we've started to take serious root.
I love the way God worked in our lives -- and is working still -- to move us into jobs that are pleasurable and allow us to entrench ourselves into our new community.
I'm still pinching myself -- even after two years of full-time living on our boat and after 21 months in Jacksonville -- and wondering when I'm going to wake up from the dream.
Today we did things we probably would not have dreamed of doing in Pittsburgh. Nothing stupendous. Just different.
Our marina -- which is resort-like, rather than the typical boatyard-type marina -- is a fun place for other boaters to come for part of a day. We've hosted two poker runs for boating clubs this summer, providing a two to three hour stopover for fun in the pool before the boaters head off to their next "poker hand".
Since I've taken on part-time marketing for the marina, my job is to photograph all the parties and post them on the marina's Facebook page. Today I shot 173 photos and culled them down to 42 for Facebook. And, yes, I shot a lot of buxom, bikini-clad women, inevitably pared with older, paunchier cigarette boat-owning guys.
Bill, the dockmaster and our new dockhand ran themselves ragged helping the 33 boats into empty slips among our four docks, while I captured it all on "film". It was sweltering hot and we hustled for two and a half hours. But, wow, would we be doing that in Pittsburgh?
That's become our refrain here. "Would we be doing this in Pittsburgh?" we ask ourselves as we sit up on the flybridge, reading and sipping a glass of wine (me) and smoking a cigar (Bill) before dinner.
"Would I be doing this in Pittsburgh?" I ask myself as I navigate my way around town and end up in a private small group meeting with the Sheriff of Jacksonville or the Mayor or one of our City Council members.
"Would I be doing this in Pittsburgh?" Bill asks himself as he puts to use the trade skills he learned more than 50 years ago to engineer improvements at the marina.
We loved our time in Pittsburgh -- don't get me wrong. It was the right place for us at the right time for 30 years. I still miss my friends and am so grateful for Internet technology that allows us to keep in touch and stay in tune.
But I feel the roots starting to put out those small offshoots that help secure us to new soil -- right here in Jacksonville.
