Lock at Windmill Harbor

The boat lock at Windmill Harbor is the first and only one I have seen on Hilton Head Island. When i went to the boat show earlier this month it was an interesting surprise. An attendant told me the lock had been closed last year for about three months for repairs. When this happens the boats in the anchorage are locked in and those outside are locked out. Not a happy time for boaters. This was all the more interesting because before my visit I read a story of how British forces blocked and blew up a lock built to accommodate Germany's largest battleships. When this happened in March,1942, the lock was not usable by the Germans for the duration of World War II. 

The gate to the lock.

Inside the lock.

The anchorage.

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My Sister Carol

Today at 11:12 in her home in The Villages, Florida, my youngest sister, Carol, died with three close friends in attendance. She had declined chemotherapy and radiation a couple of months ago. This was her third bout with cancer and it was too much for her. I visited her in April along with my son, James. 

Carol was born on June 7, 1935. She would have been 80 in a month. She was a retired federal employee, a contract officer for the Air Force during her working life. She started with the Air Force in an entry position and worked her way to the top civil service grade short of the Executive Service.

She was an avid golfer for fifty years and won many tournaments and served as the president of her golf club. She was blessed with many friends, among them Carole Tessier with whom she shared her life. They moved in together when their mothers died and owned property together. 

Carol was a friendly and outgoing personality who had a good sense of humor, was smart, liked a beer and cheered the Red Sox and New England Patriots. She was especially voluble when the Sox ended a 100-year drought and won the World Series in 2004. 

Carol was the linchpin of our family She lived with our mother all her life and took care of the business affairs of an aunt and uncle. She was especially close to her older sister and younger brother. Our brother Charlie preceded Carol in death, also a victim of cancer. 

My mother told me that of all her five children, Carol took my father's 1940-41 abandonment of us the hardest. Like all of us she struggled to put herself through college and overcome hardships we all faced. She did this with the same courage and discipline that she refused the final chemo and radiation treatment.

Carol was a lifelong Roman Catholic and received the last rites recently. I have no doubt her soul joined our mother in heaven on this, Mother's Day, 2015.

We, her siblings, my family, Carole Tessier, and the multiple dozens who knew and loved Carol will miss her as we continue to pray for her.

Carol Tessier and Carol Archibald, 2010