A good day in February

Sunday, February 18, 2018

This was a good day for me. In the morning I put on a suit I have only worn four times since I retired in 1993. The first was for my wife Mary’s funeral in 2010, then my marriage to Joyce in 2013, and since then a friend’s wedding, and the funeral of another friend. In fact, I found a religious service memorial card in the inside pocket from the funeral.

When I went to brunch I felt the suit was too big for me to wear comfortably at dinner in the evening. So I took it off and wore some slacks and a  sport coat to the evening dinner. 

This was the annual dinner for the poker players’ wives at Frankie at Seaside. We had as our guests the wives of deceased poker players, and Franke Manager, Mark Lee and his wife Barbara. We had close to 60 people at the dinner. It was a special affair and the food and service was top of the line. I was the MC and told several humorous stories and one-liners. (Received several favorable comments afterward.) We raffled off bottles of wine and boxes of chocolates and every lady present got something to take home. It was a wonderful night and I thoroughly enjoyed. I also felt better with regard to my clothing.

I have another suit similar to the one I had on this morning which I also bought back in the 1980s when I served in the South Carolina House of Representatives. The suits have not gotten much use since I retired in 1993. I intend to try that on and if it fits like the first one I will donate them to Goodwill or Habitat for Humanity. 

You can go back again

Tuesday next will be two weeks since I returned to Independent Living at Franke at Seaside in Mount Pleasant, S.C., where I lived from 2008 to 2013.  Coincidentally, one of the thousands of pictures on my computer that popped up as a screensaver was a picture I took more than five years ago while the fountain in the small park in front of the apartment houses was being built.

The fountain was completed in March 2011 and continues to flow and life goes on. The reception from friends I lived among years ago has been warm and gracious. New acquaintances are likewise friendly. Life is good. 

Click here for the complete blog.

Click to Email comments.

Passing of a friend

Drove to a funeral yesterday (January 27, 2014) for John L. Trombino who died January 15. It was a little more than 200 miles round trip from Hilton Head to Mt. Pleasant, SC, but there are friends who are worthy of the journey. John was one of them.

The Catholic service was held in the Rodenberg Chapel at Franke at Seaside, where I lived from February 2008 until my re-marriage in March 2013. John’s family from near and far was present. At the joyful reception in the active lifestyle dining room after the service, John's wife, Toni, and I shared a light moment with this anecdote: When I began playing nickel and dime poker with John, and some of the other men at Franke, John had a good day and took some of my money. He asked me at the end of game how I enjoyed the afternoon. I said I would like to have my money back. John’s reply was, “You can have it when I die.”

John was laid to rest in the Columbarium at Franke. It was both a sad occasion but also a happy moment to see many friends and former neighbors. All of us have gotten a bit older and our shapes and sizes have made appropriate adjustments. But, thankfully, life goes on and we look to each new day for the joys and surprises it may bring.

 

Click here for the full blog.

E-mail comments to: arch@archibald99.com

  

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year greeeting

Having crossed the 82^nd meridian of life I pause to wish a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to those living people who played a significant role in my vibrant, interesting and mostly pleasurable life, to wit: my brother and sisters; neighbors and boyhood friends in places I lived; teachers from first grade through high school and fellow students encountered along the way; folks I worked with prior to going in the service and those I hung with after work; men and women I was privileged to associate with during eight years of Air Force service, including those who trained me and advanced my career; the wonderful people over the next 50 years who I met in my work, college and graduate school, community, church, political and social life; my five children  

who made me and their late mother proud by turning out to be good people in their own lives and mating with a good husband and wives and making us proud grandparents; the many folks we came in contact with around the world, especiallyin China, Australia and South Africa; doctors and nurses who have helped keep me going all these years; the fine women and men who cared for my wife in her advanced and declining years; those neighbors and strangers who became fast friends and sustained me in many wonderful ways during those difficult years; and my new wife

and her family and the recently acquired friends and neighbors who continue to make my life worth living.

Merry Christmas one and all and Happy New Year!

Frank Seabrook Hay, Jr., 1926-2013,R.I.P.

(Note: The following are remarks I planned to make at the celebration of Frank's life on Saturday, September 21, 2013, at Rodenberg Chapel, Franke at Seaside, Mt. Pleasant, SC. Speaking, however, was limited to three members of his large extended family.)

   It is a happy feeling to be back at Franke at Seaside among so many friends, even though the occasion is also a sad one.

   We come together to celebrate the life of our friend Frank Hay and at the same time extend to his beloved wife Frances and all the family members our condolences and love.

   I had been at Franke for over three years when Frank and Frances came to live here. I was a regular participant in “The Week That Was,” a discussion group dealing with current events, most of them political in nature. The weekly group attendance was 25 to 30 residents, male and female. The group was led in a most capable manner by Jeff Erickson, a volunteer coordinator, who is with us today.

   The group was essentially divided into two camps. There were conservatives and liberals. Each camp held views peculiar to their own persuasion. Some of the attendees spoke up frequently and wanted to share their opinion, and hopefully convert others. A number of attendees listened silently, sometimes smiling or nodding their heads one way or the other.

  Then one day a new face was in the crowd. It was Frank Hay. Initially, Frank was somewhat of an enigma.  He didn’t seem to have any of the prejudices that dominated the participants. He could not be said to be in one camp or another.

   After a few weeks I began to recognize Frank as a free-thinker. He formed his own opinions about important subjects instead of accepting what others were saying.

   It slowly dawned on me that Frank would have been right at home during the birthing years of our great country. He would have enjoyed the company of Washington, Jefferson and Franklin. He would have believed in the separation of church and state and the freedom of man to make his own choices in all matters.

   Like Galileo, Frank did not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense, reason and intellect had intended for us to fore-go their use.

   In 1790, George Washington urged congress to promote science and literature. He said that in every country knowledge is the surest basis of public happiness.

   Frank was like this. He came every week to The Week That Was armed with six or seven supporting documents in a folder with which to urge thought and discussion. His arguments were spoken with intelligence and moderation. He did not believe that speaking loudly made anyone’s argument any more persuasive.

   I sought out and enjoyed Frank’s company and that of Frances. They amazed many of us on several social occasions with elegant demonstrations of ball-room dancing. Frank’s skills on the dance floor made him the envy of more than one man here at Franke. Especially, when wives said, “See!”

   We served together on the Active Lifestyle Residents’ Council here at Franke and for a year Frank was our recording secretary. He carried out his duties with determination and skill and everyone benefited from his accurate rendition of what happened at the meetings.

   Frank came to my apartment one day and took away an idea of how to re-arrange his living space to make it more livable. He told me about this later and I felt good about it. Who doesn’t like a bit of praise now and then?

   We sat together and enjoyed dinner at the counter in the Bistro on many occasions and it was a pleasure to share our thoughts.

   My wife, Joyce, and I came to visit Frank in late August and enjoyed again his company and our discussion. He was his usual optimistic self and we left with joy in our hearts at how well he seemed to be getting along. Alas, that was only temporary and the Master of the Universe had other plans. I would like to think He will enjoy Frank, the free-thinker, for all eternity as much as we enjoyed him for the three years he was with us at Franke.

   Frank was my friend and I will miss him very much.

(Comment to: arch@archibald99.com) 
(Complete blog here.)

The road "less traveled by"

Robert Frost created a tale (The Road Not Taken) of the diverging roads encountered on the travel through life. One is well-worn and exudes feelings of safety and security. The other is equally inviting, although “less traveled by” and to take it is to step into the unknown.

Five years ago, after almost 50 years in Hanahan, SC, I took a road “less traveled by” and came to Franke at Seaside, Mt. Pleasant, SC. It has turned out well.

Now, I am at another fork in the road of life and once again will take the road “less traveled by.” I am moving to Moss Creek Plantation, Hilton Head, SC, to marry and live with the woman, Joyce Wahlrab, I love and who loves me.   

Throughout my life I have come to many forks in the road and had to choose which road to take. Somehow the choice always worked out and life has been very good to me. I could remain at Franke; it is the easy, the safe, the well-worn path, but I would always wonder what if I had taken the other road?

I am called to recite as did the narrator in The Road Not Taken:

“And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I marked the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

“I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

( To reply e-mail to: arch@archibald99com )

( Complete blog at archibaldinsc.blogspot.com )

. 

Franke Flyer

The FRANKE FLYER arrived in the Trailside lobby on the day after the annual national holiday completely without fanfare.  It just showed up. A copy was hung on the bulletin board (like stockings by the Christmas fire) and extras were laid on the table to be taken at will by any resident.

This is another example of how residents in Franke at Seaside want to know what is happening to whom, where and when. Why being optional. It brings to mind the effort our former neighbor Ned Hogan put forth to get a bulletin board in Trailside (and ultimately in the three apartment houses.) Ned started putting notices on the walls of the elevator, scotch taping such items as came to his attention and needed (in his opinion) to be distributed. There was of course, the usual objection (someone always objects to something) but resistance gave way and this lead to a bulletin board on an easel in the lobby for a couple of weeks. It became a major hit in the Trailside lobby so much so that it was hung on the wall and remains there, although Ned has moved on to his new home somewhere in Texas.

I thought a similar bulletin board in the Burges Center near the in-house community mail rack (not USPS controlled)  would be a good idea. But the one that went up has a lock on it and is used only for “official” notices. My original thought was how can a cottage dweller tell others what is on his or her mind? What if a cottage dweller wants to sell a sofa, buy a used sauce pan, or donate a computer? How would they get the word out? Print flyers and distribute them to every slot in the community mail boxes. Not very cost effective. Would a resident’s bulletin board be tacky?

Sometimes we have to relax and live a little. Instead of fretting about what something might turn into, why not let it happen and see where it goes. If it gets out of control it can be corrected. In all too many ways we are besieged with information and someone’s idea of what is news. All around us there are daily and weekly newspapers, weekly and monthly magazines, newsletters, books, radio and TV, the internet, gossip, and plain old verbal mischief (aka:BS). The information age is upon us ad infinitum. All of this is information coming down on us. It is not information going up or among us. It does not satisfy the un-yielding urge, the passion if you will, to communicate among each other.  

Long live the FRANKE FLYER. May it flourish and one day takes its rightful place alongside the printing press, the computer and the wagging tongue.

  

Trailside Anniversary - 5 Years On

Yesterday the residents of Trailside Apartments celebrated the 5th Anniversary of the opening of the second apartment house at Franke at Seaside,Mt. Pleasant, S.C. Two residents actually moved in on May 29, 2007, but the real intake began in June.

These are some snapshots taken at random of the wonderful residents. Most of these are unposed pictures and presented to show people enjoying themselves, each other and the happy occasion. (The pictures may be enlarged by clicking on the Slideshow link in the left corner of the site.)


We paid our respects to those former residents who have gone on but who were once part of our family. We acknowledged those who have arrived recently to bring new life and new ideas to the residence. 

Many of the families and the individuals living alone made and brought covered dishes. No one eats better than when a number of women put their hands to the skillet and turn on the stove. A bit of wine and adult beverages were enjoyed by most. Deserts were plentiful and delicious.  


Whether it is an apartment house in a busy metropolis or a quiet place like Franke at Seaside it is the residents who make a house a home. It is the spirit of camaraderie, of working together and simply being a good neighbor that makes the Trailside Building such a special place.

We give thanks to the women and men who organized the party (it is always the women, God bless 'em, who take the lead) and we look forward to the 10th Anniversary of Trailside. And we hope all the current residents will be on hand for that joyous day.