My father died 8 years ago today, in Titusville Florida. When I was in High School my parents rented a condo in Titusville a couple of winters, then bought a house. They retired six years after they bought the house and moved to Florida. I lived there for a couple of years after high school, then moved to Orlando.
Titusville is across the Indian River, a wide intercoastal waterway, from the barrier islands that the Kennedy Space Center is on. The city had experienced booming growth with the space program, and total bust when the Apollo program ended, NASA ended the employment of 10,000 people one Friday afternoon. The city leaders, where wary of any growth of development for decades after that fateful Friday.
After I moved to DC, I would drive down at holiday time, and fly down at least one other time each year. The year my parents died, I flew down 11 times in 10 months. (My parents died five-months apart, at home, with incredible care by my dear sister and Hospice.)
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| I was thrilled when we started spending winters in Titusville, there were two shopping malls between home and school. Miracle City Mall had two major anchor stores and probably 40 shops in-between. I stopped almost every afternoon to walk through the mall and visit my friends in the camera and coin stores. Sadly, as this photo shows, it was demolished a few years ago. |
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I spent a night sleeping outside in Titusville in the early 70s. We had a cookout of fresh shrimp we bought from a guy who was shrimping right across the road. And our view that night was across the water to the launch site. I could probably find the spot again. A very cool night and probably illegal.
ReplyDeleteThe real party sites were a string of tiny islands in the river, I never went to them (I didn't have a boat.)
DeleteGrowing old in Titusville or anywhere else for that matter is not for the faint-hearted. The city is the only place in the world where the endangered Dicerandra thinicola, or "Titusville mint" grows.
ReplyDeleteIf we are lucky, we will all grow old someplace. I had never heard of Titusville Mint.
DeleteMemories of what was there, along with photos, are so important. But they can come with sadness too.
ReplyDeleteHe had a good and long life, and a good death, peaceful - at home - with only a few days of being incapacitated.
DeleteSome cool pictures!!! What was the one toward the end? Was it a Mantee in the water?
ReplyDeleteA Manatee tail, in the inlet just north of the space center.
DeleteA day for memories and reflections.
ReplyDeleteI try to remember, without dwelling.
DeleteI haven't been back to where I grew up in ages. My parents moved away from there in the early Aughts so my family visits shifted to Oregon.
ReplyDeleteI might like to go and see my old haunts, schools and job spots one of these days.
I have been back to Michigan for a couple of funerals, I left there when I was a young adult and have no real desire to go back.
DeleteNote to Bob: it is as mundane as you remember. No need to hurry.
DeleteWill Jay
Sounds like your parents had a good life.
ReplyDeleteYou sound like you really liked that mall!
The house in Michigan was miles from civilization, having a shopping mall a mile away was heaven for a young me. The Coin shop was run by Ann and Gus (named Angus Coins.) The camera shop closed while I was in high school. I bought my first SLR there.
DeleteThose beautiful, big shopping malls are closing up all over the country. What a nice place to retire.
ReplyDeleteIt was quiet, inexpensive, and they for 20 years they escaped to Michigan in the summers.
DeleteMy dad worked for Sears and as he got promoted we moved to a new city. I remember most of the addresses where we lived and have visited a few in the past few years. Those have been nice trips down memory lane to experience childhood memories as an adult.
ReplyDeleteA young family bought the house in Titusville, and they have really updated it. I don't know if Dad would approve, but it looks great from the street.
DeleteThey did the best that they could. May it have brought them some joy and peace at that time of their lives.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a good place to be from not of.
Will Jay
I wouldn't want to live there, but it was not a bad life.
DeleteThat first photo of the alligators (or crocodiles?) made my skin crawl. I wonder if they ever got to any of those cattle in the distance.
ReplyDeleteAlligators along the St Johns River, just west of Titusville. If you go out towards the beach in the Canaveral National Seashore, turn north on Biolab Road, I have never been so close to so many alligators. It is a one way drive, about 5 miles along the water.
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