Sweet Baby James!

We've all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words.  I'm a believer.  The pictures below can speak for themselves in this post.


Loving this Grandpa stuff!!!!!!!!

Breakfast in Fort Smith...............Lunch just outside Paris!

Well it wasn't exactly Paris, France but Paris, Arkansas is pretty nice as well and they have their very own Eiffel Tower as you can see below.

The Eiffel Tower............Paris, Arkansas Style!

In addition to their very own Eiffel Tower, Paris Arkansas is one of the nearest cities to Mount Magazine State Park.  Mount Magazine and more specifically Signal Hill is the highest point in the state of Arkansas and while it's not exactly Mount Everest, Kilimanjaro or even the rocky mountains it's a very nice state park with some great overlooks from the many bluffs throughout the park.
Sarah and Joey took Sweet Baby James (SBJ) to have his newborn pictures made today so Beth and I did a quick day trip over to Mount Magazine for lunch and a little roaming around.  We had visited the park on a prior trip, had a great lunch in their lodge and decided to make the hour drive over again.
We've only visited a few of the state parks in Arkansas but I'll have to say they have all been really nice.  In addition to Mount Magazine we've been to Lake Fort Smith and Devils Den.  Next week we have a cabin reserved for three nights at Devils Den which is about an hour north of Fort Smith.  Once we check out from there we will swing back through to see (SBJ) and Sarah and Joey of course before heading down to Texas where we look forward to spending some time with Ben and visiting around.
The week after that the idiots will be on the move again although we really don't know where we're going yet.  We've got flights booked to four different cities (Denver, Boise, Boston and Phoenix) or none of the above.  I really love Southwest's liberal cancellation policies (it's rare for me to use the words love and liberal in the same sentence).  Additionally, they continue to expand their routes and I've heard rumors that Hawaii and Europe may be coming.  I'll let you know where we're going as soon as we figure it out...........don't hold your breath, we probably won't know until around the 27th or 28th.

Mount Magazine State Park Lodge

F



From the back porch of the lodge

We've been as high as you can legally be in Arkansas!

Baseball & Family

I've always been a big baseball fan.  Growing up in Florida I can remember going to quite a few spring training games with my dad or with some of my friends and their dads.  The Detroit Tigers have made Lakeland their spring training home since 1936 and mostly we went to their games although the Red Sox trained in Winter Haven during my childhood and we'd sneak over there every now and then.
I've maintained my love of the game to this day for a couple of reasons.  I love the ballpark experience, soaking up the atmosphere around and in the stadium, eating health foods such as hot dogs, peanuts, nachos, etc.  Also, baseball unlike the other major sports allows you to sit back relax and carry on a conversation while the game is going on and the best part is that so many of the games that I've been to that conversation has been with Beth, Ben and Sarah.
Living in Texas we frequently had access to Rangers tickets that we took advantage of frequently.  One of the great things about the Rangers games is that you can bring in your own food and drinks.  Beth and I would load up Ben and Sarah along with enough food to feed a small army and have a great time at the ballpark.
For Ben's 13th birthday we took him to New York to a Yankees game (he was a big Yankee & Derek Jeter fan at that time).  We took the subway out to the stadium and I can still remember his eyes lighting up when Yankee Stadium came into view.
Some of my favorite "Tucker Road Trips" were baseball road trips.  We did one that included 4 games in four days (White Sox & Cubs games in Chicago, Brewers game in Milwaukee and a Twins game in Minnesota.  We also did one that included an Orioles game in Baltimore, Nationals game in Washington and Phillies game in Philadelphia. We've also done games in numerous other cities including San Diego, St. Louis and Kansas City to name a few. These were great trips and now that the kiddo's are full fledged adults I appreciate them even more.
Keeping in mind that with all or part of the family in tow they were all great experiences. Below are a few of my favorite parks:
Wrigley Field and Fenway Park-Hey, I'm not only old, I'm old school.  I love the old parks that are located in neighborhoods like these two parks.  If you go to either of them go early and take in all the activities around the stadium where every game day is a party.
Yankee Stadium (the original one)-I have to admit that everytime I went there I got chills thinking about all the greats that played there.  Ruth, Mantle, DiMaggio, etc. and the late, great Bob Sheppard on the PA.
Camden Yards-Great location with the warehouses in the outfield.  Try Boog Powell's BBQ if you go!
Petco Park-San Diego  Great setting but be warned that even if it's been a hot mid-summer day in San Diego when the sun goes down it's going to be chilly. 
Candlestick Park-San Francisco  Clam Chowder in a bread bowl and baseball....a winning combination!
Honorable Mentions include: Minute Maid Park (Houston), Kaufman Stadium (Kansas City), Safeco Field (Seattle) and Globe Life Park (Rangers).




I'd be remiss if I didn't give a James update:
He's had a great first Monday and continues to get cuter by the minute.  Sarah is doing excellent and Joey is such a big help to both of them.  It's a joy just to sit back and watch them!

Tropicana Field (Tampa Bay Rays)- Where the majority of fans show up disguised as empty seats! 

James Kaden Martin!

Today is the day we have been anticipating for months.  At 7:23 AM Sweet Baby James was born at Mercy Hospital in Fort Smith, Arkansas.  Sarah, Joey and James are all doing awesome and make a beautiful little family.  He's eating, pooping, sleeping and just being as cute as he can be (referring to James of course).
Sarah's doctor admitted her last night around 8:30 and shortly thereafter starting inducing labor.  Everything went well (easy for me to say) and faster than anticipated although I'm sure Sarah would tell you it seemed plenty long enough for her.
As for Beth and I, we flew out of Tampa at 6:50, got to Dallas around 8:30 and drove to Fort Smith arriving a little before 2:00.  James was born while we were on the plane but we were able to stay in contact with Joey by text messaging and had a celebratory high five when we got the text letting us know he had arrived and both he and Sarah were doing well.
Our plans are to stay here for a week and be "helping hands" when and where we are needed.  After that we'll spend a few days at Devil's Den State Park which is about an hour from Fort Smith.  We will then swing back by for a visit and head down to Texas to see Uncle Ben for a few days.  After that we're planning on going somewhere where it's cooler.  We're not really sure where that it is yet, we've got a couple of things booked (Colorado and Idaho) but if something better comes up..........who knows where we'll end up.  I do know one thing, after the heat of Florida, Arkansas and Texas it's going to be cooler.  We will then go back to Texas, pick up Uncle Ben and come back to Arkansas so Ben and James can meet.  Ben has a great plan for a birthday gift for James but that's a story for another day.
It's a crazy world out there these days and seeing the innocence of Sweet Baby James today gives me hope.  As adults, we have an obligation to make the world a better place, hopefully we won't let James or all the other children introduced to the world today down.

Our Beautiful Daughter Sarah and Sweet Baby James!

3 Generations

Bonding!

Very Happy Day!

Growing Up in Mulberry-Part 2 of Many

Incredibly Stupid Things We Did As Kids

If you're not from Mulberry you may be starting to get a little bit of an idea of what life was like in this dusty little one red light town.  Often times peoples image of Mulberry is that of the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina.  While there were some similarities there were also quite a few differences, probably the biggest one being there were a whole lot more Goobers and Gomers per capita in Mulberry than Mayberry. Looking back on some of the stuff me and my buddies did back in the day we definitely fit into the "Goober and Gomer" category .
Other than playing sports and fishing there wasn't a whole lot of organized activities for us so we had to amuse ourselves.  You take a bunch of bored "Goobers and Gomers" and some crazy stuff can happen.  Thanks to the grace of God and a little luck and somehow in spite of our best efforts to kill or do serious bodily harm to ourselves somehow we all managed to survive.  I could probably write a book on this particular subject that would be fairly lengthy but for now I'll just share a little bit about three of the more incredibly stupid recurring feats.  Momma's and Daddies don't let your kids participate in any of these activities!

Crawling Through the Storm Drains

It was a simple thing that we figured out that could provide hours and hours of incredibly stupid fun.  Take a manhole cover off, jump down into the storm drains that ran under Northeast Mulberry, pull the cover back on top and there was a great maze of tunnels.  We'd crawl on our hands and knees all  over or more appropriately under the place without any concern for snakes, rats, poisonous gases or whatever flesh eating bacteria might be living in those pipes.  I do recall scraped up hands and knees but from what I can remember the most serious damage any of us came away with from this adventure was some serious ringing in the ears when one of my buddies who wasn't with us on a particular underground adventure figured out where we were and tossed a pack of lit firecrackers into the drain directly in front of us.  I remember the sound of those things exploding sounding like bombs going off and the echo they made lasted well beyond the last actual explosion.

Riding Our Bikes Behind The Truck That Sprayed Mosquitos

The mosquitos that lived in the Mulberry area seemed larger than many species of birds. I'm sure they carried diseases back then but nothing like Malaria, West Nile or Zika or if they did we just didn't know about them.  What we did know was that there were billions of them that would come out at night to bite and chew on any exposed flesh.  To combat them the city had an old pick up truck with some kind of fogger/spraying device that would go up and down the streets at night spraying a thick white smoke that contained unknown amounts of unknown chemicals that were supposed to kill or at least send the mosquitos into some chemically induced high that would make them quit biting for a while.  I don't recall it ever working but I do recall when we heard the truck coming we'd all hop on our bikes and ride along directly behind the truck in this chemical fog. 

The last couple of years they have been spraying for mosquitos in the area of Texas we just moved from in an attempt to reduce the risk of exposure to mosquitos carrying the West Nile virus.  It was quite controversial with good Momma's and Daddies all up in arms about the potential harm this was doing to their kiddos.  All I can remember in Mulberry would be that if my mom heard the truck first she would yell out "Kent the mosquito truck is coming, you'd better get your bike and get out there with your buddies"! 

Swimming In Alligator Infested Phosphate Pits

To the non-Mulberrian you would call it a "pond", to us they were phosphate pits which were actually nothing more than big holes left in the ground as a result of the phosphate mining operations (remember Mulberry is the Phosphate Capital of the World).  These pits didn't really seem to have a bottom,  and with few exceptions the water was stagnant so it was full of who knows what that had been dumped in there or carried there by storm water runoff.  These pits were also home to a bunch of big gators.  When I say "big" I mean 8-12 footers were not uncommon.  We'd see them and stupidly figured that as long as we didn't go near them or where they nested that they wouldn't bother us.  Thankfully we weren't wrong and as best as I can remember I never lost a friend to an alligator although a few pet dogs that liked to swim mysteriously went missing including my beloved Spot.  Again, I can't ever recall my mom saying "Kent there are man eating monsters living in those phosphate pits, don't you dare swim in them" it was more along the line of "it sure is hot today, why don't you and your buddies take the pet dogs down for a swim".

Some parents sure seem to be over protective of their kids these days!

The idiots will be on the move again soon with some big news to share sometime in the next week or two.  In the meantime I hope you are enjoying these reflections from my past, it was a heck of a ride!







Happy 4th of July!

Morning beach walk @ 6:00.
Quick trip to the grocery store before the onslaught.  Fresh Cuban Bread coming out of the oven when we were there.
Fresh hot Cuban Bread for breakfast.
My morning paddleboard workout on "smooth as glass" water @ 8:00
Heading to the beach for a morning swim in a few minutes.
A nap sometime this afternoon.
Family meal at the "big house" later today followed by fireworks on the beach.


A moment to pause and say thanks to all the men and women in uniform serving overseas and at home as well as the first responders whose natural instinct is to run towards danger instead of the other way.


It's a great day to be an American and a great day to be on AMI!

Not only do you get spectacular sunsets on AMI on the east side of the island you can get an amazing sunrise over Tampa Bay!
Photo courtesy of Cindy Eason

Beach House- "That's just the way it's always been"

Every summer on AMI there is a ritual that has been taking place for as the title suggests a very long time.  When I asked Beth’s mother (the one and only NaNa) about the origin she simply replied that it’s been going on for as long as she can remember and without revealing any age I'll just say that’s a fairly long time.

She did share with me that she remembers coming out here across a rickety one lane bridge with her Mom and Dad along with her brother (Blake) and three sisters (Kay, Sally and Phyllis) when she was a young girl.  At that time they along with an extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins spent 3 entire months on the beach. According to her, back then the island was mostly mangroves, marsh and mosquitos.  Good or bad the island has changed and evolved a lot since then but the legacy of the beach house continues.

When I first started dating Beth the beach house was a month long extravaganza that now lasts for two weeks with the “main event” occurring on July 4^th when there will be over 100 relatives, friends and I’m pretty sure even a few complete strangers who are just passing by and decide to join in the party.  You’d be hard pressed to find a nicer, friendlier or more welcoming group of people and I’d say that even if I wasn’t going to be with them for another week and related by marriage.

In addition to the big event on the 4^th there are a number of other rituals that go along with beach house.  Sunday lunches are a major time for everyone to gather at the main gathering spot known as the “big house” which is wonderfully located just a few steps from one of the best beaches on the entire planet.  There is a morning swim which is usually from around 10:00-noon and the nightly gathering on the beach for sunset.  There are fishing trips (fresh grouper and snapper for dinner tonight), morning walks, bowling trips and much more that has been passed down from generation to generation that make this such an amazing annual family tradition.

One tradition that deserves a little more explaining is the annual Rook tournament.  For the uninitiated, Rook is a card game that is played by two teams of two players.  Like so much of the beach house, the card game has always been around. Over time friendly casual games have  evolved into a major tournament complete with a “Tournament Director” {a position proudly held by Ken Burton), a dedicated website with team seedings, tournament history, sponsors and much more.  Prizes are awarded to the top three teams and there was at one time a trophy that was as prized by the players as the Lombardi Trophy is to pro football players or the Stanley Cup is to hockey players.  The trophy went missing some years back and there were rumors abound for a period of time regarding its whereabouts and who may have it. 

I think there are about 15 teams in this years tournament with players ranging in age from the youngest being in their teens to a few who are in their 80’s.  I’ve played in the tournament a few times over the years but I’m a lousy player who’s had trouble keeping the same partner for more than one year so I retired from competitive Rook a few years back much to the delight of those who needed a partner but didn’t want me.  You can follow the action of this year’s tournament on the link below:

http://rooktournament.com 

Here’s to a great tradition and one that in spite of the crazy, fast paced world we live in today I pray will last for generations to come.

 

 

 

The Queens of the Beach!  L to R  Joyce (NaNa), Kay, Sally and Phyllis
Photo courtesy of Kristy Jones

 

The Four Sisters and Blake enjoying a little Rook at the 2015 Beach House
Photo courtesy of Kristy Jones 

NaNa and Sally debating who ate the most

Lined up for sunset

 

Tournament Rook games always draw a crowd



Spectacular Sunset!