20 November 2020
And the pandemic rages. Yesterday, Florida added more than 9,000 new cases and our Republican Senator Rick Scott has tested positive for Covid-19. Trump continues to fiddle while the U.S. burns.
There were over 187,000 new cases nationwide and almost 2,000 deaths yesterday. Some scientists are predicting we may have as many as 4,000 deaths a day by the end of November. We are currently at more than 254,000 deaths nationwide since the pandemic began and some epidemiologists are predicting we will exceed the total number of American deaths in WWII (407,316) by the end of the year.
I’ve been social distancing since March of this year. It has given me a little time to do projects that were in the back of my mind but never got around to. One of the projects is to digitize all my photographs. It’s been an interesting project. I’m trying to divide the photographs into categories. One category I’ve finished is my Dad’s days at Camp Blanding (near Starke, Florida) prior to the outbreak of WWII. Starke, by the way, is appropriately named. It’s the site of the Florida State Penitentiary.
If you keep up with my posts, you know my Dad was in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). I have photos of him in 1933 when he was 20 years old with the CCC. I’ve never been totally clear what happened after that but I think I remember him telling me that after his CCC days, he was segued into the U.S. Army.
I do remember him telling me something of his Camp Blanding days. One story he told was he and his buddies hopped into a car and drove to Jacksonville and then drove down the beach to Miami Beach for some R&R. Daytona Beach, Florida is the only place I know of today that you can drive on the beach legally. Back then, you probably could drive from Jacksonville to Miami Beach on the sand. The only time you would have to leave the beach was to get over streams, creeks and rivers that entered the Atlantic.
If you forget some canada viagra generic day, no problem at all. Therefore, you need to cialis lowest prices be in touch of this problem the life a man becomes just survival. In order to identify a safe website for purchasing medications, make sure that the pharmacy requires a prescription viagra 100mg sales from a certified physician. It is equally effective for men suffering from impotence. buy generic cialisHe related to me he was in a room in Miami Beach on December 7, 1941 when he heard about Pearl Harbor on the radio. I have photos of the Miami/Miami Beach excursion but I thought I would share some of the photos of Camp Blanding and his side trip to Silver Springs first.
Camp Blanding was established as a U.S. Army training center in 1940. Back then (and probably still is today) it was mostly sand. There were several parts of Florida that was above water after one of the ice ages melted. The Lake Wales Ridge is one and there are other “islands” of sand that never were submerged and I suspect Camp Blanding is on one of those other islands.
Click on the movie for scenes from Camp Blanding and Silver Springs.
My song recommendation is one on the video: “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” by the Andrews Sisters.
