Siesta Key 1980: The Beach
March 30th, 2007
Mom remembers that the Central Printing condo was on a very private area of the beach. In fact Siesta Key itself was a very small and mostly private island – so whenever we had to go into town for food, we had to drive our new 1980 Buick (which my Dad remembers had stick shift problems on the way down and had to be looked at) into Sarasota. Therefore, mostly we stayed at our little condo and ate meals that my Mom cooked and swam in the ocean (allowing ample time as not to get cramps). As indicated by the following pictures, we did do quite a bit of splashing in the waves.
I had stopped creating my “Dante’s Info” newsletters in the Summer of 2000 around the time that Denise and I attended the Sea-Tac convention. But when I resumed production of them in early 2002, one of the first things I did was to publish the article “Highlights of the 2000 Convention.” Here is the article in its entirety. As this was written for the express purpose of publication in the newsletter, it is simply a broad overview of the convention. I’ll add a bit more personal reminisces in future postings… 
This entry combines two events into one posting. One of the last successful autograph attempts I made in the Summer of 1985 was a request I sent to Sherman Hemsley (best known as George Jefferson on the TV show The Jeffersons) on August 16. Remarkably, it was not fulfilled until more than two years later…arriving on my birthday, October 2, in 1987! There were less than half of a dozen celebrities from this batch of Summer of ’85 autograph requests that I actually got the opportunity to meet sometime in the future and Sherman Hemsley was one of them. 
Denise had just left for a week at Camp Woodland Altars on July 1, 1990 – the day before we were notified that Oscar had passed away. Oscar was the second husband of my Grandma Range, having married one another on July 17, 1970, the day before my parents were lawfully united themselves. He had been diagnosed with a form of Alzheimer’s disease, referred to as Sundown Syndrome, a couple of years pror to his passing. This disease struck worse during the evening hours, although as it progressed, he became equally as confused during the day. 
Our Spring Myrtle Beach trip commenced on March 17, 2007 at about 9:30 am. As this was Adam’s first long trip away from home, we decided to make the trek in two days, traveling at a leisurely pace, stopping when we needed to, and then spending the night in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The ride down was mostly uneventful, with my trusty iPod providing our tunes and Wendy’s providing our lunch.