Carmine
Old Man with a Hat
I don't know why they don't call it "Charlie", but they don't. I know a lot of people here are in Florida, so you might find this amusing... Or horrifying.
Anyway, when I brought up that old picture of my '72 Charger to show the canopy vinyl top, it reminded me of the 18-hour-blast road trip I made back on Christmas Eve '96 or '97. My girlfriend and I left my family's big dago Christmas party in Michigan around 11 pm and drove straight down to Punta Gorda, Florida to surprise-visit my grandparents on Christmas Day. My then-girlfriend is cleaning the windshield in Georgia.
Car performed without a hitch (although we hit a HUGE snow/ice storm on the way back.. That was not fun at all). Anyway, these are the only pics I have scanned into digital. I'm sure others exist somewhere. As a fan of architecture, I took a picture of the big sign, which was pretty outdated even in the late 90s. The actual Publix was a pretty cool 50s relic itself.
When Charley hit years later, (2004?) I went down to help my grandparents sort through their wrecked house. Actually, there wasn't much damage, but they were just condemning everything and my grandparents just wanted to be done with it. That was the first time they ever seemed "old" to me, and they were never the same afterwards. I'm sure seeing what the storm did to them is a big part of my anti-Florida/pro-Arizona bias.
A few years later, my grandmother having passed, we took my grandfather down again to try and cheer him up, let him see some friends down there, etc. While I was there, I wanted to see if the big sign survived. Neither it, nor the store were there. Just the remains of the parking lot. It was fairly depressing for me.
Anyways, that was something that happened.
Anyway, when I brought up that old picture of my '72 Charger to show the canopy vinyl top, it reminded me of the 18-hour-blast road trip I made back on Christmas Eve '96 or '97. My girlfriend and I left my family's big dago Christmas party in Michigan around 11 pm and drove straight down to Punta Gorda, Florida to surprise-visit my grandparents on Christmas Day. My then-girlfriend is cleaning the windshield in Georgia.
Car performed without a hitch (although we hit a HUGE snow/ice storm on the way back.. That was not fun at all). Anyway, these are the only pics I have scanned into digital. I'm sure others exist somewhere. As a fan of architecture, I took a picture of the big sign, which was pretty outdated even in the late 90s. The actual Publix was a pretty cool 50s relic itself.
When Charley hit years later, (2004?) I went down to help my grandparents sort through their wrecked house. Actually, there wasn't much damage, but they were just condemning everything and my grandparents just wanted to be done with it. That was the first time they ever seemed "old" to me, and they were never the same afterwards. I'm sure seeing what the storm did to them is a big part of my anti-Florida/pro-Arizona bias.
A few years later, my grandmother having passed, we took my grandfather down again to try and cheer him up, let him see some friends down there, etc. While I was there, I wanted to see if the big sign survived. Neither it, nor the store were there. Just the remains of the parking lot. It was fairly depressing for me.
Anyways, that was something that happened.