IN THE KITCHEN WITH LARRY Larry’s Loquat Jam 5 cups of loquats 1 box fruit pectin (available year ‘round at Sweetbay and seasonally at Savealot) 7 cups of sugar Wash fruit well. Cut off both ends and remove the seeds. THROW SEEDS OUT…they are poisonous to consume! Early in the season there are just one, maybe two seeds in the fruit. Later, the fruit has up to 5 or 6 seeds in it! Because it is difficult to pick 5 full cups of fruit, Larry suggests we clean and deseed what is possible and freeze it. Over time, you can amass the full 5 cups. Or, you can soak some dried apricots in water, till soft and plump. Place fruit in saucepan with a small amount of water. Cook slowly and mash with a potato masher occasionally, until well done. Stir once in a while, to prevent sticking. Add the pectin to the hot fruit and stir well. Let the mixture come to a rolling boil, remembering to stir to prevent sticking. Then, add sugar and bring to a ROLLING BOIL FOR ONE MINUTE. Poor into sterilized jelly jars and seal well. Share with your neighbors, but keep plenty for your own toast. It is delish, and a beautiful golden-light orange color.
I spent thousands for a lawyer to create a living will. This will replace it. It fits me perfectly. This is the best Living Will that I have seen. LIVING WILL FORM... I, ____________, being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means. Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of pinhead partisan politicians who couldn’t pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it, or lawyers/doctors/hospitals interested in simply running up the bills. If A reasonable amount of time passes, and I fail to ask for at least one of the following: ______Vodka Rocks ______a Margarita ____ a Beer ______ a Bloody Mary ______a Gin and Tonic ______a Glass of Wine _______a Tee Time ______a Steak ______ Lobster or crab legs ________ Barbeque Ribs with all the fixins ______ Taco Bell ______ the remote control ______a bowl of ice cream ______the sports page _______ Cheesecake ______Sex ______or Chocolate, _____ one game of pickleball, it should be presumed that I won’t ever get any better. When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my appointed person and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes, and call it a day. At this point, it is time to call the New Orleans Blues Funeral Band to come do their thing at my funeral, and ask all of my friends to raise their glasses to toast the good times we have had. Signature:__________________________ Date: _____ NOTE: I also hear that in Ireland they have a Nursing Home with a Pub. The patients are happier, and they have a lot more visitors. Some of them don’t even need embalming when their time comes... The best living will I have ever read. -- Cherie
We’re not saying Gordon Wilkinson can’t be trusted. Not exactly.
What we can say is that Gordon Wilkinson said he was done calling bingo before, and he returned to the game. On March 7, OWL's Bingo Caller Extraordinaire retired. Again.
He first retired from the game in the mid 1950s. He was calling at the Odd Fellows Lodge in Jefferson, Michigan. One Thanksgiving, the Odd Fellows scheduled a Feather Party, a bingo game that awards frozen poultry for prizes. But before he announced the first number, Gordon retired. "In walks these two guys in suits," Gordon recalled. Detectives from the Michigan State Police, they had gotten an anonymous tip that illegal gambling was going on. Bingo was not yet legal in Michigan. "Somebody is going to jail, and it will be you," the lawmen told him, "Unless you do something else in here tonight." Gordon figured a disgruntled, "off-handed Baptist preacher" had reported them to the police.
"He wanted to rent our hall for Sunday services, but we told him the Club bylaws prohibited religious events. That made him mad." Up until that night, even the township
cop was coming to bingo, Gordon said, "But, that night, he left as soon as the state police showed up." The detectives told Gordon they were going to sit in their car. "When we come back in, if you've come up with something else to do tonight, we'll leave you alone," the detectives said. "If you're playing Bingo, you will go to jail." "I guaranteed them there would be no bingo," Gordon said; then he set off to meet with club officers. Close to 100 bingo players sat silently with their lucky charms, waiting to hear their fate. "We had all this frozen poultry, so I suggested an auction. We ended up making more money that night than we would have on bingo!" Soon, bingo was legalized in Michigan and Gordon was back calling bingo at the Legion on Monday night. And at the Eagles in Brooklyn, Michigan on Wednesday night. ~.~.~.~
A tool and die maker for General Motors, Gordon heard the "R" word again in the early 1990s, when the Jackson automobile plant closed. "I had five more years to go, and I
didn't want to retire yet," he said. At the GM plant in Lansing, about 50 miles away, he was able to land an inspection job on the day shift that included the use of a company car. Gordon has always driven GM; his favorite car was the Oldsmobile 88. Today, at age 83, he is driving a Chevy. When Gail, one of his three children moved her family to Stark, Florida around 1998, Gordon and his late wife Dorothy came down for a visit. Like so many other OWL residents, the Wilkinsons weren’t planning to buy a mobile in Florida. But they found 6320 Sun Country was for sale at a great price. The Wilkinsons had two daughters and one son, who have brought 6 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren into the world. For close to five years, they were snowbirds, until Dorothy was sure she wanted to make the move fulltime around 2000. Five years ago, Dorothy started showing signs of Alzheimer’s, then cancer came along. She passed away June 5, 2010. Married 60 years, Gordon said his children and the doctor urged him to place Dorothy in assisted living or a nursing home. “I took an oath, till death do us part,” he said. “She was my responsibility. We had a wonderful marriage,” he said. As if advising the younger generation, he added, “No marriage is without its ups and downs. You got to have brains enough to work it out.” Gordon credits Dorothy with getting him into bingo: “She just loved it. She would go 8 days a week!” Only in her final days did Dorothy move to the HPH Hospice on Rowan Road. Dr. Robert Araujo, Dorothy’s Tarpon Spring’s oncologist, said he felt Gordon was a better caregiver than any facility staff. “It was rough,” Gordon says, “But I felt good doing it.”
buckled down to them and paid for a month.” On Day 20, he called daughter Gail and said, “I’ve had it with these people. You come and get me or I’m walking home.” At assisted living, “I did everything myself, even made my own bed,” he said. “I walked to the mess hall every meal and they laid out my medication. That’s all.” Back home, Gordon went back to shopping, cooking, cleaning and more. He confesses to recently hiring a company to shampoo the carpet. He again came back to his familiar station at bingo, but has found he drops too many balls, due to the ongoing numbness in his hands. March 7, he retired from bingo again, after 40 years of calling. Not long after Gordon had buried Dorothy at the National Cemetery in Bushnell, he began to lose his voice. The typical round of doctor visits followed, from GP to pulmonary specialist and eventually back to Dr. Araujo, who cared for Dorothy. One specialist told him he would never talk again, and he retired again from bingo.
but caused the loss of his teeth and numbness in his hands and feet. Still, when his voice returned, he returned to calling OWL’s Wednesday night bingo.
A three inch tumor was found on the lung, pushing against his vocal chords. “Dr. Araujo said he I would speak again, and that he was gonna ‘make a new man out of me!’” Gordon said. “I asked him for a sign for my chest that would say, “Look out ladies, here comes a new man!” (Note: Gordon is still waiting for someone to make him that sign.)
“I was despondent. I was ready to meet Dorothy,” he said. “I knew she is waiting for me, I didn’t want to live. I was ready.”
An Army Air corps veteran who served for six years, a short time at the tail end of World War II in Europe and then in Korea, Gordon found the strength to drive himself to chemo treatments in New Port Richey and radiation in Holiday. These treatments cured his cancer,
But Gordon’s troubles weren’t over. A blockage was found in his colon, and a poisonous gall bladder had to be removed.
Claiming traditional bingo is, “too boring to play,” Gordon recently started going to the local Eagles club on Congress Tuesday nights with a friend to play Bar Bingo. (Note: Bar Bingo is too complicated for this reporter to explain.) Gordon spends around $7 a night and won $84 last month.
His children and the doctor “Wore me down,” he said. “They talked me into surgery.” The simple laparoscopic procedures didn’t work; and a week later he had a second surgery, the old fashioned kind.
Most mornings, Gordon can be seen in the Park, riding his three wheel bike, in sunglasses and a dapper Panama hat. He likes the Tampa Bay Rays and enjoys attending the Pasco Hernando Community College baseball games, played on the Conquistadors’ Ridge Road ball field. “The coach and the assistant coach call me their Number 1 Fan,” he reports. He also likes to drive up to Bushnell to, “Visit Dorothy. After I talk with her, I always call the kids and tell them, ‘Mom says she loves you.’”
Feeling like he had spent all of 2011 in the hospital or rehab, Gordon was eager to get back to his cozy trailer, which he keeps as clean as a doctor’s office. “They all wanted me to go to assisted living, for $3200 a month.” He kept saying no, but again, “I
In early May, Gordon plans to fly back to Michigan, where grandson Andrew Hicks is about to go off to Camp Pendleton. “He joined the Marines and after we talked about it, I told him, ‘I’m 100 percent behind you.’”
40 + square dancers celebrate the approaching end of the square dance season at Lynne’s Restaurant on March 26, 2012
Its always fun to watch our feathered Florida friends!!
CURTAIN RODS --- PRICELESS On the first day, she sadly packed her belongings into boxes, crates and suitcases. On the second day, she had the movers come and collect her things. On the third day, she sat down for the last time at their beautiful dining-room table, by candlelight; she put on some soft background music, and feasted on a pound of shrimp, a jar of caviar, and a bottle of spring-water. When she’d finished, she went into each and every room and deposited a few half-eaten shrimps dipped in caviar into the hollow centre of the curtain rods. She then cleaned up the kitchen and left. On the fourth day, the husband came back with his new girlfriend, and at first all was bliss. Then, slowly, the house began to smell. They tried everything; cleaning, mopping, and airing-out the place. Vents were checked for dead rodents, and carpets were steam cleaned. Air fresheners were hung everywhere. Exterminators were brought in to set off gas canisters, during which time the two had to move out for a few days, and in the end they even paid to replace the expensive wool carpeting. Nothing worked! People stopped coming over to visit. Repairmen refused to work in the house. The maid quit.. Finally, they couldn’t take the stench any longer, and decided they had to move, but a month later even though they’d cut their price in half - they couldn’t find a buyer for such a stinky house. Word got out, and eventually even the local realtors refused to return their calls. Finally, unable to wait any longer for a purchaser, they had to borrow a huge sum of money from the bank to purchase a new place. Then the ex-wife called the man and asked how things were going. He told her the saga of the rotting house. She listened politely and said that she missed her old home terribly and would be willing to reduce her divorce settlement in exchange for having the house. Knowing she could have no idea how bad the smell really was, he agreed on a price that was only 1/10 th of what the house had been worth ... but only if she would sign the papers that very day. She agreed, and within two hours his lawyers delivered the completed paperwork. A week later the man and his girlfriend stood smiling as they watched the moving company pack everything to take to their new home ........ and to spite the ex-wife, they even took the curtain rods! I LOVE A HAPPY ENDING, DON’T YOU?
Dennis: These are beautiful pigeons Your friends in the park!
St. Patrick Dinner/Dance The annual St. Patrick Dinner/Dance was another sold out success. It featured a home-cooked meal of corned beef and cabbage, lots of vegetables, and strawberry shortcake. “Tis enough to make an Irish man and woman cry with delight�. The evening was hosted by Rick & Barb and a host of volunteers. Jim & Sheila provided the music for the evening.
Wow it’s hard to believe that the season is already coming to an end. We had a very good season and so many activities. Mike and I would like to wish all the seasonal travelers a safe journey as you head home and look forward to seeing you all next season. We need everyone’s help keeping the grounds clean. Please dispose of trash and waste appropriately. Please be sensitive to the lovely grounds we have and don’t thump please dump!
Cristy and Mike
There are also still units that need to be cleaned up, Yards that need to be cleaned, and if you need help let us know. Sincerely,
Mike and Cristy Simpson
Great View of the 16th hole at the 2012 Masters
Birthdays May Birthday’s
People’s personality based on which month they were born: MAY Stubborn and hard-hearted - Strong-willed and highly motivated -Sharp thoughts -Deep feelings Attracts others and loves attention- Firm standpoint- Needs no motivation - Beautiful physically and mentally Loves to Dream -strong clairoyance- Good imagination- Understanding- Loves literature and the arts -Restless -Loves traveling -Hard working -High spirited- Spendthrift Elizabeth Metcalf Maria Acosta Cathy Sangalang Maude Howie Rosalyn Taylor Kenneth Hartman Richard Whaley Richard Morrill Mary Browne Darlene Elliott Letricia Gillis Thurman Knight David Paiva Shirley Grimmett Bethany Manness Marie Munday Geraldine Russell
1 st 4 th 4 th 6 th 6 th 8 th 8 th 9 th 10 th 10 th 11 th 12 th 12 th 13 th 13 th 13 th 13 th
Leonard Gecewicz Lee Horton Charles Duran Becky Beaver Thomas Ritz Anita Renteria Phyllis Hartman Francios Robert Louise Spencer Joan Smith James Moore Daniel Cote Marina Smith Kenneth Gray
14 th 14 th 15 th 16 th 20 th 21 th 22 th 22 th 23 th 24 th 29 th 30 th 30 th 31 st
June Birthday’s
The Nervous and Witty Dual of Gemini Free-thinking and intelligent You will not find me under rigorous management You may think you know me well Then my other half over you cast a spell I am a GEMINI, child of Mercury You are intellectual, nervous and adaptable. Because of your strong desire to communicate, you are classified in Greek mythology as “The Messengers of the Gods” You inherited a gift of youth, a double personality and a quicksilver mind of enabling you to adapt easily to any situation. 2nd 4th 3rd 4th 5th 7th 9th 10th 10th 11th 11th 13th 13th 13th
June Donadio 14th June Wagner 15th David Cramer 15th June Wagner 15th Phyllis Desantiago 15th Roger DeCola 16th Frances Moyar 16th Margie Samson 16th Joe Valley 16th Max Luchenbill 17th Ronald Stevens 20th Krauss Barbara 20th William Newell 20th Guyla Pritchard 21st
Stanley Kosiakowski Stephanie Baybrook Charlotte Nadeau Elizabeth Nadeau George Thompson Dennis Browne Leo Dubreuil Robert Flohr Bobby Thomas Judy Zondlak Patricia Barker Gaye Herr Olwyn Hodgson Dorothy Daush
21st 21st 22nd 23rd 23rd 23rd 24th 25th 26th 27th 28th
Alexander Goscinski Richard Higley Joan Luchenbill Laura Adams John Butcher Kathryn Rupp George Johnson Barbara Ellis Mary Ann Alfano Gloria Smith Jim Mcdermott