An envisioning. Spring 1993, 9:30 AM, and a third cup of coffee loaded up with sugar to sip on the porch of the house on Cape May.

Oh to be here. Starting out renting a cottage for a while with a husband recruited to run the Lifesaving Station en route to running bigger and better somethings closer to the North Pole up where everyone wears moon boots and dresses in white looking like the Michelin man but with seals and polar bear cubs dancing at your feet instead of little tires spinning like a merry go round of rubber ascending into the sky and coming back down like Old Faithful on a bad day when there are too many tourists and the geyser god gets bored and decides to liven things up with the occasional backpack ensnared.

There for a while, he was, but at one of those places where children cannot go. Now, maybe, but no one homeschooling back then or even thinking of it. No, having to hire live-in tutors and not enough money to stretch for that, no matter how many cute Christmas tree ornaments painted with Saint Bernards or poodles sell.

The cottage turning into a house and then a forever home with the dogs used to running along the beach. The children having learned where the driftwood washed in for bonfires on Labor Day and the Fourth of July.

All that fine and the sound of the sea the same but still . . .

Army footlocker from when someone went to sleep away camp in the back of the box room . . . camp summers turned into jobs for the summer dipping soft serve ice cream in chocolate or butterscotch at the Dairy Queen, and no one peeking . . . Mother having loved dressing up as a Gone with the Wind lady and a memory in flood to go with the accent everyone finds odd . . . newspaper clipping from the day they put up a new plaque and everyone dressed up and living like it was 1860 all day with not one spandex bathing suit to be had . . . priceless . . .

Dedication of the Confederate Drive plaque at Spanish Fort, Alabama USA (intersection of Confederate Drive and Danner Circle). Not finding an exact date but part of a set of images of the dedication of several plaques in Spanish Fort with one of the others dated February 1960. Photographer not given. Found on the Facebook page of the group History Of Spanish Fort Alabama. https://scontent.fphl1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/91468703_3585942671475576_3609835959778017280_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=833d8c&_nc_ohc=7AUt9PkXac8Q7kNvwFwhEgm&_nc_oc=AdmE6O8E1M-VGgVrCFWPIpaOLEmdSy3gqi7SAm-XgM0MjUKiUV0OTo8a0k7hN4RZjqQ&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent.fphl1-1.fna&_nc_gid=GXirWKp89859oOjXImjQAg&oh=00_AfPts3JqmrQWXKAQjDKfGVhUYTWuPRruYRDi-_jLfJV-gg&oe=686E73D8