> October 11th marks the 2nd anniversary of my daughter Kendi's death. A nurse's mistake took her life at the age of 20. The job of this father was to protect her [she was severely handicapped] and I failed. Oh, how I miss her.
 

Living In Florida Had It's Ups & Downs

[October 25th] -- When you look out your living room window during a January blizzard, the "sun and fun" of Florida's warm-weather winters can seem very appealing. To me, Florida was a "nice place to visit, but I sure wouldn't want to live there [again].

A new job took my family from St. Louis to West Palm Beach Florida in 1985. At first, it was really fun. Christmas day at the beach was amazing. We were always taking trips to explore all of the "family fun" that Florida had to offer. Disney World. Sea World. Busch Gardens. The list was almost endless. The fun continued until the warm and dry spring morphed into the hot and humid summer. We stopped traveling. We stayed in the house and tried to remain cool. We had just begun to get used to the heat when we were introduced to the cycle of daily afternoon rainstorms.

These weren't really rain storms; they were more like mini-hurricanes. Every afternoon at 5:00 p.m., the skies would darken and the air would become dense with moisture.

By 5:30 it would start to pour. The rain would come down with such force that it would sting and leave red marks on the skin. At 6:00, the sun would reappear and the two inches of water left on the roads would vaporize into steam. That sticky, humid, vaporized water would remain in the air until early the next afternoon, when the cycle would repeat itself.

Oh yes. Florida had a lot of wonderful things to see during the summertime. And we saw them. From our television set. And then we waited. Until winter, that is. When we could come out of the house without having to deal with the sauna that is Florida in the summer.


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