March 2009 Entries
- By Betty McCreary -
A group of former Navy pilots and navigators living at LCG get together regularly for dinner and war stories. One of these veterans is Don Basset, a former Marine test pilot.
Don, living at Sea Breeze, started his life on a farm in Skidmore, Missouri. Every Saturday he went with his father on a mail route. His father built a box for Don to sit on and taught him to drive at the age of nine. They drove Model A Fords and Don learned how to take them apart and get them running. He bought three...
-- By Carole Eibelheuser --
This bubbly, personable Environmental Services Director is living her "American Dream." Irena was born and educated in a Communist-governed Eastern European village to a family that loved music and the arts. She wanted to become an
opera singer, but her European education in Civil Engineering led her into an international job which entailed inspecting buildings along the Danube River for 15 years.
Her husband had family in the US and she and her family emigrated here in 1984 to escape the oppressive government. They came with nothing to start a new life. Irena was taught many languages...
Did you know we are living with some plants that are actually "living fossils?" Well, as you pass the stork fountain to enter the Lakeside Clubhouse, you will see several of them in pots along both sides of the walk. These are Cycads, or by common name, Sago Palms.
Although resembling a palm, they are not at all related. Cycads deserve the qualifying title of living fossils since they reached their highest point of evolution in the Mesozoic (about 200 million years ago), before there were dinosaurs.
Later, they existed with dinosaurs and were perhaps being eaten by them. Unlike the dinosaurs,...