Thanksgiving is two weeks from the date of this paper, and we have been planning the Thanksgiving paper for weeks. It is going to be a lot of fun with puzzles and games for the entire family as well as the news and information you expect and should expect from us. That being said, I have to say I apologize we do not have more information on the double murder and suicide that happened on election night.
I was at the water department today, November 4, attempting to straighten out where a water bill is being mailed, and a very slender gentleman came in wanting to put $8 down on his $20 water bill so his water wouldn’t be turned off. He’s been employed in the flooring business for more than 20 years and he said that this year has been the slowest. He thinks it is because people are waiting for the outcome of the election. He, like a lot of other people, think if Trump is not elected, the economy is going to get worse, much worse. By the time you read this, hopefully, there is a clear winner.
Looks like there is no shame and nothing is off limits ahead of our presidential election. The Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, and her proxies are calling the other candidate, Donald Trump, Hitler and those that might want to vote for him white supremacists, even those that are obviously not white. The rhetoric is very dangerous, and I am appalled at the depths of depravity the democratic party is willing to go to in an attempt to sway the election their way. You always know when someone doesn’t have anything substantive to say – they start saying things like, Hitler. I don’t know what is worse, how about Satan or Beelzebub. That is next. Wait, they have already done it. The have been spreading rumors that Donald Trump is probably the Anti-Christ.
Every week Sandpaper Publishing, which includes Navarre Press, Santa Rosa Press Gazette, and the Crestview News Bulletin and Sandpaper Marketing have a meeting. There are sometimes up to 17 of us meeting from all over Northwest Florida. Part of that meeting includes shout outs to team members that went over and above. It is awesome to hear the team give each other well-deserved kudos. I’ve noticed quite a few selfless and thoughtful displays of awesomeness while out and about in our awesome community and I’m going to highlight a few of them this week. I’d like to do this more often and we are going to start “Shout Outs” that will be featured each week in the paper…and I decided that while typing this column. I know our awesome team will be able to pull this off by the time you read this column and by the time my column is written today (Monday,) there will be a QR Code at the end of the column that will direct you to a page on our website – just for “Shout-Outs.” This is specifically for good awesome displays of great customer service and just being a great citizen of our community.
There seems to be controversy, discrepancies and conflicting news reports about the Federal Emergency Management Agency running out of money due to the number of illegal immigrants crossing our borders. It depends on what news source you are reading or watching. However, I trust actual video of a news conference where Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who signed off on our open borders, warned FEMA is running out of money to aid hurricane victims – on camera and in his own words. Now, there seems to be a public relations correction that claims this is not the case. However, FEMA is documented as spending over $1 billion feeding, housing, and transporting illegal immigrants across the United States in the past two years. And, then there is the fact that Congress has passed five bills appropriating $175 billion in aid and assistance in response to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. That is a lot of money leaving our country. I want to share a Facebook post from a resident of one of the small Appalachian areas that was isolated and almost wiped off the map by Hurricane Helene. It is very telling and untainted by national news reports since they are not getting a lot of “news.” I’m masking the area out of privacy for them. Let’s just call their town “Mountainville.”
Hurricane Milton is a Category 5 as I write this, and it is heading toward Central Florida where I lived for the first 19 years of my life. I have a lot of good friends there that I have invited to come to Navarre, but they want to “hunker down.” Contrary to advice, I would do the same. It is difficult to get back and I know that firsthand. My husband was in Iraq or Afghanistan in September 2004 when Ivan was headed our way and by order of the Air Force, the families had to evacuate. I evacuated with our children to my parents’ home in Orlando, which had just been hit by Charlie the month before with 104 mph winds. They were still cleaning up and there was a lot less foliage than the last time I was there. After Ivan left, I called our Santa Rosa County Public Information Officer at the time, Don Chinery, and asked him when he thought schools would be back in session. He thought it would be months. I called my in-laws and asked if their grands could stay with them for a week or a few months – and they said sure. They met me near Atlanta, and I handed the children and a dog and a cat off to them. They were saints – and are angels in heaven today. I quickly headed back to Navarre and bought a cooler and started loading it with things to eat on the way back. I got back with little difficulty. The next day I went to the Emergency Operations Center in Milton and was asking where the water and supplies were for Navarre and was told it was too difficult to get there – true story. I promptly let them know I arrived from Atlanta the night before and was able to get to them that day…they could get there. And they did.
As I’m writing this, we are watching the yet-to-be-named storm that will be in the Gulf by the time you receive this paper. We are having daily updates with management and have a good plan in place. As an organization, we have been through Ivan, Dennis, Opal and Erin. However, many of our team members haven’t been through hurricanes, and they aren’t sure what to expect. There is no way to describe it except you will learn a lot about yourself and others after the storm. That is where it gets very real. Time will tell. In the meantime, we now have a “Storm Center” on our website where we will post when there are significant updates. When we post there, it will disseminate to Facebook and “X.” Now is not the time to check your insurance policies or decide you need flood insurance. But it is time to make sure you have 72-hours’ worth of food and water, just in case it heads west instead of east.
Life is tough and the tough keep going. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. It doesn’t matter how many times you fall down; it matters how many times you get up. Just when you think you have given your all, give a little more. Always do one more rep. Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. There are lots of quotes about working harder, keeping going, but who is letting our younger generation know that there is light on the other side of the tunnel or that it often gets worse, right before it gets better? I spend time with a lot of young adults. I have four that grew up in our home, and I work with quite a few. It seems that many have forgotten or were not taught that you have to take the good with the bad. All the things that our parents told us when we were growing up. Or, at least mine did. My parents went through the great depression and WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Nixon resigning and more. They were a hearty bunch and had been through a lot of disappointment and pain. However, it made them into the awesome people that they were. As a matter of fact, my mom passed away a year ago next week.
This past week we heard of the passing of Navarre icon Tommy Cox – the owner of Tommy’s Sno-balls. For decades, on any given day in the warm months, you would see carloads of people enjoying the cold treats at the foot of Navarre Beach bridge. During the school year he would reward honor roll students with a free sno-ball, he hired high school students to work the stand and learn about business and customer service, he volunteered his time with the Navarre Youth Sports Association, and there is story after story of how he impacted lives across our area. We are thankful he was part of our community – or maybe we were part of his. Either way, he will be missed – a lot. You can read more about Tommy’s life on page 2A.
