My father, a naturalized citizen, a U.S. Navy veteran of World War I, loved our country, our national anthem and honored our flag. He instilled patriotism in his children. His heart would break to learn of the #1 story, 200 NFL players kneeling at recent ballgames.
We have a column by Inkie this week. She can’t write every week – because she is too busy playing and napping. My husband and my daughter pop in to the office occasionally during the week – but not to see me. They want to see Inkie. My husband doesn’t know how we get any work done. “I fully expect that one week you will just have pictures of Inkie and some press releases – and that is it,” he said. Nope, that won’t happen.
This is the last issue of September. And, I predict that your October is going to fly right by and before you know it, it will be Thanksgiving and then Christmas. I’m sure you have already noticed that Christmas merchandise has been out in big box stores since three weeks ago – unfortunately. Can’t we get through pumpkins, scarecrows and cornucopias before we see Santa? Rhetorical question.
One thing we can all agree on is Navarre Park needs upgrades. The playground equipment needs repairs, and is not friendly to special needs children. The things we cannot agree on is why we would spend $7 million on one 7 acre park and the source of the $7 million.
Now that people have returned their 50 cases of water to the store – or at least attempted it — because Hurricane Irma had no impact on Northwest Florida, it’s time to focus on football again.
I have been out of town for almost half of September. Every five to six years we take a long family vacation which usually involves hiking. This year we went to the Grand Tetons National Park and stayed in Jackson Hole. Three of my four children made the trip and we put in more than 30 miles of hiking. My youngest daughter hiked every mile with us and ran a marathon on our first full day there. My son who is a law enforcement officer wrote on Facebook afterward that it was the first time he came back from vacation and had to tighten his belt. It was really like a fitness vacation with some wildlife thrown in to include both bull and cow moose, marmot and more.
We own a “small” business in Navarre, and have done so for 14 years. We were open for regular business hours on Sept. 10 and Sept. 11, 2017, during Hurricane Irma.
When I read Sandi Kemp’s “Out & About” Column in the Sept. 14 edition, I was gratified to see that someone else had felt the same way that I did, and was willing to “put it out there” for all to see… regarding the local businesses that opted to CLOSE during our forecast “Wind Advisory” Sunday, Sept. 10, and/or Monday, Sept. 11.
Several years ago it appeared that the Apostolic Lighthouse Church of Navarre on Route 399 had outgrown there current building and purchased a larger rundown building a few lots further west at the corner of East Bay Boulevard and Avenida de Sol. For almost two years the congregation has slowly been improving that property. They have cleared the 1 acre lot around the building and planted some very nice palm trees at what appears to be their main entrance and a few other trees along 399 on their property line; they removed an old broken fence along w/a lot of wild underbrush around the building and put up a nice privacy fence around their new air conditioning unit and also along their parking lot; they added nice gravel to form a big parking lot around the side of the building; they painted parking spaces in the existing paved parking lot and added a painted line to separate the parking lot from the County walkway; they added stop signs from their parking lot; and they painted the entire building and added two very nice looking side entrance doors facing Avenida de Sol.
At the Board of County Commissioners meeting Sept. 14, a slide presentation of photos was used to show the disrepair of Navarre Park. There were photos of the park pier still damaged from past hurricanes with a “Do not enter” sign, an opened electrical box that needed to be closed, a piece of fencing laying in the park grounds that needed to be picked up, playground equipment repaired with duct tape, unkempt interior wall to the children’s park, standing water around the splash pad area and other areas in need of attention. The question we are wondering is why hasn’t the county fixed these things before now? If we have a county park in disrepair – and supposedly district four has $700,000 in reserve recreation funds – then it is the fault of the county that it is in this condition. Why would we put more money into it when it isn’t taken care of now?
