When we first moved to the area in the mid-1990s, the Navarre Beach Bridge was still a toll.
Somehow, though, I have only positive memories of crossing that bridge despite the fact that I had to rummage through the change dish in my car.
For the last nine months, I’ve been immersed in the worlds of Navarre and Santa Rosa County.
It’s been fascinating and challenging to understand the smaller community of the area stretched along U.S. Highway 98 and the county, which includes everything from high-rise condominiums to agriculture.
I grew up with snow and ice in the winter, the smell of burning leaves in the fall and tulips popping up in strange places in the spring, along with a sea of mud.
The summers in Illinois were warm enough for swimming and boating, as long as you chose the right day of the year and the right time of the day.
Before my oldest two children went to college, I made each of them a book.
I filled a three-ring binder with letters from close friends and family members, as well as advice on all of the things that you don’t know you don’t know until you get far from home.
On my 16th birthday, I went straight from the driver’s license bureau to the Howard Johnson’s by the interstate and got my first job.
Back then, that’s what teens did. They worked in restaurants and were grateful for the opportunity.
I spent Friday night babysitting a lizard for my daughter who turned 23 Saturday. Both halves of that sentence are improbable sounding to me. That I would babysit a lizard and that my oldest child would turn 23.
When you are in the first blush of parenting, it seems they will be little forever.
For the last eight months, I’ve been immersed in the worlds of Navarre and Santa Rosa County.
It’s been fascinating and challenging to understand the smaller community of the area stretched along U.S. Highway 98 and the county, which includes everything from high-rise condominiums in the south to agriculture in the north.
Almost as soon as we moved to the area 25 years ago, we started getting occasional calls for “Dr. Rudman.” People wanted to make appointments or cancel them for this doctor who shares our name. At the time, he was in Walton County.
We didn’t know him or anything about him.
A life fully lived is one where you have proven yourself wrong dozens, maybe even hundreds of times.
I’m not talking about giving a cashier the wrong change and then catching your own error. I’m talking about at every stage of life making pronouncements about how you’ll never do this or you’ll never feel like that and you’ll certainly never become THAT.
