My Mother's 108th Birthday

Today would have been my mother Mary's 108th birthday if she was still alive today. I took the photograph on the left of her at Stuart Beach, one of her favorite spots, back on April 25th, 2007, at 2:50 P.M. Talk about a camera with all the details. She just loved Stuart, after moving there with my father Nelson back in 1976. Back then the town was just starting to grow, and if you wanted to visit a department store, you had to drive down to the Palm Beach Mall, about 30 miles to the south. Plus, you had to take US 1 part of the way, since Martin County was holding up completion of I-95 because it was slated to go right through the middle of town.  They eventually built I-95 far to the west, out in the middle of nowhere, which is quickly filling with new real estate developments. Port St. Lucie, just to the north of Stuart, is now the 6th largest city in Florida, with a main drag on US 1 filled with strip malls, fast food outlets, big box stores, and yes - a shopping mall. No more drives to West Palm Beach for shopping, although a significant number of residents now commute there to work each day. Is the trade-off really worth it? Doesn't matter - it is what it is.

My mother moved to Stuart from the Chicago area, where she had lived all her life, very reluctantly, just to please my father, who wanted to retire, play golf, and enjoy his life after working as a dentist for many years, a job he hated. They bought a condo at the Monterey Yacht and Country Club, where my Aunt Elsie and Uncle Bill, my mother's brother, had moved to a few years earlier. Both my mother and father loved the place. My mother learned to play golf, and soon had more friends than she ever had back in Chicago, including Marion Bellarosa, seen in the photograph on the left, next to my mother, on the fifth hole of that nine hole course. It was originally a par three, but the third hole was a dogleg, and golfers were driving across the Winn-Dixie Grocery Store next door to make par, endangering shopper's lives, and so they had to add a penalty line and make it a par four to avoid a potential disaster. As for the yacht club, it is located along the St. Lucie River, but since Monterey was not allowed to dredge, it is used only for parties. It has been 15 years since my sister Susan and I have been renting out that condo, and we have decided to take it back from our tenants this coming August, and live there 5 months a year. And I have to wonder - do they still hold Illinois Night down at the yacht club these days? Definitely time to find out.