Skip to main content

Settling in

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist......" General John Sedgwick, killed in battle, 1864

Ok, the quote doesn't fit the blog entry today, but I thought it was funny. More on the story of Sedgwick at the end.


We've been settling in to my Mom's beautiful house here in Port St. Lucie, and basking in the novelty of newness. It just feels strange being in a new house with new appliances, new fixtures, new everything! Don't worry Mom, we're treating it better than we would our own!


There's more than a little culture shock moving from Deltaville, VA down here to Port St. Lucie, where we have a Publix, a pharmacy, a Walmart, Arby's, and everything else significant, all within a quarter mile of us. We'll miss all of our friends, family, and good people in Virginia but not the cold and snow.


After looking at numerous oil leaking, dilapidated, wrecked, junkyard destined cars; I finally found my 4 wheeled machine. A '96 Chevy Blazer with a 4.3 Liter engine, automatic, AC, and four wheel drive. A good strong engine with 131K miles; I think we got a good deal on it because I was willing to put a little work and money into it. It didn't test drive well; the steering was horrible because it had a bad tire, the AC didn't work because it was out of freon, and the radiator was cracked. I drove it straight to the tire place and got 2 new front tires for $150 which fixed the steering issue, bought a new radiator for $200 and installed it, and will charge the AC today. It rides surprisingly well, has a strong motor that sounds great and has no leaks, lots of cargo space, and 20 mpg on the highway. Not bad for $1,000!
.
.
.
While checking the veracity of the quote I put up in the beginning of this entry, I found this on Wikipedia:
In a rather ironic turn of events, Sedgwick fell at the beginning of the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, on May 9, 1864. His corps was probing skirmish lines ahead of the left flank of Confederate defenses and he was directing artillery placements. Confederate sharpshooters were about 1,000 yards (910 m) away and their shots caused members of his staff and artillerymen to duck for cover. Sedgwick strode around in the open and was quoted as saying, "What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Although ashamed, his men continued to flinch and he repeated, "I'm ashamed of you, dodging that way. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."[4] Just seconds later he fell forward with a bullet hole below his left eye.

Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 31, 2009 at 9:41 AM

    you wusses, you didn't even make it to the cold part, Jan and Feb.
    Welcome back to Flori-duh. And Happy New Year.
    Hope to see you soon.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Hope you enjoy the blog, please feel free to leave comments!

Popular posts from this blog

Fourth of July

Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll spend all day in a boat drinking beer. We've had a great 4 th , hanging with Wes and little Wes. Fishing, riding in boats, loitering on the sandbar in Jackson Creek, grilling out, and every other fun thing that we could think of. Tomorrow we head to Tappahannock for a little while to stay at my Mom's place and then back to Deltaville to get serious about work. The weather has been great, about 10 degrees cooler than it ever was in South Carolina, and we barely even need the air conditioner up here at night. It's great to be in a sailing area also, unlike Florida where 3 out of 4 boats are power boats, here the marinas and anchorages are full of masts and when you look out at the Bay during the afternoon all you see are sails. Sailboats, sailboats everywhere! Nice protected waters all around, we're looking forward to being able to take some day sails soon. For those who read this a
4 comments
Read more

Pine Island to Fernandina

Sunday was spent idling around the boat taking care of small projects, both of us moving a little slowly after a great time Saturday night with Fred and the acrobatic Rick from 'Freedom'. Pine Island has such a snug little anchorage it was a great place to hang out and avoid the Sunday boat traffic and we were able to scrape the waterline of 4 inch long grass and miniature barnacles that have accumulated already. Star made good on her promise of making my favorite dish after we crossed north of our starting point in St. Augustine. Lapin a la moutarde . For those like me who don't ' parlez vous ' very well, that's Rabbit in mustard sauce. Today we were underway at 7:15 heading north with a couple of stopping options available, but we were staying flexible and had no certain destination. We crossed the St. Johns River and transited the Sister's Creek area at low tide and were on a just barely rising tide for the notoriously shoaling Nassau Sound area. To say
5 comments
Read more

The Surreptitious Crab Pot

You can not teach a crab to walk straight . -Aristophanes 450-385 BC Travelling the waterway from South Florida up to South Carolina has taught us a lot of different things, but one of the more surprising is the art of crabbing. Having grown up on the Chesapeake, I thought I knew a thing or two about catching crabs, but apparently I didn't understand the stealth involved. You see, the crabs down here have incredible eyesight, a requirement for surviving in the murky brown waters. The local crabbers have needed to develop some especially crafty techniques for working around the blue crab and stone crab's defense mechanisms. One of the first things that a boater notices when watching these crabmen is that the proper color of the float buoy attached to the pot is critical. Bright orange or yellow are out, the crab would see those from down below in his muddy lair in an instant, and avoid the baited pot like a Congressman avoiding his conscience. Likewise red, chartreuse, or any o
4 comments
Read more