The Little Building that Could!

It is probably safe to say that when you live in Florida you pay very close attention to the weather forecast, particularly from June through November. It's hurricane season. Since we have moved here we have been very lucky..nothing yet. Praise Jesus!!! Here we have tremendous thunderstorms especially during the summer season. I love thunderstorms, Bill does not. He always jokes, you here thunder, you'll find him under the bed. Right, he hasn't been able to fit under there for years! When the boys were little and thunder storms were imminent, we'd sit outside under cover and watch the skies. Lightning sparkling across the sky..we'd count, thousand one, thousand two, thousand three and the noise was deafening.."it's coming closer!" they'd yell with delight. Now we all talk about the storms in Florida and how we still love to watch from a protected area. Bill thinks we are crazy, he has reason to. Twice in his life he has been struck by lightning, he doesn't believe three is a charm.

This past week all eyes were watching the tropics as Hurricane Earl posed a danger to New England. Thankfully, we all have reason to celebrate, family and friends in Connecticut are safe. I remember back in the early eighties,Southern New England was under a tropical storm warning. We worried, large plate glass windows, rising flood waters and we asked, "would Fred's News be safe?" Built during the 1880's, the building had been bombarded and survived many a Nor'easter, a couple of hundred year floods, the hurricane of 1938 and the hurricanes of the early 1950's. But this week, even as we baked in the summertime sunshine of Florida, we worried. If a storm were to hit southern New England, would that once thriving little restaurant building survive. I'm sure that the postcards that depict a way of life at least fifty years ago on West Main Street in Baltic, are full of dust but still hang in the old Fred's News building. We no longer live there nor do we own the building, but it is comforting to know that this little piece of history still stands. We still receive messages from people reminding us of all the "good times" that Fred's News brought to Sprague. We smile and laugh and thank the masses for the "good times" Fred's News gave to our family.