Since today’s morning post was “family” oriented, here’s a filler
Posted By RichC on September 4, 2024
While at the National Museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo over the weekend with KDAE, I took a photo of a surprisingly comfortable leather chair that was on the SS Col. James M. Schoonmaker. 
The chair was “I think” original to the ship in 1911 and looked interesting enough to dig a little deeper for a woodworking idea.
Also, I had some poison ivy on my ring finger and forgot that I took off my wedding band (I’ve rarely had it off) and couldn’t remember if I left it at home on the nightstand or lost it (it was home). In any case, it gave me an excuse to tell the story of losing my first wedding band that Brenda’s late brother Mark made when he was in dental school.
In the mid-1990s, we were visiting my mom and dad either in the fall or spring near Panama City Beach in Florida as we did several times. I had cartopped our Trinka sailing dingy and we decided to drive down to the long stretch of beach property part of Tyndall Air Force Base to beachcomb and try sailing in the Gulf of Mexico. It was colder, windy and too rough for the little 8 foot boat and I ended up capsizing with a very young Taylor. Thankfully we were not that far offshore and I was able to right the boat put Taylor in it but the waves kept swamping the boat as I struggled to keep it right side up. Taylor hung onto the mast as I kicked and used the sail to work our way in. Brenda swam out as my mom, dad and “frightened” Katelyn watched from shore.
Thankfully everything was fine in the end (health wise) but I ended up losing the wedding band that Brenda’s brother made from dental gold. The cold water must have shrunk and numbed my hands and I semi-recall catching it on the stainless steel transom while I was pushing the boat to shore and keeping it upright. It was loss but I was thankful to still have my life and a son!
Family Hawk Migration Trip to St. Joseph Peninsula
A couple of years later, the kids and Brenda bought me a new replacement gold band for Christmas in 1998 — the photo above.
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