“Boy, did this bring back memories.  When I was just a kid,
my mother took me to Sanibel for a week every Summer.  I know
it dates me, but we crossed on the ferry and stayed in a
cottage type motel down toward Captiva.  Hurricane House I
think.  

Every morning I would walk by myself up to the
lighthouse…..a perfectly safe thing to do then, from the
time I was about eight.  There was a wonderful old
paddlewheeler you could see from the beach.  It had been
brought from the Mississippi River, to be something like a
restaurant, but I don’t think it ever happened.  It looked
abandoned when I was a pretty small kid. I loved picking up
shells and eating smoked mullet.  I walked in the bay and
picked up huge live horse conchs and took them home to Orlando
in the back window of the car.  I soaked them in muriatic acid
to get the animal out.  No one knew All of that was a Bad
thing to do.  Thanks for the reminder of a much simpler time.”