memory sentence sat...2.16.13

no memory sentence yesterday because i was gone from before sun up to way after sun down ... now at mama's.  So...i have three memories to record (I decided not to write one about the back roads on the island to avoid traffic and coming up on a speed trap for locals...).

1) The osprey along the bridge by the gulf like to stand on the posts from time to time.  Today, one perched with a fish the size of my hand pressed down under his talon.  The osprey was tearing at its head.  The coloring of its head looks like the mask of a bandit in an old western.

2) We watched an enormous SYSCO food service truck do a three-point-turn in a relatively small parking lot with cars parked like a fringe along the edges.  It was a beautiful demonstration of highly experienced driving.

3)  Dad has a car he loves and cannot part with.  He's tried for about four years.  Today it was nearly out of gas so I drove with him to the end of the big lane toward near where we'd turn off to go to lunch so he could park it and Mama would drive us to lunch and drop him after to get gas. They live in a wonderful retirement area but the past few years going on way too long have been financially difficult for everyone...  We got in the car and he was praising the virtues of the car.  It's an oldsmobile torfeo that is just this side of completely falling apart.  i couldn't tell you the last time the radio/dvd player worked, and inside he has a windshield shade that he got for a really good deal that drops fuzzy stuff all over the place.  It has rained inside so many times that the leather interior is dried out and stain splotches all over the dash and...it was once a glorious car, I admit.  But for Mama and me, we've never really enjoyed driving it because it has a horrific blind spot on both sides of the sideviews.  As he was energetically taking out the windshield shade and, as I said, pontificating on how fabulous the car still is, I said, "This car has seen better days."  He interjected with a totally different tone under his breath, "Everything in this neighborhood has seen better days."  Sorry this memory sentence is so long and will not resonate with anyone like it does with me as a kind of "inside joke"...