Volume 35 | NO 11 | NOV 2024 941.312.0665 | ISLAND VISITOR PUBLISHING | www.ISLANDVP.com
HOA AT-A-GLANCE
FRIENDLY REMINDER page
2
PRESIDENTS CORNER page
3
MOVEMBER page
4
CERT page
5
AT THE HYDRANT page
8
HOLIDAY CRAFT FAIR page
9
REFLECTIONS
11
page
CREATIVE WRITERS page
12
SAVE OUR STRAYS page
12
WOMEN’S GOLF page
13
ACTIVITIES page
15
GARDEN CLUB page
16
MEN’S GOLF
17
page
BIRTHDAYS AND ANNIVERSARIES page
24
CALENDAR page
24
For more information on these HOA Sponsored Events see center section u New Year’s Eve Dance Party u The Choralaires u Are Your Ready - Self Defense Class by Lee County Sherif f u Garden Club’s Ladies Tea u Holiday Craft Fair (Page 9)
VETERAN’S DAY
If you are anything like me, you have experienced a lot of changes in your perception of things. Take November for instance. Once upon a time, I was anxious to flip the calendar page to November. While my hometown could get a taste of winter in October, it was November that was the harbinger of winter, which meant pond hockey, skating, tobogganing and Thanksgiving. Besides, one more flip of the calendar brought us to December and Christmas and all the joy that came with the holiday. As I grew into adolescence, November was the start of our high school basketball season. But as I became an adult, November brought a more somber remembrance. Growing up, I had nary a notion of Veterans Day and its relevance to our national psyche. We had a day off from school. Looking back now, I am ashamed that I didn’t school myself in the meaning of the day as my father and his brother were both World War II veterans. My appreciation of the day grew exponentially when I became an adult. It did so not out of any intellectual curiosity on my part. It grew because I emerged from the jungles of Vietnam as a combat veteran myself. I saw the suffering that earned one the title of “veteran.” I felt the sting of enemy gunfire. I knew the
By Steve Banko
emotional conflict of violating the most sacred tenet of my religion; that against killing. On the day of my induction into the Army, I had some time to kill after swearing to protect and defend the Constitution and my flight to basic training at Fort Benning, GA. I wandered around downtown Buffalo for a time and soon found myself at the foot of the Peace Bridge; the span that connects Buffalo NY USA with Ft. Erie, Ontario Canada. I had walked over the bridge several times in my youth on my way to hockey practice. I knew the folks on the other side of the bridge looked like us, dressed like us, and talked (mostly) like us. It wouldn’t take much of a transition to live like them. And as easy as it would have been to merely walk into Canada and sanctuary, I knew I couldn’t do it. The plain truth was that I was too afraid of being deemed a coward to just walk away from my country. And so I did what my country defined as my duty. I fought. I bled and I almost died honoring the debt I believed was my responsibility. Like most men and women who have worn the uniform and have experienced the bitter bile of living in a way most Americans will never live and confronting their own mortality every day, I came home a
much different person than the guy who stood at the foot of the Peace Bridge. Part of that evolution was recognizing the real significance of Veterans Day. For me, and for many veterans, it’s a day of reflection and recollection; remembering who we soldiers were, what we did, and how much we loved each other. I have often heard it said you can tell a combat veteran by the hard look in his or her eyes. The years, for me anyway, have taken some of that hardness out of my eyes. They have calmed some of the anger I felt at the way we were treated by a nation too intellectually unsophisticated to separate their hatred for a war from the warriors who fought it. The years left me with a sadness about the horrors I’ve seen and inflicted but an appreciation of knowing that I did what I could to keep those I led alive. On an outhouse wall in a place called Quan Loi, I read something that has remained scorched in my brain for almost sixty years. It read “For those who have fought for it, freedom has a flavor the protected will never know.” This November I will be praying that no more Americans have to fight for it. I hope you will too.
MOVEMBER By Barton Degraaf
JUNK and LANTERNS – MOVEMBER BEGINS This year’s Movember fund raising activities will kick off on Saturday November 16 at 8:00 am, or so, with “JUNK IN THE TRUNK”, our annual “garage” sale in the main parking lot. This is our chance to load all our junk into the trunk of our vehicle, bring it to the main lot and for a $10 donation rent a parking space to sell our junk. A simple concept, yet a grand morning of visiting with our neighbors and friends. Sign up for your “junk yard” at the Tuesday and Thursday luminary and ticket sales in the clubhouse. Not a buyer or a seller? Visit the Save Our Strays (S.O.S.) bake sale under the portico of the clubhouse. Sales of homemade baked goods will begin at 8:00 am and end when the goodies are gone. All receipts to S.O.S. Remember, the “junk” will be in the parking lot, the good stuff under the portico. During that Saturday evening the most tranquil and beautiful event of the Movember season will occur. On that night more than 200 floating lanterns will be launched on the main lake. Each of these lanterns will bear the name of a loved one that is fighting a disease, heroically surviving a disease, or in memory of one who is especially remembered. Each of us will be able to purchase floating lanterns at donation events beginning October 29th on Tuesday mornings 7:30 am – 8:45 am before the weekly Coffee and Thursday afternoons 5 pm – 6pm in the lobby. We will be able to write the name of our loved ones on the lantern and sign the “Memorials” list which will be posted at the launch. From across the lake appropriate music will help to create and set the mood for this most beautiful event.
TOWER DEADLINE: The 10th of the month, for the following month’s issue. All articles and flyers must be submitted in a Microsoft Word document format, or you may drop off at the HOA office in a TYPED or HAND PRINTED format only. Questions - please contact us via e-mail: dttoweredit@gmail.com or drop them at the office. Thank You