Throwback Thursday: Titusville, Florida in November 1962

I grew up in a sleepy little central Florida town of Titusville. It's a metropolis now but in the 1960’s many of our roads where still dirt. Garden Street was a cow path when I was a tot. My adopted parents owned about one acre of land planted with Orange Trees, Kumquats, Grapefruit and the like. When they left western Pennsylvania, they really went native.

 

This Polaroid was snapped in our mini orange grove during November of 1962. They are my adopted father’s grandparents, Charles Edward Ackman and Edna Bella Ehle Ackman, affectionately known by the family respectfully as “Da Da” and “Mum Mum”. I don't know how they got those titles, but it stuck all their lives.

My memories of “Da Da” are sporadic since he died within months of me losing my mother. I do remember fishing with Grandad in Florida. All my memories are of him with a fishing pole in his hand. In fact, he died pulling in a really big fish on the Indian River in December of 1966. Da Da let me taste my first beer when I was 8. He took me in my first, and only, parade ride on the volunteer fire truck and seemed a genuinely content sort of fellow. 

“Mum Mum” lived until April 1981 to the ripe old age of 84. Mum Mum was a real sweetheart. On Sunday’s, she made sure I attended the local Lutheran church, read the Bible with me, taught me how to crochet, and always treated me like family. She had a very quiet, gentle, "take life as it comes" demeanor. Everybody loved Mum Mum. She was a fine Christian woman and I miss her the most.

On a funny note, this is not a “throwback” but my husband shared this with me this evening and thought it would be good for a giggle. He found it at his Honda CB1100 Forum.

Aren't those Aussie's a hoot?! Or, as they call themselves, The Land of Oz. (How they came up with "Oz", I have no idea.) They have that typical English humor but act like Americans.

Have a great day folks!