Year End Letter 2018
As this year ends I reflect on those fun times my wife and I had in-spite of the hardships that we endured. It was an interesting year, to say the least.
It started in April when a trash can outside my home, by my landscaping rail road ties, caught on fire. I was awake watching a late night movie, smelled the smoke, and went outside in the garage to investigate. The garage was filled with smoke. I got my wife out of the house and grabbed a bucket and my hose to fight the fire that at the time was burning the ties. But a police officer pulled me away as my wife and I and the gathering neighbors watched it burn as we awaited the Moline Fire Department to respond, they did respond quickly however. It burnt my SUV, part of my garage, and the outside corner tiles of my home. It was 30 thousand dollars worth of damage as my insurance company and Blaze Restoration repaired.
As that was getting repaired I took a 5 day trip to Cartagena Colombia in June to visit my sponsored daughter through Children International, Sofie. I stayed at a better hotel, with a nice pool on the roof. I swam a lot, of course. The first night I checked in, swam, and I just ate burgers at the El Corral. The second day I went to the walled city, the old fort, the art museum, and the beach. I ate lunch at the Crepe House with my Colombian friend David. And that night I had dinner of steak and gold potatoes at the old town district while listening to live music. The third day I spent the entire day with my sponsored daughter, Sofie. We went to a Mall where I bought her shoes, went to a park, and visited her home. The fourth day I swam in the morning, talked in English and Spanish to this female Colombian naval commander at the hotel breakfast; I told her about my naval career, went to the Naval Museum, and hung out and swam at the pool. The last day I packed up and flew home. I bought my wife some nice jewelry while I was there.
In July my wife and I went for a weekend camping trip at Coralville Lake. We went to the same camp site that Ken and I used to camp at. She hung out at the beach while I went kayaking down the lake. At night we ate beans and dogs cooked on the campfire, roasted marshmallows and I played my acoustic guitar and we sang camp songs.
The house repairs were completed in August, in which for our 27th Wedding Anniversary was our gift. We ate dinner at Johnny’s Italian Steak House downtown in celebration.
In September we went to New Orleans for the 32nd Annual Battleship New Jersey BB-62 Reunion. We went on a carriage ride around the French Quarter, ate gumbo and jambalaya at the Gumbo Shop, went shopping for beads, ate shrimp po boys, burgers, and had drinks at the Tayho Pub in support of Pit Bulls and Parolees, and had a fun reunion, great steak dinner, listened to an inspiring speech from Captain Cash, and told sea stories with my shipmates of old.
Now as this year ends and another begins I reflect on an eventful year and I hope that 2019 will be full of blessings and joy.
Timothy L. Kerofsky, MA
