A couple named "Burch" who had belonged to the same church we did moved to Miami. That summer my parents decided to go visit them and Chloe Sessions went along as both a friend and as sort of a guide since we had never been down that far. The Miami of the 1950's seemed, and in a way was, much farther away than the Miami of today.

I was not quite eight at the time so I don't remember all of it, just bits and pieces. I know we went by car and not in the old pickup truck because I remember sitting in the back seat. If by that time we had gotten rid of the old truck or if we had borrowed a car either from Sessions or my sister, Beverly, and brother-in-law, R.L., both of which were living with us at the time, I don't know.

I remember picnicing at Daytona Beach. It was a very windy day. The sand was red and coarse, not at all like the finely packed white sand of so many Florida beaches. In a little seaside gift shoppe Daddy bought me a big conch shell. Today it sits in my bathroom as part of a seashell decor.

At another picnic, somewhere in the woods, our car got stuck in the mud.

We visited the Singing Tower, went to Silver Springs and saw a really big bald cypress tree near Sanford; then visited Sanibel Isle on the southwest coast. Sanibel is mainly famous for its seashells; but, what I remember are some coconut trees with some coconuts lying on the ground beneath them and a sign saying "take one." So we did. Somewhere else, not on the island but somewhere between Jacksonville and Miami, we saw some guavas on the other side of a fence and helped ourselves. That would be stealing!

Traveling through the Everglades, windows open because most most vehicles and most houses did not have air conditioning back then, a car came from the other direction and splashed water all over us!

Finally we pulled into Miami three days after we had left Jacksonville. We had been reported missing for over a day! The Burches had expected us to drive straight through! My sister and her husband didn't know different! It was a hot muggy night at about ten when I walked with Mr. Burch and my father to a pay phone, it was not that unusual back then not to have a phone, to call the Miami police and then my sister and her husband in Jacksonville to tell them we had been "found."

I don't remember much about Miami, just Hileah, the race track and the airport where Mr. Burch worked and some flamingos; but, I remember that night and that walk. "Yes, funny the things you remember!

The Burches lived in a trailer with a closed porch built on the side of it. I slept on that porch that night on a cot. The windows were open.

Most people today would be horrified at the idea of sleeping with windows open especially in a place like Miami; but, back then what risks there were, and there was some risk, we were willing to take on a hot summer's night with no air conditioning; not that we even thought about air conditioning, it was just hot and that's the way things were.