Diane White
From a tiny Ghost shrimp to baby birds and Petunia the dolphin, the OLLI Outdoors SIG went on the “floating classroom” Eco Tour with Tampa Bay Watch. The science-based tour was packed in a diversity of species to study up close.
Our crew on the private chartered boat tour was biologist Dakoeta, intern Rebecca, and Captain Mo. Our missions were to record marine life in area 6, identify dolphins, and visit the birds nesting on Bird Island. Arriving at our first stop, Dakoaeta and Rebecca cast a fisheries trawl net and carefully went through the haul, identifying species from the spot marked as area 6. One of our members … Read more
Quickly now, without any help from Google or ChatGPT, tell me what the following items have in common: Cassadaga, Fairy Walks, hematite and carnelian, Warsaw’s Flying University, a 1903 Nobel Prize, the Paris Pantheon, Tho-Radia beauty cream, and the Radium Girls.
It was Christmas vacation time in December of 1945. World War II had ended a few months earlier. I was three months shy of my 18th birthday, and at six foot one and 172 pounds, looked a little older. I had saved a hundred dollars and got my parents’ permission to accept Uncle Willie’s invitation to visit him in Hollywood Florida.
You’ve flown with Neil Cosentino before here in OLLI Connects. Most recently on his flight into the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. But before that you crossed the Andes with him, shared a Christmas Eve flight in Spain, and accompanied him on his world record for the shortest flight between airports in a KC-135. (If you put his name into the Search box on this page, you can find all of the stories Neil’s written for us so far.)
Sanibel photo by Ben Hendren/Andalou Agency/Getty
My job as a medical equipment sales representative took me to a new hospital in Port Charlotte, Florida. It was late August, and the moment I stepped off the plane I was met with the smothering effects of the humid heat and tropical vegetation. Before I had left home in Atlanta there had been a report of an impending hurricane in Florida, but no one had mentioned it, so I assumed it had moved on to another target, as hurricanes will do.
On August 24, 1992, my Florida Civil Air Patrol (CAP) hurricane mission started with a midnight telephone call from Florida CAP headquarters. They needed a pilot as soon as possible to fly to Homestead. I took off solo around one a.m. from Vandenberg airport, now Tampa Executive Airport (VDF) and flew near the red lines direct from Tampa to Lantana Airport. Our trusty 310 Squadron Cessna 172 purred all the way – it was good karma – not one rough engine sound. That always seems to happen at night over that pitch black hole called the Everglades.
Recently I went with a few friends to hike and take photographs at Circle B Bar Reserve near Lakeland. It was a LONG drive there but well worth it. It is a very large park of more than 2,000 acres. We hiked four and a half miles and saw not even a quarter of the park. We took Marsh Rabbit Run (where we were stopped by a large alligator blocking the trail) and Alligator Alley which was my favorite. The large trees shading Alligator Alley are lovely. 