One day after church, we were all sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch and Sheila got choked on a chicken bone. Eddie nor I could get it out of her throat, Eddie jerked her up and we all raced to the emergency room to get the bone out. She was turning blue. They managed to get it out. What a scare.
One time Eddie was out mowing in the front and Eddie Jr decided to go check out A1A. He was standing in the middle of the road watching the cars come. A neighbor yelled and Eddie ran out and got Eddie Jr out of the street.
One time, Eddie was starting up the mower out front and the blade came off and came through the side of the mower and cut his ankle real bad.
We had a tv anntenna on the roof. The salt spray was so bad that we had to wash it off every night to be able to watch TV. Cable wasn't around then.
During that time, Grandma Presley and Grandmother Estes came to see us often. We had a good time living on Patrick. After awhile, we decided to build a house in Eau Gallie. We picked out what we wanted over on Ford Circle and waited for it to be built. That was so much fun. It was the first house we lived in that no one had lived in before us. It had a good size back yard because we were on a corner circle lot. The girls got white canopy beds. I didn't work. Eddie was on flying status. I did a lot of volunteer work with the girl scouts, I was a gray lady at school, helped a lot at church, played the piano, helped teach 7th grade girls at church, drove a bus some to pick up kids for church.
Debbie, Sheila and Eddie went to Roy Allen Elementary school. One of the best schools around. Mr White was the principal. Debbie was able to get into a computer lab in the 6th grade. Debbie was promoted and skipped a grade. Then when she got in the 6th grade, they decided she should just do advanced 6th grade and wait a year to go to Jr High. They thought it would be better to stay with her age group.
The kids loved to play with the next door neighbors with Barbies and outback with the swing set. I dug and planted a big garden out back. We did a lot with the girl scouts and Eddie was in the Cub scouts. We attended Harbor City Baptist church, and before that, we attended St Paul's Methodist. The kids took swimming lessons at Fee Ave during the summer. That was fun. I think we did it two years in a row. We swam at the base pool, at Fee ave and in the ocean.
One time, when we had a boat, named Be Bop Baby, we decided to take a ride in the big river. That was a little scary. We had always been in a lake. There were big boats on the river. So we all went out. It was very exciting. We were going along down the middle of the river and one tank ran out of gas, so it was time to switch to a new gas tank. There was a fiber glass opening in the back of the boat. You had to open the place and attached the other tank. Well, the door on the boat wouldn't open. We were dead in the water and there in the distance was coming a really big boat. Eddie got back there to try to open it and couldn't. He had to stomp in the fiber glass door and attach the hose to the ofter tank. He did it just in time for us to get out of the way of this on coming big boat. We were so scared. I don't think we took the boat out too much in the river after time.
Eddie Sr, started getting involved in his hobby of painting Corvettes. He was really good at it. He did it in our garage and used a big fan out the side door. I had a cat who loved to walk on the newly painted cars. Boy, Eddie was getting close to saying, "We need to get rid of the cat if you can't keep him off the cars." It all worked itself out. Eddie and Gil worked on the Corvettes. Gil was mainly the one to work on the engines and Eddie did the painting. I guess during that time, he probably painted 20 cars of people around Melbourne.
Eddie flew down range with ARIA a lot. They flew all over the world and stayed at the best of the hotels and stuff. They would shop and bring back good stuff for the families. We were so proud of him.
We visited family in Bartow pretty often. Usually went to see Rosemary and Jimmy, my sister and brother in law. Their kids were Nicole and Jessica. Went to see Linda and John some too. Grandmother was usually the one to have everyone over. We all came together for big family dinners pretty often. In the beginning, my mother and daddy and us lived in Alturas. At first in the grove and then we had a house built on Star Lake. That is where we came for the get togethers and cook outs. We water skied and swam in Star Lake. The kids played on the trees in the yard. We did that for many years until the house developed a sink hole under it. The house cracked so bad all over that it wasn't livable. The insurance company paid them full price for the house and mother and daddy bought a house in Bartow and moved to town. We all gathers there regularly.
When they moved to Bartow, Daddy had retired from the citrus growing business and sold the groves. The insurance company kept the house. Daddy was not as happy in Bartow. He was away from his friends and the life he loved. Mother and Daddy started going to the church, Bartow Methodist church and made new friends.
During the time, we lived on Ford Circle, we were close with Eddie's family too. They came to visit us and we went to see them in Winter Haven. Usually we visited at Mom Presley's house. She had married Leon Hafley. They lived on the lake in Winter Haven. We were very family minded. On the Estes side, we all came together at Mothers and on the Presley side we came together at Mom Presley's. She could make the best biscuits. Really anything she made tasted good. She liked to feed to birds with the leftovers. Sometimes Gregory and Fred would come and play their guitars on the porch. The kids usually played outside or played with their color books and caryons. Grandpa Lee was good with the kids. He was such a kind man.
Eddie's father died when he was around 14. Eddie and Mom Presley lived together in Bartow for his high school years. Everyone else had married and moved away. Fred and Gregory were preachers. Eddie had a small bass boat that was blue and white. Eddie would take his mother and me on boat rides around the lakes in Winter Haven. The chain of lakes had many lakes and they all connected. That was fun.
There were so many good times during the 70s. It was the growing up time in Elementary school for Debi, Sheila and Eddie. I can't remember all of it. The children will have to help. I know we had family over alot. We went to the beach. We went to the movies and church. There was a old zoo on hwy 192. Finally it closed and they built the new zoo which is wonderful. I sewed a lot for the kids. For a while, I had a piano and enjoyed playing the piano for sunday school and for pleasure.
When I had a leader for the Jr Girl Scouts, with Debbie, We had a big camp out in our back yard on Ford Circle. Eddie cooked hamburgers on the grill. The wind blew so hard and tried to blow the tents down. The girls were telling ghost stories. I believe the hamburgers were raw because it was dark and we couldn't see if they were cooked. They had to brush their teeth with the hose water the next morning. It was fun. We had about 10 tents. The girls had to earn their badges and camping was one of them.
Eddie went on a camp out with the Cub Scouts once. I didn't go on that one. We all went on a hay ride one time in West Melbourne. Where Palm Bay is now use to be farms and dirt roads and swamp. We picked strawberries down Minton road and there was a chicken farm where you could buy fresh eggs. They were good. The farms had a lot of hay rides during the fall around Halloween time. Sheila and Debbie were cheerleaders during the elementary years. They practiced at Crane Field near Caribbean Dr. They marched in the parade once. Also, the Jr Girl Scouts marched in parade in Melbourne. They carried their flags and looked so good in their uniforms. Debbie was in that.
We were friends with Nancy and Gil and went to see them often. Nancy was a good cook. Gil liked to smoke things out back. We didn't go to many Air Force parties because we didn't like to drink. We went to a few and then stopped going. Eddie and I smoked then because almost everyone in the military smoked. They made the cigarettes cheap, but we didn't really realize how bad they were for you. I went to exercise salons and was constantly working on keeping my weight down. Seems I have fought being overweight most of my life. Eddie was always slim.
After we lived in Melbourne for about 10 years, we got orders for whole outfit of ARIA to move to Wright Patterson Air Force Base Ohio. That was a big deal. A lot of wives didn't go with the husbands on this move. There were probably 14 or so divorces because of this move. Nancy and Gil ended up getting a divorce. She never moved to Ohio with him. When they separated, Wayne chose to live with Gil and Jennifer went with Nancy. That was a hard time for them. I didn't think their kids would ever get over it. Gil had bought the house on Caribbean Drive and when he went to Ohio, he rented it out so he would have it when he came back someday. Nancy and the kids lived in it for awhile when Gil went to Ohio. She was going to college.
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