Choose your destination and click on the button to go there.

MY ADVENTURES ALONE
Diary of A Forester

Chapter 1-- Scary Burglar

I became a practicing forester in 1966, when I was hired by the Florida Forest Service as a County Forester for Holmes County, Florida. Holmes County is in the heart of Northwest Florida, and is one of the poorest counties in the country. It is a place of rodeos and all-night gospel sings and moonshine and wonderful spring-fed creeks and rivers. The quality of life there is wonderful, but it doesn't include a lot of money.
In the spring of 1966, I was on the beach, unemployed in the midst of Spring Break in Daytona. I had quit my job with a testing lab when the company would not back me against a paving contractor. He had failed compaction tests for a roadbed. He said I had sampled the wrong side of the street. I hadn't, but he was also half the company's business in Daytona. I was offered a transfer or unemployment. I took unemployment, deciding to try for work in my chosen profession. Marilyn was finishing up the school year teaching, so I felt I had some time, as long as one of us was employed. I started mailing résumés. Nothing. I saw an ad in the local paper, placed by the state, for a county forester. Not what I wanted, but I answered it anyway. To my surprise, I was hired right after the interview.
So I was off to Bonifay, leaving my wife and young boy-child in Ormond Beach. She still had the year to finish out. I worked the week and drove home for the all too brief weekend.
I stayed at a boarding house for the elderly - all I could find in Bonifay. My first evening meal there was followed by a terrible bout of dysentery. I saw a roach scamper across the wall, under a picture of the Last Supper. It was almost prophetic. I was sick as a dog. After that, I ate at the local restaurant.
Some time before Marilyn was to join me, I got a call from her. It was late-about 10:00 PM.
"Phil, I just had someone try to break in the house!"
"What! Did you call the police?"
"Yes. They've been here."
She told me about the incident. Becky (our first dog together, our watchdog and faithful companion of our oldest son) had waked her up by jumping at the window and barking. Marilyn had seen the man, who was dressed all in black, through the window. He was trying to jimmy the jalousies out to get in the house.
She lay there for a minute while Becky barked. The man left the window. She rolled out of bed onto the floor on her hands and knees and crawled to the kitchen. Our only phone was in there. She dialed the police. 911 was just a concept in those days, but she called the operator and the operator connected her.
She heard the man at the sliding glass door, trying to get in that way. Becky continued to bark hysterically. It didn't seem to sway the man at all. Marilyn was totally frightened, sitting on the floor of the dark kitchen, waiting for a response from the phone.
She was answered promptly, but the police she got were city, and she was outside their jurisdiction. The police operator offered to give her the number of the county police. Marilyn explained in a frightened whisper that the man was at the door, she was on the floor in the kitchen in the dark, and that she couldn't see to write, had nothing to write with, and was not in a state to remember. Would the operator please call the county police for her?
It was done, the man gave up and left, and the police came a few minutes later. All they found were his footprints and where he had tried to pry the window and the door. Oddly enough, although the man seemed determined to get in the house despite a large barking dog, the police would not come in until Becky was secured. Spooky and scary.
The police patrolled the neighborhood for the next several weeks, every night. I was profoundly grateful.
I was glad to get Marilyn and Scott back with me a month or so later. She found a job teaching in the local school, and we started our lives over again in Bonifay.

(To be continued.)

Chapter 2