Every holiday season we think about this. Our next-door neighbor, in Hyde Park, Tampa was a retired Gay guy. He was taking care of a 40+ year old Gay guy name Charlie, who had mental health issues. This was kind a like a foster child situation for adults.  Charlie was very nice and would mow our yard and bring our trash cans in. Would stop and ask how us our day was.  One day he was sitting on our porch. I asked him what he was doing. Charlie said the view from our porch was much nicer than his. (LMAO we booth looked at the same townhomes across the street.)  We told him he could sit there all he liked. Over the years he would have more issues but was always polite & nice. One time he said that he couldn’t mow our yards because of the big snakes. His medication was changed and then was back mowing. LOL Then he started to wander too much. Sometimes was gone over night. The whole neighborhood would look for him. Then Charlie though the government was spying on us thru the TV Cable. So Charlie went and cut all the cable lines in the neighborhood. The social workers said it was time for Charlie to be closer supervised and was moved to a group home in downtown St. Pete.  Then 2 years went by. One day there on our front porch sitting was Charlie. He looked very bad and was very dirty. Charlie smiled and asked “how are you guy doing?”. Then said he was thinking that our yard needed to be mowed and decided to walk over.  We asked where he was living now. Charlie said the same place in Downtown St. Pete. Who gave you a ride? Nobody I walked. We called the police and they came out. There was a missing person report filed on him 3 days ago. In 3 days Charlie had walked 40+ miles…. When we see a homeless person now we think “Maybe that’s a Charlie”

In the 1^st old home we purchased 35+ years ago, there was and old refrigerator. You know the single door with a tiny icebox in side. We saved it and put it in the back room of our store. There it worked for 15+ years. It finally stopped working. We saved the door and made a magnet display out of it. In our new home the refrigerator is stainless steel. Carrie said “NO MAGNETS!!!”  Fine I put the old door up in our family room. After all the refrigerator door is a vital information station in the home! LOL …. PS…. In the photo the rainbow neon above came from the Wedge Wood Lounge at the SunCoast Resort. That’s a whole new story….