I have started a new file up above where I will put the info about our summer
activities.
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY JUDY
September 21st was Judy's 40th anniversary at CVS and the store put this message
up on the outside sign. She started in 1968 at the Peoples Drug Store in the
Willow Lawn shopping center in Richmond and several years later became one of
the first female managers in the company. While doing all of this, she had three
children, helped care for her mom and helped me go back to college. She is an
original Superwoman. To the young woman around today, there was someone ahead of
you that had to prove a woman could do it and she was one of them. Way to go
kiddo.
September 14th. I have added more items to our Summer 08
BALLOONING
Dad and I have finally made our hot-air balloon ride. After two attempts with my
sister Mare, and on our second try, we lifted off and glided over the town of
Woodstock Va.
COIN COLLECTING
A recent check of online auctions, showed that
that various rare coins can sell for thousands of dollars, but what actually
constitutes value in a coin collection. For many collectors it may involve an
error in the minting, the age of the coin or the face that is stamped on the
coin itself. My coin collecting days go way back to my earliest days. I do have
several of the coin collection books that hold pennies and dimes and such but
the most valuable of my coins are just an assortment of what may look like loose
coins to you. Let me take you or a tour of my coin collection and see if you can
spot the real value in my pennies and nickels.
In my coin box I have a 1957 penny and I got
that the day my dad took me to see the Philadelphia Phillies play the Pittsburg
Pirates. We went to Connie Mack stadium in Philadelphia and I got to keep the
change from my hot dog purchase. I also have a 1962 nickel from the same ball
park when we went to see the Phillies play the San Francisco Giants. My 1965
penny was from my grade school. Mom would give us three cents each day to buy
white mile and if we had four cents we could buy chocolate milk. Every now and
then when I did not buy milk one day I would have enough to buy chocolate milk
for a few days. I have one of those pennies left. I have a roll of 50 pennies
dated 1952 from Cary, my brother in law, which he gave me on my 50th
birthday. I can only imagine how much time he spent gathering those for me but I
could never part with them. I have a 2006 dime I borrowed from my brother Dave
while we were in Las Vegas to go towards buying a soft drink. I really enjoyed
my time with Dave that week and it will always remind me of those days.
My 1972 dime reminds me of a visit Judy and I
made to the Casa de Pizza restaurant in Buffalo, the home of pizza to me. I do
have another dime, a 1975 one that I found in the parking lot at Richmond
Memorial Hospital when I there visiting my daughter Christine for the first
time. In 1964 my Dad taught me the art of flipping coins. He took my ten cent
allowance and did the heads and tails trick of flipping a coin and robbed me of
that dime. I never liked gambling after that episode but I taught him a lesson.
I took a dime from his change on his dresser and paid myself back. Thank
goodness for the statutes of limitation and that I can’t be punished for that
one but he deserved it.
While visiting my brother Tom years ago, he
showed me what he had recently done. He ordered a box of loose coins from around
the world and his kids and he would look up in a coin book as to what they were
worth and where they came from. I have a coin from Barbados from that box. Judy
entered our marriage with a collection of old coins, some from the late 1800’s
and while working at People Drug Store, I kept the foreign coins that through
the store all of the time. They reminded me of the faraway places they came from
and of course of my time at the drug store.
My coin collection contains many other coins
but as you can see, the value of the collection is for me. If I added up their
face value it would not be much but their value and memories to me are
incalculable. Coin collecting can be a wonderful thing whether you are looking
for an investment or a memory.
LARRY HAS ANOTHER BIRTHDAY
JULY 1 MADE IT 56
JUDY AND LARRY'S 36th ANNIVERSARY
Judy and I will spend the summer going to places that we have enjoyed in the
past or would like to go for the first time. We have already been to Harpers
Ferry, Gettysburg, Longwood Gardens and Assateague Island. In a few weeks we
will head to Nags Head NC. We still dream of Ireland and who knows, maybe that
will still happen this fall. On our actual anniversary day, we had a date to the
Ridgeview Park in Waynesboro. Judy made a picnic dinner and we sat along the
South River and watched kids play in the river and we watch the ducks swim
about. My god, we have gotten old.
WOODWORKING
Christie has finished her tool box and here it is.
I rebuilt the dresser that my dad used as child and that I used as well. I will
do the finishing in the future.
Christie and I spent the winter taking a woodworking course at Valley Vocational Tech which is near here and for twelve weeks we learned about woods, tools and
techniques. It was fun watching Christie learn how to operate a jointer and
planner. At home she has started to master the table saw. I built a CD cabinet
over the course of several weeks.
Martha Bassett
Judy's cousin Mary from Mt Nebo, W.Va, eldest daughter is the singer, song writer
extraordinaire, Martha Bassett, She appeared at Poe's Pub in Richmond in
February and in June of this year and many of the Gerow's and Martha's family
joined in the celebration.
If you get a chance you should see her.
Crozet Tunnel
Though I don't know the exact history of the Crozet tunnel that passes under
Afton Mountain here in Waynesboro, A man named Claudius Crozet in the 1850's
built a tunnel without the aid of tunneling equipment that is standard today,
through Afton mountain for rail traffic in and out of the Shenandoah Valley. It
was used for nearly 100 years. Plans are mentioned every now and then to turn
this engineering marvel into a greenway. Judy and I visited it from the eastern
entrance in the town of Afton. We did not get inside due to the lack of
flashlights and boots since there is lots of water.
The company I work for, National
Vision Inc, has its annual sales meeting in Dec. each year and the I get to go
to Atlanta for a few days of meetings and socializing. I enjoy seeing my fellow
managers, some of which I have known my entire 14 years with the company. Below
is a picture of the managers in the District 21 along with our DM Teresa Jones.
35 YEARS AND COUNTING...
Judy and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary on June 24th,2007. It is
amazing to me how people can find their soul mate amongst the millions of people
out there. I moved to Richmond in late August,1970 after my parents were
transferred here earlier in the summer. I started my professional college career
at Virginia Commonwealth University that fall and joined a Catholic youth group
at the Newman Center located at the Sacred Heart Cathedral in downtown Richmond.
Several months later, I met this cute little girl from West Virginia who was
reading a a book in the Lord of the Ring series. I asked her about the book,
having just finished myself a few weeks earlier. Her accent was unlike anything
I ever heard before and as I said earlier, she was pretty cute to look at. If
memory serves me well, I seem to recollect that she took a class on Tuesday
nights and I had hoped I would get to see her again. Tuesday seemed to take
forever to come around again.
Somewhere along the way we met again and I then knew I had found the one I
wanted to keep. I had to convince her though that my idea was actually a good
one. I knew I could I could win her over if she would meet my family. That was
the trick for not only did she get me, she got my 12 siblings and my parents. In
the process, I got her mom, Dorotha, Ed, her older brother and his family and
her large number of Aunts and Uncles from West Virginia. So by my accounting
process, we both won big time.
Mom and Dad liked Judy right from the start. She was actually at our Christmas
celebration in 1970. My little brother was born in July of 1969, so he grew up
with Judy already in place. I have never asked Robert about his early memories
of her or if he had thought of her as a sister. My parents even asked Judy to
baby sit our family while they were away. Judy is 2 years older that I, so that
must have of been the point of maturity that I had yet to meet.
In the spring of 1971, I asked her to marry me and she said " Yes, but not now"
and we waited about another year. When I told my dad of my intentions, I was
surprised that he did not try to talk me out of it. This is when I realized that
they loved her as much as I did. Actually when my dad told my mom , they immediately
drew up plans to redistribute all of the beds and refigured the lay out in the
bedrooms. With me leaving in a year, that would make it easier to for the other
twelve siblings to find spots on the floor to sleep.
In 1968, Judy started her career with Peoples Drug Stores and they morphed into
what is now known as CVS. In Sept of this year it will be her 40th anniversary
and it was while I was visiting her every day at work, that I found my calling.
Al Jones, her manager at the time, suggested since I was at the store so often,
I might as well join the team. I stayed for 17 years, all the while
climbing the ladder of management. I ended my career at Virginia Commonwealth
University after I got a letter form the school saying that I was taking up
space and since Space was not on the curriculum, I had to go. I had been working
at the McDonalds at the Westland Shopping Center on Broad Street and though I
enjoyed it very much, the drug store would be my growth vehicle for the next
decade and a half. In 1985 my career at the drug store ended when I was no
longer a manager and I ran into an ole friend from the Newman Center who was now
working at J. Sargeant Reynolds which is a local community college. As we talked
I told he I never graduated from any college and she decided to help me do so. I
was working for Bob Parker, a terrific fellow at Peoples and he but the best
spin possible on getting a degree telling me that it should be in a field where
the minimum wage associated with that field was better than I was doing at that
moment. His son was an Optician and Gary took me to the Reynolds school that had
an Opticinary program. I graduated in 1988 and after a few years with Galeski
Optical, I joined National Vision where I am still employed.
Judy in the early 1970's lived with her mom Dorotha. I had a hard time
understanding how Judy was able to cope with all of the aspects of her own
apartment, a job, a live in mom, night classes and doing it on a weekly salary
of about $50. Judy was a lot of fun to be around but I must confess it was
mainly due to her West Virginia accent and that she is left handed. I don't
remember hanging around a lefty before and everything she did seemed so
backwards and she sounded funny doing it. Today whenever she is around her
people, as they say in WVa, she drops back into that heavy accent of hers and I
can just look at her and remember it all over again.
More to follow
