Dale Martin
City Manager
Fernandina Beach
February 22, 2019 12:00 p.m.
My brother came to visit a few weeks ago. In visitor terms, he might be considered a regular visitor, coming to Fernandina Beach about three times each year since we arrived ourselves. He is my “older” brother, but younger- I am the oldest of four children, being followed by a brother, then sister, then brother, with all of our births spread somewhat evenly throughout the 1960s.
Kent, the visiting brother, and I have always been close. We shared a bedroom throughout our childhood and teen years. At the family dinner table (remember those?), we sat side-by-side (he hated drinking milk and eating peas). With the class configurations in our metro Detroit school system at the time, after leaving elementary school, he was the only sibling with whom I later attended junior high and high school.
After college, both of us returned briefly home before starting our careers: he went west to California to work as a computer animator before I went south to Georgia with the U.S. Army. His career has seen him hopscotch across North America- California, Michigan, California, Oregon, California, Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, and Canada (he left a position in Toronto and now works in Vancouver). I’m still not exactly sure what he does, but he is part of the “pipeline” for movie, television, and web-based animations. With our career mobility, since originally leaving Michigan, we have only once crossed paths- for about a year in Connecticut.
My unfamiliarity of his specific profession actually extends to my other siblings, too: my sister (with an advanced degree in statistics- how exciting is THAT!) performs consumer research for General Motors and my other brother is an engineer with General Dynamics (our father was an engineer who worked for the U.S. Army for nearly fifty years (apparently- since he never talked about it- a leading expert on combat vehicle mobility). For completeness, my mother was a secretary working for the Army when she met my father, and, after raising the four of us, worked as a bookkeeper for a law firm for several years. With regard to professions, I am the family’s “black sheep” who didn’t follow the engineering path.
During his recent visit, we laughed that we “P”-ed all weekend. We began his visit with a day at the Pinball Museum. The Pinball Museum is located in the strip center at Sadler and Will Hardee (in the vicinity of Miss Caroline’s restaurant and the re-located Lott’s furniture). It is a hidden gem. For just a few dollars for all-day play, you can jump from machine to machine and play a variety of games, from vintage to modern. You can also pay for only an hour of play, but since Kent is fascinated by (and good at) pinball, playing one ball can take nearly an hour! It is fun to learn how to progress through the different machines. More information about the Pinball Museum can be found on its web site (fbpinball.com).
The next day, we ventured out to play Petanque. In lighter moments (no, really), Commissioner Chip Ross is an avid player and he had extended an invitation to stop by the Saturday morning riverfront players. Although Commissioner Ross wasn’t available to play when my brother was in town, we played with a local couple and had a great time. The game is relatively simple to grasp, but challenging to play. Kent and I had a similar experience in Connecticut when we discovered duckpin bowling (I miss duckpins).
Our final “P” took us across the Island to Putt-Putt. We definitely prefer traditional Putt-Putt to other styles of miniature golf. As kids, not far from our home was a Putt-Putt facility that had four courses available for play. Tuesdays and Saturdays were “pay one price for all-day play.” Mom would drop us off at 9:00 AM and pick us up for dinner about six or seven hours later- rain or shine.
The Main Beach Putt-Putt is under new management and some modest improvements have been made. One, I contend, was making the holes smaller. The best value is to purchase a ticket for two rounds of play and play each of the two courses. It’s an easy sixty or ninety minutes worth of entertainment. More information about Putt-Putt, including party packages, can be found on its web site (puttputt.com/amelia-island).
We still have plenty of “p”-ing to do for his next visit. We can play Pickleball. We can parachute or paddle. We can eat at Pablo’s, Pepper’s, the (Salty) Pelican, or the Patio Place, but no longer the Picnic Basket (only due to re-naming, though- it’ll have to be an “S” weekend for Stephanie’s Sugar and Spice- great hot ham-and-Swiss sandwich). We’ll shop at Publix and perhaps visit the Playhouse.
Go out and “P.”