"I can't remember whether or not I sent you the picture from Warren and Mary Sandra's visit. They came to Highlands for a brief overnighter and it was great. We did some reminiscing but actually spent more time sharing our thoughts and opinions about what is happening in the here and now. Pretty amazing that we are all "on the same page"! Wish we could do more real life visits rather than virtual visits. I will say that if things play out, Frances and I will be in the DC area twice in the coming months. We will be there the last week in October and probably the first week in December. I'm thinking the December visit will give me the opportunity to visit with my classmate Edward.
Irma hit us up here, some places worse than others. We lost power for about 18 hours but I have a small portable generator that runs my refrigerator, furnace and one circuit of lights that I can hook up in situations like this. My adopted hometown, "The Holy City", Charleston sustained a lot of flooding. Am attaching a picture of the market. They just deal with and move on. My first hurricane experience was in October of 1954 as a freshman at The Citadel. Hazel came roaring through moving up the coast to Ocean Drive and wiping that place out. Then in September 1989 hurricane Hugo did a direct hit on Charleston and headed due north and slammed Charlotte. We were out of power for two weeks with that one. Opal hit us here in Highlands in 1995 and we sustained a lot of tree damage and power outage. In 2004 Ivan ripped through and brought about 8 inches of rain. This was the hurricane that swept the community of Peeks Creek down the mountain killing 4. Now here comes Irma September 2017 and I go through that again. What's wrong with this picture. Here we are in the mountains, elevation 4118' and 200 miles from the coast and we keep getting hit by hurricanes! "
Obie Oakley
