A Multi-Birthday Celebration — With Manatees!

Oh but I wish I’d taken my camera!

Four members of the Cowart clan have birthdays in July: Ginny, Donald, Helen and me. Since none of our birthdays fell on yesterday’s date, the kids chose that day for a collective observance.

Ginny and I do not pay any attention to our own birthdays and such but the custom is thoroughly entrenched in our children and they insist.

Our friend Barbara hosted the party for us all in a lounge at the retirement community where she lives. This beautiful facility sits on the shore of Turtle Lake, a large millpond, site of a water-powered saw mill back in the 1800s. A few bricks from that old mill remain along with a remnant of the dam and a replica of the waterwheel.

Barbara provided all sorts of civilized delicacies for our enjoyment including a chicken salad laced with white grapes and macadamia nuts, and an olive, pimento and cream cheese dip that I gorged on.

Our daughter Eve baked a strawberry cheese cake as well as a special birthday cake which she decorated so that one slice contained no icing because she knows I like my cake plain.

As usual, some of us exchanged cards and presents, and some didn’t. We all do whatever feels right on such occasions.

I received a shark jaws tee shirt (an ancient family jokes calls me, Gnaws, for when I lost my teeth) and a Hooter’s Calendar with a giant foldout suitable for a wall poster or it can be folded small to use as a bookmark in my Bible. (Plenty of laughs over that one).

Donald and Helen have wanted a water feature for the backyard in their new home, so we gave her a garden fountain — and him, a water pistol.

Afterwards, Barbara took her aluminum walker and led us on a tour:

We walked out on the dam; on the high side, we watched three species of large turtles sunning on a log and numerous water birds including an anhinga which we could see clearly underwater as it captured small fish. An old man in a wheelchair pointed out a four-foot alligator in the spillway on the low side of the dam.

The others abandoned the tour because of the heat but Jennifer and I walked out on a dock where we saw, right below our feet, a pod of huge manatees feeding on a raft of floating vegetation. The two adults, their backs scared by propeller slashes from power boats, weighted about 500 pounds (they were almost the size of our car) and the baby, un-scared as yet, looked to be the size of a coffee table.

Manatees have no natural enemy and no fear of man. Because they swim just below the surface, most are killed by boat propellers. A speed boat approached the dock and I warned them away from the grazing manatees.

Barbara led us over to a museum stocked by paintings, pottery and statues donated by former residents. Lovely things. Then she led us to a boutique, again stocked by residents’ contributions, where Ginny bought a red silk robe which looks lovely on her.

Then we visited the art center and I discovered that Barbara, who was an award-winning newspaper columnist before she retired, also has a talent for painting; three of her pictures hang in the art gallery.

I spotted one of her unfinished landscapes which immediately struck a cord for me as being just the thing to use as the cover for a collection of her columns which I’m gathering into a book. The connection between her painting and her book had not crossed her mind but to me the link was obvious.

Worn out, we all went our separate ways, older, wiser, happier.

I just wish I’d taken my camera for the manatees, the anhinga, the alligator… And, oh yes, the family.