Important Person In My Life

As we get older, our minds return to younger days and we have time to think about those people and pets we loved or who affected us deeply. Sometimes we wish, in those brash, busy days, we had taken time to mention to these people how much we appreciated them. I can’t help but wish I could tell them now. The first that comes to mind is my father, a kindly, rather introverted man, full of good humor and an avid reader. He had been an art director in New York City - in an advertising agency. Then came the Depression. Art directors were not as necessary as salesmen I guess, so my father was given another position which did not fit well with his personality. He was very knowledgeable about art, as his father was a fairly well known artist. At that time, my mother, my grandmother, grandfather and I decided to winter in Florida to save on heat, clothing, etc. My father would join us for a visit later. Well, we went to Sarasota where we started out in a simple cottage on Siesta Key. When my father joined us he was immediately drawn to the tropical surroundings and it wasn’t long before my parents decided to move from the N.Y. suburbs to Sarasota. I started school. I was about 13. My father worked at many varied jobs and did well at all of them through our years in Florida. He started out as a bookkeeper on a celery farm. Later he worked as a chemist in a laboratory where vitamins and other health remedies were manufactured. He had always been meticulous and he enjoyed this work. Later he took over a prominent gas station in Sarasota and was the manager of it for a period of time. We built a home in Sarasota and my father ran the Sunray Hot Water Heater Co. We had one of the first solar panels on our roof. We had a motor scooter which he used to motor around.