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	Name:	Lakeshore -
	Subject:	A New Type of Message On the -
	Date:	6/10/2009 2:46:37 PM

Wow... A thread I wanna post in. Who-da-thunk!! Thx!

My kin all went north in the 40's for work but were able to come back to Alabama when they retired. My Grandpa retired back to the home his uncle and father built in Eclectic. That was 1972 and I was 9 yrs old... my dad was a Tool and Die maker who moved us from Detroit to the West Coast but luckily was not teaching college and so we had every summer to come back to Eclectic. My grandparents would load us up and haul us to Castaway Island and pay $1 (I think) to swim at the beach. The old Kowaliga bridge was still there and we would sometimes go to the boat ramp on the far side to swim as no one was ever there. We would BEG our grandma to take us swimming. I did this EVERY summer until I joined the service out of High School. Just before I went in, I came back to Alabama and my uncle took me to the Wooden Nickel. (I still have the tshirt!) Since the drinking age was still 18 (or was it 19?) in Alabama, he got to buy me a beer before I left for the AF.

I remember looking at lake lots with my folks. There wasn't a lot on Lake Martin for more then $5000 and STILL neither my folks or their folks could talk themselves into it.

Grandpa got cancer in 1987. That summer he forked out to rent a condo on the lake for 10 days and every member of our family showed up and lived the lake life for real... it was that week that Grandpa decided that he had made a mistake by not buying on the lake AND my folks realized they wanted to retire back here but it had to be on the lake so they could push the summer tradition to what it has become for all of us to this day. Grandpa died in June of 1989. We still have an island we go to to swim that is dubbed "grandpa island"... it is a must go to just about every single time we hit that side of the lake in a boat or ski and point it out to our kids...

My folks finally bought that lake house in 1991 and moved here full time in 1998. Lake Martin holds a huge mystique in my family's eyes and every 4th of July is set as THE time to come if you want to see family from all over the U.S. Of course, our doors are always open to lake guests through out the year and if it were not for Lake Martin I would not even be here.

Dad died in 1989 unexpectedly but I think of him each and every day and thank him for helping to create the legacy that is Lake Martin and our family on the lake.