Visiting Mike's Sister, Terry, at Her House in Coral Springs
Since Mike Racke's death in 2001, we have been corresponding intermittently with his sister, Terry, who is married and lives about twenty miles north of Fort Lauderdale in Coral Springs. On this trip, we've gotten an invitation to come up to her house there and visit, and we plan to have lunch with her as well. The drive up was pretty straightforward; Terry gave us good directions and we found her house without much problem.
It's a nice house in a neighborhood that is way inland, although the development has some long, thin lakes that resemble canals that run behind many of the houses. But it is landlocked, and there are no boats to speak of. Terry's house is a ranch- about three bedrooms and a couple of baths, I think, but what made it interesting is Terry's antique collection. She is one of these people that go to flea markets and swap meets and also look for things in their area of interest on Ebay. So Terry's is not a typical Florida house inside; it looks more like something in New England or out in the Midwest somewhere. There are antiques everywhere, some of which, she tells us, are reasonably valuable.
I took lots and lots of pictures and movies in Terry's house. If you are not interested in antiques, they may not mean much to you, but you can look at as many of them as you wish.
Room Movies
I took a number of movies of various rooms in Terry's house; taking pictures of each individual antique piece would have been way too time-consuming. You can use the players below to watch these movies:
The Clock Room
Bedroom
The Living Room (1)
The Living Room (2)
The Living Room (3)
Entry/Dining Room
Dining Room
Out to the Patio
Individual Furniture Pieces
In these pictures are some of the interesting individual pieces that Terry had.
(Click on Thumbnails to View)
Clocks, Clocks and More Clocks
One of Terry's main interests is in
antique clocks
of all shapes and sizes. There are more of them throughout her house than any other category of antique, and one of her small bedrooms is totally devoted to them. Needless to say, quite a number of pictures and movies are of these various clocks. So, in case you are interested in them, you can click on the thumbnails below to view the various clock pictures that I took, and/or you can click on the movie links below that to watch the movies I took in the clock room and/or of her clocks:
(Click on Thumbnails to View)
I also took some movies in the clock room, and you can watch them with the players below:
French Clocks
Miscellaneous Clocks
English Clocks
Wall Clocks
An Antique Recliner
Terry's Pets
Terry has two pets that were on prominent display during our visit. One was here parrot, Remington, who lives in a cage just outside the sliding glass door from her kitchen. I took three movies of Remington, and you can watch them using the players below:
Remington in His Cage
Terry Describes Remington
We Learn Remington's Age (and watch one of my filmmaking screw-ups)
Terry also has a dog, whose name I forgot, but who is very talented and quiet and endearing. I took a couple of movies specifically of the dog, and you can watch them using the players below:
Amazing Pet Tricks (1)
Amazing Pet Tricks (2)
Lunch with Terry
After we spent some time with Terry at her house, we headed out for a late lunch. Terry guided us to a place called "Grains of Olde" in an office plaza just a few miles from her house. As per my usual, I let the two of them go in and order what they wanted (with instructions to Fred to get me some iced tea) while I made a movie of the area around Grains of Olde. You can watch that movie with the player below:
Presently, they came out with their stuff and found a table near where I had been filming, so I made another movie of Fred and Terry having lunch- a movie you can watch with the player at left.
When we were done eating, we walked around the plaza for a while. There were some nice plantings of various kinds of Koleus, which made an excellent backdrop for a picture of
Fred.
There was also a very pretty fountain out in the circle at the center of the office plaza, and that made an excellent backdrop for a picture of
Terry and Fred.
Finally, I prevailed on a passerby to again use the fountain as a backdrop and take a last picture of
Fred, Terry and myself.
We had a really good time visiting Terry, but were sorry that her husband, who does something with wireless telephone networks, wasn't also at home (as he often is at lunchtime). I hope we'll get to see Terry again.
A Chance Encounter
Since it was Friday night, Fred and I went out late in the evening to the Fort Lauderdale Eagle. I played some pool, and then we were standing around having a drink and people-watching, when I heard a familiar voice. I looked over to where the voice was coming from, and was absolutely positive that I saw our friend Brad, the airline pilot from Grand Prairie, talking to someone across the room. Fred thought I was mistaken, but I sidled up behind the speaker to eavesdrop, and, sure enough, it was Brad and a friend of his that we'd met before.
They were no less surprised to see us than we were to see them, and we spent a fair amount of time chatting. Brad had flown his little plane her for some reason, and had brought his friend along. We made a date to meet the following afternoon down at the beach.
