I am mesmerized by all the stories my SPVCA friends tell me. Stories of the home-made firefighters who started our club. Stories of the marriages that defied the odds. Stories of the beach when an empty lot cost $3,500 and diehards rode out the hurricanes behind plywood. These stories come back to me when I sit in the SPVCA pergola and read the name plates.
As a writer, I actually have anxiety that those stories are going home with their dearly departing hosts. I need your help. I need your stories. The club needs your stories. South Ponte Vedra’s future generations need your stories. Think of it. South Ponte Vedra has a township sign. Didn’t its official history begin with this club? Aren’t we stewards of that history?
Innes Heilman paved the way with a brief history of the club, and her son Bert added more to the story in his tribute to her. If you missed it, you missed a lovely story about your own backyard. But that’s the problem. Most of us missed it.
Moreover, the locality is only a piece of the full soul of SPVCA. The people who gather and laugh at that clubhouse bring a myriad of outside views. We have everything from Dixie Florida to Maine lobster to Folsom Prison, all woven together in the tapestry we now call home. Will you help document that tapestry?
If you are good with pen and paper, I am good with transcribing. However, if you are like me, paper stops production when my belated inserts get out of hand, and that’s if my hand cramps don’t stop me first.
If you like to run off at the keyboard, please do. Why worry about arrangement or wording when you can re-arrange and re-word any time? Here are two tricks to make computer writing easier.
Headings
Format key phrases as headings. They automatically become an outline that you can see in the Navigation pane.
Microphone
During Covid, Microsoft Word grew ears. Now, you can plug in a mic, click the Dictation button at the top right of the screen and just TELL your story. It even knows punctuation! There’s probably a mic on your earbuds. If not, the cheapest little thing will do. Mine cost $5 five years ago.
This article was originally published in the South Ponte Vedra Civic Association newsletter on 11/1/2021.