Lake Worth Beach Archives

January 1, 2015January 1, 2015

Resolutions and Sunrises

This illustration I did for The Southeast Missourian in 1966 shows how Wife Lila and I usually welcome in the New Year.

Follow this link to see more photos of Terri and Roy Murdoch, children of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Murdoch, and to read about their dad.

I’m not sure I ever heard Chuck Murdoch called “Charles.” He was just “Chuck,” one of my favorite sports editors. He didn’t take himself or his job too seriously, but he loved covering kid sports and did everything he could to get as many names in the paper as he could.

When did you quit smoking?

I recall the year that Dad quit smoking cold turkey on New Year’s Eve. We all noticed that he had gotten crankier than usual, but he didn’t tell us for a couple of weeks that he had tossed all his cigarettes in the fireplace at the stroke of midnight. He didn’t want to say anything until he was sure he could do it.

I’ve been binge-watching the TV series Mad Men, which is about an advertising agency in New York in the 1960s. I thought I was going to choke to death during the first few episodes because there wasn’t a scene that didn’t have people filling the air with smoke. When I thought back on it, that’s just the way it was in those days, particularly in the newsroom.

(The photo department became non-smoking as soon as I became director of photography. I claimed it was for technical and safety reasons, but the truth was that I hated smelling the smoke.)

Plenty of readers shared their smoking experiences.

Sunrise on the beach

In a moment of insanity on the first day of 2011, I consented to go to the Lake Worth beach to watch the sun come up. Now, don’t get me wrong. I HAVE seen the sun come up before, but it’s almost always been because I stayed up all night the night before.

Anyway, it was a beautiful dawn and I don’t regret going.

Once.

Click on the link so you can see how nice it was (and keep from having to go yourself).

Start the year off right

While you are making your New Year’s resolutions, make a note that you will click on the big red Click Here button at the top of the page (or right here) whenever you order something from Amazon.

I get a tiny percentage of the price, and it doesn’t cost you a penny.

How about that? Here’s a resolution that doesn’t cause you to sweat, doesn’t cost you any money and doesn’t change your eating or drinking habits. You can’t beat that with a stick.

December 31, 2013January 1, 2014

Birds on the Beach

Wife Lila sent me a text this morning: “Can you be spontaneous? Put your pants on and come to the beach to take pictures.”

I’m glad she sent it at mid-morning on New Year’s Eve. The last time she got one of those “spontaneous” urges, I found myself at Lake Worth Beach on New Year’s Day 2010 confirming that, yes, indeed, that bright light in the sky pulls itself out of the ocean at ye god o’clock in the morning. As much as I hate to admit it, she and I took some really nice photos that day. (That’s Lila’s shot above, by the way.)

She wanted promo photos

She wanted photos of her and Neighbor Jacqie/Bill Jackson wearing reunion T-shirts to promote the Class of ’66 Florida February Extravaganza. What would be better to make people with frozen nose hairs envious than by posting New Year’s Eve beach photos? (You can click on the photos to make them larger.)

Here’s an announcement she put up on the ’66 Facebook page: Classmate Jane McKeown Neumeyer will be in Sarasota, FL during February, so we are planning another luncheon. So far, the details consist of the date… February 6, 2014 … at a restaurant in or near Sarasota. For more information as it becomes available, keep checking Terry Hopkins’ website.

She’s become a Class of ’66er

Several years back, she and some of her Central High School Class of 1966 grads (and a few stragglers from other classes) started getting together for lunch once a month in cape. She always made it a point to go when she was in town. When she realized how many Cape folks had moved down to the Sunshine State, she and her Florida cohorts decided to start meeting down here.

Here is an account of their first get-together: The original Florida group members; Lila Perry Steinhoff, Jane Rudert McMahan, Bill (Jacqie) Jackson, and Terry Hopkins met for an inaugural lunch at Dunedin on the west coast of Florida in July. It was a fantastic day with friends, food and so many memories and stories. We talked and laughed for more than four hours and decided we had to do it again. Once we put the word out on Facebook and on the 60s’ email list, we started picking up more classmates.

After months of planning and juggling of time schedules, the logistics finally settled and… those living in, visiting, or driving to the Tampa, Florida, area met for lunch at the Thirsty Marlin in Palm Harbor, Florida, on September 9. It was a pretty fantastic day. There was a lot of laughter and memories were shared and stories swapped. Attendees were Jane McMahan, Lila Steinhoff, Bill Askew, Jesse James and wife Margaret, Bill (Jacqie) Jackson, Don Wareing and wife Peggy, Mike Riley and wife Sheila, and Mike Heron.

You can see videos and still photos of the group on Terry’s page.

Florida Pigeon

The beach is usually the domain of seagulls, but this morning a contingent of what Wife Lila thought were Florida pigeons had moved in. She thought that because, even though the temps were in the mid-70s, they were all puffed up and some were huddling in deep footprints in the sand.

Bigger than average gull

This was a bigger than average gull and one with a slightly different color than I’m used to seeing.

Speaking of gulls….

I wasn’t really happy with what I had shot of the T-shirted couple so far. That’s when I turned and spotted a young woman hauling her surfboard to the water. I walked up, said, “Could we borrow you and your board for a minute?”

With only a second’s hesitation, Rachel tucked herself between the old geezers and I made a photo that should entice at least a few members of the Class of 66 to come down.

I sent Rachael a thank-you email, a copy of the photo and some words of wisdom: “I hate to tell you this, but you’re going to look like these folks in a blink of an eye. Enjoy life while you can.”

May 6, 2012May 6, 2012

Cinco de Mayo Super Moon

Riding partners Anne and Osa thought the night of the Super Moon would be a good time for me to take my first bike ride since my crash on February 19. We had planned it earlier, but weather hadn’t cooperated. We were going to watch the moonrise from the Lake Worth Beach, but there’s a tall drawbridge to go over, so they suggested we check out a new park with boardwalks going out into the Intracoastal Waterway north of the Lake Worth Bridge. I guess they didn’t want to risk having to tow me over the bridge if I hadn’t gotten my legs back. Click on any image to make it larger.

Boardwalk puts you out over water

It’s a beautiful place to sit. The mangroves behind you muffle the city sounds. The breeze off the water was actually a little on the chilly side. We got there a little early, so my partners talked me into riding back into Lake Worth for a sinfully good ice cream cone.

Traffic was pretty heavy and I heard a car with a bunch of guys in it hootin’ and hollerin’ in the next lane coming up behind me. This sounds like trouble, I thought. When they got closer, I could see if was a bunch of young Hispanic guys wishing everybody within earshot a happy Cinco de Mayo. Dial the Threat-o-Meter back to green again.

Super Moon over Lake Worth Beach

We got back to the boardwalk from our ice cream run with a couple minutes to spare before Osa spotted the big orange ball coming out of the haze above Lake Worth Beach. It was huge, but indistinct until it got a little above the horizon. We’ll go a little photo geeky on the rest of the pix. If you don’t care for technical details, just skip over them like I do names in a Russian novel.

Light turned blue

With the sun going down, the sky picked up a bluish cast. The exposure here is 1/30 of a second @ f/5.6. The camera boosted the ISO to 500 from my normal 200. I was underexposing the photo by as much as four stops to keep the moon from becoming a white blob. I was zoomed to the max at 55mm on my 18-55mm zoom lens. It would be nice to have a longer lens, but I like to travel light on the bike.

Boat adds movement

Several boats went by, but this one showed up best. I zoomed out for a bit wider shot than the previous one. This was zoomed to 34mm. The exposure was 1/30 @ f/5.0 and the ISO was 400.

I love digital photography for the ability to change the film “speed” with every shot. With film, you were committed to one type of film and speed for the whole roll. That’s one reason why I carried three cameras: each one might be loaded with a different type of film to cover every contingency.

Switched to video camera for big moon shot

Since I didn’t have a longer lens for my Nikon D3100, I switched to my Canon FS100 video camera video camera in still mode for a tight shot of the Super Moon. I didn’t expect it to be tack-sharp because I was zoomed way in and using a 1/25 second shutter speed. I was braced against the boardwalk, but the water pounding the pilings caused some movement.

Street lights shift everything orange

Just before we left, I started experimenting with other than moon photos. This shot of the Lake Worth draw bridge was taken when pretty much all of the light was gone from the sky except for the moon. The camera bumped the ISO up to 3200 and dropped the shutter speed down to half a second @f/5.6.

Here’s what the big bridge looks like in the daylight, plus a little history of the original bridge built in 1919.