Who Am I
Lamar Thames
Hi! My name is Lamar Thames. I am a retired newspaper editor from Northeast Florida with just enough ego left in the tank to think I can still entertain people with my writing.
This won’t be hard, so pay attention. From time to time, my wife and I like to visit some of the more out-of-the-way tourist spots, mostly in Florida. The places we visit won’t necessarily have long waiting lines or expensive price tags attached to them (if you get my drift). It is my ambition to create a sense of place about each one of the destinations and describe them from my perspective, the good, the bad and (ahem) the ugly, so to speak.
I am limiting most of my articles to locations in Florida, or at least nearby. Mainly because Florida is so rich and diverse in its collection of places to visit. Occasionally, I may also comment from personal experience on golf courses I have played.
I refer to myself as a casual traveler, rather than a sophisticated one. I do a little research into a destination before we choose a site to visit but them we like to sniff around once we get where we are going, asking questions of the locals. Sometimes you will come up with good suggestion of what to see or do and other times you will just run into a personal bias or a shill for a local establishment. But that is part of the fun of discovery, isn’t it? And that is why most of us like to go somewhere we have not been before.
We like to try new things and it will be my objective to give you the benefit of our experiences when I can. I hope you will be entertained by them and find them informative. I encourage you to offer your feedback as well, through comments, photographs and suggestions for other sites to visit.
So, take a look around at the site and let me hear from you. In the meantime, happy traveling!
looks like a great start
make sure you have Sheila on the email list (sheilagreg_2000@yayoo.com)
Hello, Wandering Tourist!
I appreciated your article mentioning my Aunt Mary Lou Malone Whitfield and the book of published columns from several different Florida newspapers, most notaly, The Tallahassee Democrat.
My students and I put the columns together as a project in Florida History for a creative assignment required by the school in which I teach, the International Baccalaureate at Hillsborough HS in Tampa. We did a fair job on the columns, producing a home-made copy, and that was picked up by a publisher who had it published in the form you now see. The publisher is Miss Polly from the Book Fair in Perry. Many family members contributed in different ways and had much to add to my humble attempts to collect these stories. I was fortunate to have the labor and facilities to get it started. My cousin, Mrs. Diane V. Whitfield was instrumental in taking the steps to get the final product on its way.
I am so glad that people find my aunt’s writing worth reading. She was an incredible
lady–learned, wise and generous. These columns are vignettes which represent daily life in North Florida through the past century and a little bit. They are truly works of art.
Thanks for your contributions, I enjoy reading them.