Banana Bunker

Yes. I do. Sir John Lawson was admiral of "his majesties" Navy in the 1600's early 1700's.. and his picture hangs in the main lobby of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Center in Virginia.

I had an girlfriend whose mother use to work for "Jantzen" swinsuits also growing up. They use to have an big Portland factory here at one time. Kind of like Pendelton Woollen Mills. they recently put out an specialty blanket that was an replica of the olden blankets they use to trade witn the Native Americans...somewhere in the $600 range (US)..I dont' knwo if they still exist ro not also. Yes, I own one blanket of theirs. It is hard these days in the land of plastic..to find that kind of quailty...or people that want to buy it. Perhaps because people put thier money into electronics more so then goods these days. It is more "special" to own an new Blackberry cell phone then it is an quailty hand.made item, if you can even find people that are talented enough to make something handmade of worth these days. Last blanket I crocheted was in 1979...I guess that makes me not doing so well on it either. Before my friend further out in the countryside retired and sold heir "Rock Shop" her specialty was helping the 4-H girls..she would take from raising the sheep to cutting the wool, to processing it into dyed thread and then knitting things..only person I ever knew did it from start to finsish like that...I'm 60 plus years old. They are arguing now to even let people in the country here maintain animals beyond small ones like chickens/dogs. But we have some horse boarding going on yet, so I hope they wait it off. The cattle/pigs/such are pretty much gone. My housing project here use to be an cow pasture at one time. I rermber it as an child. Taxes are so high many people are out of the game to own much more then an single house. The original estate house three doors down from me..is on acreage(5 acres)...they tried to sell it for one million dollars and couldn't get it, so some older relatives moved in it. I was lucky enough to know the original owners...they have an orchard up there, no one uses it these days, but Alma use to come down and share an jar or two of her homemade chutneys with me.I grew up in this town, but none of the neighbors had.. we could talk about years gone by in ways. I wished they had made the house into an country "Bed and Breakfast", but not so far. It's charm will be lost if they break up the ground for more housing. It's the problem, the high property taxes...unless you own an thriving business it's hard to pay them these days. For the need for money, we are losing our quality of life...it starts at the Governemnt to private sector also, kind of trickles down to include everyone. This use to be an neighborhood of farming outside the big city...it has become postage stamp housing...with nothing "unique" about the houses. At one time everyone of us had either an in-groung swimming pool. or an above ground one...now none of them exist.  We let ours go for an ski boat...to teach Boy Scouts water sports....So goes.