Page 169 - a-columbia-county-boys-recollections-and-memories-of-columbia-county-florida-(2012)-lenvil-h-dicks

A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

certainly dread to have to drive those 1200 miles of gravel road from the Canadian Line up to Alaska at
this day and time.

That road was so dusty, that even though your suitcases would be firmly fastened in the trunk of the car,
we soon learned that the only way we could keep mountains of dust and dirt out of our suitcases was to
insert a towel all around the lip of the suitcase where the two halves were closed, and that towel seemed
to somewhat sift out some of that dust. The entire 1200 miles was just one big dust cloud all of the way,
and if you met a car you had to breathe their dust for the next mile. There was very, very little traffic on
that road, as most people had better sense than to try it, but we wanted to go and so we went.

Eric and Golde only had one child, my niece Sharon Booz, and when Sharon was born Eric Markham
was the proudest father in the whole wide world, and he always was so proud of Sharon. She and Dan
were living at West Palm Beach during Sharon’s childbearing years, and when her third child was being
born, Bonnie Booz, she was having all sort of difficulties in giving birth to Bonnie. One ofthe doctors
told Golde, who was down there with Sharon, to call Eric and highly suggest to him that he perhaps had
better come on down there, because they were beginning to get quite concerned about Sharon.

Although Eric would never consent to get on an airplane, when this happened I went by and told him
that I had an airplane sitting at the airport all fueled up and ready to go and if he would consent to let me
fly him down there that we could make it in about an hour and a half and that I highly recommended that
he go.

So he swallowed his fear, and he got in the plane and flew down there with me, and once we got in the
air and on the way he seemed to be at ease and even I think somewhat enjoyed the flight. 1 cannot be
sure of this however, since I am not aware of any other airplane ride Eric took after that, but he did
overcome his fear of flying enough to go see his daughter and new granddaughter before something
happened to them.

Sharon is of course the oldest of my nieces and nephews, and she and I have always been close and are
still quite close.

Eric was killed in an automobile wreck in 1986, and Golde passed away in the hospital at Gainesville in
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1996, just 2 months shy of her 88 birthday.

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