Orlando to Niceville, FL

We woke up early as usual. Our dinner with Max and Ruth was great. We usually see them once a year when they visit Max’s daughter in State College, but in 2008 we missed them, so it was particularly nice to catch up.

At 7:30 AM today, we were ready to get on the road. We faced a seven hour drive. It is the longest one we have scheduled for any one day, but we wanted to see Bernie (Dr. B, to me…more about him later) and his wife Madeline, so we were anxious to get to Niceville. Should we take Interstates 75 and 10, which is a practical way to reach the panhandle of Florida, or should we take secondary roads? The secondary roads won out.

US Route 98 was a particular gem. We got on it going west just where the “handle meets the pan” in Florida. Driving along with the Gulf of Mexico to our left, we enjoyed the calm water and sunny weather (though the temperature never rose above 53 degrees). We also enjoyed a respite from franchises and commercial development.

Most of the commercial signs were handmade. One in particular caught my eye: “Live” Shrimp, 5 miles. Don wondered what “live” in quotes meant….were the shrimp really alive; were they faux alive; were they just dead? Were they shrimp at all? What made the sign maker use the quotes? We will never know.

At lunch time we started to look for a place to eat. We did come upon one town with a McDonalds, Burger King, Checkers, etc. on every corner. Sadly, there were little local restaurants scattered around, but they were all closed. Victims of the $1 menus, I guess.

When we got to a town called Panacea, there was a sign for Hook Wreck Henry’s Dockside Café. We stopped and got a table overlooking the Gulf. A Jimmy Buffet recording was providing the appropriate backdrop for our Blackened Shrimp Po Boy sandwich. There were a few locals knocking down beers and eating raw oysters (with many miles to drive…we couldn’t take the chance on imbibing OR eating just one bad oyster!).

Going the backroads took us about an hour or so longer, but it was worth it.

We are now in Shalimar, outside of Niceville and will be visiting Dr. B and Madeline soon. I met Bernie Busovne in 1971 at an admissions conference (professional call name: AACRAO) in Cleveland, OH. I was working for UD…doing a lot of the traveling I described earlier in the blog and was restless for a change of venue, so I had stopped by the AACRAO placement center and picked up a bunch of application materials. With the papers spewing out of my arms…I went to a conference room, to listen to a speaker. In those days, I smoked (horrors) and so did a lot of people. The seats of the conference room were peppered with ashtrays and I asked the man in front of me for one. He turned around to hand one to me and saw the application materials I was holding. He introduced himself, said he was looking for an Assistant at Penn State. “Are you looking for a job?” “Yes, sort of.” “Well, here’s my card:” Dr. Bernard Busovne, Director of Graduate Admissions, The Pennsylvania State University. “Send me your resume.” I did and the rest is history (well…it was a little bit more complicated than that…they offered the job to someone else who turned it down, but hey, that made me feel even more destined to live in Happy Valley). I think I did have one phone interview but really there was no extensive vetting. I think my Eastern European name of RZETELNY made me an attractive candidate to a guy with the name of BUSOVNE.