Kathy Bloom and Deb Avery graduated from the Social Work program at Millersville University in 1993. They attended classes together and that was how the Avery family and the Bloom family met and became friends. We got together from time to time and our family’s friendship grew and grew. After several years we eventually became neighbors when we moved to Lake Meade. We had purchased a lot and then moved my mother’s modular house to Lake Meade.
After the house was installed on its foundation, I was perplexed as to how to do certain things; how to build stairs from the basement to the first floor and how to build stairs and a porch to the front door. Don knew exactly what and how to do these things. With Don’s figuring, together, we managed to work together to complete those daunting, to me, tasks. Don was always ready to drop everything and help not only me but other of his friends to build or fix things. Don was a consummate fixer of things broken. If there was a way to mend something, Don had just the item to make that repair.
Deb became adept in discovering how to visit places on a shoestring. One of the very first trips that were planned, Deb proposed that we rent a house on Abaco Island near Marsh Harbor in the Bahamas. What an exciting adventure it turned out to be including a boat with Don as the Captain. We visited several nearby small islands, looking for exotic sea shells. One of those island visits made it difficult to get the boat afloat again because the tide went out and left the boat somewhat stuck in the sand. Working together, and with the help from others, we managed to loosen the sand’s grip on the boat and got on our way again.
The Abaco Islands ended up being the first of many more trips to follow. A year later we took a trip to Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam followed by a road trip to visit Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. There were many more trips we took together: San Francisco, Kauai, Hawaii, Long Island, Bahamas, then later, Brunston Castle in Dailly, Scotland. Don liked being the driver on our outings and I navigated some of the time when Phyllis, the lady in the GPS, got things kinda mixed up.
When the opportunity to buy a house on a Cape Coral canal presented itself, Deb and Don figured out how to get it and between the 4 of us, we managed to get them pretty much moved in in one day. Deb and Don frequently invited and welcomed us for overnight visits and our dog, Annabel, wormed her way in to be with her doggie peeps, Cramer, Finnegan and Merlot. We did a lot of sightseeing and a bit of boating to the islands off of Cape Coral and Fort Meyers and always had a grand time together.
Before Don, I only had one male best friend. With Don, I had two!