It's a Sign...

040211:  In late 1962 my dad, who had joined the Los Angeles Fire Department earlier that year, cut his big toe off.  Well, if truth be told, my mom did it.  But not maliciously!  It was an accident!  She accidently ran over him with their boat in a lake after he fell waterskiing.  (Does anyone remember what waterskiing is?  I will have to write about that one day...)  Shoot, I'm not really making my mom sound too good here, but the point of this story is about life changing events.  You see, having just joined the fire department my dad was considered a "rookie" and all rookies are on "probation" for their first year.  Now, my dad's toe is okay, but back then it was touch and go.  He knew that if he lost his toe he would lose his job on the LAFD. 

AND (this is where is gets interesting...) if he had lost his toe and, thereby, his job in 1962, he never ever would have met Tony Ennis who was also on the LAFD.  And if he never met Tony Ennis, whose in-laws were building a little trailer park on a lake named Topaz, we never would have started coming to that little trailer park in 1967.  And I wouldn't be where I am and who I am today.

In the past, we have laughed about how, if Dad had actually lost his toe, it would have changed our lives.  However, I've known all along that my life and what it is today is not because of an almost-lost-toe but because of my dad meeting a man named Tony.  That is the actual, seemingly ordinary, event that changed my life.

Now, of course, I realize that events in our lives are all intertwined and who is to say who, where and how caused what!  But, I'm telling you confidently that if my dad had not met Tony our families would have never become friends.  We would have never come to Topaz.  My parents would have never bought the little trailer park years later when Tony's father-in-law passed away.  I would have never moved up here to finish school and start my career.  I would have never met my hubby through my career.  And we wouldn't have bought the this little trailer park from my parents 11 years ago.  It's as simple as that.

You see, I've had the opportunity over the last eleven years to tell this story often because I've been asked many times in some form or another, "How did you end up owning an RV Park?"  Well, now you know.

Can you trace the pivotal points in your life?  Sometimes "things" that seem so ordinary and normal can impact your family and future in ways that you would have never imagined.  Think about it and you just might be surprised.

....to be continued....