In 1966 my father moved our family to Morgantown, W Va. to take the job as offensive coordinator at West Virginia University. We moved from Tallahassee, Fla. where he was an assistant coach at Florida State University. We had started a family tradition of spending the week of July 4th in Panama City Beach, Fla. while he coached at Florida State. So in the summer of 1967 we packed up our station wagon and piled in 6 kids plus my parents for the 18-hour drive from Morgantown to Panama City Beach.
From that original trip that included a total of 8, the numbers quickly expanded as we included boyfriends and girlfriends. As the boyfriends and girlfriends became spouses the numbers continued to grow. It wasn’t long until babies were born and the family increased. The housing accommodation, which originally was a 3-bedroom beach house, has now become 3 large beach houses in which one sleeps a total of 18. Fast forward to July 4th 2015 and the small family of 8 has now grown to 50, which includes children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
We all can’t understand why my father refuses to take us out to dinner anymore!!!
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