A few years ago, Jilda and I spent our anniversary in Fairhope, Alabama. Don't you just love that name? 

Fairhope is less than an hour from the Gulf of Mexico, but it's nestled on the shores of Mobile Bay. It's a magical place, or it seems that way to us. 

We've been to Fairhope many times.

When Hurricane Fredrick slammed into Mobile on September 12, 1979, it left much of the Telephone company's infrastructure in tatters. 

Construction crews went down first to set new poles and string miles of telephone cables. It took months for them to get the facilities ready to do mass restorals to the communities around Mobile. 

I was in the next wave of crewmen who went in to reconnect homes. I spent weeks hanging 40 feet from the ground on telephone poles.

After a few weeks, I went home one weekend and loaded Jilda up along with our German Shepard Duke and took them back to Howard Johnsons with me. 

She was a hit with the crew. She was cute, and she could cook. Each day while we worked, she'd go to the grocery store, buy up whatever she needed to feed 14 hungry phone guys.

After dinner, we would load up and drive over to Fairhope, sit on the pier, and watch the sunset. It was a beautiful thing.

If we did not live here, I would lobby for a place in Fairhope.

I shot this picture the last time we visited.