Posted on 07/24/2020 12:27:29 PM PDT by Red Badger
We grew up on the Gulf Coast of Florida(6th generation Floridians,our kids are 7th generation, and now their kids who stay in Florida are 8th generation) On sandbars there might be dozens and they were easy to find, just feel around the sand with your toes.
There was no “conservation” info back then, I don’t think we even realized they were alive, we thought of them as shells, so we would take a few home. Once you took them home they would turn brown, I think a mild bleach wash kept them white, the purpose of bringing them home was for display in your room, or make a necklace, but they were pretty fragile for that. We knew there were 5 doves, but we didn’t want a broken sand dollar, so we never broke them.)
We always spent a couple weeks in the summer on a “staycation” at the beach. My dad still drove in to work everyday, and we’d stay at a rented cottage at the beach. It was the only vacation we could afford,because my dad could still work, but come back to the cottage once he was off, and do some surf fishing.
It was the only vacation we took for all of my growing up days. This was back in the 50’s and 60s and no big hotels at the beach, only a few. Mostly there were little cottages or duplexes. You put a pan with water at the front door so you could dunk your feet on the way in and keep from sweeping up sand as often.
Morning walks on the beach, we’d find all sorts of things, going inside everyday from 11-2 so we wouldn’t get “too” burned, surf fishing, collecting coquinas to make coquina soup, using a seine net and being amazed what we’d find, watching mullet fisherman pull in their huge net right up to the beach, going to bed with the small of Noxema on your sunburned shoulders and face, the sting of sunburn on your back, and feeling the gritting sand when you put your body into the sheets (no matter how hard you had tried to get it shaken out earlier in the day.)
Thanks for the sand dollar post, it was a walk down memory lane for me.
Worthless photo.
I’ve got a sand dollar that measures 5 1/2” by 5 1/2”. I bought it in a shop somewhere while I was on vacation.
Thanks for spreading His message. That’s just beautiful. I’m certainly going to help spread that.
You can shake them out the hole in the bottom sometimes. If you know what you’re looking for, you find them on the beach sometimes.
Im waiting for the sea unicorn.
The toughest part with sand dollars is getting them home in one piece. I collected many along the Oregon coast, at Haystack Rock.
Sand dollars are gray when you find them alive, or some lighter variation of that as they die. They are not white that I’ve ever seen. It is very hard to find fully intact sand dollars that are that white. I’m a little skeptical that he found a live sand dollar and wonder if maybe he bleached it to get it that white. I’ve seen lots of people do that.
This article holds the world’s record for saying Sand Dollar without saying what a Sand Dollar is.
This has something to do with the coin shortage?
I may have one somewhere - I went through a seashell-collecting phase many years ago.
I’ll get around to checking that closet, someday. It would be nice to frame the shell with the little doves beside it, and the poem.
Silly picture, absolutely useless with no scale. It could be 1 inch in diameter.
Well, I was looking for a pic like that, too - I never knew that these things got larger than 2 to 3 inches.
But if you actually read the article, even the blurb here tells you the rough measurement, and the UPI article tells the largest one previously recorded.
It could be a record for Florida.
Fools, nothing in the pic to give it scale. Yawn
Huh. On the West Coast they are purple when alive. Just beautiful!
Not the same artifact as the original picture. Nice souvenir kid but I don’t get it?
Right, the sand dollars I’m referring to have been in Florida on the Gulf Coast, anywhere from the Panhandle on down to Fort Myers. I haven’t gathered them in other places. I bet the purple ones are very pretty.
Great way to share the gospel! I heard a similar story about the Passion Flower, which has the three nails in the center, and the crown of thorns surrounding them. Our God is so awesome, reminding us of His love through His beautiful creation.
Your post was a walk down memory lane for me. You are probably the same age as my older siblings. I’m a child of the very very early 60s, but because my siblings are older, I hear their remembrances from the 50s. Much simpler times. I’m pretty nostalgic and sentimental, so I like to remember the pleasant things we got to do back then. It wasn’t always good times, but there were enough of them to get you through the tougher ones.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.