Dad always got the newspaper, The Gainesville Sun.  Before I was born Dad and Billy had a Gainesville Sun newspaper route (See 1951) for a while which had a side benefit was that he got a free paper each day but after he quit the route, he aways got the paper which he would read every day.  For a few years, the paper came in in the evening and Dad would read it when he got home from work, but then it switched to a morning paper, which he would read first thing with his cup of coffee, I can picture him now, walking out the front door in his flannel housecoat and slippers to pick up the paper in the driveway. Dad continued getting the Gainesville Sun and reading it in the morning with his coffee until he died at the age of 93.  In Dad’s last few years, the paper was a phantom of what it was in its prime. In the later years I would go visit Dad and the read the paper, the main section was only three or four pages long, half of which were full page adds by auto dealers.  The sports section still had the latest about the Florida Gators, but best of all it still had the comics.

   I always enjoyed looking at the paper, sometimes reading something on the front page but mostly went directly to the comics.  If Dad was involved reading the front page, I might get the sports section that had the comics from him and read it first but otherwise had to wait for him to finish the sports section.  I loved the comics, on weekdays they were in black-and-white, there was Alley Ooop, Andy Capp, Archie, Popeye, Beetle Bailey, Blondie and Dagwood, Dennis the Menace, Tarzan, Yogi Bear, The Family Circus, The Flintstones, Gasoline Alley, Hi and Lois, Li'l Abner, The Lone Ranger, Mark Trail, Marmaduke, Peanuts and more.  But Sundays were the best, the comics were a separate three or four page section and in color, they were larger and had more panels.  Also in the Sunday comics were several strips that only appeared on Sunday, like The Phantom and Prince Valiant.  

I particularly liked Dick Tracy at that time for in the 60’s was Dick Tracy’s space adventures in which Tracy and his friends had went to the Moon, meeting Moon Maid, the daughter of the leader of a race of humanoid people living in "Moon Valley" and then bring back such things as air cars and one man flying platforms and his famous wristwatch-tv-phone. Dick’s son Junior married Moon Maid in October 1964. Their daughter Honey Moon Tracy had antennae and magnetic hands. In the spring of 1969, Tracy was offered the post of Chief of Police in Moon Valley. However, he ended up back on Earth when the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 showed that the moon was barren of all life. Oops, got that one wrong.  

 I continued reading the comics in the paper for over fifty years.

Thanksgiving came and Mom made a wonderful turkey dinner, Grandma Mixson was there, Dad had gone out and picked her up the day before.  That afternoon we all went out to Grandma and Grandpa Junior’s house and Gary, Corky, Sue and Jim were all there.

David and me sitting on floor opening presents Christmas morning

Come December and my birthday was uneventful, Mom made a cake, and I got a few presents but everyone, including me, was more focused on Christmas three days away.  We spent Christmas at home, opening our presents on Christmas morning.  David and I got socks again from Grandma Junior.

Updated: 08-07-2022

1964