My Dad spent some years of his youth in Orange Park..It's what I know of his mother; her little home on DeBarry almost meeting Kingsley Ave. To this day there stands, very near that intersection, the layout of what used to be a chimpanzee research facility.

Sidebar: Years back I discovered a beautiful 2 cassette tape set at my dollarstore haunt. It is a story written and narrated by a gentleman whose life has been dedicated to the study and understanding of Chimpanzee psychology and our nearly identical physiological and emotional functioning with theirs. In the story he mentions this facility and his relationship with some chimps who'd been part of the research in this place.

Everyday I allow myself to retreat into memories of comfort and nostalgia. Many of them involve experiences from my childhood, some grand, but most of them very simple in nature.
Freedom, warmth (emotional and thermal), beauty, laughter, and discovery.
One of these images that I periodically draw upon is that of a little snippet my father shared with me.
As a young boy he would walk down to a tiny store on Kingsley Ave to purchase candy (the building is still there, right at the railroad track, but it is now a real estate place, shower liners, something?). This was the 1950's so one can conjure Happy Days images, Stand by Me ball caps and hightops, blue jeans, cars with big fat fenders, racial oppression, and soda shoppes.
For some reason, these very short and simple recollections are what stick with me, but basically, his story is that as he was in there himming and hawing and finger biting over which candy to choose. A chimp handler was down in the store with one of the beasts in tow. It snatched the ball cap off my boyfather's noggin.....I could embellish and say it took off like a mad-hatter (too easy not to do it) and ran and jumped and bounced like a trick-can snake, but i don't remember that part of the story. I just think of my dad as a sweet innocent and feel that those random and uncommon events bring some levity to our lives when it seems as if there is so little anymore that touches us deeply or gives us pause to relax or giggle or appreciate something spiritually simple.