Sunday, December 7, 2008

The Most Amazing Thing Happened Yesterday....

It's story day!!!

Let me start at the beginning though. Many years ago, my mom had a close friend named Elizabeth and Elizabeth was married to Bruce. Elizabeth and Bruce had 3 sons, Wendell, Bobby and Scott. We visited them at their house several times. One of the things I remember about their house (and this was in the 50's) was that to me, an 8 year old, it was palatial. It was split level job having several levels and there was a huge pool out back and it was probably on 50+ acres. I remember during one visit we were swimming and my brother, who was maybe 3 at the time, woke up from his nap, all sleepy-eyed, stumbled out to the pool and just walked right into it. He went straight to the bottom like a rock and of course we saved him. He was soooo cute. I also remember a huge organ in their living room and it had a bust of Wolfgang Mozart sitting on top of it and Bruce could make that baby hum. It was awesome. Then Elizabeth got sick with cancer and died. I think she was in her 40's. I remember feeling very bad about this, but we never went to see Bruce and the boy's again.

I knew that Bruce was connected to an attraction in Ocala, Florida named Silver Spring's. I knew he had something to do with photography and glass bottom boats (in my mind he had invented the glass bottom boat - hahahahaha). Mom never talked about Bruce. For years and years and years I looked for him and could never find him. Last month, my sister and I were talking about him and she googled his name and low and behold, there he was!!!! Because of the bust of Wolfgang Mozart sitting on his organ, I thought his name was spelled Mozart.........but it's Mozert! Bruce Mozert. My sister had actually thought she typed in Mozart, but she typed in Mozert and there he was. We found him because of a typo! I was so excited and I let my brother know we'd found him because Bruce was my brother's Godfather.

What we found on the Internet was a gentleman by the name of Gary Monroe wrote a book called "Silver Springs The Underwater Photography of Bruce Mozert". Gary has written several best-selling books and here was one about Bruce!!

I immediately ordered the book and wrote a letter to Bruce telling him how long we'd been looking for him and gave him the short version of the last 40 plus years in our lives.

I got the book yesterday. The mail lady left the book on top of our mailbox cause it wouldn't fit inside. I knew immediately what it was and raced to the mailbox. I was so excited. I grabbed the book and raced back inside the house, ripped open the package and started pouring over the book. I learned that Bruce, who was 91 (he turned 92 this week), still goes to work EVERYDAY! Bruce INVENTED the underwater camera (not the glassbottom boat). Bruce did the underwater filming of some of the Tarzan movies starring Johnny Weismueller. Remember Sky Hunt? Yep, Bruce did all the underwater photography for that too, as well as the underwater filming for the original "The Creature from the Black Lagoon". Bruce worked with some of Hollywood's top actor's and actresses. Bruce still flies his own plane (a 182 Skyline) and does aerial photography for corporations. When I heard him play the organ I knew he was an amazing person.

All this was wonderful, but the letter he wrote me was priceless and made my heart sing. He told me how much he enjoyed my letter. He told me he had a birthday this week and was now 92, and that everyone in his family lived to be 103 and 104. He said he'd had an exciting career. He said to come visit him and gave me directions to his house and phone numbers to reach him. And then......... he signed the letter...................Your Godfather, Bruce Mozert.

That's when I started crying. You see, I lost my mom last August 27th and my dad several years ago. While my mom and I didn't have the greatest relationship, she was still my mom and I loved her very much and I miss her. Since losing her I've felt kinda like an orphan (a 57 year old orphan.......yeah right). I have an older sister who lives in Florida and a younger brother that lives in Kentucky (visit http://www.johnmodlin.com/ - he's an incredible musician), but I don't have any parents now and that's a very weird feeling. I've been thinking a lot about "the good ole days". About Bruce, about all the kids I grew up with (Marjie - the best ever friend, Kenny - my very first boyfriend), Johnny and Frankie, the Simmons family, George, Patti, Cory, Butch, Ricky, Jan).

I'd always known that Bruce was my brother's Godfather, but I never knew he was mine too. I can't wait to visit him.

Oh yeah, and I got a email from Kenny a couple of days ago and also from George. Marjie and I keep in touch alot. I'm reminded of a song I learned in Girl Scouts.............."Make New Friends and Keep The Old".


~Blessings~
Sandi

6 comments:

Dr Zibbs said...

That's a great story.

Gwen said...

What an amazing story! I love stuff like this. Enjoy your newly rediscovered family.

K and/or K said...

Wowsa--what a cool man! I hope you post sometime soon about meeting up with him!

Cowguy said...

Now that right there is the kinda story I love. Excellent stuff Sandi and I hope you travel to see Bruce. You pretty much "gotta" now.

Jace

Mama Dawg said...

How wonderful. Are you going to visit?

giraffegirl524 said...

i agree with gwen. i love stories like that too!