Larry Gunnell

As my mother told me when she was 97 "Larry it goes by so fast". She made it to almost 101. It has gone by fast.

I can't say life has been a bowl of Cherries but overall it has been well worth the trip. We celebrated our 38th anniversary this year. Brenda and I have two daughters, three grandchildren and one on the way.
I retired from the The Farmers and Merchants Bank after 25 years as a Sr. VP and commercial loan officer. When the kids were grown and educated we decided we would do something different since we now had less financial responsibility. Primarily we invested in income producing property and to date have been able to live quite well. At least it seems that way to me as a guy that didn't have running water until I was 12.
In my younger years (started age 27)I enjoyed belonging to a local running club. We went to races around the state on weekends. Our club (the Riceland Roadrunners) started the Great Duck Race that we still have here each year during the Duck Calling Contest.I have a few trophies and placks from winning my age group in various races but never was much of a threat to win the overall race. I think I won one in my entire life. It was just a way to stay healthy and also a fun thing for the family. I even ran one marathon at Boonville in 3hrs and 17 minutes. One of those was enough for me.

We have traveled over the years and still do though not as much. I guess my favorite trip was sailing across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2. We stayed in London a few days then flew home. We have been to Alaska a couple of times and I have been to Canada fishing a few times.
We had a condo in Orange beach AL. and a fishing boat that we went out in the gulf on. That was enjoyable for the kids and grandkids. I don't think we ever went out into the ocean that we didn't see something we had never seen before. When Hurricane Ivan came through it pretty much wrecked Orange Beach and most of the condos. We were fortunate that ours wasn't damaged on the inside. We sold it and bought one in Hot Springs on Lake Hamilton. We seldom used it so we now have sold it also.
We are quite happy to hang out in Stuttgart and take short trips when we want to get away.
One thing we now do for fun is Karaoke. Several of us get together every week or so and have a cookout. Then we sing. I did my first public singing at my 60th birthday party. That's a long time to get enough guts but I finally had enough beer to dive in and I've been singing ever since.

Thanks guys for doing so much work developing this web site. It's good to stay in touch.

Larry