The Castillo

On this Father’s Day I was thinking of all the good times we had together as a family on vacations and day trips around Florida’s First Coast. One of Dad’s favorite places to visit was St. Augustine. While there we never missed a chance to visit the Castillo de San Marcos. My Dad and I shared a love for this old place. Thanks to Wikipedia.org for the pictures and some historical facts.

Old place it was, the Castillo is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States second only to the Castillo San Felipe del Morro in San Juan, Puerto Rico in the new world. The fort is located on the sandy west shore of Matanzas Bay in the city of St. Augustine, Florida. From where it sits, the fort’s cannonade could easily protect the entire bay between the south end of Ponte Vedra across the entire Intercoastal Waterway to the northern end of St. Augustine. From the battlements there is an incredible view of the oldest continuously habituated city in the United States. Construction began in 1672, 107 years after the city's founding by Spanish Admiral and conquistador Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, when Florida was part of the Spanish Empire.

The fort has an interesting history both good and bad; After Britain gained control of Florida in 1763 pursuant to the Treaty of Paris, St. Augustine became the capital of British East Florida, and the fort was renamed Fort St. Mark until the Peace of Paris (1783) when Florida was transferred back to Spain. In 1819 Spain signed the Adams–Onís Treaty which ceded Florida to the United States in 1821 and the fort became a United States Army base which was renamed Fort Marion, in honor of American Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion. In 1942 the original name, Castillo de San Marcos, was restored by an Act of Congress. The fort was declared a National Monument in 1924 and after 251 years of continuous military possession, the fort was deactivated in 1933 and the 20 and 1/2 acre site was turned over to the United States National Park Service.

Castillo de San Marcos was twice besieged both times unsuccessfully: first by English colonial forces led by Carolina Colony Governor James Moore in 1702, and then by Georgia colonial Governor James Oglethorpe in 1740. However, the fort did not always protect the city of St Augustine, whose residents inhabited the fort when the city was burned. Possession of the fort has changed six times, all peaceful, amongst four different governments: the Spanish Empire, the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Confederate States of America and the United States of America (Spain and the United States having possession two times each). All four flags used to be flown at the fort.

Apache Prisoners at Ft Marion. The fort’s history also has a dark side; Under United States control the fort was used as a military prison to incarcerate members of various Native American tribes starting with the Seminole - including the famous war chief Osceola during the Second Seminole War. Later members of various western tribes including Geronimo's band of Chiricahua Apache. Howling Wolf, Southern Cheyenne, was also imprisoned at Fort Marion. When I was growing up, one could take a self guided tour of the fort. One of the featured stops on the tour was the entrance to the prison cell that was said to be occupied by Osceola. If you were interested and not afraid of the dark, you could enter the cell itself. Once inside I found a very dark and hot place with only a small slit in the wall looking out across Matanzas Bay. The ceiling of the cell was only about 5 ½ feet tall. It is hard to imagine after living a life free and wild in the west, suffering confinement in this place.

Howling Wolf at Ft Marion. There is a somewhat humorous story about the fort’s history in the Civil war; after Florida seceded from the United States in the opening months of the American Civil War. Union troops withdrew from the fort, leaving only one man behind as caretaker. In January 1861, Confederate troops marched on the fort. The Union soldier manning the fort refused to surrender it unless he was given a receipt for it from the Confederacy. He was given the receipt and the fort was taken by the Confederacy without a shot. Most of the artillery in the fort was sent to other forts, leaving only five cannons in the water battery to defend the fort. The fort along with the rest of the city of St Augustine was re-occupied by Union troops after acting mayor Cristobal Bravo officially surrendered the city to Union Navy fleet commander C.R.P Rodgers on March 11, 1862, when the USS Wabash entered the bay, finding the city evacuated by Confederate troops. The city leaders were willing to surrender in order to preserve the town, and the city and the fort were retaken without firing a shot.

Most of the time when my family visited the fort, we crossed over a fully flooded moat. We used to imagine that it was filled with alligators. I can still see my Dad, standing on the ramparts in his sunglasses and hat, looking over the bay on a hot summer afternoon. The trip from home to St Augustine would take us a little over an hour. Dad would always remind us that when he was a kid, it took all day. Oh MY!

School Desks

As I was sitting down to write this morning, I didn’t have a topic in mind. Sometimes when that happens, I do an internet search for images for a particular time period. I think that is a fun way just to stir up memories from the past. So today I chose the 50s and 60s and wouldn’t you know it, the first thing I saw was a picture of a student’s desk from a classroom. Wow, did that ever get the creative juices flowing.

The very first school desk I had wasn’t even a desk. It was a table that I shared with several other kids in my kindergarten class. The kindergarten was across the school yard from St. Matthews Elementary School in a mason block building that later became the cafeteria. I can barely remember the confusion and hustle and bustle of that first day settling in with the other kids in my class some of which I knew and some who were total strangers. I wound up attending kindergarten only a half year because in January, my brother and I caught scarlet fever which turned into tonsillitis. By the time I recovered from my tonsillectomy there were only a couple of weeks left in the school year and since kindergarten was not a pre-requisite, we spent that time quietly at home.

I remember my first grade desk well. It was the typical single piece construction with the chair attached to the table by a steel floor beam so that you could move both at the same time. Because the beam was on the floor, you could get into the desk from either side. But I always entered the desk from the left side, because cowboys always mounted their horses from the left side. I figured if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for me. The desk part was really a box about 21 inches across by 21 inches high and about 3 inches deep. Just deep enough to hold my cigar box full of pencils and crayons. These desks were hand-me downs so they came complete with initials and a heart carved into the lift-able desk top. I remember being able to leave my “stuff” in the desk overnight without worrying that someone would mess with it or steal it. It’s a shame kids don’t have the same assurances these days.

Sometime during my elementary school days, the old desks were replaced with new modern single piece desks where the desks were built on a pedestal that extended upwards from the right front leg of the seat. The full sized desk had a wrap around piece that attached to the seat back around the right side. The storage area under the desktop had given way to a box under the seat open on both sides so you could put your books and supplies there for the class. I must admit that like those of so many boys, my school desk occasionally became the bridge of “The Polaris” as I would journey across the galaxy with Tom Corbett, Astro, Roger Manning and the other members of the Solar Guard under the command of Captain Steve Strong and Commander Arkwright. Fortunately, those adventures stayed in my inner mind, so no one else knew that my desk was really a starship. During elementary school the students stayed in their seats and the teachers rotated from classroom to classroom during the school day. So “your” desk was really “yours” and not anyone else’s. Once a month, over the weekend, the janitorial staff would mop and polish the classroom floors. They would never get the desks back into the correct place. This caused a loss of at least a half hour while each student located their desk and put it into the proper location. More than once arguments broke out when someone tried to upgrade by claiming that of another that was been a little cleaner or newer.

High school solved that problem. Now we had lockers for the first time that became our home base. Between classes we would recover the books and supplies needed for the next class and then find the desk that was assigned to us for that class. Most teachers assigned their classes alphabetically starting with the first desk of the row next to the inner wall. That always put me near the back of the class on the outside wall near the windows. Desk construction was pretty stable back then so they were similar to the desks that we had in elementary school. Since we had to get into the desk from the left, there was always a space between the last row and the wall. This was a pretty good thing because the school used steam heating and the radiator was under the window. That last row of seats was always pretty toasty during the cold winter days. But in the spring and early fall, we sweltered in the heat.

About the time I started college, desk construction underwent another metamorphosis. Desk tops shrank significantly to a 12 by 12 writing platform that could be folded down to allow space for a sitting audience. Many classrooms contained rows of these contraptions welded together to allow the classroom to double as an auditorium. There were also left handed versions of these desks to accommodate us creative left handed folks. There was no assigned seating so we could choose to sit next to our best buddy or the cute girl we had our eyes on. Now, when I go onto campus to speak to a class, I can hardly recognize it as a classroom at all. It seems more like a mini theater complete with smart blackboards capable of connecting to the internet or becoming a projection screen for a PowerPoint presentation or viewing a U-Tube video. The desks in these classrooms resemble the bridge of the Polaris more than any desk from my youth ever could, even in my very fertile imagination. Oh MY!

Jose’s Story

I am always amazed when in the fullness of time, I look back to things that happened in my youth only to discover that there was a back story about which I had no idea or only a dim view. At my recent high school reunion, I had one of those enlightening experiences.

I first met Jose Ramirez at the very tail end of my Sophomore Year in the spring of 1961. He and about twenty other Cuban boys suddenly showed up in class about a month before the end of school. We didn’t learn much about them because at that time, none of them spoke English well enough to have a conversation and none of us spoke Spanish. That did not stop us from trying though. I must admit that the first priority for each of our groups was to learn the other’s cuss words. We had only 6 weeks before the end of school and being separated by summer vacation.

The following fall, Jose and I were reunited when the Cubans returned and he chose to join the band. After a summer of intense classes in English, Jose and I could communicate fairly well. That was a year of change for the band because our instructor, Frank Borkowski had left to return to school and Charlie Hoffecker took over the reigns as Band Director. This was only the third year of our little band’s existence and we had yet to take the field and march at a football game. Being a high school band, we were heavy on trumpets and clarinets. I played first trumpet by then having paid my dues at second and third trumpet the years before. Jose was just starting at third trumpet. The trumpet section sat in three rows, with the second trumpets behind the first and the third behind the second. I learned from Jose only this year that the second trumpets were reading the first trumpet’s music over our shoulders, so they read the second’s music over their shoulders. When I was drum major, I never could figure out why I could not hear the “bottom” of the trumpet section the way I could the clarinets. Duh! I guess that proves the old theory that the trumpet players are the “cowboys” of the band.

When Jose, Mario and a few other Cubans would engage with the rest of us in “bull sessions” before and after band practice, we learned that they were living in foster homes. They communicated with their parents back in Cuba by letters and rarely, by long distance phone calls. Being isolated in our protective worlds, it never occurred to us to dig into what our Cuban friends’ day to day lives were like. They were really interested in fitting in to the culture of North Florida and did not talk about home too much.

I didn’t really know Jose’s story until he and his wife sat down with Susan and me for breakfast the morning after our class reunion earlier this month. Only after 50 years, did it dawn on me how much courage and resolve his Cuban parents had to send their children to the U.S. as part of Operation Pedro Pan (Operation Peter Pan.) In all there were 14,048 (Thanks Jose Amaro for the correction!)of them spread out across Florida and in some cases as far away as Minnesota. That morning, we learned of the bravery and determination of Jose and his fellow refugees most of whom did not even know each other in Cuba. They lived in refugee camps during the summer and foster homes during the school times. They knew that they would probably never live in their homeland again. They were determined to build a new life here in America and willing to put in the heartache and hard work necessary to catch up with the rest of us and truly become a productive part of America. I can tell you that to a man, they did that. For the first time in my life, I can appreciate the small part my high school class played in an international event, the first out-migration of Cubans to the U.S. Also, much clearer to me are the ramifications of having a Cuban presence in the midst of our little class of 151 in October of ’62 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We were well within range of those Soviet R-12 intermediate-range nuclear ballistic missiles that were headed to Havana.

I heard from Jose this morning that the book he was working on has been completed and published. Its title is "Defining Moments: A Cuban Exile's Story about Discovery and the Search for a Better Future" by Jose Ramirez. It is available on Amazon now and will be available soon on Kindle. I ordered it this morning and can’t wait to read it. In Jose’s own words; “Part 3, shares the story of my coming to the U.S. at the age of fifteen as part of Operation Pedro Pan, living in a refugee camp, foster homes, attending Bishop Kenny High School in Jacksonville Fl as well as the critical happenings in our family and Cuba during those early years until finally reuniting with my cousins four years later in Cambridge MA. The title itself is reflective of the many situations requiring decision-making which became ‘defining moments’ throughout these experiences.” All I can add to that is - Oh MY!

Homer and Maurice

One of the benefits of reaching a certain age is reconnecting with old friends that you haven’t seen in a while. That happened for me earlier this week at a Columbia Media Club meeting. I was running a little late, having some last minute things to clear up before the meeting, so the room was already abuzz with activity. I noticed a solitary figure in a green Ban-Lon shirt quietly finishing up a sandwich while he observed the others in the room. From a distance I could see that he was familiar but the name wasn’t quite coming to me yet. As I approached him, it was clear that he recognized me as well but had not quite placed me. He spoke first and at the sound of his first word, it all came to me. This was no other than Homer Fesperman who I had worked with a lot in the ‘60s and the ‘70s. He said to me, “Help me remember your name.” In Homer’s defense, I have changed more than he has since we last saw each other.

Homer Fesperman

Homer is a legendary broadcaster in “these here parts.” We worked at several radio and television stations before starting his recording studio business. Homer worked on both sides of the microphone, as an announcer and as an engineer. We spent the next hour or so, reminiscing about our broadcast careers. After an announcing stint at WIS radio, Homer and a mutual friend of ours, the late Bobby Lambert put the first television station in Columbia, WCOS-TV on the air on May 1, 1953. Channel 25 was owned by Columbia Radio along with WCOS radio (AM 1400 and FM 97.9, now 97.5). It was South Carolina's first television station, and carried programming from all three networks - CBS, NBC and ABC. Studios were located in a Quonset hut on Shakespeare Road in northeast Columbia. More about that Quonset hut later. WCOS-TV had a relatively short life span when the CBS network moved to WNOK-TV in September of 53 and WIS-TV (NBC) signed on in November as the only VHF station in the market. The station lasted until January of 1956 when the struggling station went off the air. Eventually the station returned to the air on October 1961. It is interesting to note, that the equipment that Homer and Bobby put into that Quonset hut was very modern by 1953 standards; but more about that later.

All of this occurred while I was still growing up in Jacksonville. I first met Homer while I was working at WCOS AM-FM in the late 60s. The radio stations did not suffer the same fate as the TV station. They were sold to George Buck and never went dark when Charles W. Pittman agreed to take the TV station off the air. Bobby Lambert had left full time employment as a station engineer and was now a consulting engineer for several stations in the market. By this time, Homer was running his own recording studio and on several occasions had the need for an extra voice for some of his productions. One of the most enjoyable experiences for me was participation in a radio series called “The Investigators.” This was a series of half hour shows Homer produced for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms of the department of the Treasury, now part of the Department of Justice. Veteran broadcasters Mackie Quave and Dean Poucher played the recurring roles of ATF agents and about 20 or 30 others played bit parts. Most of the shows were about “moonshine” or illegal whiskey but some were about firearms. I don’t remember doing any about tobacco, but that is not surprising, living in the middle of the tobacco belt as we did. I played everything from a brother to a moonshiner who eventually came clean to Mackie and Dean about what my family was into, to a mob henchman who wound up face down in a field after challenging the marksmanship of the stalwart ATF agents during a gun running episode.

When I was to be on the show, I would pick up the script from Homer a few days before the taping so that I could work up my lines. The actual show tapings would take most of an afternoon and we pretty much recorded live to tape, occasionally stopping to re-record a flub. After the voice track was recorded, Homer would spend hours putting in those sound effects that we did not include when we recorded the dialog. One of my fondest memories from those recordings was standing in a box full of gravel and moving my feet to simulate walking when the script had me “walking and talking.” We never recorded the sound of gunshots during the recording of the voice tracks. I suspect that was because it was difficult to have the microphones turned up loud enough to record voices without being overloaded by firing blanks. Homer told me this week, that he still has the original masters of those shows but we both think that after all of these years, the “razor blade” edits would never stand the strain of being played.

OK, OK! You want to know about that Quonset Hut! And just who is “Maurice?” Well Maurice is Maurice Williams of the Gladiolas, the Royal Charms, and Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs. Maurice wrote the song “Stay” in 1953 when he was 15 years old. He had been trying to convince his date not to go home at 10 o'clock as she was supposed to. He lost the argument, but as he was to relate years later, "Like a flood, the words just came to me." Maurice wrote several songs that became hits back in the ‘50s and ‘60s; most notably “Little Darlin’” which was covered by the Diamonds and “May I” covered by Bill Deal & the Rhondels. But “Stay” was Maurice’s own through and through, his big number 0ne hit. And it was recorded in that Quonset hut that was WCOS-TV old home and now the home of WOLO-TV. Not only that, but Homer Fesperman was the recording engineer for that and several other songs that were in the demo that Maurice presented to Al Silver of Herald Records in New York, by way of producers Phil Gernhardt and Al McCullough. The Zodiacs signed with Herald and "Stay," sparked by a stunning falsetto performance by Shane Gaston, became their debut on the label during the summer of 1960. It hit number one that fall and easily topped a million sales at the time, also becoming the biggest hit in the history of Herald Records. “Stay” is also the shortest song, at 1 minute 37 seconds to ever top the charts.

Rick Wrigley and Maurice Williams

So now things have come full circle, “Stay” was one of my favorite songs when I was in high school. And its back story involves two men who became my friends later in life. It was in a conversation with Maurice a couple of years ago that I learned that Homer was involved in the recording of “Stay”! Needless to say, my jaw dropped. Homer had never mentioned it. There has been a lot of talk about Hollywood being a close knit society; “the seven degrees of Kevin Bacon” they call it. But not a lot written about how close the broadcasting / recording industries are. But it is true, everyone in the business knows someone who knows everyone else. Right now, I sit here with the faces of many friends in radio, television and the recording industries flashing across my memory. I have been blessed with knowing all these folks, and like with Homer this week, when I see them again, it is like no time has passed at all. Oh MY!

The Soundtrack of Our Lives

Some years ago that perennial teenager, Dick Clark, penned the phrase “The Soundtrack of Our Lives” to describe the collection of music that spans the life of the baby boomers. I think that is probably one of the best descriptions of the impact that music had on us. I believe that of all the generations across time, music has probably had the biggest impact on the baby boomers.

I believe that one of the driving forces for that has to be availability. It was during the formative years of the baby boomers that high quality music became available anywhere with the advent of the 45 RPM record and transistor and car radios becoming the norm. At the same time Television was replacing radio as the primary delivery mechanism for broadcast programs, be that news, drama, or variety entertainment. Radio moved to free form music shows and history was made. Radio moved from one golden age to another; Rock and Roll!

The first car I remember my family having didn’t have a radio but the next one did. We never went anywhere without that radio blaring out my Mom and Dad’s favorite tunes. WIVY, WJAX and WMBR playing out those 40s and 50s standards eventually gave way to WPDQ and WAPE belting out the early rock and roll hits as we kids got to pick what the family listened to as we drove around town during the first decade of rock and roll.

Baby Boomers had music available not only in the car but almost everywhere they went thanks to the transistor. Solid state electronics transformed the portable radio from a big, heavy almost suitcase sized burden to something that can be carried on a strap or placed in the picnic basket for listening in the park or on the beach. And we took advantage of that too. We had music everywhere we went. I remember strapping a portable radio to the handlebars of my bicycle and riding all over the place with music in my ears.

By the time that I was in broadcasting, transistor radios had shrunk to the size of a pack of cigarettes and we had them tucked in everywhere. Headphones had not advanced very far and those 1 ½ inch speakers had a pretty tinny sound but if you held them up to your ear, they almost sounded good. It was about then that teenagers began to sneak them into bed at night and I would get phone calls at the station from teeny-boppers who wanted to dedicate songs to their boyfriends who were listening in their own beds across town. When things didn’t go well in those teen age romances, I would often be playing songs for some broken hearted girl who caught her boyfriend with her best friend. Somehow, the music coming through those small speakers made it a little better. I can just imagine that the following morning, their mothers would come in to wake them up only to find them cuddled up with the transistor radio and the princess phone. Once in a while, I would hear from a mother who would thank me for being there to comfort her broken hearted daughter in her time of need. I think there was some relief there to find out that that radio DJ was just an ordinary guy that enjoyed music and making people feel good. I don’t think that today’s radio automation system gets to participate in too many of those conversations. Radio was more than an entertainment medium; it was part of a baby boomer’s growing up.

I don’t think for the most part, Gen – Xers and the kids from the Gen Y generations have as tight a bond with music as the baby boomers. I think a lot of that was the depersonalization of the delivery mechanism; radio automations systems, and those things that followed; iTunes, Pandora and the other online systems. It was more than just the music, it was the whole package. Oh MY!

Nor’Easter

This weekend, I am writing this from Jacskonville Beach, Florida where I am attending my high school reunion. I am siting in the hotel room looking out at the beach where the gulls and pelicans are winging their way over the palm trees and a lonely walker is strolling out the pier a half block north of here. What’s wrong with this picture; I’m at the beach, why am it not our there enjoying the surf and sand. I’ll tell you why, we are having a Nor’Easter, that’s why. The skies are cloudy, the rain is intermittently rattling the window pane on the other side of this desk. And the wind, oh my, the wind! It is blowing onshore at 20 mph with gusts to 30 or so. So instead of frolicking on the white sand. We are all in our rooms resting up for the festivities tonight.

I remember when I was growing up on the west side of town my family would often to pack into the car and drive to the beach to watch the surf when Nor’Easters would blow by. When they came during the summer, it was a great relief to stand on the ramps between the dunes and feel the cool relief of the wind and the rain. As today, the beach would be mainly deserted with just a few stalwart souls feeling the excitement and energy of the wind and the rain. The sand was a different story. You wanted to get past the dunes as quickly as possible because the wind blown sand would sting mightily.

These days, the law protects the dunes and they are covered with vegetation, sort of a cross between grass and sawgrass. There are plumes of sea oats whipping around in the gusts and the tops of the palm trees are pulled back like buns on women’s hair. The “foreheads” are a lighter green and it looks like the wind may pull out their hair if it gets much harder. Between the dunes every hundred yards or so are the wooden ramps granting access to the beach and the surf. The tide is coming in so right now there is only about a hundred feet between the dunes and the surf. The sandpipers are skittering in their frenetic dance at the edge of the water looking for lunch and dodging the oncoming waves.

It has been fifty years since I have been on the beach in a Nor’Easter and I can tell you that nothing much has changed. There is a brick decorative boardwalk lining the dunes on the land side, the old sandy trail leading from First Steet to the dunes has been replaced with a neatly trimmed park and the ad-hock parking has been moved to a public parking lot one half block from the ocean. The old lifeguard station is on the other side of the hotel and there is still a couple of wooden 15 man lifeboats parked on the edge of the boardwalk in case they are needed; just as it was in my youth.

So tonight, my classmates and I will gather once more and remember the old days, the parties on the beach. Some of us have hair the same color as the beach now, and we are all wondering where all these middle-aged people came from. The conversation is sometimes about the old times but other times they are about children and grandchildren and families. I look at some of my classmates and I can see their parents in their faces. Life is in its fullness now for us and it is good. Oh MY!

Class Reunions - Bishop Kenny 50th!

OMG, it’s coming and coming soon! Next weekend my high school class is getting together for our 50th reunion. I can’t believe it, there is no way that it has been 50 years since we walked out in our caps and gowns free at last to take on the world. I can remember that day like it was yesterday, even better than I remember my college graduation.

For a lot of people, class reunions are a love / hate event; so much angst wondering how you are going to stack up in against your classmates. Not me, I love our reunions, my classmates were so much fun in school and they are even more fun now as adults. I think the secret of our not falling into the uncomfortable reunions is that we did not have any until our 15th. By that time we had matured and were all pretty much comfortable in our own skins. Our 15th was a grand affair; a one evening event where everybody got all dressed up to the nines and gathered in the ballroom in the Prudential building overlooking the St. John’s River. The place was huge and the night magical. There was a stage and a DJ who was playing all the hits from the 60s. During the evening, he started playing “name that tune” for drink tickets. Naturally, I had an unfair advantage from my radio days, and soon won more tickets than I could ever use. I was pretty popular that evening.

From that first one until now, the class had a reunion every five years, we never missed one. One of the great joys of my life was to go back home and catch up on my childhood friends’ lives. Such great careers they had; teachers, lawyers, nurses, salespeople, data processing analysts, counselors, engineers, nuns, DJs, even a secret service agent and the president of a national food company, we did it all. The stories we share are interesting and exciting. It is more than the jobs, families, kids and later grandkids; it is about lives being well lived.

There is a core group of friends in the class that have been with me since kindergarten, eight or ten of us. We know each others' families; brothers, sisters and parents, so time is spent with them finding out what is going on in everybody’s lives, remembering the good, and the not so good times. It is a celebration of life. As I look at their faces that now show the passage of time, I see them as they were at age 5 and at age 17 in the prime of their youth. I see the guys out on the playground or ball field with the fire of sports competition in their eyes. The girls are on the bus in the morning, or in the classroom (in grade school at least, we were in separate classes in high school) or at parties with sunlight in their hair and a smile on their faces. I see it even today despite the slight wrinkle or tinge of grey. I see their hearts and souls too; just as full of life and fun as they were in high school. They have seen births and deaths, droughts and hurricanes, hard times and times of bounty but they are still the same spirits they were when we were together every day.

Bishop Kenny High School Campus - Jacksonville Florida

Some of our reunions included our teachers who came back to see how we turned out. They had interesting lives as well and it was great to see them. As much as we liked them and respected them as teachers, when we met them again as adults and peers, we understood their contributions to our growing up and our appreciation for what they did for us grew significantly.

Some years ago, our reunions changed from one night formal events to a weekend full of fun and companionship. This year there will be a trip back to the school to see the changes that 50 years has brought to the campus, two days on the links for the golfers, time laying on the beach reliving those great beach parties of the 60s and not one but two evenings of informal partying. No more dressing to impress, we dress for comfort now. We will be there to renew our lifelong friendships. Here’s to you guys and gals, see you next weekend! Oh MY!