Parole's getting closer...

Just a little over 4-1/2 weeks before I board Air Mike 956 to go on home leave. I've been waiting for months for it to get here - guess I'm suffering from a case of 'rock fever'! I really like this place but there are times you just want to get away from it all.

Completed my home leave itinerary by purchasing the plane ticket from Las Vegas to Fort Lauderdale for the Rockin' 80s-90s Pioneer reunion. Unlike class-year specific reunions, this reunion invites classmates from the classes of 1980 up until the early 90s.Unlike the stress factory that was when I planned my 20-year reunion for my class (North Miami (Florida) Senior High School Class of 1983) in 2003, all my involvement in this reunion is mainly providing advice to the planner - she's a Class of '84 alum.

The economic downturn and changing attitudes make it harder to plan single-class year reunions; traditionally there were the 5-year (rare), 10-year, 20-year, 25-year and 30-year; beyond that the aging of classmates makes it harder to hold one unless one considers a multi-year reunion.

I don't go down to my old stomping grounds in South Florida much anymore; while I have friends and classmates who still live in the area, the old neighborhood has changed completely over the years. When I was growing up in North Miami it was largely a predominantly white and Jewish neighborhood. We didn't have bake sales for fundraisers, we had bagel sales! Nothing like the smell of freshly baked bagels in the classroom halls in the morning. Today, the neighborhood's demographics have totally changed, it is now largely black and Haitian; many of the whites that lived in the neigborhood moved out to Broward County.

I really enjoyed my senior year in high school; one assignment in my senior English class was to write a journal. Although the assignment was for only a few weeks I soon expanded it to chronicle almost every day of my senior year. Twenty years later, I dusted off the manuscript and expanded it to book form. This became Senior Year: Memories of the Class of 1983 of North Miami Senior High School. I published it to commemorate the Class of 1983's 20-year reunion. No, it'll never make the best sellers list, and you can forget about a future movie or TV show about it. But if you want to buy a copy, it's available through Amazon.com. I still get a royalty check once in a while from my publisher, but it isn't enough for me to quit my day job - rather, it's good to cover a round of beers at Vets' Hall.