Flashback Friday: 20 Years Ago...Oh, Those College Days...

Wow, has it really been twenty years? This is me with one of my best friends and sorority sisters, Karen, at Calico Jack’s in Tallahassee in late 1990. I was in graduate school at the time, working 30 hours a week in the Florida State Sports Information office. I remember this night. It was the Friday night before the 1990 home Florida State/Florida game. I worked the press box that game, and it was chaos at the end of the game because it was the fourth win in a row over Florida (our arch rival) and in the early part of Florida State’s 14 years finishing in the top five in the AP poll in football. My college boyfriend, a four-year starter for Florida State, was on the Green Bay Packers roster at the time, spending his fall in the great white north.

I had to work all through college; that was one of my parents’ requirements. They said they’d take care of the undergraduate tuition, room and board; I had to earn the play money. I put myself through graduate school. But I admit the jobs I had during college were pretty fun. While completing my undergraduate studies, I was a photographer for Bob Knight Photo Marketing. My job? During the Fall and Spring terms, go to fraternity and sorority socials and formals and take pictures. We got paid by the number of faces on a roll, so the socials were always the better gigs…more opportunity for large group shots. The formals naturally consisted of lots of couples shots, but I became pretty adept at the “Hey, why not join them?!” encouragement. To this day, part of me still wants to turn around when someone yells, “Bob!” May and June, I shot high school graduations, usually six weeks’ worth, one and sometimes two graduations a day depending on the location. Bob held the contract of just about every high school in Florida at the time. It was during this time that I perfected the art of changing a role of film in a split second (yes, we still used film in those days…)!

After I finished my bachelor’s degree (double in Public Relations and Broadcasting), I went to work full-time for a year for the PR firm that I had interned with. It specialized in travel and tourism clients, so I wrote press kits and had the arduous task of taking writers on trips to the properties we represented. Tough gig, huh! After that year, I went back to grad school and got the job at Florida State. You know, I worked for peanuts, but man I loved that job! I wrote feature stories for the game-day magazines and edited a couple of the media guides; I worked either in the press box or in Coach Bowden’s box during football games; I typed play-by-play at the mens’ basketball games (called by my most excellent friend Nick Gandy…we had so much fun, and I really knew my way around a basketball court in those days…); and I worked a lot of the womens' softball games. Since softball is a non-revenue sport, that role consisted of keeping the official book and serving as the P.A. announcer at the games, most of which were double headers, and then going back to the office after the day’s games to write the press release and get it out to the media. Those were some LONG days. But still, I loved every minute of that job. I worked with some really, really great people, most of whom I’m still in contact with today via Facebook.

My crowning glory while I worked for Florida State was researching, writing and compiling Florida State’s very first set of trading cards, which debuted in 1991. I spent hours and hours digging through old filing cabinets (several of them in the mens’ basketball locker room bathroom…go figure), pulling files and pictures and writing short bios. The set included twenty Bobby Bowden cards, one for each year he had been with the team at that point, and since Coach Bowden was famous for his trick plays, I wrote about different trick plays on the back of each of his cards. As I was getting down to deadline, there were three players I badly wanted that I still had not heard back from: Fred Biletnikoff, Robert Urich, and LeRoy Butler (yes, both Robert Urich and Burt Reynolds played football for Florida State). That day I had left messages everywhere I could think of and actually heard back from all three of them at home that night. My roommate was a guy at the time (not a boyfriend, just dealing with some stalker issues so I needed a male roommate, and that’s a whole other story), and he couldn’t believe I talked to Fred Biletnikoff, Robert Urich and LeRoy Butler all in the same night. LeRoy’s call was actually the most entertaining. Like Stan, Leroy was also on the Green Bay roster at the time and, unlike Stan, he actually got to play! LeRoy was the inventor of the Lambeau Leap! We went to school together and had a great time catching up. I distinctly remember him telling me how proud of himself he was that he was actually learning how to cook. :-) Anywho, that still stands as one of my professional projects that I am most proud of. And look, you can find the cards on eBay now! Just search Florida State trading cards. The first edition was 1991. The publisher gave me the uncut press sheets which I have framed and in storage at home; that’ll be something my girls can take on Antiques Roadshow one day!

Twenty years, seems like yesterday. Karen has two girls now, too, 11 and 14, and we still keep in touch regularly. When I popped this picture up on Facebook for her, she said, “Man, that’s a lot of teeth!”  Check out Tia's blog for more Flashback Fridays!

Flashback Friday: Perceptions

I got an email from my father with the subject line “This is our old house!” I looked at this picture but didn’t recognize the house, so I asked him the address. He couldn’t remember the address but said it was the one by the old Levitz and the arch in North Miami; we lived there through my elementary school years. I immediately emailed back with, “17045 N.W. 11th Avenue, 305-620-0367. I remember the house being pale yellow with a big tree in the front yard.” Dad said that, yes, it had been yellow with a big tree in the front yard. I remember that Dad’s boat was always parked on the trailer on the side of the house where that car sits now. It was a pale blue boat with a large number 44 painted on the side. Dad was a daredevil, racing both boats and motorcycles when I was a kid, probably why speed is still in my blood today. My friend Timmy lived two doors down, and my best friend Terri lived around the block. My mom and dad were good friends with Carol and Wally across the street; they had children, too, but I can’t remember their names. They were even younger than I. Dad was down in Miami on business, and when he saw that old arch, he became curious about the old neighborhood and found the house. That address was the opening line of this emotionally raw essay.

It’s fascinating to me how our perceptions change as we grow up. When I was a child, that house seemed huge! But thinking back now and seeing this picture, obviously it was quite small. Dad said it was about 800-900 square feet, three bedrooms, one bath. I remember there being a Magnolia tree in the corner of the back yard. I think the tree in the front yard was a Magnolia as well. Based on this little house, I guess we didn’t have much money growing up, but I clearly remember that I never lacked for anything I needed in those days. My mom was a nurse and my dad worked more than one job while going to school at night; they were twenty when they were married in May and I was born in December of the same year. It wasn’t until I grew up that I realized that math didn’t work out quite right. :-)

There was an elementary school at the end of our street, but because of the times and busing in Miami in an effort to better integrate schools, we weren’t districted for that school. I was to ride the bus to a school on the other side of town. Instead, my parents put me in a private Christian school closer to home, where I was sent home more than once, a tomboy rebelling against the “dress” code by wearing pants. My sister was also born in Miami, but then we moved to St. Petersburg before she was a year old. We were in St. Pete for two years before my parents divorced, and Mom, Kim and I moved here to the Jacksonville area to be near my Nana and Granddaddy.

My girls and I were driving through “the old neighborhood” a while back, and I showed them the house their daddy lived in when we met and where we lived together for six and a half years. “It’s so small!” they both said. It was about 1,000 square feet, three bedrooms, one bath, built in the ‘50s, a cute little concrete rancher in a neighborhood that has now experienced its own share of neglect. Once we were ready to get started building our current home, we put that house up for sale on a Friday, and I went over to Tallahassee for a football game. When I got back that Sunday, DH had already sold the house. We didn’t expect things to happen quite that quickly! Luckily, DH’s daddy’s house was vacant at the time, so we were able to move in there, the very house DH was born and raised in. It was about the size and age of my childhood house, and we lived there for the nearly year and a half it took us to build our home.

I think of my perception of my house when I was in elementary school and wonder what my girls think now. Our house is not overly large by any means, especially when I think about the houses my mother and her third husband lived in and the homes of many of my friends, but yes, we are blessed to have a river in the back yard. It’s interesting for me to see how my girls react to the houses of their friends. They have commented that their friends’ houses are smaller than ours…but they’ve also commented that their friends have “soooo many toys!!!” Maybe that’s perception, too, a perception on what’s really needed. In their friends’ houses, yes, there are lots and lots and lots of toys. Here at our house, sure, the girls have some toys, but we try our best not to give in to every new toy on the market and instead encourage playing outside, making art, playing games together, and playing with the toys they already have. They always have their favorites anyways, don’t they (and the piano makes a great fort)? They do not have any video games and we limit their TV and computer time. I don’t remember having a lot of toys. But I do remember always being outside playing, whether in the back yard, over with Timmy, around the block with Terri, or a combination of all the above.

I know you’ve probably heard that old saying about wanting more for your kids than you had as a kid. I wonder if in these days of excess and social media overload if that line of thinking can be a slippery slope. Maybe going back to those simpler days of no internet, no video games, fewer toys and more time playing outside is what our kids, and we, really need. That’s where memories are made.

Visit Tia's blog for more Friday flashbacks.

Flashback Friday: Old Friends

The girlies and the lovely bride

Thought I’d give Flashback Friday a whirl! This past Saturday, my girls were the flower girls in my childhood friend Maria’s wedding. Though these pictures are not a flashback, the story behind them certainly is. Maria and I have known each other for as long as I can remember, since we were about four years old. Before my parents divorced when I was 12, I spent about a month every summer with my Nana and Granddaddy in Orange Park. Nana and Granddaddy moved there from NAS Key West when Granddaddy got transferred to NAS Jacksonville (NAS is Navy lingo for Naval Air Station for those of you not familiar; this post includes a childhood picture of my mom on the base in Key West). Maria was a neighborhood kid. There we were…kids…summer…one month…with the freedom and safety kids had back then.


Maria and me

Maria lived across the street and two doors down from Nana and Granddaddy. Directly across the street from Nana and Granddaddy was Sheila. To the left of Sheila was Ricky. To the right was Ted. Two doors down from Ted was Marlynn. Next door to Nana and Granddaddy were the Gilleys, with six kids. Maria, Sheila, Ricky, Ted, Marlynn and I were all the exact same age, and the Gilley kids were all in our age range. I remember that gang and all our times together so clearly. We were the Capella Lane gang. We are all over that neighborhood on our bikes. There used to be a swimming hole at the end of the road one street up, and we’d find our way back there pretty often. It’s funny…I’ve tried to find where that swimming hole was as I got older but I could never figure out how we got back there. Development got in the way.

The girls and their handsome Daddy

Maria, Ricky and I probably spent the most time together. I remember spending the night with Maria all the time. Either her older brother Joe or her dad, I can’t remember which, played the accordian, and he’d keep us up playing that thing. And her younger brother John used to drive us crazy, as younger brothers did. Her mom, Rose, was, and still is, one of the sweetest ladies I’ve ever known. I spent some time with her at the reception catching up. Ricky was such a cutie, and like Miss Rose, his parents, Miss Judy and Mr Steve, considered me one of their own. I remember one particular bicycle crash…Ricky and the Gilley boys were encouraging me and Maria to ride down the big hill next to Maria’s house; they were at the bottom of the hill watching for cars, egging us on to build up as much speed as we could. I got near the bottom, flying, panicked, hit the brakes and seriously wiped out. Major crash…busted up knees and elbows…surprised to this day that I didn’t break anything. And did I go home to Nana’s? Heck no! Ricky dragged me to Miss Judy to fix me up. Nana was well accustomed to my clumsiness…which I also have to this day (as does my Olivia, but that’s a whole other seventeen stories).

When my parents split up, things happened very quickly. I was in school in St. Pete on Thursday; and then all the sudden I was in school in Orange Park on Monday, but I had a little help from the Man upstairs with my transition. I remember so clearly walking into that 7th grade classroom for the first time in the middle of the day. I immediately heard someone shout my name. It was Ricky. Maria was in the classroom next door. Talk about the grace of God… They were my anchors.

Maria and I lost contact with each other for a little while after high school and during her first marriage. Miss Rose and Nana stayed close neighbors though, so we were at least able to keep tabs on each other. We found each other again through Facebook, of course, and I was honored when she asked me if my girls could be in her wedding. I’m still in contact with Ricky and Marlynn, but we’ve lost track of the rest of them. My Nana’s gone now, and my uncle lives in her house. And every once in a while, I still go back to the old neighborhood to have Miss Jeannie cut my hair. She’s cut it since I was a kid! Even when I went away to college, I’d come back home for haircuts! Now she’s more of a sweet connection to my past than my regular stylist.

I think about that old gang and all the fun we had, and I feel a little sad that we don’t have that kind of neighborhood for my girls. We live on a busy street (essentially A-1-A), so riding bikes with a bunch of neighborhood kids is out of the question. It’s play dates on the weekend for the girls instead. And I’m so thankful God blessed me with twins so that they have each other. Being a part of Maria’s big day reminded me how strong those early bonds can be if you continue to nourish them. I hope that forty years from now, my girls are still friends with some of their childhood friends.  Flashback Friday headquarters are over at Tia's blog.