4 for 20: Changes

[I would have posted this yesterday, but one of the souvenirs I apparently brought back was some sort of Subtropical Death Flu.  I was fevered in a chair all day yesterday.  Wheeee!  Welcome Home!]

During the reunion, I heard someone talking about how some people looked a lot different and others did not.  I was in the "you haven't changed a bit" category.  Several people were like, "You look just the same."  I could have taken a bit of offense to that.  First of all, I didn't have a goatee then.  I had an awesome teen moustache.  Second, I have lost a lot of hair.  Third, I look like I ate my high school self.  (Admittedly, it used to look like I had eaten two of my high school self, but still...)  But I took it instead that I have kept my youthful looks and still have (mostly) black hair.  What's my beauty secret?  Donut glaze and pizza grease.  They really fill in the wrinkles.  People pay all that money for botox when they could just wolf an apple fritter.

No matter how much we want to avoid it, things change.  After the reunion, I stuck around town for another day so I could see how things looked now.  I was very surprised by how different things were. For one, it appeared that the city was becoming a modern day Venice.  Half the roads were underwater and there was a lot of flooding.  "Man, these are NOT good changes," I thought.  Then I realized it was due to a storm.  Seriously, though, things had changed a lot.  I know that when I drive through Orlando, I will find things have been altered since I came to school in 1992.  It is kind of expected in a city like ours.  But West Palm Beach seemed like it was kind of stuck in time for the whole time I lived there - at least the places I frequented were things I could count on.  As I went through and looked for the memorable places from my past, I don't think any of them were the same as they used to be.  It was kind of disconcerting.  I should know this place, after spending so much time there.  But I honestly couldn't recognize large sections of it.

I started with the neighborhood where I grew up.  I had heard about the changes there.  When my mom sold the house, things were undergoing a massive overhaul in the community.  People had told me how different things were.  I was really clued in when one of my friends at the reunion told me they had driven through, looking for my house and couldn't find it.  She said she knew it was the right road, but couldn't find the house.  Our house was very familiar.  It was the big blue house on the corner.  That was how we identified it.  Shoot, that was how everyone identified it.  It was a very old house - built in the 1920s.  The neighborhood itself was all that old.  As we were growing up, it wasn't the best neighborhood, either.  I joked the other day about the local crack houses.  One friend asked what I knew about that? Well, there were all over the place.  There was a prostitution house about a block west of us.  There were crack houses a couple blocks north of us.  So, imagine my surprise when I drove up and found out that now it was Flamingo Park Historic District.  Uh, what?!?  Historic?  Like this is a fancy neighborhood?

The house itself was completely different, also.  Instead of the blue paint is now an off white.  There is Spanish tile on the roof and wrought iron balconies.  WHAT?  Balconies?  The snow-on-the-mountain hedges that surrounded the house are gone.  In their place are different bushes.  The back fence is now a big stone wall with a wooden gate.  And our house isn't the only once that had changed.  The house next door is completely different.  It used to be white with a red chimney.  Now it is yellow with a white chimney.  They even decrease the angle of the driveway.  I remember loving the steep driveway because it helped me build speed on my bike.  Every house on the block has changed.  It is such a startling difference that if someone had just dropped me on that street and asked me where I was, I wouldn't have even known.  People seem surprised when I say that, but there are no distinguishing characteristics remaining for me.  Oh, that house picture with the street sign isn't my old house.  I just wanted the sign.

I visited each of my old schools.  Well, I tried.  The King's Academy, where I went for K-6 (except for 5th grade), has completely moved its facilities.  I actually don't know where it is now.  The old place now looks like it is co-owned by the Sheriff and the local government.  There are a bunch of buses for the school district.  I didn't see an official sign for the place.  Belvedere Elementary, where I went for fifth grade, doesn't even look the same at all.  They have built all new buildings.  The same goes for Conniston Middle School.  All new buildings, nothing recognizable.  I attended Twin Lakes High School in ninth grade - but it relocated during that year.  I had no desire to trek out to that site which is like thirty minutes away.  The old site is now an arts high school.

Forest Hill High School has also completely changed.  I knew they had built some new buildings, but it looked like the entire campus had been redone.  There were all new signs, new buildings, new traffic patterns.  It all was very strange.  I supposed this is commonplace.  Older communities, like the one I grew up in, have to renovate and alter things.  The church we attended for most of my life is still there - but has a different name and new building.  Our old pharmacy is now an antique store.  And my grandfather's fishing supply store is now a fire department.

One of the more shocking changes was next to Conniston.  When I attended that school, there were dozens and dozens of homes across the street.  Now, every last one of them has been leveled.  I knew they had bought up some to deal with airport noise.  But the sight of entire city blocks empty was shocking.  Palm Beach Atlantic is supposed to be building an athletic complex there, from what the signs said.  That kind of wholesale change is very strange to me.  I know this is natural.  I moved from an older area to a very new area in Orlando.  The UCF side of Orlando had only been in existence since the 1960s.  My mom graduated from Forest Hill High School about the same time UCF opened.  Orlando was planned out with great precision.  West Palm Beach just kind of happened.  I never really appreciated just how different those two cities were.

Appreciation is a good topic to move to, actually.  I found myself time and again thinking how I didn't appreciate what I had in West Palm Beach.  As a kid and a teen, I didn't understand some things very well.  I had no clue that our house was literally four blocks from the Intercoastal Waterway.  I didn't think about how rare it was that we were ten minutes from the ocean.  As I have said several times before, I hated Cuban food growing up.  I didn't start enjoying it until living in Tallahassee about three years ago.  I had lived in one of the meccas of Cuban food and didn't even care.

This recent trip, my brother and I went over to Flagler Avenue and walked along the waterway.  I could totally picture me taking my kids there.  They would love to walk the trails, explore the piers, play in the parks.  They all love the beach and would think it was great to be so close.  The old library I spend many hours in as a child is gone, replaced by a park.  I found that a bit troubling until Chris took me by the new gleaming library a few blocks away.  The pool I used to go visit as a child is now an opera house.  There is a beautiful performing arts center, a convention center, an outdoor shopping village.  There was nothing like that when I was a kid.  I think of kids growing up there now and the opportunities they have.  Of course, they probably won't appreciate it either.  That's kind of a hallmark of people.  We are never happy with what we have.

I have always said that I hated West Palm Beach.  I have never even considered moving back there.  But, as I saw there at Havana Cuban Cafe drinking an incredible cafe con leche, or as I walked along Flagler Avenue, I found myself missing this place.  I can honestly say that was a very foreign feeling to me.  I love Orlando and want to stay there.  It is home.  But, for the first time probably in my life, I felt like I wanted to come back to WPB.  That just doesn't happen.  That town has never had any draw for me.  But, in the last few years, things have changed in me.  I have worked hard to look at life differently.  I am not so angry.  I am less negative.  I am less judgmental. (For those of you who know me know and are laughing, trust me.  Whatever you see in me now, I was far worse.)  It isn't just that I like Cuban food and drink coffee now.  It is that I want to make right the poor decisions I have made.

That was one of the goals I had in going back for this trip.  I wanted to work to rebuild relationships with people.  That takes time, just like it takes time to rebuild a city.  I am committed to that.  I have gone through over the last few years and made efforts to fix things with people.  It is a project that will take a very long time, but it is something I need to do.  My old classmates were not the only people who I needed to reach out to on my trip.  I have a lot of family there that I have been neglectful of as well.  And during this weekend I got to see many of them.  I stayed with my brother and my Uncle George.  I had dinner with my Aunt Dee and Uncle Mike.  I played cards with my Uncle Bill and Aunt Kathy and my cousins Kristin and Bryan.  I wasn't able to see Uncle Jim and Aunt Mary Jane as time just ran out.  I loved reconnecting with them.  There was a certain amount of pain in the fact I have missed so many years.  For the most part, though, I chose to enjoy the time I was having.

Perhaps the most shocking thing was I began wondering when I could come back.  I was a bit surprised myself at the reality of that thought.  I have never had a desire to be down there, but now I do.  I actually have begun making plans on when that can happen.  I want my kids to see where I grew up.  I want them to meet the family they don't know and get closer to the ones they do know.  I want to be a better cousin and nephew and brother and friend.  I was so glad for the chance to go because it afforded me the opportunities to at least start that process.  The change in the area was indeed amazing and great in scope.  But I came to realize that the biggest change may have been in myself.

*** Editor's Note.  We apologize if you found this series of post too sappy or self indulgent.  We promise that very soon this blog will return to its normal routine of mediocre sports posts, movie reviews, and lengthy neglect.  Thank you.

20: Reunions

My daughter, Natalie, had this friend in PreK named Hannah.  They were very good buddies, played all the time, couldn't wait to see each other.  Hannah was one of the handful of girls that Natalie invited to her fifth birthday party at a local tea house.  It was a nice friendship.  When we moved to Tallahassee, it was hard on both of the girls.  Natalie would complain frequently about missing Hannah.  When she started at her elementary up there, she kept wishing she could find a friend like Hannah.  She never really did.  [This past year, Natalie finally did find a friend at school that was as close as Hannah had been.  Naturally, she moved to Washington, DC after the school year.]

Three years later, Natalie still will ask about Hannah.  Last year, when we moved back to Orlando, Nat wanted to know if she would ever see her friend again.  We live in a pretty big city and I had no idea where this girl lived.  The chances were pretty slim.  On Monday, Natalie and Josiah went to the Vacation Bible School at First Baptist Church of Oviedo.  The church houses the preschool that Josiah, Natalie, and now Gabe, have attended.  We don't attend that church anymore, but I thought the big kids would have fun at the event.  Beforehand, Natalie went through her typical nervousness of entering a new situation.  I told her that it would be fun and that she would be with other kids.  And I reminded her we used to go to that church and the preschool, so she may see someone she knows.  "Like Hannah?"  "Sure, honey, like Hannah."

I walked Natalie to her class on the first day.  She peeked in the door and then popped back out.  "Daddy!  That's Hannah!"  I looked inside and saw the girl.  I wasn't sure, so I stole a glance at the roster.  Sure enough, it was Hannah.   Natalie was thrilled and raced inside.  When I picked her up, I asked how it went.  "She doesn't even remember me!"  I could tell Natalie was disappointed, but she also is a very strong willed young lady.  She had spent most of Monday trying to remind Hannah.  Then she continued it on Tuesday.  She missed Wednesday with some weird cold thing.  On Thursday, she returned with the ultimate trump - a picture of Natalie and Hannah at the tea room party.  When I picked her up, I asked what Hannah said.  "I showed her the picture and said, 'So, do you remember me now?!?'  Hannah said, 'OOOOhhh yeah.'"  I figured that started a day of catching up and reminiscing.  Nope.  "She still wouldn't really talk to me."

I could tell Natalie was disappointed, but when Heather and I were talking with her about it, I said, "It is probably good, though.  It brings Nat closure.  She's been hoping to find this girl again and now that she has, she can realize that she doesn't need to be thinking about it.  She can make some new friends.  Right, Nat?"  Natalie looked at me, scowled, and shook her head.  "Nope.  None of that what you said.  It stinks because I want my friend back."

I could have gone into a big discussion on how things change and all that, but I knew it wouldn't do any good.  I understood her feelings.  It is hard to move on and lose people along the way.  Compared to me and Heather, our children have had a pretty tumultuous childhood.  We don't own a home, so we move from rental to rental.  We have had to move to Tallahassee and back.  They have switched schools more than I wish they had to.  Part of it is today's society is more nomadic than in decades past; part is that we seem especially mobile in our living scenarios.  That makes it tough to make friends and keep them long term.  I have encouraged the kids to try to find some friends at our church, since we plan on staying there for the duration.  But, it is a long process when you only see the other kids once a week at the MOST.

All of this has been on my mind because this weekend will be my twentieth high school reunion.  I held out until the very end to decide to go.  I had dozens of reasons why I wanted to and dozens of others why I did not.  But I decided to because I knew if I didn't, I would regret it.  In preparation, there has been a Facebook group with the people all talking about the event.  Some of these people have stayed very tight in the last two decades.  Others of them I cannot even remember.  For me, I know that I am a part of this whole group, but I feel very disconnected.

If you remove Facebook temporarily from the equation, I have not kept up with people from high school.  When I think of how many of my classmates I have physically seen since we walked across the stage at the Auditorium, it is pretty pathetic.  I visited one in prison, ran into one in a completely random meeting in college, saw one at Pizza Hut when I was back in town visiting my mom, and had one visit my church in Orlando.  That may be it - four.  Facebook has changed this somewhat.  I have been able to connect with some of them.  I actually have worked to re-establish a relationship with a few that I really regretted losing track of over the years.  But I still feel like there has been a huge gap.  It was like one of those sci-fi movies where eighteen years pass in a moment.  One second we are all tossing our hats in the air, then we are married with kids and I don't know how anyone got there.

For some reason, when I left Forest Hill High School, I never looked back.  I didn't go back for Homecoming.  I didn't keep in touch with anyone over the summer. I didn't catch up with people over Christmas.  Truth be told, I didn't like high school very much.  I had some good friends and some great times. But it wasn't an era I cherish.  I always invested more time and energy in church and the relationships there.  But I didn't even stay tight with that group once I moved to Orlando.  There are intermittent contacts with some of them.  Most of the time, there is just a big gap in my friend circle from West Palm Beach.

I remember these people.  One of my friends who is going said she doesn't remember half of them and hopes we have to wear name tags.  That isn't the problem for me.  A couple of them cause me to draw complete blanks.  The vast majority of them I remember.  I have always had a bizarre ability to recall people.  I will see someone shopping at Publix and know they look familiar.  I'll think about it and realize they work at Target.  I'll see a waitress and remember that she used to work at a different restaurant.  One of my weird quirks.  Also, some of my activities in high school contributed to this.  I was copy editor of the yearbook, so I had to literally proofread every single page of the book.  You start to recognize people after that.  I also was on class board and was Senior Class VP, which helped me to know some of the popular kids I never would have hung out with.  Then there was the brainiac classes, nerd clubs, chorus, stuff like that.  So I had a wide spectrum of interactions.

I always used to say the reason I didn't like high school was because I didn't like most of the people I went to school with.  I realize now that wasn't true.  True, I didn't like a lot of the activities that they did and didn't participate with them.  But more than anything, I didn't like MYSELF from high school.  When I think back now, with a more mature understanding of things, I realize that I was just a big jerk in high school.  I was arrogant and judgmental.  I looked down on others for so many reasons.  They weren't as smart as me, or as ethical as me, or as moral as me.  I've realized over the years that this was all because, in reality, I felt so insecure and lousy about myself that I grasped at anything that made me feel better.  I wasn't as popular, I didn't dress as nice, I wasn't athletic, I wasn't attractive, I wasn't thin, I wasn't rich.  All of that made me feel so bad that I would find areas I "won" and made those super important in my head.

I hated West Palm Beach.  The weather was hot and muggy.  There was family history that made things uncomfortable.  I had no desire to dwell in that era.  So I ran.  I wanted a fresh start, which I got at UCF.  When I moved to Orlando, one person knew me.  But the pattern didn't stay in WPB.  I have battled it time and again with every "fresh start."  It took me a long time to realize that I was the problem.  By then, I had burned so many bridges and scorched so much earth that I had almost cornered myself.  It really hasn't been except in the past four years that I have started to get some of this stuff right.

A lot of people see Facebook as the tool of Satan, the way all of us will eventually become owned by some great multinational corporation.  That may be true.  But I am very thankful for FB.  It has given me a chance to go back and try to repair some of the damage I incurred as I blazed out of town.  I have at least gotten back in contact with some of those people I regretted abandoning.  I can't replace the lost years, but I can at least try to rebuild something.  I now have friends online from every era of my life - elementary, middle school, high school, college, Tampa, Orange Park, Orlando, Tallahassee, church AND school AND family.  Now that I am going, I am excited about the reunion.  I am looking forward to seeing some people that meant a lot to me.  I have not been back in West Palm Beach for EIGHT YEARS.  My youngest two kids have no idea what the city is like.  It will be interesting to revisit the part of my past that I have so desperately tried to erase.  No matter where I have moved, I have always gone back from time to time.  Except South Florida.  I make an actual effort to avoid it.  So this will be an interesting experience.

What I plan on doing is writing a series of posts about this trip.  It may mean much to anyone else, but I think it will be good for me.  This was the first entry.  I plan on taking pictures and posting on a variety of things.  The reunion is Saturday night.  On Sunday morning, I get to hang out with my brother, Chris, which rarely happens.  Sunday afternoon I plan on driving around and visiting the places I remember - my old house, my schools, old jobs.  I want to post on that time of discovery.  I wish my family could come with me, but Heather's schedule won't allow it.  In some ways, though, I think this may be for the best.  I may need to walk through this alone before I want to take anyone else through it.  So keep your eyes peeled for the 20 series.